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 SHOWING 
 
 THE PROBABLE CONNECTION BETWEEN HUMAN 
 PROBATION AND THE ENDLESS UNI- 
 VERSE THAT IS TO BE. ' 
 
 1/ 
 
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 * 5 
 
 
 'AN 15 1886"' X ' 
 
 iC 
 
 nashville, tenn.i 
 Southern Methodist Publishing House. 
 
 1885 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, 
 
 By the Book Agents of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 The Library 
 of Congress 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The author prefers to publish this book anonymously. 
 Truth, not notoriety, is his aim and inspiration. 
 
 The argument herein presented in support of the dogma 
 of the endlessness of future punishment is the most sat- 
 isfactory I have anywhere seen. The thought is equally 
 elevated and original, and the style pure and pleasing. It 
 is a book for thinking men and women — a book not for 
 Christian thinkers only, but a book that ought to be read 
 by all with an interest proportioned to the importance of 
 the solemn and momentous issues it treats with such tran- 
 scendent ability. 
 
 It has given me pleasure to pass this work through the 
 press, as requested by the author. My hope and prayer is 
 that it may go forth with the blessing of God. 
 
 O. P. Fitzgerald. 
 
 Nashville, Tenn., 1885. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 We are facing an endless universe to be forever protect- 
 ed by moral government. We have but just entered on 
 existence — infants of a day; and what the future of that 
 universe will be— what shall be the outcome of its endless 
 progress, what difficulties may environ it, what exigencies 
 it may encounter, and especially what may be, or what 
 may not be, necessary to lay the foundations of that gov- 
 ernment with eternal stability, we know not, except as they 
 have been revealed to us in the word of God. He who. re- 
 ceives the Bible as a revelation from God, should receive 
 it heartily. He should say with the reverent psalmist, "I 
 will hear what God the Lord will speak," and when its 
 declarations are understood, accept them without question. 
 On the other hand, he who rejects the Bible declares, in so 
 doing, that he knows nothing of the future; and therefore 
 that, for aught he can say to the contrary, its professed rev- 
 elations may, every one of them, be true. And further- 
 more, that if he presumes to treat them with levity or neg- 
 lect, he may be trifling with stupendous realities. Mani- 
 festly, no posture is at all becoming the one who in re- 
 jecting the Bible is confessedly facing an unknown future 
 but that of awaiting with seriousness and reverence the up- 
 lifting of the curtain; and that any thing like levity, or 
 flippancy, or carelessness, in respect to the possibilities of 
 that future, argues not only an uncandid and unphilosoph- 
 ical mind, but a hard heart and a seared conscience, and an 
 
 (5) 
 
6 Introduction. 
 
 utter recklessness of final destiny. One thing is certain : A 
 vast future is moving on to meet us with its untried scenes, 
 and there is no escaping it; and what these endless ages 
 shall contain for us, and what scenes we shall encounter 
 when we have left the world, should be with us a matter of 
 intense and solemn interest. 
 
 The following argument is commended to the religious 
 and irreligious alike, aiming as it does to show : 
 
 1. That God is just now laying the foundations of an end- 
 less moral universe, expanding and enlarging throughout 
 the coming ages. 
 
 2. That his dealings with the sinners of this world, both 
 in the way of judgment and mercy, are developing those 
 peculiar motives and influences which are to steady, con- 
 trol, and save it in its endless career. Therefore, 
 
 3. That human probation is a matter of serious and tre- 
 mendous moment; seeing that we each one of us are sus- 
 taining vital and fundamental relations to the whole vast 
 universe of God, and to the progressive welfare of the end- 
 less future which is before us. 
 
CONTKNTS. 
 
 Chapter PART FIRST. Page 
 I. Infancy of the Moral System 11 
 
 1. No evidence from the Bible that other worlds are peo- 
 
 pled 12 
 
 2. No evidence from reason 15 
 
 3. Serious objections to the assumption of a peopled 
 
 universe 16 
 
 4. No valid objections to the infancy of the system 17 
 
 II. Infancy of the Moral System (continued) 21 
 
 All the facts and intimations of the Bible favor this as- 
 sumption 21 
 
 III. The Future Universe 32 
 
 1. Boundless in extent 33 
 
 2. Endless in duration 34 
 
 3. Forever expanding 34 
 
 4. Can be protected hereafter only by moral government, 35 
 
 IV. Liability to Rebellion Eternal 45 
 
 The inclination to disobedience common to all moral 
 
 beings 45 
 
 V. Liability to Rebellion Eternal (continued). Objections... 56 
 
 1. Then its indulgence is a matter of course, and not to 
 
 be blamed — Remorse 56 
 
 2. Adam for a time obeyed God 61 
 
 x 3. The unfallen angels have not sinned 63 
 
 4. Christ must have had an inclination to sin 66 
 
 5. As moral beings are made in God's image, the posi- 
 
 tion will necessitate self-denial on the part of the 
 
 Almighty 67 
 
 VI. Liability to Rebellion Eternal (continued) 70 
 
 Self-will dominates the moral nature of men 70 
 
 VII. Rebellion Must be Arrested 73 
 
 VIII. The Appeal to Fear 77 
 
 IX. The Appeal to Fear (continued) 81 
 
 God's revealed dealings with sin— past, present, and 
 
 future 81 
 
 X. The Appeal to Fear (continued) 89 
 
 Object of punishment 89 
 
 XI. The Atpealto Fear Eternal 94 
 
 (7) 
 
8 Contents. 
 
 Ckapter PART SECOND. Page 
 I. Four Distinct Lines of Argument 107 
 
 1. Endless suffering not unreasonable 107 
 
 2. No punishment less than endless would correspond 
 
 with the magnitude and enormity of sin 108 
 
 3. The proper education of the moral universe demands 
 
 endless penalty for sin 109 
 
 4. The harmony of the Divine administration necessi- 
 
 tates endless penalty 112 
 
 II. Argument with the Restorationists 115 
 
 The restoration of the wicked in a future state impossi- 
 ble 117 
 
 1. Sinful character not changed by the event of death. ...117 
 
 2. Nor by suffering 119 
 
 3. Nor by the exertion of Divine power 125 
 
 4. Nor by some new application of the atonement 126 
 
 III. Argument with the Restorationists (continued) 129 
 
 Sinful character not changed by a more favorable pro- 
 bation 129 
 
 1. Temptation by malignant beings 131 
 
 2. Connection of the soul with a physical body 137 
 
 3. Conditions of infancy 139 
 
 4. Death in infancy 142 
 
 IV. Argument with the Restorationists (continued) 144 
 
 1. The parental relation 144 
 
 2. Other conditions of humanity generally 146 
 
 V. Argument with the Restorationists (continued) 151 
 
 Sinful character not changed by the use of stronger mo- 
 tives 151 
 
 VI. Objections 165 
 
 Condition of the heathen 165 
 
 VII. Annihilation Impossible— Endless Freedom in Sinning Im- 
 possible — The Endless Confinement of the Sinner Inev- 
 itable 172 
 
 VIII. Moral Theory of the Atonement 176 
 
 IX. A Progressive System 184 
 
 X. Benevolence of the Moral System 186 
 
 XI. Conclusion 190 
 
 XII. Quotation from Richard Baxter 192 
 
PART FIRST 
 
The Endless Future. 
 
 Chapter I, 
 
 INFANCY OF THE MOBAL SYSTEM. 
 
 IT is not by any- means an unimportant 
 question what position we, as a race, occu- 
 py in the universe. We are a distinct part of 
 "one stupendous whole," and cannot but sus- 
 tain certain definite relations to its past, pres- 
 ent, and future progress and development. 
 What are those relations? 
 
 Our views upon this matter will be seriously 
 modified by what we conceive to be our stand- 
 point of observation. We are looking out 
 upon surrounding worlds. Are we surveying 
 a peopled universe, or are we among the first 
 of created beings? Has the peopling of tho 
 worlds been going on for countless ages, so 
 that our world is only an atom among the in- 
 finitude of peopled worlds, and capable of ex- 
 erting but the smallest influence upon the 
 
 (11) 
 
12 The Endless Future. 
 
 great whole? or are we the pioneers of a great, 
 unbounded moral universe that is yet to be, 
 and upon whose future unfoldings we are to 
 exert a direct, powerful, and eternal influence? 
 Evidently, it is of vital consequence which of 
 these two views we are to entertain respecting 
 our world, seeing there is just an infinite dif- 
 ference between them; even a difference for it 
 and ourselves between insignificance and prom- 
 inence, between littleness and greatness, be- 
 tween the smallest degree of influence and 
 the mightiest measure of responsibility. The 
 position now taken is that God is at present 
 laying the foundations of his moral universe, 
 and that the moral system is in its infancy. 
 The proof of it is as follows: 
 
 1. There is no evidence from the Bible that 
 other worlds are peopled. 
 
 The Bible mentions no other moral beings 
 than the angels — fallen and unfallen — and the 
 human race; so that to assume the existence 
 of others is to go just so far beyond the di- 
 vine record. Two passages only may seem to 
 require consideration: 
 
Infancy of the Moral System. 13 
 
 Job xxxviii. 4, 7: "Where wast thou when I 
 laid the foundations of the earth, . . . when the 
 morning stars sang together, and all the sons 
 of God shouted for joy?" Who were these 
 "sons of God?" We may suppose them to 
 have been the fallen angels in the days of their 
 innocence, when they may have been the only 
 created beings, and, like Adam in the garden 
 previous to his fall, were studying the charac- 
 ter of God through his works, and coming, in 
 this way, to a knowledge of God and duty, and 
 reaching the point of intelligent responsibility. 
 As the first of created beings, they would need 
 the evidence that God was their great Creator; 
 and very likely God permitted them to witness 
 the creation of our earth, rising from chaos at 
 his will, its foundations laid, its pillars set up, 
 and its hills and vales robed in verdure, and 
 fitted up, perchance, for their own residence; for 
 there are a few expressions in the Bible which 
 seem to indicate that this world has been their 
 only habitation, and that they had their proba- 
 tion on this planet; as, for example, where 
 Satan is called " the god of this world," and in 
 
14 The Endless Future. 
 
 the temptation of our Saviour, claimed it as his 
 (Luke iv. 6), and that it was "delivered to 
 him," and was not disputed. Suppose this 
 passage to allude to them, how appropriate the 
 appellation to them of " the morning stars " — 
 the first of created beings, rejoicing in the 
 spring-time of their conscious being, admiring 
 the works of God, and pouring forth to him 
 their songs of praise ! 
 
 Another passage is Genesis iii. 24: "He. 
 placed at the east of the garden of Eden 
 cherubims" 
 
 An elaborate article on the cherubim of the 
 sacred Scriptures, by Rev. Albert Barnes, will 
 be found in Yol. VIII. of the Quarterly Christian 
 Spectator, in which the writer comes to the fol- 
 lowing conclusion: 
 
 "They were not angels. They are never 
 spoken of as such. Nor are they represented 
 either as angels, or as designed to indicate 
 real forms of life. The idea of an angel, there- 
 fore, at the entrance of the garden of Eden, is 
 the idea of a philosophy, or the notion of the 
 nursery, and without any foundation in the 
 
Infancy of the Moral System. 15 
 
 Scriptures." {Christian Spectator, Vol. VIII. 
 p. 386.) 
 
 2. There is no evidence from reason that 
 other worlds are peopled. 
 
 As to the fixed stars, as Chalmers says, 
 " these orbs have sent us scarce another mes- 
 sage than told by their feeble glimmering upon 
 the eye — the simple fact of their existence." 
 And since his day the solar spectrum has re- 
 vealed to us physical elements in their consti- 
 tution identical with those of our planet. But 
 this is all. ^ 
 
 As to the planets, the fact of their annual and 
 diurnal revolution, like our earth, their retinue 
 of revolving satellites, their envelopment in an 
 atmosphere, and any other facts which liken 
 them to our earth, and which might, therefore, 
 be supposed to indicate abodes of intelligence, 
 are all equally well accounted for on the as- 
 sumption that they are yet to be peopled. 
 
 The author of the " Plurality of Worlds" 
 has also shown conclusively that not a single 
 fact of astronomical science looks at all in the 
 direction of a peopled universe; and even be- 
 
16 The Endless Future. 
 
 yond this, that all the facts of astronomy point 
 to this as the only peopled world. 
 
 3. There are serious objections to the assump- 
 tion of a peopled universe. 
 
 If peopled, then these races of moral beings 
 are either in obedience to God or in rebellion 
 against him. If in rebellion, then where is 
 the benevolence of creating a moral system 
 whose universal rebellion must have been dis- 
 tinctly foreseen? 
 
 If in allegiance, then why is our world in 
 rebellion? Could a vast universe be kept in 
 subjection, and yet must a single insignificant 
 world like ours defy the Almighty? The re- 
 sources of the Creator have availed for secur- 
 ing the obedience of innumerable worlds of 
 beings; why should they fail here? Or, re- 
 versing the argument, if rebellion has broken 
 out here, why not there? And human reason 
 furnishes no answer. 
 
 Also, if the universe of worlds be peopled, 
 then have we apparently drifted in upon the 
 great current of being at some indefinite pe- 
 riod, and should occupy, in the universe, no 
 
Infancy of the Moral System. 17 
 
 position of peculiar significance. And how 
 then can the mighty plan of redemption in this 
 world be accounted for, and the incontroverti- 
 ble evidence from this fact that we occupy one 
 of the most prominent and important positions 
 in the. whole universe of God? 
 
 Furthermore, if our position in the universe 
 be one of intrinsic insignificance, as to all ap- 
 pearance it must be if we are but a single 
 world among the infinitude of peopled worlds, 
 how comes there such a mighty contest for it 
 among invisible powers? Why, for example, 
 does the interest and sympathy of all heaven 
 center on it, so that the conversion of a single 
 sinner is welcomed with acclamations of joy? 
 And why are malignant beings —the devil and 
 his angels — all leagued together for its de- 
 struction? And to these objections there is no 
 conceivable answer. 
 
 4. There are no valid objections to the as- 
 sumption that the present is the dawning-time 
 of the moral creation. 
 
 For there must have been a beginning; and 
 whatever point in duration be assumed for it, 
 2 
 
18 The Endless Future. 
 
 it will still have an eternity preceding; so that 
 nothing is gained by assuming for it an earlier 
 period than the present. 
 
 Also, no other supposition can be less objec- 
 tionable. For whatever point in past ages be 
 assumed for the commencement of the moral 
 universe, it will still have all the objections ly- 
 ing against it which may appear to lie against 
 the supposition of its present infancy. 
 
 Neither is the existence of a vast number of 
 uninhabited worlds , which the assumption in- 
 volves, any objection to it; because in a pro- 
 gressive system like ours we should naturally 
 expect the prior creation of the material uni- 
 verse, at least in part — matter before mind. 
 
 Neither can it be objected that this hypothe- 
 sis gives our insignificant world too great im- 
 portance and prominence as compared with the 
 universe of worlds; for no greater prominence 
 is thus given to it physically than God has 
 given it morally by making it the theater of 
 redemption. 
 
 Is it objected that such an assumption in- 
 volves an eternity of inaction on the part of 
 
Infancy of the Moral System. 19 
 
 the Almighty? So does any other that as- 
 sumes a beginning for the material universe. 
 For wherever that beginning is located there 
 must be an eternity preceding it, and the diffi- 
 culty still remains. 
 
 Shall the attempt be made to escape this by 
 assuming the eternity of the material system? 
 Undoubtedly our finite minds can as readily 
 comprehend the eternity of matter as of mind; 
 but to assume the eternity of matter is both 
 unscriptural and unphilosophical. 
 
 First. It is unscriptural. 
 
 The Scriptures plainly teach the creation of 
 material things by the power of God. It is 
 the first truth declared in the Bible (Gen. i. 1) : 
 "In the beginning God created the heaven and 
 the earth." The same truth is taught in He- 
 brews i. 10 : "And thou, Lord, in the begin- 
 ning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and 
 the heavens are the works of thine hands." 
 Says John in his Gospel (i. 3): "All things 
 were made by him." And Paul (in Col. i. 16, 
 17) is still more explicit: "By him were all 
 things created that are in heaven and that are 
 
20 The Endless Future. 
 
 in earth ; all things were created by him, and 
 for him. And he is before all things, and by 
 him all things consist." 
 
 Secondly. The assumption is unphilosoph- 
 ical. 
 
 Reason teaches at this point the same as the 
 Bible. For if matter be eternal it must be 
 self-existent, and therefore independent. If 
 independent, it would admit of no change, 
 either in kind or degree. But the visible and 
 material universe is ever changing ; proving 
 thus its dependence upon higher forces, and 
 is therefore not eternal. 
 
 There is no possible view of the universe 
 that does not involve a past eternity ; and this, 
 to our finite apprehensions, must ever remain 
 an unfathomable mystery. 
 
 The direct testimony from the Bible is re- 
 served for the next chapter. 
 
Infancy of the Moral System. 21 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 INFANCY OF THE MORAL SYSTEM (CONTINUED). 
 
 ALL the facts and intimations of the Bi- 
 ble point decidedly to the present as the 
 commencement of the moral system. 
 
 First. The Bible gives no intimation that 
 other worlds are peopled. It mentions the 
 creation of the "worlds" by Jesus Christ, but 
 makes no mention of their inhabitants. 
 
 Secondly. We find the attention of all the 
 angels of heaven centered on this world. Says 
 the apostle : "Are they not all ministering 
 spirits, sent forth to minister for them who 
 shall be heirs of salvation?" (Heb. i. 14.) 
 All the angels of heaven, then, are employed in 
 earthly ministrations. They may be employed 
 thus in other worlds, but there is not the 
 slightest intimation of it ; while here we know 
 they are all interested — so much so that " there 
 is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." 
 
22 The Endless Future. 
 
 Thirdly. The energies of hell are also ex- 
 pended upon this world. Satan is here, the 
 "prince of the aerial host," tempting men, 
 "working in the children of disobedience," 
 and driving with fiendish hate his schemes of 
 mischief. Here also are a great multitude, if 
 not all, who lost with him " their first estate." 
 Even the number possessing one man was 
 called legion, " because they were many." 
 They may be prosecuting a similar work of 
 temptation elsewhere, but we have no intima- 
 tion of it ; and for aught that appears to the 
 contrary, they are all here in this world. This 
 record of the angels, therefore, so far as it goes, 
 looks strongly in the direction of this as the 
 only peopled world. 
 
 Fourthly. The atonement by Jesus Christ, 
 made for mankind, is the only sacrifice for sin 
 — the first and final illustration to the universe 
 of God's mercy to the sinful; and all its rela- 
 tions to that universe appear to be fundament- 
 al. For, says the apostle, "he died unto sin 
 once," and "being raised from the dead, dieth 
 no more;" and "when he had by himself 
 
Infancy of the Moral System. 23 
 
 purged our sins, sat down on the right-hand 
 of the Majesty on high; " or, as the apostle ex- 
 presses it in another place, "After he had 
 offered one sacrifice for sin, forever sat down 
 on the right-hand of God," as if the great 
 work of eternity were then finished. And 
 there John heard the whole universe of being 
 chanting his praise, in his distinctive character 
 still as "the Lamb slain." "And every creat- 
 ure which is in heaven and on the earth, and 
 under the earth, and such as are in the seas, 
 and all that are in them, heard I saying, 
 Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be 
 unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and 
 unto the Lamb forever and ever." (Rev. v. 
 13.) Is not this the laying of foundations — 
 and, too, of eternal foundations? 
 
 The fundamental relations of the atonement 
 to the universe come out again in this: that 
 God is now using this scheme of mercy, this 
 plan of salvation, to illustrate his character 
 and perfections to the angels of heaven. " To 
 the intent that now unto the principalities and 
 powers in heavenly places might be known by 
 
24 The Endless Future. 
 
 the Church the manifold wisdom of God." 
 (Eph. iii. 10.) 
 
 This passage is worthy of special notice. 
 The particular points are: that the atonement 
 is represented as sustaining vital relations 
 not only to the sinful of this world, but to the 
 unsinning hosts of heaven. "The principali- 
 ties and powers in heavenly places" — the an- 
 gels and archangels, and all the ranks of holy 
 intelligences that surround the throne of God 
 — are also immediately affected by it. 
 
 Then again that the moral splendors of the 
 divine character are finding their most vivid 
 illustration, even to the angels of heaven, 
 through the works and wonders of redemption. 
 Also that the prime agency in this work of 
 manifestation is the redeemed Church. It is 
 not made merely through the sufferings and 
 death of Jesus Christ himself, but by means 
 of the penitent and pardoned ones who have 
 been rescued by him — through them it is that 
 God is exhibiting his "manifold wisdom." 
 
 Now, what God is doing he always intended 
 to do; and so it comes out that not sinful be- 
 
Infancy of the Moral System. 25 
 
 ings merely, but the loyal races of the universe 
 were originally comprehended in this divine 
 plan ; that it was made as truly for them as 
 for us, and that they were destined from the be- 
 ginning to share with us in its eternal benefits. 
 Not, of course, in the same way that we do, 
 for they have not sinned as we have, and do 
 not need forgiveness; neither do they need 
 sanctification as we do, for they are already 
 holy. The design of the atonement in its re- 
 lations to them is not revealed, and what it is 
 we are left to conjecture. And the most 
 natural conjecture is that by this appeal to 
 affection, as one indispensable influence, they 
 are kept from an apostasy like that of the fall- 
 en angels. 
 
 Enough, now, apart from all conjecture, that 
 in some way, and for some specific purpose, 
 the great atonement by Jesus Christ is reach- 
 ing out in its workings far beyond this world, 
 and laying hold on the hosts of heaven. And 
 if on them, sinless as they are, then why not 
 on all moral beings who may be hereafter 
 created? 
 
26 The Endless Future. 
 
 Happily, at this point we are not left en- 
 tirely to conjecture; for the declaration in 
 Ephesians ii. 7 is : " That in the ages to come 
 he might show the exceeding riches of his 
 grace, in his kindness toward us, through 
 Christ Jesus." 
 
 This plainly implies that this same work — 
 that of manifesting the divine perfections, 
 and through the same medium, the redeemed 
 Church, and by means of the same great in- 
 strumentality, the atonement by Jesus Christ 
 — will be always in progress ; for the expression 
 is general, and appears to cover all the coming 
 ages. And so it appears that this atonement 
 will be needed forever to show forth to the 
 universe the perfections of the Most High. 
 
 The point aimed at is that the plan of re- 
 demption is fundamental; that it reaches be- 
 yond this world, and comprehends, in some 
 way, the welfare and happiness of other races 
 of moral beings; the inferencp being that in 
 the " ages to come," of which the apostle 
 speaks, it may reach all the future races of 
 the universe. Several expressions respecting 
 
Infancy of the Moral System. 27 
 
 Christ look in this direction. For example, in 
 Ephesians iii. 15, " the whole family in heaven 
 and in earth" are named for Christ. Also in 
 Colossians i. 20, he will " reconcile _ all things 
 to himself, whether they be things in earth or 
 things in heaven." Also in Ephesians i. 10, 
 he will "gather together in one all things in 
 Christ, both which are in heaven and which 
 are on earth." Also in Philippians ii. 10, 11, 
 " In the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, 
 and every tongue confess." Also in Isaiah 
 liii. 11, the declaration is that so stupendous 
 are to be the results of the atonement as to 
 "satisfy" the Redeemer for all his mighty 
 sufferings. 
 
 The expressions respecting the redeemed 
 Church are also extremely wonderful. It is 
 " a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, 
 and a royal diadem in the hand of God," and 
 he that "toucheth it toucheth the apple of 
 his eye." The apostle speaks of "the riches 
 of the glory of his inheritance in the saints." 
 He speaks of the Church of the Thessalonians 
 as being "in God the Father." He says also 
 
28 The Endless Future. 
 
 that Christians are " build ed together for a hab- 
 itation of God; " "a chosen generation, a royal 
 priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people;" 
 and, to crown all, that the Church is " his body, 
 the fullness of him that filleth all in all." 
 What an expression — the Church, the fullness 
 of the Infinite Jehovah ! 
 
 Now, how these wonderful representations 
 respecting Christ and his Church can harmon- 
 ize with the reality, if this world be but a sin- 
 gle one among the infinitude of peopled worlds, 
 does not plainly appear. We can see no possi- 
 ble way, unless its position in the universe be 
 fundamental; nor how it can be fundamental, 
 unless it be fundamental in time — unless we 
 are among the first of created intelligences, so 
 that the history of God's dealings with this 
 world shall be handed down through the ages, 
 and hold an important, and even a vital, rela- 
 tion to the future and successful enlargement 
 of the universe. In such a case, the relations 
 to it of this redeemed world would indeed be 
 fundamental, and a valid reason appear why 
 it should be made the theater of an infinite 
 
Infancy of the Moral System. 29 
 
 redemption. In that case, very likely all holy 
 beings, in all worlds forever, will, in some 
 way, be dependent for their holiness and hap- 
 piness on the influence of the atonement; and 
 thus the great Saviour become the "chief 
 Corner-stone," the grand Foundation, not 
 merely of this earthly dispensation, but of 
 the entire economy of the universe. 
 
 In view also of this stupendous scheme of 
 redemption, it may be added that no results 
 as yet witnessed appear at all to correspond 
 with its wonderful magnitude and vastness. 
 We see only a world of sin and wretchedness, 
 and, according to the Saviour's own statement, 
 but few treading the "narrow way" of salva- 
 tion. And even the inhabitants of heaven are 
 not so numerous but they can "all" be em- 
 ployed in earthly ministrations. Here is a 
 state of things clearly incongruous with the 
 vastness of the expenditure, and no such mag- 
 nificent results and triumphs as could " satisfy " 
 the Redeemer. 
 
 Now, God has a correct conception of pro- 
 portions in the moral edifice that he is build- 
 
30 The Endless Future. 
 
 ing; and the superstructure must perfectly 
 harmonize with the foundation. And if the 
 foundation be magnificent beyond conception, 
 as it evidently is, so must the moral structure 
 hereafter to be reared upon it correspond; and 
 it will require eternity to fill out its adequate 
 proportions. On this account also it becomes 
 a most reasonable assumption that we are 
 among the first of created beings. 
 
 If, therefore, any belief is to be entertained 
 respecting the period when the moral system 
 was entered on, its present infancy is the most 
 rational, and is the only view in perfect har- 
 mony with the foregoing facts and intimations 
 of the Bible. 
 
 It is, therefore, undeniably true — by which 
 is meant that there is much in favor of the 
 position, and with no counteracting evidence — 
 that this is our present stand-point of observa- 
 tion ; that we are looking out upon the dawn- 
 ing- time of the moral creation; that the work 
 of peopling this material universe has but 
 just commenced; that the Power which has 
 begun to create free minds will never cease its 
 
Infancy of the Moral System. 31 
 
 activity, so that the peopling of worlds on 
 worlds with moral intelligences will be the 
 ceaseless work of the unending future; and 
 therefore that God is now laying the foun- 
 dation-stones of that vast moral structure 
 which, in the coming ages of eternity, will be 
 magnificent beyond conception. 
 
32 The Endless Future. 
 
 Chapter III, 
 
 THE FUTUKE UNIVEKSE. 
 
 THE object now in view is to obtain some 
 correct impression of the greatness and 
 grandeur of the future universe; and especial- 
 ly some adequate conception of the amazing 
 interests hereafter to be protected by law and 
 government. 
 
 The trouble men have with the sterner doc- 
 trines of the Bible and the objections they 
 make to them are, in a great measure, owing 
 to the fact that all their other conceptions 
 of God and his government, the interests to 
 be protected by it, are so inadequate and de- 
 fective. Their thought is confined almost 
 solely to this world and the comparatively few 
 beings who people it ; to a government having 
 a limited and inferior range ; to interests of 
 mere finite value; to a law of only ordinary 
 sacredness; and even the conception of God 
 
The Future Universe. 
 
 himself — the great Lawgiver and moral Gov- 
 ernor of the universe, and the responsible 
 Guardian of its welfare — is only that of a fond 
 and doting parent, destitute of firmness, com- 
 pounded of weakness and pusillanimity, and 
 without sufficient authority, dignity, and 
 self-respect to govern a single State of the 
 Union. 
 
 Evidently, therefore, in such a mind it is 
 necessary, at the outset, to elevate its concep- 
 tions of God, and his government, and his uni- 
 verse, to something like their proper magni- 
 tude and importance. What, then, will be the 
 future of the universe? 
 
 We notice respecting this universe that God 
 is building the four following points : that it 
 is boundless in extent, endless in duration, 
 forever expanding, and can be protected for- 
 ever only by a government of law and penalty. 
 
 First. We consider its vastness. It is not 
 bounded by this world. It extends beyond 
 this comparatively diminutive planet to myr- 
 iads of other worlds. It embraces the count- 
 less systems which only the telescope reveals 
 3 
 
34 The Endless Future. 
 
 — even an infinitude of worlds and suns and 
 systems, to which no power either of the eye 
 or of the telescope has yet carried us. True, 
 they may not yet be peopled, they may not 
 be ready as yet for the occupancy of moral 
 beings, but they are all doubtless to be peopled 
 with free moral intelligences, amenable to the 
 same laws with ourselves, comprehended in 
 the same administration, and constituting to- 
 gether one grand empire. 
 
 Second. But this is not enough. We are to 
 think of it also as an endless universe. We have 
 no evidence that a particle of matter has ever 
 been annihilated, or ever will be. We have no 
 evidence that a single mind once created will 
 ever cease to exist. We can, therefore, affix 
 no limit to the duration of the universe, and it 
 appears to be stretching on and on to eternal 
 ages. To all appearance, God is building an 
 endless universe. 
 
 Third. And this is not enough. We see 
 the mass of mind continually expanding and 
 enlarging — millions of new minds coming year- 
 ly into existence, and each and all immortal. 
 
The Future Universe. 35 
 
 Hence' the fundamental law of the universe 
 appears to be one of ceaseless and endless ex- 
 pansion. Moreover, we see no reason why the 
 same Power which has laid the foundations of 
 so vast an empire, and proceeded thus far with 
 its development, should not advance still far- 
 ther, and find hereafter the same reason for 
 exertion which it has thus far found ; nor why, 
 indeed, its exertion should ever cease ; why 
 God, who has begun to create, should ever 
 cease creating. Space and duration are both 
 apparently limitless, and, therefore, no reason 
 appears why omnipotent energy should ever 
 diminish its activity. And should it not, then 
 will the time come when the mass of beings 
 now in existence will be but the " small dust 
 of the balance," compared with its magnitude 
 in the coming ages. And so at this point we 
 face not only an eternal, but an eternally ex- 
 panding, universe of moral beings — endless in 
 duration ; boundless in enlargement. 
 
 Fourth. Here the vital question is: How 
 shall these immeasurable interests be so 
 protected that the universe will expand end- 
 
36 The Endless Future. 
 
 lessly in holiness and happiness. And the 
 answer is: This universe can be protected for- 
 ever only by a government of law and pen- 
 alty. 
 
 The grand peril of the system is that it is a 
 system of free moral agents — free to obey 
 God, or to disobey him ; and that this freedom 
 must not be interfered with. And so the real 
 question is : How shall this universe of free 
 moral beings be secured in the exercise of its 
 freedom, and still be protected forever from 
 the disastrous inroads of rebellion, insubordi- 
 nation, and anarchy, and be held forever in 
 intelligent and voluntary loyalty to God? 
 
 And this makes the problem of its future 
 development a tremendously serious one, be- 
 cause there is opened before it these two end- 
 lessly diverging paths, on either of which it 
 is free to enter — one of endless and ever-in- 
 creasing holiness and blessedness, the other 
 of endless sin and wretchedness; and which of 
 the two it shall take is the question, and how 
 shall it be kept true to God and duty is the 
 problem to be solved. 
 
The Future Universe. 37 
 
 Some never think of this, and suppose God 
 could make a moral system move on in har- 
 mony, holiness, and happiness as easily as he 
 could make the sun to rise in the heavens; 
 when, as a matter of fact, physical power, even 
 though it be omnipotent, cannot touch it. 
 God's great moral system of the universe can 
 be guided and protected forever only by moral 
 government — a government of motive — a gov- 
 ernment whose foundations are laid in reward 
 and punishment, promises and threatenings, 
 invitations and warnings, and which must be 
 wielded forever through these instrumentali- 
 ties alone; all of which are comprehended 
 in this one statement : a government of law, 
 whose sanctions are reward and penalty. This 
 point needs to be further illustrated and en- 
 forced. 
 
 The position that because God is omnipotent 
 he can compel a moral being, and so enforce 
 obedience and prevent sin and its punishment, 
 assumes that moral beings are, in some re- 
 spects, like machines; that mind can be gov- 
 erned somewhat, at least, like matter — that it 
 
38 The Endless Future. .,. 
 
 can be compelled, as matter is, by force; and if 
 that force be only omnipotent, then, of course, 
 all that opposes must yield, and all effectual re- 
 sistance become impossible ; and so sin be 
 prevented, and obedience secured, by the mere 
 exertion of power. 
 
 But this view contradicts both the Bible 
 and reason. The Bible says men do resist — 
 even that they resist God, and resist him suc- 
 cessfully. Said Stephen to the wicked Jews : 
 "Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your 
 fathers did, so do ye" — asserting thus that 
 the Jewish nation had resisted him for cent- 
 uries. 
 
 Said our Saviour to Jerusalem : "How often 
 would I have gathered thy children together 
 as a hen doth gather he'r brood under her 
 wings, and ye ivould not " — where the statement 
 is equally decisive, that even the Almighty 
 Saviour was successfully resisted in his kind 
 efforts to save. "Ye ivould not" is the grand, 
 appalling difficulty that baffles even Omnipo- 
 tence in its benevolent efforts for human sal- 
 vation, and such our Saviour represented it. 
 
The Future Universe. 39 
 
 But says some one, "How can omnipotence 
 be resisted ? " Answer: By the moral powei 
 of a moral being. Omnipotence is only phys- 
 ical power, and has no natural relations to 
 moral power, and cannot touch it. But no 
 matter for the hoiv. The fact is all we are 
 concerned with. It is resisted. Said Stephen: 
 "Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost." Was 
 it a weak instrumentality they were resisting, 
 either in its nature or exertion? No. It was 
 God's omnipotent Spirit, working out the in- 
 finite unwillingness of God that men should 
 perish which they were resisting; in its nature 
 the mightiest, in its exertion the mightiest. 
 Such is the Bible representation. 
 
 Look now at the reason of the case. Evi- 
 dently a moral system cannot be governed by 
 material forces any more than a material and 
 physical system by moral forces. It is clear 
 that the solar system cannot be managed by 
 persuasion, nor the engineer drive his locomo- 
 tive by advice. No less absurd would it be to 
 imagine a system of free moral agents as being 
 governed by mere power and force. 
 
40 The Endless Future. 
 
 Moral beings are not machines, and cannot 
 be moved by force, though exerted to any ex- 
 tent. Even Omnipotence cannot compel free- 
 dom, for then it would be freedom no longer. 
 Indeed, there is no more intrinsic absurdity 
 in imagining an engineer to get his locomotive 
 on the track, and then attempt to drive it by 
 reading to it the Ten Commandments than in 
 supposing God to put his moral creature on 
 the track of free and responsible action, and 
 then attempting to move him by power — by 
 force of his omnipotence. 
 
 The fact is, the two great empires of matter 
 and mind are governed by influences utterly 
 unlike — one by force and compulsion, and the 
 other by motive and persuasion. And each 
 must be governed by its own appropriate influ- 
 ence. It will be impossible to govern either 
 by the influence that belongs to the other. 
 Even God cannot do this, for then he would 
 act inconsistently with his own works; and 
 this would involve self -inconsistency ; and 
 God cannot act inconsistently with himself, 
 for then he would cease to be God. So we 
 
The Future Universe. 41 
 
 say that God cannot govern mind by force any 
 more than he can govern matter by motive. 
 
 Would it rob God of his omnipotence at all 
 to say that he cannot govern the solar system 
 by the Ten Commandments? Certainly not; 
 for this is only saying that he cannot act in- 
 consistently with his own works; that is, he 
 cannot use with matter an influence appro- 
 priate only to mind. 
 
 On the other hand, would it rob God of his 
 omnipotence at all to say that he cannot con- 
 vert men with crow-bars? Certainly not; for 
 this involves a similar inconsistency. It is 
 only saying that he cannot use with mind an 
 influence appropriate only to matter. It plain- 
 ly appears, therefore, that force cannot be 
 used in the government of mind, and that 
 omnipotence, or infinite force, is just as pow- 
 erless for this as finite. Even God himself 
 can govern mind only by motive, and his 
 moral universe only by law and its appropriate 
 sanctions; or, as our discussion is limited to 
 the consideration of the one sanction of pen- 
 alty, we will speak of it only as a government 
 
42 The Endless future. 
 
 of law and penalty. Here certain things re- 
 specting this government are to be noticed : 
 
 1. This law must be properly enforced. This 
 government must have a firm and stable ad- 
 ministration. Nothing must be left at loose 
 ends. Disobedience must be promptly met by 
 its appropriate punishment, and thus be made 
 to appear to all the subjects of government to 
 be unsafe. Otherwise there will be no effect- 
 ual barrier to the inroads of rebellion. If any 
 government can be safely trifled with, it will 
 be. If the subjects of government see that 
 they can safely take their own way, instead of 
 the way the government orders, they will take 
 their own way. They will push the govern- 
 ment aside. They will despise the law and 
 trample on the authority of the lawgiver; so 
 that the welfare and happiness of any and 
 every community of moral beings rest neces- 
 sarily upon a firm and stable administration 
 of the government over them. 
 
 This accords with our entire observation of 
 the workings of human society. The peace 
 and order of the family are secured only by 
 
The Future Universe. 43 
 
 parental authority enforced; and the most un- 
 happy and the least prosperous of all earth's 
 families are those the most poorly governed. 
 
 The village school cannot be properly man- 
 aged unless the conviction is in some way set- 
 tled in the minds of the pupils that disobe- 
 dience is unsafe; and nothing can win for the 
 teacher their respect and affection while be- 
 lieving that he is wanting in the firmness 
 necessary to punish transgression. 
 
 The State can be governed only by law and 
 penalty; and every interest suffers if the ad- 
 ministration be not efficient and the execution 
 of penalty thorough. 
 
 Every government, in order to be respected, 
 must be administered thoroughly and effective- 
 ly, and all rebellion against authority be met 
 by prompt and appropriate punishment. 
 . 2. This government must protect the uni- 
 verse as it is. 
 
 Every government properly administered 
 must adapt itself to the peculiarities and exi- 
 gencies of the community over which it is 
 wielded. Otherwise its administration be- 
 
4A The Endless Future, 
 
 comes unworthy of confidence. Whatever the 
 peculiarities of the State or nation may be, 
 the government must protect it as it is. No 
 two nations on earth can be governed precise- 
 ly alike. Their distinguishing peculiarities 
 forbid it. And therefore if God's great uni- 
 verse be one of ceaseless and endless expan- 
 sion — if that be its peculiarity — then his gov- 
 ernment over it must correspond, and meet all 
 the necessary demands of an eternal and eter- 
 nally expanding universe. 
 
 Here we begin to see what stupendous 
 foundations of government must be laid ade- 
 quately to sustain such a superstructure; and 
 if the foundations of law and penalty, as we 
 shall hereafter consider them, should appear 
 to be massive beyond expression, should ap- 
 pear to be infinite foundations — if law is end- 
 less and penalty endless — the solution of the 
 matter may be found in this : that God is 
 building so vast a universe, and laying the 
 foundations of a government over it that must 
 stand the strain of eternity. 
 
Liability to Rebellion Eternal. 45 
 
 Chapter IV, 
 
 THE LIABILITY TO REBELLION ETERNAL. 
 
 THE inclination to disobedience is common to 
 all moral beings. 
 
 The design now is to show that the liability, 
 tendency, and temptation of all moral beings 
 who either have been or can be created is to 
 break away from the necessary restraints of 
 law and government, and to go off in rebellion 
 against the authority of the Most High. 
 
 The view is not unfrequently entertained 
 that a pnre and perfect being would obey God 
 as a matter of course; and that submission to 
 his will on the part of such a one would re- 
 quire no self-denial. Our leading theologians 
 are accustomed to speak of Adam in the 
 garden as one whose only inclination was to 
 obedience, and to trace his subsequent sinful- 
 ness solely to the temptation of the devil; and 
 how, then, the benevolence of the temptation 
 
46 The Endless Future. 
 
 could be defended does not appear. Dr. 
 Bushnell speaks of him as "spontaneous to 
 good." 
 
 But were this true, the first sin would have 
 been impossible. If submission to God were 
 an entirely easy matter, then submission would 
 have been always rendered; and the first sin 
 becomes, if not exactly impossible — for that ex- 
 pression would seem to conflict with free agen- 
 cy< — yet as certain not to be committed as if it 
 were. 
 
 But there was a first sin; and it must have 
 been committed under the three following con- 
 ditions : 
 
 1. Those who committed it came directly 
 from the hand of God, and were therefore 
 pure and perfect in their original constitution. 
 
 2. They must have been placed in the best 
 possible circumstances — the best surroundings 
 for the development of a holy character. We 
 argue both these points from the assumed be- 
 nevolence of God. 
 
 3. They encountered no temptation from ma- 
 lignant beings; for there were no unholy be- 
 
Liability to Rebellion Eternal. 47 
 
 ings to present it. Hence their position was 
 in all respects the best calculated to result in 
 holiness. 
 
 The vital point is thus demonstrated that 
 an occasion of sin must exist in a pure and 
 perfect being, placed in the best possible cir- 
 cumstances. What could it have been? 
 
 This leads us to consider the occasion of sin. 
 
 The word occasion is here used with careful- 
 ness and precision, as being entirely distinct 
 from the efficient cause. For example: the oc- 
 casion of gluttony is the natural appetite for 
 food ; but because that between this occasion 
 and the gluttony there comes in the free, 
 moral, and responsible being, under obligation 
 to keep all his inclinations in due subordina- 
 tion to the higher dictates of reason and con- 
 science, therefore does he himself become the 
 efficient cause of the sinful gluttony. For the 
 occasion he is in no way responsible, while he 
 shoulders the entire burden of responsibility 
 for the sinful gluttony. So the efficient cause 
 of sin in any form can only be the moral be- 
 ing himself who commits it ; and the question 
 
48 The Endless Future. 
 
 now to be considered is, How comes it that a 
 being made in the image of God, and pure 
 and perfect in his original constitution, be- 
 comes the efficient cause of sin? 
 
 1. Every being made in God's image must 
 be free — truly free — or else he would not be 
 made in his image. 
 
 2. He must be conscious that he is free. He 
 cannot be free without being conscious of it. 
 
 3. He must love to exercise this freedom 
 in the way of independent action, which 
 means mainly that he must love to seek and 
 obtain whatever pleases him — to seek his own 
 personal gratification without restraint. He 
 cannot have this freedom without loving to 
 exercise it — in common language, without lov- 
 ing to have his own way. Nothing indeed is 
 plainer than that he cannot but love the ob- 
 jects which minister to his gratification. He 
 must delight to seek his enjoyment in every 
 avenue opened — to roam the universe at will, 
 taxing every object, every scene, every em- 
 ployment affording satisfaction. Therefore, 
 
 4. To give up this independence of action, 
 
Liability to Rebellion Eternal. 49 
 
 and submit to restraint, which oftentimes in- 
 volves the giving up of objects in themselves 
 desirable, cannot be an easy matter. It 
 must cost a struggle. It is going against in- 
 clination — practicing self-denial. And this 
 must be attended with reluctance, and a re- 
 luctance just proportioned to the love of inde- 
 pendence. By just so much as he loves his 
 own way, by just that much he must make an 
 effort in order to surrender it. But, 
 
 5. It is his highest duty to surrender it, 
 and consent to be guided, governed, and re- 
 strained, if need be, as God may see fit, as the 
 only security for the harmony and welfare 
 of the universe, which requires the merging 
 of all wills in the one controlling will of the 
 Almighty. Without this submission to God, 
 each one, acting out his natural inclinations, 
 would set up for himself, and there would be 
 as many independent wills as there are indi- 
 viduals, each acting for himself, and with no 
 paramount regard for the general good; and 
 the resulting collision, strife, discord, and suf- 
 fering would be uncontrollable and dreadful; 
 4 
 
50 The Endless Future. 
 
 so that the only security for the harmony and 
 happiness of the universe is the submission 
 of all individual wills to the one controlling 
 will of God. Hence we see that the great de- 
 mand of the Bible upon this wicked and re- 
 bellious world for "submission to God," for a 
 "change of heart," for "conversion," for a 
 "new heart," for a "new birth" — for they all 
 mean one and the same thing — is laid in the 
 very foundations, the ultimate and imperious 
 necessities, of the moral universe. Therefore, 
 
 6. We see the absolute necessity that God 
 assert his control over his moral creature, and 
 give him his law with its two cardinal re- 
 quirements — loving God with all his heart, 
 and his neighbor as himself — and enforce 
 obedience to it with the whole weight of his 
 authority. 
 
 7. In this view the occasion of sin be- 
 comes a disinclination to the necessary restraints 
 of law and government, growing out of the lore 
 of conscious freedom in a free moral agent. It 
 is a temptation to sin, but not itself sinful; 
 and originates in the individual, just as the 
 
Liability to Rebellion Eternal. 51 
 
 apostle says (James i. 14, 15): "Every man is 
 tempted when he is drawn away of his own 
 lust * and enticed. Then when Inst hath con- 
 ceived, it bringeth forth sin." Notice the sev- 
 eral points : 
 
 1. It is "his own lust" — that is, it originates 
 in himself; so that the external influence, 
 whatever it may be — whether the devil, or 
 wicked men, or circumstances — only stirs up 
 a something that was all the while in him, 
 his own lust. This something we have made 
 out in this discussion to be a love of having his 
 own way. 
 
 2. It is a something that is innocent. It 
 comes in before the sin — it bringeth forth the 
 sin; so that the sin comes in after it. There- 
 fore, this lust — this occasion of sin — is and 
 
 * This word lust in this passage is not a happy translation 
 of the original Greek, being almost invariably used in a 
 bad sense; whereas in the original the word only means 
 innocent desire, being the same word used by Paul when he 
 says, " Having a desire to depart and be with Christ ; " and 
 by our Saviour when he says, " With desire I have desired 
 to eat this passover with you." 
 
52 The Endless Future. 
 
 must be innocent, constitutional propensity. 
 And this is precisely the view taken in the 
 foregoing discussion. 
 
 The occasion of sin is thus seen to be insep- 
 arable from free agency under the restraint of 
 law; and some particulars respecting it are 
 deserving of special notice. 
 
 1. It lies back of voluntary action, and is 
 therefore destitute of moral character — a mere 
 constitutional element. Therefore, 
 
 2. It is not at all of the nature of depravity, 
 nor does it imply any defect in the original 
 constitution, and is consistent with perfect in- 
 nocence, and even holiness. 
 
 3. In this view every being in the uni- 
 verse who sins, whether man or devil, sins 
 solely because he dislikes the restraint of law, 
 and shrinks from the self-denial necessary to 
 obedience. This is the occasion of the sin. 
 The real sin, and where all the guilt centers, is 
 the disobedience itself — the act of transgres- 
 sion, the determination to break the law and 
 have his own way. 
 
 The law may be a mere imperative of the 
 
Liability to Rebellion Eternal. 53 
 
 reason and the conscience, or it may be a com- 
 mand rightly imposed by another, to whose 
 rightfulness, however, the reason assents; but 
 in either case it is law, coming down upon a 
 moral being with the demand of obedience to 
 rightful authority. In the former case the in- 
 dividual becomes, in the language of the apos- 
 tle, "a law unto himself, his conscience also 
 bearing witness." (Rom. ii. 15.) In the lat- 
 ter he comes under the authority of another — ■ 
 a parent, guardian, master, or ruler; and the 
 sin resulting from disobedience is always dis- 
 obedience to rightful authority — to law. Sin 
 is ever therefore "the transgression of the 
 law." "Where no law is there is no transgres- 
 sion." (Bom. iv. 15.) 
 
 4. The leading peculiarity of this view is 
 that it represents the occasion of sin as insep- 
 arable from a free nature under this necessary 
 restraint of law, and belongs therefore to a 
 moral being by virtue of his creation; and 
 is as inseparable from the soul as freedom it- 
 self. 
 
 Th.3 vital point is thus demonstrated that 
 
54 The Endless Future. 
 
 the occasion of sin is inseparable from a free 
 nature, and belongs therefore necessarily to the 
 nature of all moral beings who either have 
 been or can be created; so that even a pure 
 and perfect being cannot submit to the neces- 
 sary restraints of God's law without a strug- 
 gle; and therefore that all newly-created be- 
 ings forever will have the same inclination to 
 break away from the restraints of law and gov- 
 ernment which has already broken out in the 
 sinning angels and men. 
 
 With the existence and operation of this 
 element in human society we are all familiar. 
 The inclination of the whole world is to their 
 own pleasure. The very first development of 
 the infant mind is in the direction of impa- 
 tience of restraint — he wants his own way. 
 This is the leading characteristic of childhood 
 also, and is what creates the necessity for pa- 
 rental authority in the family. This is the 
 chief trouble in the community — that men 
 want their own way, instead of seeking the 
 general good. This, too, makes government 
 necessary in the State; and even on the broad 
 
Liability to Rebellion Eternal. 55 
 
 field of national experience the sole occasion of 
 dif&cnlty is the preference of the individual 
 over the general good. "For all seek their own ' 
 is the grand trouble of the universe. 
 
 And this element is apparently inseparable 
 from free moral agency; for, as we have seen, 
 a moral being is free-^knows that he is, feels 
 that he is — loves necessarily the indulgence 
 of his freedom; therefore dislikes restraint, 
 therefore rebels against it, even though that 
 restraint be the law of God himself. And as 
 no moral being can be created without having 
 this love of conscious freedom, and this in- 
 clination to exercise it, therefore it will be 
 common to all the future races of the uni- 
 verse, and the liability to rebellion will be 
 eternal. 
 
56 The Endless Future, 
 
 Chapter V, 
 
 THE LIABILITY TO EEBELLION ETERNAL 
 (CONTINUED). OBJECTIONS. 
 
 IT is objected: (1) That if this dislike of re- 
 straint be a necessary element in the nature 
 of a moral being, then its indulgence is a mat- 
 ter of course, and not to be wondered at; and 
 that a moral being cannot be blamed for in- 
 dulging it. 
 
 Answer: This objection overlooks the essen- 
 tial elements of a free nature — namely, that 
 the will, the power of choice, lies between 
 the dictates of reason and the admonitions of 
 conscience on the one hand, and this inclina- 
 tion to indulgence on the other; and that the 
 free moral agent is as free to follow the one 
 as the other. Moreover, that the stronger mo- 
 tive, as estimated by its nature, by its appeal 
 to his own highest good, and the highest good 
 of all in any way affected by his conduct, is 
 always on the side of reason and conscience, 
 
Liability to Relellion Eternal. 57 
 
 of God and the Holy Spirit; so that the man, 
 under all possible circumstances, feels under 
 obligation to follow them and do as his Maker 
 commands him, cost what it may in the way 
 of sacrifice and self-denial. The absence of 
 this freedom of choice would reduce him to 
 the level of the brute creation, who act neces- 
 sarily in carrying out their desires, knowing 
 no other way of acting but in the direction of 
 the strongest inclination, and who are there- 
 fore destitute of moral character, and are ig- 
 norant of their relations to God. A moral be- 
 ing is not thus constituted. He knows God 
 as his Creator, Preserver, and rightful Govern- 
 or, and understands the claims of duty and 
 moral obligation, and knows and feels that he 
 is ever bound to be governed by them. 
 
 Although, therefore, this inclination to in- 
 dependence — this being "drawn away of one's 
 own lust," as the apostle terms it — this occa- 
 sion of sin, belongs to the necessary nature of 
 free agency, yet, as has been said, it is in it- 
 self innocent. It is only the indulgence of it, 
 the yielding to it improperly, that is sin. 
 
58 The Endless Future. 
 
 Now, when rightful authority meets a moral 
 being in any form to which he feels disin- 
 clined to yield, reason and conscience press 
 him at once to resist this love of independence, 
 this temptation, this "drawing away of his 
 own lust," and submit to the requirement. 
 And if he would but resist it, as he might do, 
 and ought to do, and as God commands him to 
 do — as the devil might have done, and Adam 
 might have done, and both should have done — 
 not only would there be no sin in him, but he 
 would merit the commendation, " Blessed is the 
 man that endureth temptation." But if he yields 
 to it, he sins, and assumes the entire respon- 
 sibility of the wrong-doing. He is never any 
 more excusable in yielding to this occasion 
 than is the glutton in his gluttony. Who 
 would excuse a man for acting like a beast? 
 
 True, he loves to follow his inclination, and 
 does follow it, and sins; but were there any 
 thing in the impulse which excuses him in fol- 
 lowing it, there would be no ground or expla- 
 nation of that remorse which rends the guilty 
 soul. 
 
Liability to Rebellion Eternal. 59 
 
 Eemoese is the soul upraicling itself for its 
 sin; and wherever felt, is its own clear testi- 
 mony to three things: 
 
 1. That the siri committed was wholly un- 
 necessary. Could a convicted soul, in the ex- 
 tremity of its torment from remorse, be made 
 to see and feel that back of its wickedness 
 there lay a necessity under which it acted, the 
 remorse would cease at once. It would in- 
 stantly clear itself from blame and from men- 
 tal suffering by the reflection, "I could not 
 help it," and be at peace. There would no 
 longer be ground for remorse or the possibil- 
 ity of it. There might be any amount of re- 
 gret at the unpleasant consequences which 
 have followed, but there could be no self-re- 
 proach at being the guilty author of those con- 
 sequences; and this is the essential ingredient 
 in remorse. 
 
 2. Eemorse is the soul's testimony that the 
 sinful conduct was 'inexcusable. If in certain 
 complicated cases of human action there are 
 some things which appear inexcusable and oth- 
 ers not, the remorse reaches only those which 
 
60 The Endless Future. 
 
 are seen to be inexcusable, and keeps exact 
 pace with the inexcusableness. Whatever is 
 seen to be excusable ceases to distress. Self- 
 reproach extends only to that for which the 
 soul can find no good excuse. 
 
 3. The testimony of the soul under remorse 
 is, that in the precise circumstances in which 
 it acted wrong it should have acted exactly the 
 other way — either not to do what it did or to 
 do that which it neglected to do. Observe, 
 the conviction of the remorseful soul is that 
 there should have been an entire change in 
 the conduct, with no change in the circumstances. 
 It blames itself for acting as it did, the cir- 
 cumstances remaining as they were; thus giv- 
 ing its own highest testimony to its own per- 
 fect freedom. 
 
 However wicked men may reason against 
 their own freedom and responsibility, one 
 pang of remorse within them gives the lie to 
 all their assumptions against it, dissipates all 
 their sophistries, and arraigns them at the bar 
 of their own consciences as being guilty and 
 deserving of punishment for acting just as they 
 
Liability to Rebellion Eternal. 61 
 
 did, and with no change of circumstances. And 
 this is freedom — freedom in choice, power of 
 contrary choice — freedom of will, absolute 
 and unqualified. 
 
 On the whole, therefore, no good reason for 
 sin can exist, for then it would not be sin, 
 and poor ones are worthless; and even the oc- 
 casion of sin, which has been stated as belong- 
 ing to free agency, is yet one that should ever 
 be kept in subordination to the higher law of 
 reason and conscience — that law which de- 
 mands that God be obeyed at any cost of sac- 
 rifice and self-denial. 
 
 It is objected: (2) That Adam in the gar- 
 den obeyed God for some considerable time 
 after his creation, and therefore could not have 
 had in him, at the outset, any such occasion 
 of sin as is now insisted on. 
 
 Answer : All the character Adam had earned 
 previous to his fall was earned only by obe- 
 dience to commands which crossed none of 
 his natural inclinations, and cost him no self- 
 denial — the law of marriage and the Sabbath, 
 and the command to dress and keep the gar- 
 
62 The Endless Future. 
 
 den. No commands had been imposed which 
 interfered at all with his pleasure — his incli- 
 nations; and the commendations so often 
 lavished upon him for his goodness, obedi- 
 ence and holiness, are groundless. It was a 
 goodness that cost nothing, and was worth as 
 little. 
 
 But to the point in question: How could 
 obedience in such circumstances prove that 
 he had no constitutional disinclination to sub- 
 mit to the proper and necessary restraints of 
 law and authority? The fact was that no 
 sooner was he crossed than he refused to obey. 
 No sooner did he find that the tree was "good 
 for food, and a tree to be desired to make 
 one wise," and thus had an inclination awak- 
 ened to partake of it, than his love of having 
 his own way overpowered all other considera- 
 tions, and in the face of commands and warn- 
 ings and threatenings, and reason and con- 
 science, broke out in open rebellion against 
 restraint; and that too in so insignificant a mat- 
 ter as the possession of a single tree, when al- 
 owed freely to partake of all the other trees 
 
Liability to Rebellion Eternal. 63 
 
 of the garden. Certainly his recorded expe- 
 rience, so far as it goes, proves only the truth 
 of our position — that the occasion of sin is 
 common to all moral beings. 
 
 It is objected: (3) That the unf alien an- 
 gels have not sinned; and how then can the 
 occasion of sin be common to all moral be- 
 ings? 
 
 Answer: This objection is usually rendered 
 especially serious from the assumption that 
 they were created at the same time with the 
 fallen angels, and that both existed together 
 for a time in holiness and happiness. But 
 this idea is purely Miltonian, and has no foun- 
 dation in the Scriptures. The fallen angel 
 only is mentioned in the beginning. More- 
 over the assumption that both were created 
 at the same time starts troublesome questions: 
 If a part sinned, why not all? if God could 
 keep a part from sinning, why not all ? And 
 there is no satisfactory answer. 
 
 When they were created, we know not. No 
 mention is made of them till the time of 
 Abraham. We may locate them, therefore, 
 
64 The Endless Future. 
 
 anywhere before that time where their position 
 will best harmonize with the general system. 
 In the absence of all opposing evidence, and 
 following the Biblical order, they are assumed 
 to be the third order of created intelligences. 
 Why have they not sinned like their prede- 
 cessors ? Perhaps, 
 
 1. The firmness of God in the punishment 
 of the sinning angels, making thus the high- 
 est possible appeal to fear, and operating most 
 powerfully to deter them from transgression, 
 may have had its influence. Also, 
 
 2. They have witnessed the mercy of God 
 in redemption. They have seen him stooping 
 in pity to the lost, and making thus the high- 
 est possible appeal to affection; and they can- 
 not contemplate it without being drawn to him 
 in wonder, admiration, and love. "Which 
 things the angels desire to look into." Also, 
 
 3. The Scriptures clearly indicate that the 
 angelic host have in it a personal interest. No- 
 tice the representation which John gives in 
 Revelation v. 12 of the song sung by the an- 
 gelic host, whose number was "ten thousand 
 
Liability to Rebellion Eternal. 65 
 
 times ten thousand and thousands of thou- 
 sands." It is not enough for them simply to 
 praise God as being their Creator, Preserver, 
 and Benefactor. It is not enough for them 
 to praise Jesus Christ as being the "bright- 
 ness of the Father's glory, and the express 
 image of his person." But for some reason 
 the kindling emotions of their souls find their 
 only appropriate expression in saying with a 
 loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that teas 
 slain." The Lamb slain — Christ dying — is with 
 them also, as with the "elders," the grand 
 theme of their rejoicing. And who shall say 
 that to this death of the Redeemer, and the 
 manifestation made by it of the mercy and love 
 of God, they may not be indebted, as one in- 
 fluence, for their preservation from sin? The 
 Scriptures certainly favor the supposition.* 
 
 *An extract from Conybeare and Howson on the Epistle 
 to the Colossians is significant in this direction: 
 
 " It is sufficient to observe that Saint Paul is still led to 
 set forth the true greatness of Christ in opposition to the 
 angelolatry of the Colossian heretics, intimating that, so 
 far from Christ's being one only of the angelic hierarchy, 
 the heavenly hosts themselves stood in need of his atonement." 
 5 
 
66 The Endless Future. 
 
 4. They are also deterred from sinning by 
 the punishment of the ungodly of this world. 
 The declaration in Revelation xiv. 10 is that 
 the sinners there spoken of should be "tor- 
 mented in the presence of the holy angels." 
 Why should they be compelled to witness so 
 dreadful a sight if it were not necessary ? Why 
 necessary but for its moral effect upon them ? 
 What moral effect can be imagined as neces- 
 sary but to keep them from apostasy? In 
 these circumstances, the fact that they have 
 not sinned is no proof of a want of inclination 
 to sin; while their entire history, and espe- 
 cially the fact that they are compelled to wit- 
 ness the torments of the wicked, greatly favors 
 the supposition of a strong inclination within 
 them to independence and self-will. 
 
 It is objected again: (4) That this position 
 assumes a similar element in the human nat- 
 ure of Christ. 
 
 Answer: The Scriptures themselves teach 
 this. Christ is declared to have been "made 
 in all things like as we are," and to have been 
 " tempted in all points like as we are." ( Heb. ii. 
 
Liability to Rebellion Eternal. 67 
 
 17; iv. 15.) Also it says he "pleased not him- 
 self" (Horn. xv. 3); consequently went against 
 his pleasure — his natural inclinations; conse- 
 quently denied himself, showing that he had 
 inclinations which needed to be denied, just as 
 we have. Had he "pleased himself," and fol- 
 lowed his inclinations, as we do, he would have 
 sinned; but he said rather, "Not my will, but 
 thine be done." By "will " is here meant wish, 
 or inclination; and his inclination he resisted. 
 And this inclination was precisely the same 
 inclination which leads us to sin, and would 
 have led him to sin had he not resisted it. At 
 this point, therefore, he was indeed tempted pre- 
 cisely as we are, and therefore had in him the 
 same inclination to resist the necessary re- 
 straints of law and government which we and 
 all other moral beings have. 
 
 It is objected again: (5) That as moral be- 
 ings are made " in God's image," the foregoing 
 position will necessitate self-denial on the part 
 of the Almighty. True; and obedience to the 
 great law of benevolence, to which he also is sub- 
 ject, does call for self-denial even on his part. 
 
68 The Endless Future. 
 
 "He doth not afflict willingly" says the 
 Scriptures (Lam. iii. 33) ; and therefore by just 
 so much as he does not must he repress the 
 immediate promptings of his pitiful nature; 
 and because the highest good demands it, de- 
 ny himself, and still continue the infliction. 
 
 Again: "Not willing that any should perish" 
 (2 Pet. iii. 9); and therefore by just so much 
 as he is not willing must he repress the strong 
 impulses of affection for the creature he has 
 made; and because the general good demands 
 the maintenance of his law and government 
 inviolate, must he still deny himself, and pun- 
 ish him as he deserves. 
 
 But far above and beyond these, the giv- 
 ing of his only Son for human salvation was 
 an act of infinite self-denial on the part of the 
 Almighty. 
 
 Thus, in the mutual relations of moral be- 
 ings, self-denial for the general good has be- 
 come the law of the universe. " If any man will 
 come after me, let him deny himself'' (Matt. xvi. 
 24), is undoubtedly not merely the law of this 
 world, but of all worlds. Even God does not 
 
Liability to Rebellion Eternal. 69 
 
 exempt himself from self-denial; and lie, there- 
 fore, who refuses to practice it, and so remain 
 true to God and duty, assails the universal 
 welfare, disobeys the Almighty, and deserves 
 the very uttermost of condemnation. 
 
 There is, therefore, no valid objection to the 
 position we are considering — that the occa- 
 sion of sin is common to the nature of all 
 moral beings who either have been or can be 
 created. 
 
 And so we reach the appalling conclusion 
 that the liability to rebellion is eternal; that 
 all through the coming ages there will be in 
 all moral beings — as they shall be successively 
 created for peopling the universe of worlds — 
 the same constitutional tendency to rebellion 
 which has already broken out in the sinning 
 angels and men. 
 
 Here, then, is an endless difficulty to be end- 
 lessly met and surmounted by the Almighty; 
 so that whatever influences are now necessary 
 to restrain it will be always necessary, and to 
 manage and control it be the endless work of 
 the endless ages. 
 
70 The Endless Future. 
 
 Chapter VI, 
 
 the liability to eebellion eteenal 
 (continued). 
 
 SELF-WILL dominates the moral nature of 
 men. 
 This inclination to independence and self- 
 will works in the moral nature with fearful en- 
 ergy. It not merely exists in it, but domi- 
 nates it, so that a free being will do and dare 
 any thing before he will give up his own will. 
 Illustrations of this are abundant. The rebel 
 angels dared the wrath of God rather than 
 give up their own will and way. Adam in the 
 garden did the same. We witness the same 
 thing now in the rebellion of the child against 
 parental authority. What terrible collision 
 often results! What determination! what des- 
 peration! — the struggle protracted for hours, 
 and sometimes for days, before the point of 
 yielding is reached. Also take the world over 
 
Liability to Rebellion Eternal. 71 
 
 — the last thing men will give up is their own 
 wills. Even persons of great constitutional 
 amiability not unfrequently find a terrible 
 struggle in submitting to God, while the mass 
 of men will not even attempt submission, and 
 dare the attitude of persistent and life-long 
 rebellion against the Almighty. And this at- 
 titude of hostility to God is not the result of 
 ignorance. The child of pious parents, edu- 
 cated to believe the Bible, and who has never 
 doubted for a moment the doctrine of the end- 
 less punishment of the wicked, will yet go on 
 in sin day after day for years, believing that 
 every moment he is daring the wrath of God, 
 and risking his eternal salvation. And yet he 
 will knowingly incur this infinite danger rather 
 than give up his own will and submit to God. 
 And so strong is this willful purpose of rebell- 
 ion, long persevered in, that the Bible likens 
 its surrender to matters of utter impossibility 
 — like the "Ethiopian changing his skin or the 
 leopard his spots." (Jer. xiii. 23.) And the 
 actual surrender of it, when finally reached 
 under the patient and persistent operations of 
 
72 The Endless Future. 
 
 the Divine Spirit, and the workings of God's 
 providence, is likened to the exertion of the 
 Almighty energy in the raising of Jesus Christ 
 from the dead. In Ephesians i. 19, 20, the 
 apostle calls it "the exceeding greatness of 
 his power toward us who believe, according to 
 the working of his mighty power, which he 
 wrought in Christ when he raised him from 
 the dead." 
 
 And now this same reluctance to submission 
 to the restraints of law and government will 
 appertain to all newly-created beings here- 
 after, and work in them with the same desper- 
 ate energy with which it has thus far worked 
 in the sinning angels and men; so that this 
 liability to rebellion is one of fearful import — 
 a fearful emergency in the unfoldings of the 
 future universe, and one that needs to be grap- 
 pled with with the very energies of Omnipo- 
 tence. 
 
Rebellion Must be Arrested. 73 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 REBELLION MUST BE ARRESTED. 
 
 REBELLION has already broken out in 
 the sinning angels and men, and there 
 is a manifest liability and danger that it will 
 break out hereafter and forever in other races 
 of the expanding universe. 
 
 Now, therefore, this tendency to insubordi- 
 nation must be met. It must be kept down 
 hereafter and forever in newly-created beings. 
 And it must be kept down at all hazards and 
 any and every conceivable sacrifice necessary. 
 No matter what the cost or sacrifice may be, 
 if it will but do this it is benevolent. Why ? 
 
 It has been already said that only as all wills 
 were submitted to the one controlling will of 
 the Almighty was there any security for the 
 welfare of the future universe. This is true, 
 but is at the same time a very faint and inad- 
 equate statement of the case. It is also true 
 
74 The Endless Future. 
 
 that without this the whole moral universe 
 would become an eternal desolation, because 
 anywhere and everywhere in society lawless- 
 ness is temporal perdition. We see this in an 
 ungoverned family, rendered wretched and mis- 
 erable merely from insubordination. In our 
 cities lawlessness is understood to be an un- 
 mitigated curse, transcending all other sources 
 of mischief and wretchedness. 
 
 Therefore it is that the leaders of a riot are 
 shot and bayoneted in the public streets with- 
 out mercy, and men feel that law and order are 
 cheaply purchased even at this highest possi- 
 ble sacrifice — human life. And it is only when 
 riot and lawlessness are quelled, and law and 
 order once more established, that good men 
 breathe freely and sleep quietly and feel se- 
 cure. So that on the whole the prevalence of 
 law and order, and the submission of men to 
 rightful authority, is felt to be the only safe- 
 guard of the public welfare, and lawlessness 
 and insubordination more to be dreaded than 
 all other evils and miseries combined. 
 
 Such is the way men feel and act when only 
 
Rebellion Must be Arrested, 75 
 
 the welfare of a city of a few thousands is con- 
 cerned. How ought God to feel when regard- 
 ing the welfare of an endless universe in pre- 
 cisely the same conditions? In this future 
 and endless universe, only let all moral beings 
 insist on having their own way, and refuse sub- 
 mission to God's government- — as they will all 
 be inclined to do — and be left unrestrained, 
 and they would desolate it forever. Such a 
 purpose of insubordination would run out into 
 collision, discord, and general anarchy, whose 
 results of mischief and misery would tran- 
 scend all possibility of expression. In such 
 circumstances the whole moral creation would 
 become just a universal hell. Instead of the 
 hell of the Bible — a single place of punish- 
 ment for incorrigible offenders — the universe 
 itself would be hell, in which lawlessness and 
 discord would run riot, and the consequent 
 suffering, agony, and torment become inde- 
 scribable, uncontrollable, and eternal. 
 
 This is why this inclination to lawlessness 
 must be kept down, no matter at what sacri- 
 fice, and why any thing that will accomplish 
 
76 The Endless Future. 
 
 this becomes the merest dictate of benevo- 
 lence. 
 
 Here comes in the vital question, Will any 
 thing do this? which leads to the considera- 
 tion of the following chapter, 
 
The Appeal to Fear. 77 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 THE APPEAL TO FEAR. 
 
 WILL rebellion break out hereafter 
 and forever? If not, why not? It 
 appears undeniably true that there will be a 
 tendency and temptation in all newly-created 
 minds forever to break away from the re- 
 straints of God's law and government. More- 
 over, two out of the three orders of beings thus 
 far created have in fact rejected his law and 
 trampled on his authority. What is to pre- 
 vent the future races of the universe from 
 daring the same experiment? 
 
 The two mightiest influences to prevent it, 
 possible or conceivable, are appeals to fear 
 and affection. The appeal to affection has been 
 made in the sufferings and death of Jesus 
 Christ for human salvation, the ultimate and 
 even main design of which is not found, it is 
 believed, in its relations to this world, but in 
 
78 The Endless Future. 
 
 the fact of its being God's infinite plan and 
 effort to bind the endless universe in obedience 
 to himself. When Christ had "offered one 
 sacrifice for sin," the apostle says, he "forever 
 sat down on the right-hand of God " (Heb. x. 
 12) — the first and final illustration to the uni- 
 verse of God's mercy to the sinful, and his 
 greatest, mightiest effort to bind that universe 
 in loving obedience to himself hereafter and 
 forever. Notice the expression: his mightiest 
 effort — an effort so great, a motive so power- 
 ful, as to be absolutely infinite; so that no ex- 
 ertion of the Almighty in the direction of 
 affection can possibly go beyond it. No more 
 costly sacrifice is possible; no more precious 
 offering, no greater evidence and exhibition of 
 affection, possible to be made. " By this one 
 offering he hath perfected forever them that 
 are sanctified" (Heb. x. 14), and by this one 
 offering he will draw all to himself who 
 ever will be drawn; so that if a man rejects 
 this, and refuses to be moved and affected by 
 it, there is no hope in his case, for the divine 
 resources in this direction are utterly ex- 
 
The Appeal to Fear. 79 
 
 hausted; and therefore it is written: "He that 
 believeth not the Son shall not see life, but 
 the wrath of God abideth on him." (John 
 iii. 36.) 
 
 Now we are to notice the fact that the mo- 
 tive oifear is also an indispensable element in 
 God's government of the universe, and that it 
 corresponds with the appeal to affection in be- 
 ing God's mightiest effort to deter from sin ; so 
 that nothing is left in this direction, and so 
 that if any moral being refuses to be influ- 
 enced by both, his case is utterly hopeless, and 
 his salvation impossible. 
 
 The point now to be especially noticed is 
 that although the appeal to fear may not cor- 
 respond with that of affection in comparative 
 strength, yet it is like it in being entirely in- 
 dispensable to the final result of obedience, and 
 also in traveling on hand in hand with it for 
 evermore. 
 
 In ascertaining to how great an extent God 
 will depend upon this motive of fear in the 
 management of the future universe, we must 
 look at his past, present, and future dealings 
 
80 The Endless Future. 
 
 with sin, so far as they have been revealed, 
 and draw our conclusions from this. Such a 
 method of procedure is reliable, for God does 
 not change. Neither is he governed by ca- 
 price in the management of his universe, but 
 acts ever upon settled, fundamental principles. 
 We have therefore only to ascertain what his 
 past and present plan is to know certainly what 
 it will be in the future. 
 
The Appeal to Fear. 81 
 
 Chapter IX, 
 
 THE APPEAL TO FEAR (CONTINUED). 
 
 GOD'S revealed dealings with sin past, pres- 
 ent, and future. 
 
 1. His past dealings with it. Yerily the rec- 
 ord is a fearful one. God has held up himself 
 to the gaze of the universe as a moral gov- 
 ernor who will not allow his authority to be 
 disregarded with impunity. 
 
 Notice his dealings with the rebel angels. 
 Says Jude 6: "The angels which kept not 
 their first estate, but left their own habitation 
 [alluding probably to some peculiarity of their 
 probation], he hath reserved in everlasting 
 chains under darkness unto the judgment of 
 the great day." 
 
 Says Peter (2 Pet. ii. 4) : " God spared not 
 
 the angels that sinned, but cast them down to 
 
 hell." Spared not — an expression designed 
 
 doubtless to meet those who would insist that 
 
 6 
 
82 The Endless Future. 
 
 God was too good to punish, and would spare 
 to inflict it. 
 
 Our Saviour declares in Matthew xxv. 41 
 that the everlasting fire was prepared origi- 
 nally "for the devil and his angels." No lack 
 of firmness and terribleness in dealing with 
 the first sinners. 
 
 How has he dealt with the sinners of this 
 world in times past? He drowned the old 
 world for its wickedness with the exception of 
 a single family — swept the whole of them to 
 destruction just because they were wicked. Is 
 not God to be feared? 
 
 He rained fire and brimstone upon Sodom 
 and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain for 
 their wickedness, and the Dead Sea to-day 
 rolls over them. What is the meaning of it? 
 
 He destroyed seven nations in the land of 
 Canaan for the same reason. In one slaughter 
 of them he "cast down upon them great stones 
 from heaven even unto Azekah," so that more 
 perished by the hail-stones than the sword; 
 and the sun stood still in mid-heaven a whole 
 day that the slaughter might be complete. 
 
The Appeal to Fear. 83 
 
 And it was all for their wickedness; for the 
 record, in Deuteronomy ix. 5, is: "For the 
 wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God 
 doth drive them out from before thee." Still 
 stronger is the statement in Leviticus xviii. 25 : 
 " The land is denied; therefore I do visit the in- 
 iquity thereof upon it." I do it. It was not 
 merely one nation dispossessing another, but 
 God coming down upon them in righteous in- 
 dignation for their wickedness. No lack of 
 fearfulness in dealing with those nations for 
 their sin. 
 
 Then, too, he visited the wicked Israelites 
 in the wilderness with pestilence and earth- 
 quakes, and fire and fiery serpents, until only 
 two out of the whole nation, over twenty years 
 old when they left Egypt, remained alive. 
 And this wholesale destruction all came upon 
 them for their wickedness, and was God's di- 
 rect and personal visitation. He has there- 
 fore shown himself a fearful being whenever 
 he has taken sin in hand in the past ages of 
 the world and the universe. 
 
 2. How is he dealing with it now ? What 
 
84 The Endless Future. 
 
 appeal to fear does he now make in his treat- 
 ment of it? The death that we all fear, and 
 that shall erelong overtake us all, comes upon 
 men for their sin, and is the animadversion of 
 a righteous God upon the wickedness of the 
 world. " Death passed upon all men, for that 
 all have sinned." And "the sting of death is 
 sin;" and all men, sooner or later, find it so. 
 
 Furthermore, the appeal to fear is ringing 
 in human ears in all the woes and miseries 
 which God still makes to come on men for 
 their wickedness. Take a few specimen quo- 
 tations. Says Paul, in Romans i. 18: "The 
 wrath of God is revealed from heaven against 
 all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." 
 Says the prophet Ezra (viii. 22): "His power 
 and his wrath is against all them that for- 
 sake him." In accordance with this he has 
 made this wicked world a slaughter-pen and 
 a charnel-house — a world of tears and groans, 
 and sufferings and death. He "visits the 
 iniquity of the fathers upon the children." 
 He makes "the way of transgressors hard;" 
 and " the wages of sin is death " by his con- 
 
The Appeal to Fear. 85 
 
 stant arrangement. " The face of the Lord is 
 against them that do evil." "The way of the 
 ungodly shall perish." "The curse of the 
 Lord is in the house of the wicked." " Behold, 
 the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth; 
 much more the wicked and the sinner." 
 
 Notice, also, the pains which God takes to 
 portray himself personally before men in a 
 fearful aspect. In Isaiah xxvi. 21: "Behold, 
 the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the 
 inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity." 
 Also Deuteronomy xxxii. 35, 41: "To me be- 
 longeth vengeance and recompense; their foot 
 shall slide in due time, for the day of their ca- 
 lamity is at hand, and the things that shall come 
 upon them make haste. ... If I whet my 
 glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on 
 judgment, I will render vengeance to mine en- 
 emies, and will reward them that hate me." 
 
 And all the evils and sufferings of the world 
 are his own personal visitation. " Shall there 
 be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done 
 it?" (Amos iii. 6.) And thus God is warning 
 men in trumpet tones to beware of sin be- 
 
86 The Endless Future. 
 
 cause of the judgments that he makes to fol- 
 low it. 
 
 But the most distinct and energetic appeal to 
 fear is made by our Saviour himself, in Luke 
 xii. 4, 5 : " Be not afraid of them that kill the 
 body, and after that have no more that they 
 can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye 
 shall fear: Fear him which, after he hath 
 killed, hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say 
 unto you, Fear him." 
 
 Also this expression, the wrath of God, as di- 
 rected against sin, is used in the Bible no less 
 than one hundred and twenty-six times, as any 
 one may readily see by consulting a concord- 
 ance. In fact, the pages of inspiration fairly 
 blaze with the wrath of God against sin. And 
 so with this appeal to fear God has been plying 
 this world thus far with the very energies of 
 omnipotence, and is pressing men with it now. 
 
 3. We notice the appeal to fear in his treat- 
 ment of sinners hereafter — not forever; we 
 have not yet reached that. We only note the 
 fact now that the finger of inspiration, pointing 
 i little waif into the future, discloses still the 
 
The Appeal to Fear. 87 
 
 Almighty dealing with the wicked in a fearful 
 and terrible manner. John the Baptist came 
 preaching in the wilderness of Judea, "Flee 
 from the wrath to come.'''' And Paul, in 1 
 Thessalonians i. 10, speaks of "Jesus, which 
 delivered us from the wrath to come.'" That is a 
 terrific expression, and it must refer to some- 
 thing iu the future that is exceedingly dread- 
 ful. We find also in Matthew xxv. 41, after 
 the winding up of this world's history, and 
 amid the revelations of the final judgment- 
 day, that the Judge will say to those on the 
 left-hand, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into 
 everlasting fire." 
 
 Also in Revelation xxi. 8 the declaration 
 is: "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the 
 abominable, and murderers, and whoremon- 
 gers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, 
 shall have their part in the lake which burn- 
 etii with fire and brimstone; which is the sec- 
 ond death." 
 
 And so, as Revelation gives us this last 
 glimpse of the wicked as we peer a little tray 
 into the future to ascertain their condition, we 
 
88 The Endless Future. 
 
 see them only sinking in torment, and quail- 
 ing beneath the heavy thunderbolts of God's 
 wrath. Notice, it is the last glimpse, with 
 nothing to relieve it — not a word intimating 
 any change afterward ; not a syllable from 
 Genesis to Revelation telling of any different 
 experience in the future; not a ray of light in- 
 deed from any source to relieve the dreadful 
 darkness; and, to all appearance, a night of 
 desolation, with no morn beyond it, is closing 
 about them. What do we learn from this? 
 Plainly this: that God will continue to deal 
 with sinners in the future world, even as he 
 has here, only with far greater severity; that 
 he will array himself against them there with 
 no less terrible energy than here; and even 
 make a more clear, decided, and energetic ap- 
 peal to fear by their punishment in the fut- 
 ure world than he has made thus far in this. 
 What depth and dreadfulness of meaning, 
 therefore, to the infinite mind must there be 
 in that compassionate appeal of God to sinful 
 men: "O that they were wise, that they would 
 consider their latter end ! " (Deut. xxxii. 29.) 
 
The Appeal to Fear. 89 
 
 Chapter X, 
 
 THE APPEAL TO FEAE (CONTINUED). 
 
 ^"^HE object of God in his fearful dealings 
 - with the wicked. 
 
 There is a reason for it. There is some good 
 reason for his past, present, and future deal- 
 ings with sinners in the way of judgment. 
 God does not take this course with them with- 
 out a serious and earnest purpose, as well as a 
 distinct object in view. Notice again, in brief 
 review, the terrible energy and persistency with 
 which he has followed up this line of conduct. 
 He drowned the old world; he destroyed Sod- 
 om; he exterminated the Caananites; he slew 
 the Israelites in the wilderness; his wrath is 
 revealed from heaven now against all ungodli- 
 ness and unrighteousness of men, and he will 
 say to the wicked at the final judgment, " De- 
 part, ye cursed." Now again, ivliy? Is it to 
 gratify personal anger, personal revenge, per- 
 
90 The Endless Future. 
 
 sonal spite ? Is it to make a vain exhibition 
 of his power? If not, what? Why these 
 fearful dealings? Is it a remedial agency — an 
 effort to reform these wicked ones? The phy- 
 sician's way to cure a man is not to kill him; 
 that is not a remedial way of working. Then 
 what is the object? Let the Bible answer, as 
 it does in 2 Peter ii. 6: To make them "an 
 example unto those that after should live un- 
 godly." 
 
 The record of Sodom and Gomorrah in Jude 
 7 is that they " are set forth for an example" 
 Also the record of the sinning Israelites in 
 the wilderness in 1 Corinthians x. 6-11 is that 
 all the calamities that came on them for their 
 sinful conduct were to make them an example to 
 as, teaching us that we should not " lust after 
 evil things" as they did, nor be "idolaters" 
 as they were, nor " commit fornication," nor 
 " tempt Christ," nor " murmur,'' as they did; and 
 " all these things " it says " happened unto them 
 for examples, and are written for our admonition" 
 
 Here notice that this punishment was in- 
 flicted upon the sinners mentioned for the sake 
 
The Appeal to Fear. 91 
 
 of those who should come after them. It was 
 to prevent sin afterward, in future nations and 
 races of the world, that the punishment was 
 inflicted. Why, then, may not the punishment 
 of the wicked in the next world be for the 
 future races of the universe, and to keep them 
 from apostasy? 
 
 We find indeed that this is the exact use 
 God will make of those judgments in the com- 
 ing ages. Even the angels in heaven, we find, 
 need the appeal to fear as well as affection. It 
 is not enough that they gaze with wonder upon 
 the glory and grandeur of redemption, and 
 "desire to look into it." It is not enough for 
 them to sing with the elders, "Worthy is the 
 Lamb." It is not enough for them to be 
 "ministering spirits sent forth to minister for 
 them who shall be heirs of salvation." The 
 record also is in Revelation xiv. 10 that the 
 wicked should "be tormented in the presence 
 of the holy angels, and in the presence of the 
 Lamb." And here we repeat the question, 
 Why in the presence of the angels, if this dread- 
 ful sight is not necessary? Why necessary, 
 
92 The Endless Future. 
 
 but for its moral effect upon them? What 
 moral effect can be conceived but to keep them 
 from apostasy? Why in the presence of the 
 Lamb, but to indicate that judgment and mer- 
 cy go hand in hand, and that with all his infi- 
 nite affection he yet approves of this righteous 
 judgment upon the wicked. For, although 
 Christ will sit upon the throne of the universe 
 as the great Redeemer, and the illustration to 
 the universe forever of God's mercy to the 
 sinful, yet the record in Revelation vi. 15, 16 is 
 also this: "And the kings of the earth, and the 
 great men, and the rich men, and the chief 
 captains, and the mighty men, and every bond- 
 man, and every free man, hid themselves in 
 the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; 
 and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on 
 us, and hide us from the face of him that sit- 
 teth on the throne, and from the wrath of the 
 Lamb.'" 
 
 And the prophecy of Isaiah closes with this: 
 That in the coming ages, when the new heav- 
 ens and the new earth shall have been inaugu- 
 rated, "the hand of the Lord shall be known 
 
The Appeal to Fear. 93 
 
 toward his servants, and his indignation toward 
 his enemies. And they shall go forth and look 
 upon the carcasses of the men that have trans- 
 gressed against me; for their worm shall not 
 die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and 
 they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." In 
 this last expression we see the reason given 
 for these fearful dealings of God with sinful 
 men. It is to make wickedness abhorrent. It 
 is to so hold it up to the gaze of the universe 
 that all moral beings shall fear it — fear its con- 
 sequences, and fear to commit it. And for 
 this it is that in his past, present, and future 
 dealings with sinners he is seen to be persist- 
 ently executing upon them the fierceness of 
 his anger. 
 
94 The Endless Future. 
 
 Chapter XL 
 
 THE APPEAL TO FEAR ETEENAL. 
 
 HOW long will the appeal to fear con- 
 tinue? The only possible answer is, 
 Forever. For, 
 
 1. What God has done and is doing he will 
 always do in the administration of his moral 
 government, for he changes not. If he has 
 thus far governed by fear, then it is because 
 this motive of fear is indispensable in moral 
 government; and he can no more change his 
 method of using it than he can change the 
 moral nature of the being " made in his own 
 image " and still keep him a moral being. And 
 as the government he wields over him is just 
 adapted to his nature, then if the nature is 
 unchangeable in its elements, so must the gov- 
 ernment be in the principles of its administra- 
 tion. If, therefore, he has always governed 
 by fear thus far, then he always must and will. 
 
The Appeal to Fear Eternal. 95 
 
 Fear is an indispensable motive in the manage- 
 ment of his universe. 
 
 2. The appeal to fear will be needed forever. 
 The moral universe will need it; every newly- 
 created being will need it; for he wants to 
 have his own way; and if he is not in some 
 way deterred from choosing it, he will choose 
 it. He is inclined to rebellion; and if he has 
 no reason to fear rebellion, he will rebel. He 
 is inclined to disobey God; and if he is not 
 made to fear disobedience, and to fear him, 
 he will disobey. He must in some way be 
 made to understand the nature of sin, and 
 the danger of committing it, or he will com- 
 mit it. 
 
 It is said here that the appeal to affection, 
 made upon the mind of a newly-created be- 
 ing, will be sufficient to prevent his sinning; 
 that the exhibition of the love of God in Jesus 
 Christ as a Saviour will draw him to obedi- 
 ence, and so the motive of fear can be dis- 
 pensed with. But the Saviour is a Saviour 
 from sin and its consequences; and if he knows 
 nothing of these, the word Saviour can have 
 
96 The Endless Future. 
 
 no meaning for him; and so the appeal to this 
 mightiest of motives be impossible. 
 
 Now, how he can be best brought to the 
 knowledge of what sin is, both in its nature 
 and its consequences — what the details of that 
 process of education and illustration need to 
 be to make this revelation to him so that he 
 will understand it, and feel it, and be moved 
 by it, we know not. We only know that he 
 must in some way be made to fear sin and its 
 consequences; and that in order to create this 
 fear in the universe God has dealt with sin- 
 ners in righteous judgment, and then made 
 them an example to those who should come 
 after them ; and we see also that such an ap- 
 peal will be always needed, even as the tend- 
 ency to rebellion will be eternal. 
 
 3. Those who have broken away from God 
 in these incipient stages of the moral universe 
 have set the example of rebellion before an 
 endless universe; and that example will cer- 
 tainly be followed unless the transgressors be 
 so dealt with as to prevent it. The influence 
 of that example will be felt forever unless 
 
The Appeal to Fear Eternal. 97 
 
 thoroughly and completely counteracted. How 
 it can thus be counteracted by any punishment 
 less than unlimited, it is impossible to see; 
 for if punishment be limited, then the time 
 will come when there will be no punishment, 
 and then the next race of beings created will 
 not only have no present and tangible evidence 
 of the evil consequences of transgression, but 
 the sole record of the past will be that those 
 who dared rebellion were only temporarily 
 punished, and that the infliction is passed, an<£ 
 is all over with, and that, with the exception 
 of this comparatively brief endurance of suf- 
 fering, they are as well off now as if they had 
 never sinned. It is very easy to see that 
 such dealings with the sinful would have very 
 little influence in the way of motive to coun- 
 teract their evil example, and very little tend- 
 ency to deter others from a similar rebell- 
 ion; which leads to another point somewhat 
 similar. 
 
 4. That as an appeal to fear no threatening 
 of punishment less than endless would have 
 any influence to prevent sin; for the universe 
 
98 The Endless Future. 
 
 of moral beings would reason hereafter just 
 as wicked men do in this world who assume 
 limited penalty, and therefore make no effort 
 to stop sinning. They reason in this way: If 
 penalty be limited, then it will end some time, 
 and there will be an eternity of happiness be- 
 yond it, in comparison with which all limited 
 punishment will become at length an infini- 
 tesimal — absolutely nothing; and therefore the 
 threatening of such punishment as a motive to 
 deter from sin will be worthless. 
 
 We may be sure, therefore, that such pun- 
 ishment God does not threaten; for he means 
 to make men truly fear sin and fear him. And 
 so when the Saviour says, " Fear him who is 
 able to destroy both soul and body in hell; 
 yea, I say unto you, Fear him," we may be 
 sure he meant to threaten something that is 
 truly fearful and dreadful, and therefore some- 
 thing more than mere limited penalty, which 
 would have almost no effect to deter from sin, 
 and be of no value any way. 
 
 5. Penalty must be limited or unlimited. 
 Assume limited penalty, and then to the Infi- 
 
The Appeal to Fear Eternal. 99 
 
 nite Mind there would, in all probability, re- 
 sult two things: 
 
 First. That, as it must end some time, the 
 next race of beings created after that would 
 certainly rebel. Then they must be punished; 
 and when their punishment was ended the next 
 race after them would rebel, and then the next 
 and the next; and so sin and punishment be 
 the law of the universe forever, and not a sin- 
 gle moral being be established in eternal obedi- 
 ence to God — sin always entering and defiling 
 the universe of God forever. 
 
 Secondly. It may also be certain to the Infi- 
 nite Mind that these same ones who had sinned 
 and been punished, and who had reached the 
 end of their punishment, would, upon some 
 other demand of his that crossed their natural 
 inclinations, rebel again — their second rebellion 
 to be followed again by limited punishment; 
 and so the process of sinning and being pun- 
 ished keep on thus through all the ages, and 
 the result after all be the same dreadful fact 
 which encumbers the orthodox system— end- 
 less suffering — the universe revolving in an 
 
100 The Endless Future. 
 
 endless cycle of sin and punishment, suffering 
 and confusion, and, unlike the evangelical sys- 
 tem, securing no substantial results of holiness 
 and happiness, or the final and certain salva- 
 tion of a single individual. 
 
 Such, on the ground of mere reason, would 
 be the possible — and even probable — effect of 
 limited punishment ; and nothing result from it, 
 to the universe of God, but endless and hope- 
 less disaster, and God's government over it 
 deserve, for its incompetency and inefficiency, 
 infinite contempt. 
 
 We see, therefore, how unlimited or endless 
 punishment, dreadful as it is, may yet be in- 
 evitable, and merciful even, on the ground of 
 human reason. But, 
 
 6. The Bible settles the matter in the most 
 clear and unequivocal language. It says ex- 
 pressly (Jude 6) that the rebel angels are 
 kept in "everlasting" chains — living witnesses 
 to the universe forever of the danger of diso- 
 beying God. 
 
 And the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomor- 
 rah were not merely overwhelmed by the fiery 
 
 y 
 
The Appeal to Fear Eternal. 101 
 
 storm, but, as Jude says, " are set forth for an 
 example, suffering the vengeance of eternal 
 fire" — an endless exhibition of the wrath of 
 God against sin, making them, as Peter says 
 (2 Pet. ii. 6), "an example unto those that after 
 should live ungodly," a convincing proof for- 
 ever that all who "live ungodly" shall meet 
 with a similar retribution. 
 
 And of all the finally impenitent the record 
 in Matthew xxv. 46 is: "These shall go away 
 into everlasting punishment; but the righteous 
 into everlasting life." Here notice this verse 
 in particular. If the "life" of the righteous 
 be endless, and the "punishment" of the wick- 
 ed be not endless, then, in this verse, the same 
 word, and in the same connection, is applied 
 to things between which there is an infinite 
 difference — an absurdity and inconsistency in 
 the use of language which has no parallel in 
 the weakest of mere human productions. 
 
 Now, is it conceivable that the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, speaking to men on the stupendous 
 themes of judgment and eternity, could have 
 been so inconsiderate, and even careless, in the 
 
102 The Endless Future. 
 
 use of language? It seems inconsistent and 
 impossible. And if it be so, then the only- 
 possible conclusion is that the life of the right- 
 eous and the punishment of the wicked must 
 both be endless. 
 
 Also, if there be no such thing as endless 
 punishment, and the idea is a mere figment of 
 the human brain, with no foundation in real- 
 ity, then the honesty and fairness of the Sav- 
 iour in the use of such language cannot be 
 defended; for if the doctrine of endless pun- 
 ishment be not taught in these and similar ex- 
 pressions used by him, then the idea cannot be 
 conveyed in the language in which the New 
 Testament was written. Even more than this: 
 He professed to be revealing things beyond 
 human knowledge, and knew that his word 
 would be authority upon the realities of the 
 coming future; and to seek thus to frighten 
 men by such representations of hell and pun- 
 ishment, when they have no foundation in fact, 
 is dreadful and inexcusable trifling. And the 
 Son of God did not trifle. 
 
 No other conclusion, therefore, is possible, 
 
The Appeal to Fear Eternal. 103 
 
 on the ground of both reason and revelation, 
 than that the doom of the finally impenitent is 
 endless perdition. 
 
 We reach this conclusion only because com- 
 pelled to by the argument, because all the evi- 
 dence in the case points in this one direction 
 
 — THE FINAL AND ETEENAL PERDITION OF UN- 
 GODLY MEN. 
 
PART SECOND 
 
Chapter I, 
 
 FOUR DISTINCT LINES OF ARGUMENT. 
 
 THE two fundamental principles in the 
 foregoing view differing from theological 
 teaching generally are: The infancy of the 
 moral system, and the position that the oc- 
 casion of sin lies ever in the nature of free- 
 agency under the necessary restraint of law, 
 and belongs to all moral beings who either 
 have been or can be created. 
 
 These principles are far-reaching in their 
 application, and modify essentially some prom- 
 inent doctrines of dogmatic theology as ordi- 
 narily taught, and especially clear away diffi- 
 culties and objections belonging to the ortho- 
 dox scheme. It is not proposed, however, in 
 this connection to apply these principles be- 
 yond the particular subject of discussion. 
 
 I. Endless suffering not unreasonable. 
 
 We take a lower position first, thus : The ex- 
 
 (107) 
 
108 The Endless Future. 
 
 igencies of the moral system demand the pres- 
 ent infliction of suffering; and suffering, too, 
 inflicted and endured to a very great extent 
 for the good of others; and no one is compe- 
 tent to say how long these exigencies may con- 
 tinue. For aught any one can say to the con- 
 trary, they may continue always; and there- 
 fore the unreasonableness of endless suffering 
 cannot be demonstrated. 
 
 II. No punishment less than endless would cor- 
 respond icith the magnitude and enormity of sin. 
 
 One reason why men have such low and in- 
 adequate views of the future punishment of 
 sin is their erroneous and superficial ideas of 
 sin itself. They estimate it in the light of 
 their own partial and prejudiced conceptions 
 of it, instead of by its real enormity and ill- 
 desert. How ought sin to be estimated? An- 
 swer: By the being sinned against, the law 
 broken, and the universe assailed by it. 
 
 1. The being sinned against. Sin is com- 
 mitted against the Infinite God — a God of in- 
 finite greatness aud holiness and worth; and 
 in this view its magnitude and heinousness 
 
Four Distinct Lines of Argument. 109 
 
 cannot be measured, and the punishment of it 
 should correspond. 
 
 2. The law broken. It is contempt for that 
 law which is the transcript of the Infinite 
 Jehovah, and on whose inviolability and sa- 
 credness the welfare of the whole moral uni- 
 verse forever is depending; and therefore its 
 ill-desert is beyond measure, and the penalty 
 should correspond. 
 
 3. The universe it assails. It assails the 
 happiness of a universe endless in duration, 
 boundless in extent, and limitless in value; 
 and in this view, its enormity and ill-desert 
 cannot be measured; and therefore also the 
 punishment that adequately measures it must 
 be itself limitless. 
 
 No punishment, therefore, less than endless 
 would correspond with the magnitude, hei- 
 nousness, and ill-desert of sin. 
 
 III. The proper education of the moral universe 
 demands endless penalty for sin. 
 
 God's dealings with sin must determine the 
 views of his moral universe respecting it. 
 
 1. Suppose him to threaten no penalty at all 
 
110 The Endless Future. 
 
 for sin. Then he would, in effect, say to all 
 moral beings that sin is in his estimation an 
 insignificant matter, not worth noticing; that 
 his own honor and glory, which it despises and 
 tramples on, are of no consequence; and that 
 the welfare and happiness of the endless uni- 
 verse of being which it assails are of no con- 
 cern with him. In short, that he had no 
 preference for holiness over sin, inasmuch as 
 in that case he would treat them both alike; 
 and this would be a stupendous falsehood. 
 
 2. Suppose him to threaten limited penalty 
 for sin. Then he would say in effect to his 
 moral creation that sin is in his estimation a 
 matter of limited and inferior magnitude and 
 heinousness, when, as we have seen, it is not 
 and cannot be. 
 
 Also, that he had only a limited and tempo- 
 rary regard for his own character and position 
 in the estimation of his subjects, or for the 
 welfare of the endless universe of being of 
 which he is the responsible guardian. And 
 thus he would educate his whole moral crea- 
 tion to low and inadequate conceptions both of 
 
Four Distinct Lines of Argument. Ill 
 
 himself and his government. It would, in 
 short, be a proclamation to the universe for- 
 ever that the great God of heaven had only a 
 limited amount of self-respect, and entertained 
 but a limited apprehension of the value of 
 eternal interests, and which manifestly de- 
 mand unlimited consideration. 
 
 Also, the value of obedience in the endless 
 universe would become in their estimation 
 limited and inferior, when it is not and cannot 
 be, and when its value, as we have seen, tran- 
 scends all finite expression; and sin would be- 
 come in their apprehension a mere limited 
 and temporary mischief, when, in" such a uni- 
 verse, it is not and cannot be. And thus all 
 their fundamental conceptions of God and his 
 government and his universe, of holiness and 
 sin — the blessedness of one and the mischief 
 of the other — would become erroneous and 
 untruthful. In this view, therefore, limited 
 penalty is an impossibility, and limitless or 
 endless penalty, as the proper and neces- 
 sary threatening against sin, becomes inevita- 
 ble. 
 
112 The Endless Future. 
 
 IY. The harmony of the divine administration 
 necessitates endless penalty. 
 
 God is building a vast moral edifice, and, 
 as a wise master-builder, will certainly so con- 
 struct it as that it shall be perfectly harmonious 
 in all its parts and proportions. For example, 
 the reward promised to obedience must corre- 
 spond perfectly with the mighty meaning and 
 import of obedience to the commands of the In- 
 finite Jehovah. It must correspond, too, with 
 the value of obedience in an endless universe 
 — a universe stretching through endless ages, 
 and doubtless eternally expanding. It must do 
 this. The government would fail to be a per- 
 fect one if it did not. And no limited reward 
 could adequately express the obligation of 
 obedience to such a being, or the value of obe- 
 dience in such a universe. 
 
 But this reasoning applies with equal close- 
 ness to the opposite sanction of penalty. 
 This, too, must have its exact correspondence 
 with all the conditions of a perfect govern- 
 ment, an endless universe, and an Infinite God. 
 If obedience be a measureless good, so is dis- 
 
Four Distinct Lines of Argument. 113 
 
 obedience a measureless mischief ; and as 
 nothing but eternal reward will correspond 
 with the value of the one, so nothing but end- 
 less penalty will correspond with the evil of 
 the other; and as sure, therefore, as God must 
 promise the one, he must also threaten, and if 
 necessary execute, the other. 
 
 Furthermore, every thing appertaining to this 
 moral edifice is limitless and endless. The 
 God that builds it is endless. The system it- 
 self is endless. The law that protects it is 
 endless. The reward of obedience is endless. 
 The great atonement by Jesus Christ is un- 
 limited both in its nature and relations. And 
 how, then, can the penalty for sin be limited 
 and finite, without becoming at once inharmo- 
 nious and inconsistent? The fact is, the four 
 great pillars upon which the divine adminis- 
 tration rests — law, reward, penalty, and the 
 atonement — each and all of them, stretch away 
 at every point into the infinite, all towering 
 harmoniously together in their infinite and 
 majestic proportions ; and if you shrink any 
 one of them to the dimensions of the finite, 
 
114 The Endless Future. 
 
 you make it at once inharmonious, inconsist- 
 ent, and impossible. 
 
 The harmony, therefore, of the vast moral 
 edifice which Gfod is building demands end- 
 less penalty as the only proper sanction of the 
 divine law, and the execution of it at last upon 
 all the finally impenitent absolutely essential 
 to its perfection. 
 
Argument With the Restorationists. 115 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 AEGUMENT WITH THE KESTOKATIONISTS. 
 
 AS a matter of fact, sin has invaded the 
 universe of God. Therefore, it becomes 
 a serious and practical question: What shall 
 be done with the sinner? Evidently something 
 must be done with him. He is a factor in the 
 universe which cannot be ignored, or even neg- 
 lected.* 
 
 The fallen angels have rebelled against God, 
 and are doing their utmost to oppose him and 
 his government. The mass of sinners in this 
 world are desperate in their wickedness. They 
 hate the restraints of his law and government, 
 and will not submit to them. They reject the 
 dictates of reason and conscience, and will not 
 be guided by them. Even in this Christian 
 land "they have no fear of God before their 
 eyes." They neglect his Bible, misspend his 
 Sabbaths, and trample on all gospel privileges. 
 
116 The Endless Future. 
 
 Multitudes riot in intemperance ard sensual- 
 ity. As the apostle expresses it, " They walk 
 after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness." (2 
 Pet. ii. 10.) In our cities, especially, they can 
 be heard on every street-corner blaspheming 
 the name of God and of his Son Jesus Christ. 
 A man has been known to curse the Almighty 
 to his face as a tyrant, and call upon the 
 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each by name, 
 in language of blasphemous execration. 
 
 On the other hand, Col. IngersolL treats sin 
 and holiness and retribution with levity, and 
 finds his pastime in exciting the merriment of 
 a popular audience over the tremendous real- 
 ities of death, judgment, and eternity. These 
 are mentioned as illustrations of the deepest 
 desperation in wickedness. 
 
 Now, what shall be done with such hereafter ? 
 Answer: One of four tilings — they must either 
 be changed in character, as the Restoration- 
 ists hold, or be annihilated, or be left unre- 
 strained in their wickedness forever, or be 
 confined forever. We notice them in their 
 order. 
 
Argument With the Restorationists. 117 
 
 The bestobation of the wicked in a fut- 
 ube state is impossible. 
 
 The Restorationists assume that sinful char- 
 acter will be changed in the future world. How 
 shall it be done? If done at all, it would seem 
 that it must be by some one o£ the following 
 instrumentalities : either by the mere event of 
 death; or through the influence of suffering; 
 or by the immediate exertion of divine power; 
 or by some new application of the atonement; 
 or by a more favorable probation; or by the 
 use of stronger motives to right action. 
 
 1. Sinful character not changed by the event of 
 death. 
 
 Those who assume that it will be, assume 
 the occasion of sin to be in the body; so that 
 in parting with the body the man parts with 
 the occasion of sinning. But suppose the oc- 
 casion of sin not to be a physical one at all, and 
 to have no dependence upon the body, and to 
 originate solely in the nature of the mind it- 
 self — in its love of conscious freedom, as has been 
 already shown. The desire to have my own 
 way without restraint is manifestly not in the 
 
118 The Endless Future. 
 
 body. The body is merely the instrument 
 through which the inclination of the soul to 
 have its own way is gratified — through which 
 it acts out itself. And this union of the soul 
 with the body is apparently only designed to 
 subject the soul to restraints and crosses, to 
 curb its imperiousness through limitation and 
 confinement, and so to hinder its outworkings ; 
 and is designed only to work against sin. 
 
 Undoubtedly without a body the inclination 
 to independence and willful indulgence would 
 be the same as now, and work out itself ener- 
 getically and disastrously in some form, even 
 as it is now working itself out in the devil and 
 his angels. Indeed, some of the vilest of hu- 
 man passions — like pride, selfishness, avarice, 
 ambition, envy, hatred, covetousness, and re- 
 venge — seem to be not at all dependent on the 
 body, and even to have no connection with it, 
 except, in some instances, to work themselves 
 oat through the body. 
 
 Also, what has the body to do with the sin 
 of forgetting God, or of rebellion against his 
 government, or the rejection of the Saviour? 
 
Argument With the Restorationists. 119 
 
 To all appearance, nothing. The event of 
 death, therefore, will only apparently aggra- 
 vate sin. It will sunder the bonds which have 
 partially restrained it, and deliver it from the 
 hinderances and obstructions of the mortal 
 state, and in this way intensify the love of in- 
 dependent action, by giving to the soul a freer 
 scope and a wider range and a more unre- 
 stricted exercise of all sinful tendencies, and 
 will only aggravate instead of reforming the 
 sinful character. 
 
 2. Sinful character not changed by suffering. 
 
 Suffering alone has no power to reform char- 
 acter, and at best only leads the sinner to give 
 up the external act of sin which causes the 
 suffering, the character at the bottom remain- 
 ing essentially unchanged. In the case of the 
 few who become Christians, suffering appears 
 first to arrest the man in his career of thought- 
 lessness and compel reflection; and then the 
 Divine Spirit of God, gently knocking at the 
 door of the heart, in a few instances obtains 
 admittance. The man yields to the Spirit's 
 influence, and submits to God, and is said to 
 
120 The Endless Future. 
 
 be "born of the Spirit." But in the vast ma- 
 jority of cases the door is kept persistently 
 closed against his gentle knockings. The suf- 
 fering is endured without submission. The 
 man resists the Spirit, and refuses to yield; 
 and the result is only increased hardness and 
 impenitence. Suffering brought Pharaoh to 
 temporary submission and external obedience, 
 but it effected no true reformation of character, 
 and prod uced no love to God. The best that suf- 
 fering ever does of itself is to sometimes induce 
 a man to abandon his vicious practices. But, 
 
 Secondly, in the vast majority of cases it 
 does not even do that. And even in those 
 cases, where the suffering is seen to come di- 
 rectly from the sinful indulgence it does not 
 at all lead the sufferer to give up the sin. 
 
 For example: Take those forms of sinful 
 indulgence which are followed by the most 
 dreadful sufferings sin ever inflicts on men — 
 intemperance and licentiousness. The drunk- 
 ard's life is often one of almost incessant tor- 
 ment — torment of body and torment of mind 
 — and yet he clings to the sinful habit with 
 
Argument With the Restorationists. 121 
 
 the very strength of desperation. The record 
 of licentiousness is no less appalling. Backs 
 and dungeons and flames are not more terrible 
 than the sufferings which irregular passion 
 often inflicts; and yet, in spite of all, the 
 wretched victims hug their habits of beastly 
 impurity with steadily increasing frenzy. So 
 the gambler and the miser become so infatu- 
 ated in their wickedness as to be utterly reck- 
 less of consequences; and no amount of suf- 
 fering and privation has the least influence to 
 wean them from their vice. But, 
 
 Thirdly, suffering does not even have a tend- 
 ency to change character. Indeed, it far of tener 
 hardens than softens, and even always hardens, 
 except in the case of the few who become true 
 Christians. Neither bodily anguish, nor the 
 pangs of bereavement, nor the emptiness of dis- 
 appointment, nor the torments of remorse, nor 
 all combined, lead men to give up their world- 
 liness, and to love and serve God; and in the 
 vast majority of cases only embitter them 
 more and more against God, and incite to ad- 
 ditional complaint and rebellion. 
 
122 The Endless Future. 
 
 And this accords with the Bible. Revela- 
 tion ix. 20, 21 reads: "And the rest of the men 
 which were not killed by these plagues yet 
 repented not of the works of their hands; nei- 
 ther repented they of their murders, nor of 
 their fornication, nor of their theft." 
 
 Also, Revelation xvi. 8, 11: "And men were 
 scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the 
 name of God, which hath power over these 
 plagues; and they repented not to give him 
 glory. And they gnawed their tongues for 
 pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven be- 
 cause of their pains and their sores, and re- 
 pented not of their deeds." 
 
 And yet multitudes assume that suffering is 
 to be the grand panacea in the future world 
 for the reformation of character. But why 
 any more efficacious there than here? And if 
 it fails here, why not there ? The principles of 
 moral government cannot change; the laws of 
 mind cannot change; and how, then, can the 
 suffering which was powerless here to renovate 
 character become omnipotent there? 
 
 The assumption, therefore, that suffering in 
 
Argument With the Bestorationists. 123 
 
 the future world will break up sinful habit, 
 contradicts all our observation here in this 
 world. Here evidently the mass of men resist 
 it all. Notwithstanding all the suffering they 
 encounter, they force their headlong and head- 
 strong way to still deeper depths in sin, and 
 to an ever-increasing distance from God and 
 holiness. And how feeble must mere suffering 
 be to reform men hereafter who have resisted, 
 through a whole life-time, the steady pressure 
 of this earthly probation. The fact is, the 
 reformation of character by mere suffering is 
 impossible, not merely in this world, but any- 
 where in God's universe. The very nature of 
 mind forbids it. 
 
 Moreover, let it be noticed that in securing 
 the reformation of a sinner, suffering is only a 
 single element employed. To lead the sinner 
 to give up his sinfulness and submit to God, 
 requires goodness with severity, and that, too, 
 in the most caref ul combination. It requires 
 kindness to be mingled with chastisement, mak- 
 ing "the way of the transgressor hard" on the 
 one hand, and yet at the same time enduring 
 
124 The Endless Future. 
 
 him with patience and long-suffering on the 
 other — just that nice and delicate adjustment 
 of reformatory influences to his peculiar nat- 
 ure and disposition, which especially charac- 
 terizes his earthly probation. 
 
 Also, there is needed in addition to this, and 
 in connection with it, the infinite influences of 
 God's Holy Spirit, exerted in just that way 
 and to just that extent which shall induce and 
 persuade to the utmost without, in the least 
 degree, interfering with free agency. The 
 man must be induced to "work out his own 
 salvation " with absolute freedom, while at the 
 same time " God works in him " by his Holy 
 Spirit. And this entire combination of good- 
 ness and severity and the Spirit's influences 
 must be set in operation and kept in operation 
 with all the energy and intensity, and at the 
 same time with all the carefulness, which the 
 God of heaven can command, in order to save 
 even a single sinner. It takes the mighty 
 power of God to save a man. This is why the 
 divine power in conversion is likened by the 
 apostle to the power exerted in raising Christ 
 
Argument With the JRestorationists. 125 
 
 from the dead (Eph. i. 19, 20); and why God 
 says of himself, "What could have been done 
 more to my vineyard that I have not done in 
 it." (Isa. v. 4) And it is just this nice ad- 
 justment, this delicate combination 'of reform- 
 atory influences, and this infinite intensity of 
 operation on the part of the Divine Spirit, 
 which goes to make up this earthly probation. 
 
 And therefore the question returns, What 
 can mere suffering do to reform a man hereaft- 
 er, who has resisted through a whole life-time 
 the steady pressure of such a probation. 
 
 3. Sinful character not changed by the exertion 
 of divine power. 
 
 The word power is here used in the sense of 
 force; not, as under the preceding head, in the 
 sense of exertion. The supposition of the di- 
 vine creation of holiness by power is absurd 
 and impossible. No man can make either a 
 good or bad character for himself but himself 
 Because a good character is made up of love 
 and obedience to God; and God cannot love 
 for us, nor choose for us, nor exercise faith for 
 us, nor do our work of repentence. This is 
 
126 The Endless Future. 
 
 our work, and we alone can do it. And to the 
 doing of this work God can only lead us and 
 induce us by moral considerations — the only 
 influences proper to be used with a moral be- 
 ing. Motives only can move the soul to right 
 action, and to a change of character; and 
 these, accompanied by the Holy Spirit to give 
 them efficacy, constitute the entire possible 
 agency of God in the reformation of character; 
 and these, as we shall see hereafter, are used 
 in this world to the full extent they can wisely 
 and properly be. 
 
 4. Sinful character not changed by some new 
 application of the atonement. 
 
 Christ can be no better Saviour in the future 
 world than here; for he is "the same yester- 
 day, to-day, and forever." (Heb. xii. 8.) 
 
 He can never die again; for says the apostle 
 in Romans vi. 9: "Christ being raised from 
 the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more 
 dominion over him." 
 
 Neither can his atoning sacrifice have any 
 greater efficacy there than here; for here it 
 "cleanses from all sin;" and he is "able to 
 
Argument With the Eestorationists. 127 
 
 save them to the uttermost that come unto God 
 by him." (1 John i. 7; Heb. vii. 25.) 
 
 Is it said that in the future world the sinner 
 will be less disposed to reject him? But why? 
 He clearly understands now that Christ died 
 in his behalf — as clearly as language can ex- 
 press it; and the fact can never be stated any 
 more clearly. 
 
 The invitations of the gospel are as full, free, 
 and hearty here as they ever can be elsewhere. 
 
 All of God's providential dealings are aimed 
 at inducing men to accept them, and we know 
 of no new and improved dealings which could 
 be devised, and of nothing that could increase 
 the efficacy of those already employed. 
 
 Also, the blessings promised on condition of 
 accepting him cannot be multiplied in num- 
 ber, or increased in value and attractiveness; 
 nor can the warnings against rejecting him be 
 any more fearful than they are. 
 
 Notice, furthermore, that the very object of 
 his mission was to rescue men from sin. He 
 says of himself (Luke xix. 10): "The Son of 
 man is come to seek and to save that which was 
 
128 The Endless Future. 
 
 lost" He came on purpose for this. He came 
 on purpose to reform men. He suffered and 
 died for this. Now is it supposable that he 
 would omit airy instrumentality which might 
 be made effective for this? Why should he? 
 If his mission was to reform and save, why 
 should he prosecute it with half-heartedness, 
 and leave out instrumentalities which might 
 be successfully employed? Why omit any 
 thing ? The supposition that he did would be 
 inexplicable. It would convict him of unfaith- 
 fulness to his mission — to the trust reposed 
 in him — to the work God sent him to do. 
 
 Therefore we are bound to believe, on com- 
 mon sense principles, that when he came on 
 purpose to save sinners, he did the best that 
 could be done. We should expect this from an 
 ordinary man of ordinary honesty and faith- 
 fulness; how much more from the infinite Sav- 
 iour! But if the best is done on earth, then 
 nothing remains that he can employ any more 
 successfully hereafter, 
 
Argument With the Restorationists. 129 
 
 oter III. 
 
 argument with the restorationists 
 (continued). 
 
 SINFUL character is not changed by a more 
 favorable probation. 
 
 The position of men in this world is often 
 regarded as being encumbered with frightful 
 obstacles to right living and acting — obstacles, 
 too, which they themselves had no hand in 
 forming, and for which they are in no way re- 
 sponsible. For example: 
 
 Overlooking the fact that the occasion of sin 
 is found in the necessary nature of free agen- 
 cy, they have undertaken to account for the 
 certainty and universality of human sinfulness 
 by tracing it to the external conditions of hu- 
 man probation; for instance, to the temptation 
 of malignant beings, or the connection of the 
 soul with a material body, or to the conditions 
 of infancy, or to the parental relation; thus 
 9 
 
130 The Endless Future. 
 
 throwing the responsibility for the sinfulness 
 of men off from them, and onto these partic- 
 ular arrangements of which God is represent- 
 ed as being the responsible author. Mani- 
 festly, those who entertain such views cannot 
 see how it is possible that men have in this 
 world and this life a fair probation. 
 
 In the minds of such, therefore, the assump- 
 tion of & future probation is entirely consistent 
 and logical, being necessary, in their appre- 
 hension, to make up for these previously in- 
 flicted evils, these hinderances to holy living; 
 and being necessary also to vindicate the Di- 
 vine benevolence in the arrangements of this 
 world. 
 
 The present design is to show that the entire 
 conditions of human probation are in the in- 
 terest of holiness. 
 
 We have seen that the tendency to self-will 
 originates in the love of conscious freedom, 
 and, under the necessary restraints of law, is 
 prone to become impatient and imperious, and 
 to lead to actual sin. 
 
 The object now will be briefly to indicate 
 
Argument With the Restorationists. 131 
 
 how all the conditions of human probation 
 have apparently been so devised as either to 
 repress this tendency, or favorably to modify 
 its outworkings ; and thus to lead men, if pos- 
 sible, to abandon sin and enter on a life of 
 holy obedience to God; in short, that human 
 probation is the best possible for securing both 
 holiness and salvation, so that a future one 
 would be useless. 
 
 I. Temptation by malignant beings. 
 
 We notice this first because, as it lies in 
 some minds, it is an objection to the justice of 
 endless punishment — God permitting men to 
 be tempted to sin, and then punishing them for 
 following the temptation. How is this to be 
 met? 
 
 1. A Personal Devil. — Some deny his ex- 
 istence. But no truth is more clearly revealed 
 in the Bible. His existence, fall, and punish- 
 ment are as clearly revealed as any Biblical 
 fact whatever. 
 
 Also, that he ranges this world to tempt 
 men is revealed with equal clearness. "Your 
 adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh 
 
132 The Endless Future, 
 
 about, seeking whom he may devour." (1 Pet. 
 v. 8.) 
 
 But, says the objector, the devil is powerful 
 as well as malignant, and has uncontrolled 
 sway over men; and the weakness of human 
 nature is unequally matched against the cun- 
 ning, daring, and desperation of such an an- 
 tagonist. 
 
 This contradicts the whole tenor of the 
 Scriptures. They ever represent him as being 
 completely under the Divine control, and that 
 his devilish malignity is ever held firmly in 
 check. In his trial of Job, God said to him on 
 two occasions, "You may go just so far, and 
 no farther;" and the devils could not even de- 
 stroy a herd of swine without the permission 
 of the Saviour. 
 
 2. Temptation in Eden. — Why was this 
 permitted? 
 
 (1) For one thing, doubtless, to save Adam 
 from a sin which would otherwise have bound 
 him to hopeless retribution. In the view we 
 are taking, he would have sinned any way, 
 sinned as soon as the restraints of law crossed 
 
Argument With the Restored ionists. 133 
 
 his inclinations — sinned for the same reason 
 that the devil did. And this would have been 
 a determination to abandon God, and defy 
 his authority, as deliberate and willful and 
 wicked as such a determination could then be 
 — even just such a sin as the devil himself com- 
 mitted — and which might have thrown him, as 
 it did the devil, beyond the reach of mercy and 
 forgiveness. And so, in all probability, to save 
 him from this, for one thing, God permitted 
 the devil to act out his malignity in tempting 
 him, and thus to divide with him, as it were, 
 the burden of criminality. And this diminu- 
 tion of conscious guilt was the apparent result; 
 for Adam charges his sin in part upon the wom- 
 an, and she again upon the tempter; and it 
 should be especially noticed that the sentence 
 is pronounced accordingly, by far the heaviest 
 curse falling upon the latter as being the prime 
 instigator of the rebellion. 
 
 (2) Another probable design was to make re- 
 pentance possible by saving from despair. 
 The most deliberate and high-handed sinning 
 appears to throw the one committing it beyond 
 
134 The Endless Future, 
 
 the possibility of repentance. His sin blazes 
 so terribly before him that the confidence in 
 God necessary to repentance cannot be awak- 
 ened within him. Hence it is said of certain 
 that "it is impossible to renew them to repent- 
 ance" (Heb. vi. 4-6); and for those who "sin 
 willfully" there is only "a certain fearful look- 
 ing for of judgment." (Heb. x. 26, 27.) Why 
 is the devil hopeless? Answer: Doubtless be- 
 cause his iron despair precludes the possibility 
 of confidence in God, and he dare not hope for 
 mercy, and is bound thus, by the very nature 
 of his sin, to confirmed and hopeless impeni- 
 tence. Had our first parents been permitted 
 to sin as he did, no reason appears why their 
 sin would not have been followed by a like re- 
 sult. 
 
 (3) Another probable reason for permitting 
 this temptation was that without it the plan of 
 redemption would have been unavailing. Of 
 what use would redemption be to beings con- 
 firmed in impenitence ? If provided for them 
 they would not accept it, which is the proba- 
 ble reason why no provisions of grace were 
 
Argument With the Restorationists. 135 
 
 made for the angels, while for our ruined race 
 there is wrought out so great salvation. 
 (Heb. ii. 16, Revised Version.) And so we 
 reach the conclusion: Temptation possibly neces- 
 sary to the efficacy of redemption. 
 
 3. Temptation Generally. — This is per- 
 mitted now only for the purpose, apparently, 
 of modifying favorably the conditions of hu- 
 man probation. 
 
 (1) It should be kept in mind that sin is 
 not due primarily to temptation by malignant 
 beings; for, in the view we are taking, mankind 
 would, sooner or later, sin any way, from their 
 own love of independence; so that this tempta- 
 tion does not originate the sin. 
 
 (2) We have no reason for supposing that 
 Satan is ever permitted so to tempt men that 
 they have not abundant ability to resist him. 
 In the case of Christians we know they are 
 not thus tempted: "God is faithful, who will 
 not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are 
 abler (1 Cor. x. 13.) 
 
 (3) This peculiar temptation now, as in 
 Eden, undoubtedly diminishes the ill-desert of 
 
136 The Endless Future. 
 
 human sinfulness, softens in the human mind 
 the conviction of criminality, and makes peni- 
 tence a more hopeful matter; and is permit- 
 ted, in the case of each individual, only in that 
 way and to that extent which will best work 
 to save him. 
 
 (4) Even in case a man follows the tempta- 
 tions of the adversary, and goes down with 
 him to perdition, it may still be true that this 
 fact of his temptation will mitigate the tor- 
 ment of his unending remorse. 
 
 (5) In the case of the Christian it will, if re- 
 sisted, toughen and consolidate Christian prin- 
 ciple, and build up a character of solidity and 
 permanence. "Blessed is the man that endur- 
 eth temptation." (James i. 12.) 
 
 (6) It secures in him watchfulness and 
 carefulness. A man alone in the wilderness, 
 exposed to the attacks of savages and wild 
 beasts, is ever on the alert, and literally "works 
 out his salvation with fear and trembling," 
 just as men are now exhorted to work out their 
 spiritual salvation, as the only way to escape 
 the wiles of Satan. 
 
Argument With the Eestorationisis. 137 
 
 (7) The knowledge of this fact will also 
 greatly stimulate to prayer for Divine help, and 
 the petition, "Lead us not into temptation," 
 will have a depth and a meaning impossible 
 without it; and the soul be driven, as the only 
 refuge, to a closer companionship with God. 
 
 Let no man, therefore, reproach that benig- 
 nant providence under which man is assailed 
 by the temptation of malignant beings, knowing 
 that God has permitted it solely in the interest 
 of salvation. So much for the matter of temp- 
 tation. Now, 
 
 II. The connection of the soul with a physical 
 body. 
 
 Some think of this only as a calamity. They 
 imagine that sin originates in the bodily appe- 
 tites and passions, while the fact is that the 
 independent soul in sinning is only seeking 
 its own way through these. The soul itself, de- 
 termined on self-indulgence, is the great seat 
 of the sinfulness; and God is only seeking, 
 apparently, by its confinement in the physical 
 body, to curb its imperiousness, to restrain 
 self-will, and to cross, repress, discipline, and 
 
138 The Endless Future. 
 
 subdue its energy and activity. For why, ex- 
 cept for this, should he cramp the mighty soul, 
 with force enough in it to energize a world, 
 into a diminutive human body? Why compel 
 it to a slow and tedious locomotion in company 
 with that body, when it might as well have 
 had the speed of the lightning? Why furnish 
 it with only five senses, through which to get 
 its knowledge, when, to all appearance, it 
 might as well have had a thousand? Mani- 
 festly the grand object is confinement, repres- 
 sion, and limitation, and undoubtedly that, 
 through this experience, the man may the 
 more easily learn the great lesson of submis- 
 sion to God. And this accords with Romans 
 viii. 20, 21, which may be explained thus: 
 "For the creature" — the rational creation, man 
 — "was made subject to vanity" — subjected to 
 the frailty and imperfection and confinement 
 of the physical body — "not willingly" — not of 
 choice, but contrary to all its native tendencies 
 and sensibilities — "by reason of" — through 
 the direct arrangement of the Creator — " who 
 hath subjected the same in hope" — with the 
 
Argument With the Restored ion ists. 139 
 
 benevolent design — " that [a better translation 
 than 'because'] the creature" — the human 
 race, would by this arrangement — "be deliv- 
 ered from the bondage of corruption " — this 
 physical confinement and restriction — "into 
 the glorious liberty of the children of God." * 
 
 And so these physical conditions and sur- 
 roundings of the human soul are designed to 
 work only in the direction of salvation. No- 
 tice, 
 
 III. The conditions of infancy. 
 
 Much confusion has arisen at this point from 
 not properly discriminating between human 
 nature and human character. Correctly speak- 
 ing, human nature is what God makes men to 
 be; human character is what men make them- 
 selves to be by their own conduct. 
 
 Human nature God makes in his own image. 
 (James iii. 9.) Human character men make 
 after another pattern; as our Saviour said, " Ye 
 are of your father, the devil." (John viii. 44.) 
 
 * See a masterly exegesis of this passage, in accordance 
 with the foregoing view, in the Quarterly Christian Specta- 
 tor, Vol X., p. 105. 
 
140 The Endless Future, 
 
 Manifestly for what we are at birth God alone 
 is responsible; for he is the author o£ the laws 
 of propagation and of all their natural and 
 unavoidable results. The infant nature, there- 
 fore, is his ivork; and some writers appear not 
 to have been as careful as they should have 
 been in characterizing it. Among the condi- 
 tions of infancy, notice: 
 
 1. That the infant mind is started at zero — at 
 nothing — and progresses by a gradual devel- 
 opment. The result is that he cannot have his 
 own way. He has numberless bodily wants 
 that he cannot express, and which must re- 
 main unsatisfied. Moreover, through all the 
 forming period of childhood he must submit 
 to the control of others. He must be restrained 
 in a thousand ways and ten thousand times 
 before he reaches the period of accountability, 
 in order to keep him from self-destruction. 
 Indeed, the entire period of infancy and child- 
 hood is one continued experience of crossing, 
 trial, and subjugation, kept up almost without 
 intermission during his waking hours. Now, 
 why all this training previous to accountabil- 
 
.•• 
 
 Argument With the Bestorationists. 141 
 
 ity ? The answer is that all this process of re- 
 straint and curbing is precisely analogous to 
 the restraint of God's law, when, farther on in 
 life and at the age of accountability, that law 
 meets him, and is doubtless designed to pre- 
 pare the way for his submission to its com- 
 mands. 
 
 2. From the gradual unfolding of the infan- 
 tile powers, he becomes a sinner with the least 
 possible degree of deliberation; therefore with 
 the least possible violation of conscience, and 
 with the least possible blunting of the sensibil- 
 ities; and therefore with fewer obstacles to be 
 overcome in the work of recovery. 
 
 3. Also, man never remembers the time when 
 he became a sinner — when he first arrayed 
 himself against the Almighty. The fallen 
 angel has that dreadful time ever in remem- 
 brance, and its appalling wickedness is doubt- 
 less one element in his hopeless despair. 
 Adam also had such a time to remember, and 
 it might have driven him to a like despair had 
 not his temptation softened within him the 
 consciousness of guilt. But all men are now 
 
142 The Endless Future. 
 
 spared this; for the time when sin was first 
 entered on is lost amid the confusion of early 
 and feeble impressions; and thus one great 
 obstacle to repentance is prevented. 
 
 4 Moreover, his first sinful acts are in dis- 
 obedience to parental authority only, and not 
 God's; and this softens in the mind the con- 
 viction of criminality, and makes penitence 
 more hopeful. 
 
 On the whole, therefore, men in this world 
 become sinners in the most favorable circum- 
 stances for recovery; and so the entire condi- 
 tions of infancy work only in the direction of 
 salvation. 
 
 IV. Death in infancy. 
 
 How about those who die in infancy? Will 
 the occasion of sin in them develop itself else- 
 where? If not actually sinful at death, how 
 can they be saved through the atonement? 
 And if not saved through Christ, how can they 
 learn the "new song?" 
 
 The probability is that the dying infant is 
 committed at once to the care and guardian- 
 ship of the angels — "their angels" (Matt. xviii. 
 
Argument With the Besforationists. 143 
 
 10) — and by them instructed in all that they 
 themselves have learned of the wonders and 
 glories of redemption, and is brought under 
 the influence of all those motives which have 
 been necessary to confirm themselves in obe- 
 dience to God, and that in this way it be- 
 comes established in holy living like any other 
 newly-created being in the future ages of the 
 universe. 
 
 The work of redemption, in such a case, 
 would avail to keep the infant from sinning, 
 instead of, as in this world, delivering the soul 
 from the power of actual sin; but in each case 
 the glory of his final salvation will be due to 
 the great Saviour, and the praises of redeem- 
 ing love be chanted alike by all. 
 
144 The Endless Future. 
 
 Chapter IV, 
 
 ARGUMENT WITH THE RESTORATIONISTS 
 (CONTINUED.) 
 
 AS all of God's arrangements are wholly 
 in the interest of holiness and the de- 
 liverance of mankind from sin, so must be 
 I. The relation of parent to child. 
 
 1. We need not trace human sinfulness pri- 
 marily to the parental relation, as is commonly 
 done; for the devil and Adam both sinned 
 without any such connection; and because the 
 occasion of sin, as we have seen, is found in the 
 necessary nature of free agency. 
 
 2. Nor have we reason for believing that the 
 occasion of sin has been aggravated by the pa- 
 rental connection. It has evidently been mod- 
 ified by it, so that the sin of the child is apt to 
 take the same form as that of the parent; but 
 it would have taken some form without this pa- 
 rental connection — perhaps a worse one, as it 
 
Argument With the Restorationists. 145 
 
 has in the devil. So that there is no evidence, 
 either from reason or the Scriptures, that God 
 has instituted the parental relation to help on 
 sin, or thrown, by means of it, any obstacles in 
 the way of holiness. 
 
 3. We notice that the parental connection is 
 apparently designed at every point to repress 
 sin. For example, the parent is compelled, at 
 the very outset, to curb the infantile self-ivill 
 in order to derive any pleasure from his com- 
 panionship. He must either subdue him or 
 be subdued by him. The infant cannot con- 
 trol himself, for he has no reason or judgment; 
 and therefore the parent must do it. God has 
 compelled him to do it by the very conditions 
 of the infant mind. But notice, in so doing 
 the parent represses the occasion of sin, and 
 weakens its power over the child, and works 
 thus, at the very outset, against this most ter- 
 rific obstacle in the way of his salvation. 
 
 4. The entire machinery of domestic life — its 
 
 tenderness and love — is designed to educate 
 
 the child to affection. The mutual dependence 
 
 and helpfulness of the family arrangement 
 10 
 
146 The Endless Future. 
 
 tend, in the most striking manner, to educate 
 him both to see and feel the nature, the duty, 
 and the happiness of loving, and thus to un- 
 derstand the nature and reasonableness of that 
 first and great commandment, " Thou shalt love 
 the Lord thy God." 
 
 5. But the beauty and excellence of the pa- 
 rental relation come out preeminently in this, 
 that it gives the parent the opportunity of 
 teaching the child submission to parental au- 
 thority, which, above all other human instru- 
 mentalities, prepares the way for his submis- 
 sion to God; so that on the whole no reason 
 appears why any individual of the human race 
 does not, on account of the parental relation, 
 come to the point of moral and responsible 
 conduct with the conditions of his probation 
 greatly improved over those of Adam or the 
 fallen angels, and in more favorable circum- 
 stances than either for securing his final sal- 
 vation. 
 
 II. Other conditions of humanity generally. 
 
 1. The race has been created on the princi- 
 ple of a progressive development, instead of be- 
 
Argument With the Restorationists. 147 
 
 ing created all at one time; the result being 
 that men can profit by the experience of the 
 past — the record of history — and thus learn 
 the nature and consequences of sin independ- 
 ently of personal experience. 
 
 2. The curse of unfruitfulness on the earth, 
 compelling man to eat bread in the sweat of 
 his face, and dooming him to a life-time of 
 toil; yet operating, by the very necessity for 
 laborious occupation, to subdue his imperious 
 will and protect him from temptation. 
 
 3. The entire array and admixture of provi- 
 dential dealings, both in the way of judgment 
 and mercy, meeting him at every step in life, 
 correcting his waywardness, warning him 
 against transgression, and pointing him ever 
 toward the path of righteousness as being the 
 only safe and proper one, making him see that 
 wisdom's ways are " ways of pleasantness, and 
 all her paths are peace." (Prov. iii. 17.) 
 
 4. Temporal death, inherited from Adam, 
 and yet also coming on men as the fearful and 
 abiding testimony of God against their own 
 sin; "death passed upon all men, for that 
 
148 The Endless Future. 
 
 [Doddridge, 'unto which'] all have sinned;" 
 standing as a grim specter in the path of every 
 living man, grasping him at last with relent- 
 less hand, and removing him by a visible proc- 
 ess to that other, future world, pregnant to 
 his guilty conscience with a righteous retribu- 
 tion; and all to make him fear sin, and dread 
 to commit it as being "the sting of death." 
 
 5. And this, contrasted with the bright world 
 in which he lives, and in which God " hath 
 made every thing beautiful in his time," and 
 whose beauty sinfulness only has marred; 
 filled with every variety of Divine manifesta- 
 tion, and illustrating, in every conceivable as- 
 pect, the wisdom, power, and benevolence of 
 God. 
 
 6. Moral government everywhere — in the 
 family, the State, and the nation — designed 
 to instruct the race in the prime duty of sub- 
 mission to law and authority, that they might 
 thus learn submission to God. 
 
 7. The Bible, God's direct revelation to men, 
 unfolding to them his character for " goodness 
 and severity," as one who "forgiveth iniquity, 
 
Argument With the Restorationists. 149 
 
 transgression, and sin, and that will by no 
 means clear the guilty" (Ex. xxxiv. 7), reveal- 
 ing his righteous law— to "love God with all 
 their hearts and their neighbor as them- 
 selves " — filled with all encouragement to right 
 living and acting, and all warnings and threat- 
 enings against an evil course, and with all 
 needed instructions for the guidance of men. 
 
 8. All instrumentalities for creating and 
 deepening religious feeling and conviction — 
 prayers and praises, sacraments and Sabbaths, 
 Christian intercourse and the preaching of the 
 word, by which its warnings and exhortations, 
 its promises and threatenings, and its whole 
 mighty array of gospel truth, are kept ever 
 sounding in human ears. 
 
 Viewed in this light, the world may be re- 
 garded as one mighty mass of means and 
 efforts for reforming and saving men; as a 
 vast ivork-room, filled with every description of 
 the most powerful and complicated machinery 
 for this object; and God himself presiding 
 over all, directing all, the omnipotent energy 
 that keeps all in motion, and thus throwing 
 
150 The Endless Future, 
 
 himself, as it were, with all the resources of 
 his infinite nature, on the side of repentance 
 and salvation. 
 
 The appeals, however, which he makes to 
 fear and affection are his mightiest efforts in 
 this direction, and these demand distinct and 
 separate consideration. 
 
Argument With the Bestorationists. 151 
 
 Chapter V, 
 
 argument with the bestorationists 
 (continued). 
 
 SINFUL character is not changed by the use 
 of stronger motives. 
 
 The threefold instrumentality which God 
 is using with the most effective power for hu- 
 man salvation is the appeal to fear and affec- 
 tion, accompanied by the influences of the Holy 
 Spirit. Nothing in the future world can ex- 
 ceed this in effectiveness, for it is the most 
 effective which the universe can furnish. 
 
 1. Take the appeal to affection. Is there any 
 better kind of effort or instrumentality than 
 this? any thing more powerful or efficient, 
 better adapted to lead a man to give up sin 
 and choose holiness? If so, what? We know 
 of none. The Restorationist knows of none. 
 And this is the exact appeal which God is 
 now making in the whole grand scheme of re- 
 demption; and he is seeking in this way to give 
 
152 The Endless Future. 
 
 expression to his own infinite qffectioyi for this 
 sinful world, in order to win its love in return. 
 
 Notice what he says in John iii. .16: "God 
 so loved the world, that he gave his only-begot- 
 ten Son, that whosoever belie veth in him 
 should not perish, but have everlasting life." 
 Also, 1 John iv. 10: "Herein is love, not that 
 we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent 
 his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 
 
 Notice again that the Saviour himself is de- 
 clared to have come on this errand of mercy to 
 the sinful from affection — "Christ also hath loved 
 us, and hath given himself for us." (Eph. v. 2.) 
 And the apostle, in Ephesians iii. 19, speaks 
 of "the love of Christ which passeth knowledge''' 
 
 Notice again that the Infinite Spirit of God 
 is ever working with tenderness and love in 
 human souls. He is sent to convince men of 
 sin. He comes to the penitent soul as "the 
 Comforter." He takes of the things of Christ 
 and shows them to men; and wherever Chris- 
 tian love exists in a human soul, it is because 
 " the love of God is shed abroad " in it "by the 
 Holy Ghost." (Rom. v. 5.) 
 
Argument With the Bestorationists. 153 
 
 Notice again that God has drawn all heaven 
 into sympathy with him, and the holy angels 
 also have come to love the salvation of men. 
 Therefore the Saviour says, in Luke xv. 10: 
 " There is joy in the presence of the angels of 
 God over one sinner that repenteth." Also, we 
 learn from Hebrews i. 14 that they find their 
 delightful employment in ministering to those 
 who have been forgiven: "Are they not all 
 ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for 
 them who shall be heirs of salvation?" 
 
 And thus we learn that affection for this 
 world of sinners pervades all heaven. The 
 Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the an- 
 gels, are pouring out one mighty stream of 
 affection on this guilty world in order to melt 
 it in contrition and love. 
 
 Now, the point is that there is no other kind 
 of influence or instrumentality for drawing 
 men to God superior to this. Even the whole 
 universe cannot furnish an influence equal to 
 it. It is absolutely the mightiest power in ex- 
 istence to move a moral being to right action. 
 Does the Eestorationist deny this? Then let 
 
154 The Endless Future. 
 
 him mention one more powerful. He cannot. 
 And therefore the conclusion is inevitable, and 
 he should so receive it, that the Divine re- 
 sources in respect to the kind of influence that 
 will draw men in loving obedience to God are 
 utterly exhausted. When God has shown his 
 own loving heart to men in the gift of his Son, 
 and Jesus has shown his own infinite affection 
 by dying for them, and the Holy Spirit has 
 done his tender, loving work upon their hearts 
 in his gracious strivings, and all heaven is 
 represented as sympathizing with them, no 
 other influence can transcend this as a moving 
 power upon men for their reformation and 
 salvation. 
 
 Now, secondly, how about the degree of this 
 affection? It has been shown that there is no 
 better kind of influence than this ; but possibly it 
 is lacking in degree. There may have been here 
 in this world a half-heartedness about it, and 
 some improvement in this respect may be pos- 
 sible hereafter; so that if this affection should 
 only be modified in degree, the reformation of the 
 sinner in the future world would certainly follow 
 
Argument With the Restorationists. 155 
 
 it. How is this ? Here notice that in providing 
 this scheme of redemption for fallen man the 
 affection of the Almighty has had its mightiest 
 possible exercise and expression. He gave his 
 own Son to sufferings and death, even the ag- 
 ony of the crucifixion. Yea, more, his "well- 
 beloved Son " — the very dearest object of affec- 
 tion which he had to give. Yea, more, his only 
 Son — no other one to give. And therefore no 
 greater proof or expression of affection is pos- 
 sible — nothing beyond it. It was the expres- 
 sion of infinite affection, in the very nature of 
 the case impossible to be increased in intensity. 
 The point is that God has loved this sinful 
 world with the whole strength of his infinite 
 nature, even all he could love it. He has ex- 
 hausted himself— his own infinite self — in his 
 love for men, and there is no possible depth or 
 strength of affection beyond it. 
 
 And why should he not love thus? In the 
 view we are taking, the holiness and happiness 
 of the endless universe of moral beings were 
 turning on the sacrifice of Christ. His own 
 glory and exaltation among them for evermore 
 
156 The Endless Future. 
 
 — the love, homage, adoration, and praise of 
 the endless universe of beings for himself for- 
 ever — were all turning on it. In every aspect 
 in which it can be viewed, infinite interests 
 were turning on the great sacrifice of Christ 
 for human sinfulness; and how, then, could 
 any love but that of infinite, unbounded affec- 
 tion, as well as infinite sacrifice, correspond 
 with the interests at stake? 
 
 How, in the next place, about the manifes- 
 tation of this affection? Perhaps there has 
 been something lacking at this point, so that 
 the expressiveness of manifestation can be here- 
 after in some way increased, and so wicked 
 men be led by it to give up sin in the future 
 world. How is this? 
 
 Here notice the pains God was at in the work 
 of preparation to make this manifestation the 
 most influential possible. All the prophecies 
 of the Old Testament for hundreds of years 
 were made to point forward to Christ as the 
 great central figure of the future. Almost the 
 entire Mosaic ritual was designed to prefig- 
 ure him, and to explain to men the nature and 
 
Argument Vi ith the Bestorationists. 157 
 
 object of his mission. The New Testament 
 is almost entirely taken up with the unfolding 
 of his character and the record of his ministry. 
 What is there lacking at this point? 
 
 Could his mission to the world be any more 
 clearly stated than it is? Says Christ himself 
 (Luke xix. 10): "The Son of man is come to 
 seek and to save that ivhich was lost" And the 
 apostle speaks of it in 1 Timothy i. 15 thus: 
 "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all 
 acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the 
 world to save sinners." Can it be any more 
 clearly stated? 
 
 Could his character be portrayed in more 
 attractive and winning traits than it is? He 
 is "meek and lowly in heart," the Friend of 
 sinners, comforting the mourners, weeping 
 with the sorrowful, and even in his last agony 
 praying for his murderers. The prophet Isa- 
 
 0- 
 
 iah, in that wonderful fifty-third chapter, look- 
 ing forward in vision, thus describes him as 
 he would be: "A man of sorrows, and ac- 
 quainted with grief; wounded for our trans- 
 gressions, and bruised for our iniquities;" 
 
158 The Endless Future. 
 
 oppressed and afflicted, yet opening not his 
 mouth; "brought as a lamb to the slaughter, 
 and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so 
 he openeth not his mouth." And see, too, his 
 infinite tenderness in Isaiah xlii. 3, quoted 
 also in Matthew xii. 20: "A bruised reed shall 
 he not break, and smoking flax shall he not 
 quench." Can a more lovely and attractive 
 character be portrayed? 
 
 Could any mightier icorks attest his divine 
 mission than those which he wrought — raising 
 the dead, cleansing the lepers, stilling the 
 tempest with a word, and feeding the thou- 
 sands in the wilderness with a few loaves and 
 fishes ? We can think of none. 
 
 Could his teachings and instructions be im- 
 proved? Was any truth left unsaid which 
 would have a tendency to save men? Were 
 any necessary directions omitted? Were any 
 disclosures of the past, the present, or the fut- 
 ure withheld which would have been better 
 calculated to move men to repentance and 
 reformation? Was there any lack of faithful- 
 ness in warning, tenderness in pleading, or 
 
■Argument With the Restorationists. 159 
 
 earnestness in persuasion? Was there any 
 lack of kindness and love and compassion in 
 any or all the manifestations of his character, 
 his teachings, or his works? But one answer 
 can be given to these questions by any one 
 familiar with the New Testament. No one is 
 able to suggest the least addition or change of 
 any kind which would increase the effective- 
 ness of his mission. It was dictated by tender 
 love, by infinite affection for lost sinners; and 
 why should not that affection have had the 
 fullest expression, and have always worked out 
 itself to the utmost ? Why should any change 
 be possible, and at the same time advanta- 
 geous? He came "to seek and to save; " came 
 on purpose for this ; and why should any thing 
 have been omitted calculated to make his mis- 
 sion more successful? The supposition that 
 he left any thing unattempted in so important 
 a work would convict the great Redeemer of 
 carelessness or incompetence, and this would 
 be akin to blasphemy. No; the Lord Jesus, 
 when on earth, did the best that could be done 
 to rescue men from perdition, and has been 
 
160 The Endless Future. 
 
 doing it ever since; and nothing can be added 
 to those efforts in the future world which 
 would increase the likelihood of success. 
 
 2. Take the appeal to fear. Can this be in- 
 creased in terribleness, or made apparently in 
 any way more influential than it is to deter 
 from sin? Can Divine judgments upon dar- 
 ing transgressors be any more swift and terri- 
 ble — the sinning angels cast down to hell; the 
 wicked world drowned by the deluge; the rain 
 of fire and brimstone upon the cities of the 
 plain; the earth opening her mouth and clos- 
 ing it upon Dathan and Abiram for their im- 
 piety; the wholesale destruction of seven na- 
 tions in the land of Canaan by the sword and 
 by the hailstones from heaven for their wick- 
 edness? Can any thing go beyond this in 
 promptness and terribleness of execution? 
 
 Can God's personal attitude toward sinners 
 be portrayed with greater terribleness than it 
 is in Psalm xi. 6 — " Upon the wicked he shall 
 rain snares, fire, and brimstone, and a horrible 
 tempest; this shall be the portion of their 
 cup? " Or this, 2 Thessalonians i. 7, 8: " The 
 
Argument With the Bestorationists. 161 
 
 Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven 
 with his mighty angels, in flaming fire tak- 
 ing vengeance on them that know not God, 
 and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ? " Also, that solemn warning of Jesus 
 himself in Luke xii. 5, already quoted: "Fear 
 him, which after he hath killed hath power to 
 cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him? " 
 
 Can any more fearful imagery be conceived 
 than that which God uses to depict the final 
 consequences of sin — the undying worm, the 
 lake of fire, the " gnawing of their tongues for 
 pain," the cry for but a single drop of water 
 to cool the parched tongue, and even this de- 
 nied? Is not this an aggregate of pictured 
 horror to deter from sin that cannot be sur- 
 passed? Let the Restorationist himself en- 
 deavor to increase its terribleness by adding 
 something to it, and he will find at once how 
 vain the effort. 
 
 3. Now, once more, can any mightier agency 
 be employed to give efficacy in the human soul 
 to all this moral machinery than the Holy 
 Spirit? 
 11 
 
162 The Endless Future. 
 
 His office-work, as the Saviour says, is to 
 deal with the conscience of the world upon 
 this very matter of salvation. He says, in 
 John xvi. 8, " When he [the Spirit of truth] 
 is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and 
 of righteousness, and of judgment;" of sin, 
 as that by which they have forfeited the favor 
 of God; of righteousness , as that which opens 
 for them the great plan of salvation from it; 
 of judgment, as the final and dreadful penalty 
 for rejecting this salvation. And the Spirit, 
 it is believed, is dealing with the conscience of 
 the entire world upon these tremendous mat- 
 ters, as is evident from the peculiar phraseol- 
 ogy of the passage, " He shall reprove [or con- 
 vince] the world of sin." 
 
 Now the point is, can any mightier agency be 
 employed in this work of conviction in the 
 human soul, and so make these appeals to fear 
 and affection any more efficacious in the direc- 
 tion of saving men? The question needs only 
 to be asked, for he is the omnipotent Spirit of 
 God. It is God himself, the third person in 
 the Trinity, working directly in the souls of 
 
Argument With the Bestorationists. 163 
 
 men for their conversion and reformation, their 
 restoration to the forfeited favor and friend- 
 ship of the Almighty; and there is no power 
 beyond it. 
 
 Now comes up the great question we are dis- 
 cussing: Can any thing more be done any- 
 where in God's universe, or at any future time, 
 over and above what God has already done 
 and is doing, to reform human character? 
 And the answer unhesitatingly is, No; for God 
 himself has so declared it. Planting himself, 
 as it were, on these entire workings of his prov- 
 idence and grace and Spirit, he declares, in 
 Isaiah v. 4, " What could have been done more 
 to my vineyard that I have not done in it?" 
 plainly teaching in this that he had done the 
 best that could be done to save men, and thus 
 as plainly asserting that the very resources of 
 Omnipotence had been exhausted in this ivorld 
 in the work of human salvation. 
 
 Let the Restorationist, therefore, be assured 
 that his scheme is without foundation; that 
 the whole universe of God can furnish no 
 mightier agencies to save him than those 
 
164 The Endless Future. 
 
 which God tries upon him here in this world, 
 and that if he dares to resist these, and go into 
 the future world without repentance for sin 
 and faith in Jesus Christ, he chooses a posi- 
 tion where nothing better can ever reach him, 
 and hands over himself, from the very neces- 
 sities of the case, to final and eternal impeni- 
 tence. 
 
Condition of the Heathen, 165 
 
 Chapter VI, 
 
 objection: condition of the heathen. 
 
 AT this point comes up the objection that 
 the heathen, as well as the ignorant and 
 vicious of our city populations, do not enjoy 
 these privileges, and therefore do not have in 
 this world a fair probation, and are not proper 
 subjects for punishment hereafter; and there- 
 fore that a future probation is necessary for 
 them, in order to vindicate the benevolence of 
 God. Answer : 
 
 1. They are truly sinful. They do not act 
 up to the light and knowledge they have. For 
 example : 
 
 They know God; for said Paul in his preach- 
 ing to such (Acts xiv. 17): "He left not him- 
 self without witness, in that he did good, and 
 gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, 
 filling our hearts with food and gladness." 
 
 Also, they have a conscience; for the apostle 
 
166 The Endless Future, 
 
 says, in Romans ii. 15, respecting such: " Which 
 show the work of the law written in their 
 hearts, their conscience also bearing witness." 
 
 And against this light and reason they sin. 
 "They did not like to retain God in their 
 knowledge." (Bom. i. 28.) And "when they 
 knew God, they glorified him not as God, 
 neither were thankful." (Rom. i. 21.) 
 
 2. They are inexcusable in their sinfulness; 
 for says the apostle (Rom. i. 20): "For the in- 
 visible things of God since the creation of the 
 world are clearly seen, being perceived through 
 the things that are made, even his everlasting 
 power and divinity, that they may be without 
 excuse" (Revised Version.) 
 
 Moreover, every man knows that he should 
 "love his neighbor as himself," and, wherever 
 he takes a selfish advantage of him, knows 
 that he is not doing as he would be done by; 
 and no depth of moral degradation can ever 
 obliterate from his mind the conviction of his 
 meanness and wickedness. 
 
 3. The heathen fully recognize their oivn 
 guilt, and are seeking by sacrifice, prayers, 
 
Condition of the Heathen. 167 
 
 fasting, pilgrimages, and penance to propitiate 
 an offended Deity. And if, with these ex- 
 ternal professions of penitence, there is any — 
 the least real — penitence, no reason appears 
 why it is not accepted, and made the ground 
 of final salvation. "In every nation he that 
 feareth God and worketh righteousness is ac- 
 cepted with him." (Acts x. 35.) And true 
 penitence is "working righteousness;" and it 
 would seem that such a one would gladly ac- 
 cept of Christ as soon 'as he is made known to 
 him in the future world. And any one who 
 would accept of Christ, were he but revealed 
 to him, will undoubtedly be saved. 
 
 But if he only makes ajjretense of sorrow for 
 sin — at the bottom a sham and an attempt to 
 impose on the god he worships — or if he ex- 
 presses gratitude, and still has no thankfulness 
 at heart, no reason appears why he does not 
 merit a condemnation proportioned to his in- 
 gratitude and hypocrisy. Therefore, 
 
 4. The heathen do have a fair probation. 
 Every one of them in many things sees clearly 
 what is right; and whenever he sees it, is eter- 
 
168 The Endless Future. 
 
 nally bound by it in the face of all opposing 
 influences. When he has seen the right, there 
 is and there can be no excuse for not following 
 it. Not to follow it is sin — high-handed and 
 inexcusable sin — and deserving of punish- 
 ment. 
 
 And it is for this he is to be punished; and 
 his punishment is not to go one iota beyond 
 his real and inexcusable guilt. True it is that, 
 to a certain extent, he is ignorant; and the fact 
 will be fully taken into account, and will go 
 far toward mitigating the severity of his pun- 
 ishment; for said the Saviour, "He that knew 
 not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, 
 shall be beaten with few stripes." (Luke xii. 
 48.) 
 
 "But," says the objector, "he has not the 
 light of the gospel." True, and .this fact also 
 will make his sin and punishment correspond- 
 ingly light. 
 
 "But why, then," he asks, "does he not have 
 the gospel? Why, if it be so priceless a 
 blessing, has it not been given to the world 
 long ere this? Why have eighteen centuries 
 
Condition of the Heathen. 169 
 
 rolled away since Christ died upon the cross, 
 and yet the mass of mankind never heard of 
 him ? God could have strewn the world with 
 Bibles, in every language, if he so pleased. 
 Why has he not done it? Why is by far the 
 greater part of the world to-day cursed with 
 heathenish blindness and ignorance ? " 
 
 We are too ignorant and short-sighted our- 
 selves to answer these questions fully; but 
 some things are to be considered: 
 
 1. The one urging this assumes that if only 
 this were done the heathen would be saved. 
 But this assumption is groundless. How few 
 comparatively accept the gospel, and are saved 
 by it, even in Christian lands! Only one in Jive 
 pretends to be godly even in this land — the 
 most highly favored with the gospel and its 
 institutions. 
 
 2. To those in Christian lands who neglect 
 or reject it, as the masses do, it becomes only 
 an additional burden of condemnation; as the 
 apostle called it, "a savor of death unto death." 
 (2 Cor. ii. 16.) 
 
 3. Should the gospel, therefore, be given to 
 
170 The Endless Future. 
 
 the world in any other way than the one God 
 has chosen — namely, through the efforts and 
 self-denials and sacrifices of his Church — the 
 result might only be disastrous, very likely re- 
 sulting only in a cold and contemptuous rejec- 
 tion of it, and a correspondingly deeper guilt 
 and ruin. 
 
 4. The use the heathen make of the light 
 and knowledge they have shows the use they 
 might make of greater privileges. If they 
 abuse the light they have, they might abuse 
 greater. "He that is unjust in the least is 
 unjust also in much." (Luke xvi. 10.) And 
 how fast, and how far, and in what way, wicked 
 men, anywhere in the world, can be success- 
 fully approached with gospel privileges so as 
 to secure the certainty of their salvation is a 
 problem God only can solve ; and we are obliged 
 to leave the solution of it with him, only 
 being careful to do our own personal duty 
 in the premises, and preach his gospel with 
 all our might and as widely as we have oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 5. We have every reason for believing that 
 
Condition of the Heathen. 171 
 
 God is blessing all efforts made to give the 
 gospel to the world to the full extent that he 
 wisely and properly can, and stimulating his 
 Church to the utmost to spread the true knowl- 
 edge of himself among men; and that should 
 he deviate in the least from the plan he has 
 chosen, he would endanger the welfare of his 
 entire administration. 
 
172 The Endless Future. 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 ANNIHILATION IMPOSSIBLE — ENDLESS FREEDOM 
 IN SINNING IMPOSSIBLE — THE ENDLESS CON- 
 FINEMENT OF THE SINNER INEVITABLE. 
 
 ANNIHILATION of the wicked impossi- 
 ble. 
 
 If sinners cannot be reformed in the future 
 world, and the scheme of the Restoration ist 
 is a failure, may they not at least be anni- 
 hilated ? 
 
 This, too, is impossible; for in that case, ac- 
 cording to the view we are taking, the very 
 next race of moral beings created after their 
 annihilation, having now no tangible and con- 
 vincing evidence of God's hatred of sin, or of 
 its terrible nature, or of the danger of com- 
 mitting it — in short, no appeal to fear — would 
 certainly do as their predecessors had done, 
 and rebel. Why should they not? If the cir- 
 cumstances become the same, why should not 
 
Annihilation Impossible. 173 
 
 the result be the same? Then they, too, must 
 be annihilated; and so the next, and also the 
 next, and so there be nothing left but for the 
 universe to revolve in an endless cycle of sin 
 and annihilation; and such a universe would 
 be an absurdity. 
 
 Endless freedom in sinning impossible. 
 
 If the wicked can neither be reformed nor 
 annihilated, can they not be allowed to range 
 the universe at will and work out their wick- 
 edness unchecked, anywhere and everywhere 
 forever? 
 
 1. This would ruin the authority of God as a 
 moral Governor. For in that case he would 
 neither threaten nor execute any penalty for 
 sin. He would therefore show no preference 
 for holiness over sin, treating both alike, and 
 showing in this no regard for the moral char- 
 acter of his subjects; and this would ruin his 
 reputation for holiness. He would also show 
 no regard for the welfare of the endless uni- 
 verse, which is all resting on obediente to him- 
 self; and this would ruin his reputation for 
 benevolence; and when his reputation for holi- 
 
174 The Endless Future. 
 
 ness and benevolence were both gone, who 
 would care for his authority? 
 
 2. It would make a universal hell. Only let 
 the wicked go unpunished, and all other moral 
 beings, as we have seen, would follow their 
 example, and rebel against the authority of 
 God; and universal rebellion, as was shown in 
 another connection, would make a universal 
 hell, to which the hell of the Bible would be 
 comparatively an insignificant matter. And let 
 it be repeated that the punishment and suffer- 
 ing of all the sinners in God's universe who 
 will finally be punished would only be to the 
 misery of unrestrained rebellion like a drop 
 to the ocean in comparison. 
 
 The endless confinement of the sinner the only 
 alternative. 
 
 There is, therefore, no other alternative but 
 the confinement of incorrigible sinners forever 
 in the great prison-house of the universe. 
 Because sin must be arrested, as has been said, 
 at all hazards, and every conceivable sacrifice 
 necessary; and any thing that will but ac- 
 complish this must, inMhe very nature of the 
 
Annihilation of the Wicked Impossible. 175 
 
 case, be not only indispensable, but benevo- 
 lent. 
 
 Endless punishment is, therefore, only a 
 benevolent arrangement, reducing, as it does, 
 to the minimum the necessary sufferings of a 
 universe which sin has invaded. 
 
176 The Endless Future. 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 MORAL THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 THIS is partly true, but fundamentally- 
 false. 
 
 That one of the leading designs of the atone- 
 ment is to draw meru-in loving obedience to 
 God is true. 
 
 Furthermore, that it is the most poiverful 
 influence in that direction which the universe 
 furnishes is also true; and the moral theory 
 asserts these. 
 
 But its fundamental position is that "the 
 primary design of the atonement is to succor 
 and save men" This is erroneous and mis- 
 chievous; for, 
 
 1. The Bible makes no such assertion. 
 
 2. If human salvation be the primary design 
 of the atonement, then, as the atonement is the 
 great central fact of the universe, and every 
 
Moral Theory of the Atonement 177 
 
 thing else subordinate and subservient to it, so 
 must every thing else be subordinate and sub- 
 servient to its main design. And if the main 
 design of it be human salvation, then every 
 thing else must give way to that, and mankind 
 be saved to a pertainty, and universalism is 
 the logical result. 
 
 The only position that fully harmonizes with 
 the Bible is that the main design — the prime 
 object — of the atonement is not to save men, 
 but the universe of moral beings, as far as 
 possible. 
 
 To make the salvation of men merely the 
 prime object would appear utterly inharmo- 
 nious with the magnitude of the expenditure. 
 The atonement is an infinite provision — a work 
 in which omnipotence travels in the great- 
 ness of its strength, and whose results are to 
 "satisfy" the Eedeemer for all his mighty 
 sufferings. (Isa. liii. 11.) And no results 
 reached here* in this world, where sin and not 
 holiness, rebellion and not salvation, have been 
 almost the universal rule for six thousand 
 years, can possibly be made to harmonize with 
 
178 The Endless Future. 
 
 so mighty a work. Indeed, nothing finite — no 
 achievement that is limited in its results — can 
 harmonize with it. And no conceivable view 
 but that which makes the whole endless uni- 
 verse of moral beings, endlessly enlarging, to 
 be dependent on the sacrifice of Christ for final 
 confirmation in holiness and happiness will 
 fully correspond with the infinite greatness 
 and grandeur of the expenditure. 
 
 So we say that the prime object of the atone- 
 ment must be the salvation of moral -beings 
 anywhere and everywhere where salvation is 
 possible. Wherever in the wide universe 
 Christ can accomplish salvation so as to com- 
 pensate him for his infinite sacrifice, or at 
 whatever time — now, hereafter, or forever — he 
 will do it. And this sweeping statement is 
 borne out by the Scriptures. "Noiv" says the 
 apostle, in Ephesians iii. 10, "noiv" — in these 
 incipient stages of the moral universe — God 
 is revealing himself in the atonement, and 
 through the redeemed "church," to the angels 
 of heaven. The " principalities and powers in 
 heavenly places" have been all comprehended 
 
Moral Theory of the Atonement. 179 
 
 in its provisions. Why and wherefore, if it be 
 not to draw them in loving obedience to him- 
 self? 
 
 Notice again, in Ephesians ii. 7, that "in the 
 ages to come " — the long ages of eternity — the 
 same manifestation will be made, and God will 
 continue to "show the exceeding riches of his 
 grace, through Christ Jesus," it does not say 
 to whom, but why should we not reverently as- 
 sume to all moral beings who shall come after 
 them through the endless ages, and with the 
 same grand object in view — the endless con- 
 firmation of them also in holiness and happi- 
 ness? Such, at least, is the theory of the 
 atonement sketched in these pages; and it is 
 believed to be the only one perfectly harmoniz- 
 ing with all the facts and intimations of the 
 Bible. This makes salvation its prime object 
 everywhere and forever: in this world, to save 
 all who can be led to repentance for their sin ; 
 in the "ages to come," to save all from sin- 
 ning. 
 
 And this is entirely reasonable; for the sal- 
 vation of moral beings elsewhere is just as im- 
 
180 The Endless Future. 
 
 portant and valuable as their salvation here in 
 this world. 
 
 Also, it is just as important and desirable to 
 keep moral beings from sinning as to save 
 them after they have sinned. And even more 
 so; for sinless beings have done nothing to 
 forfeit God's favor, while the sinful have 
 wickedly rebelled against him, and can claim 
 nothing from him now but justice; and that 
 would doom them to perdition. 
 
 The general position, therefore, now taken 
 is this: That God intends so to deal with the 
 sinful of this world, both in the way of judg- 
 ment as well as mercy, as to save the endless 
 universe of moral beings, hereafter to be cre- 
 ated, from following their wicked example; 
 and this is the only theory of the atonement 
 that is at all defensible. 
 
 Any theory or belief that proposes to set 
 aside judgment, either wholly or in part, as the 
 prevailing belief does, is, as has been said, false 
 from the foundation, and utterly at variance 
 with the entire spirit and letter of the Bible. 
 Moreover, in preaching, the two great matters 
 
Moral Theory of the Atonement. 181 
 
 of judgment and mercy can never be separated 
 without doing an irreparable injury to the 
 cause of truth and endangering the salvation 
 of sinful men. If men could as well be saved 
 without presenting the terrors of perdition; if 
 they could be drawn to repentance by the pres- 
 entation of Christ's tenderness and love mere- 
 ly, then Christ himself would have adopted 
 that method of preaching, for his pitiful nat- 
 ure certainly shrunk as much from unneces- 
 sarily wounding human sensibilities as any 
 one of ours does. But he evidently deemed 
 the opposite method essential, and everywhere 
 in his preaching makes the appeal to fear fully 
 as prominent as the appeal to affection; and 
 his ministering servant can do no better than 
 to copy his example. 
 
 When, therefore, he who advocates the 
 moral theory of the atonement insists on pre- 
 senting the love of God in Christ as the great 
 motive to obedience, but insists also in leaving 
 out of his preaching the terrors of God's 
 wrath, let him understand that he does not 
 knotv enough respecting the necessities and ex- 
 
182 The Endless Future. 
 
 igencies of the endless universe thus to tam- 
 per in his pulpit ministrations with the word 
 of God, and keep back a part, and soften 
 down its threatenings, and assume practically 
 that he knows better than the Almighty what 
 kind of preaching to give men. What right 
 has he to undertake to improve on the preach- 
 ing of the Saviour? A due loyalty to his sol- 
 emn commission demands that he "declare to 
 men the ivhole counsel of God." (Acts xx. 27. ) 
 
 If, therefore, he is to preach with clearness 
 and impressiveness the great truth that " he 
 that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life," 
 so is he to preach with equal clearness and 
 earnestness that "he that believeth not the 
 Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God 
 abideth on him." (John iii. 36.) 
 
 As a test question, let every preacher of the 
 word ask himself this: Would the views I en- 
 tertain of the atonement and of the future of 
 the wicked lead me to say, with Paul, "I 
 ceased not to warn every one night and day 
 with tears?" (Acts xx. 31.) And if he fails 
 at this vital point, let him remember the fear- 
 
Moral Theory of the Atonement. 183 
 
 f ul warning God gives him by the prophet Eze- 
 kiel (xxxiii. 8): "When I say unto the wicked, 
 O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou 
 dost not speak to warn the wicked from his 
 way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; 
 but his blood will I require at thine hand." 
 
184 The Endless Future. 
 
 Chapter IX, 
 
 A PEOGKESSIVE SYSTEM. 
 
 THE evidence that the present system is a 
 progressive one is ample and undeniable. 
 Hence, many, discerning this fact, conclude at 
 once that perfection must be the final result; 
 and therefore=that future and endless punish- 
 ment for sin can form no part of the system. 
 But this is contradicted by the view presented 
 in the foregoing pages. The system herein 
 developed is a progressive one throughout, 
 and meets all the evidence of progression 
 which exists. It commences with the creation 
 of matter, then advances to the creation of a 
 single race of moral beings, and then goes on 
 with the creation of other and future races of 
 moral beings forever. It is a system progress- 
 ing eternally. It progresses from nothing to 
 infinity. No system can be conceived of more 
 thoroughly and entirely progressive than the 
 one developed in this book. 
 
A Progressive System. 185 
 
 But now, let it be noticed that sin and pun- 
 ishment in it are both shown to be eternal. In- 
 deed, the possibility of this progression is seen 
 to rest upon the fact that sin will, in certain 
 cases, receive its appropriate and endless pun- 
 ishment as the only security against universal 
 anarchy and the ultimate apostasy of the whole 
 moral universe of God. 
 
 A progressive system, therefore, does not 
 necessarily result in the entire eradication 
 from itself of sin and suffering; and, although 
 the present system is clearly a progressive one, 
 it may still, upon the ground of human reason, 
 contain within itself the endless punish#fcnt 
 of sin. 
 
186 The Endless Future. 
 
 Chapter X, 
 
 BENEVOLENCE OF THE MORAL SYSTEM. 
 
 THE case, therefore, is reduced to this: 
 Hell, or no moral system. 
 
 Why, then, have a moral system at all? If 
 it be distinctly foreseen that such a system 
 will be endlessly burdened with suffering, 
 why not dispense with it altogether ? Answer : 
 Holiness and consequent happiness are as 
 valuable in the way of good, as sin and conse- 
 quent misery are bad in the way of evil; and 
 the one as important to be secured as the other 
 to be prevented. 
 
 But, furthermore, the conditions of the fut- 
 ure universe will be, to all appearance, these: 
 On the one hand there will be endless suffering 
 from the incursions of sin, yet not increasing 
 in number or magnitude; on the other, endless 
 holiness and happiness, increasing endlessly. 
 And now, would it be benevolent in the Al- 
 
Benevolence of the Moral System. 187 
 
 mighty to sacrifice the holiness and happiness 
 of an endless universe, endlessly enlarging, to 
 the wickedness of the comparatively few who 
 choose rebellion, and who alone are responsi- 
 ble for their sufferings? This would be con- 
 trary to the commonest dictates of common 
 sense. Common sense decides, in all human 
 affairs, that a man should ever do that which 
 is, on the whole, for the best. Why should not 
 God? 
 
 This the present theory represents him as 
 doing — doing ever the next best . thing, and 
 working ever in the direction of holiness and 
 salvation. To secure the obedience and salva- 
 tion of the fallen angels was impossible. They 
 all rebelled, notwithstanding the best that 
 could be done for them. 
 
 In the case of mankind a 'part only can be 
 led to repentance; and God saves every one 
 whom he wisely can up to the very last unit. 
 I say he saves all whom he wisely can. This 
 is certain. Perhaps he saves all whom he 
 safely can. Perhaps if he saved even one more 
 than he does, he would just so far tempt the 
 
188 The Endless Future. 
 
 moral universe to presume on his leniency, 
 and dare rebellion. There may be a limit be- 
 yond which it is not safe to show mercy to the 
 rebellious. There may be an exact point be- 
 yond which the exertion of those peculiar in- 
 fluences of the Holy Spirit necessary to secure 
 repentance would begin to sap the foundations 
 of moral government, and endanger the wel- 
 fare and happiness of the whole moral uni- 
 verse; and beyond that point even infinite 
 benevolence must not pass. 
 
 The unf alien angels have all been kept true 
 to God and duty, creating thus the strong 
 probability, even the almost certainty, that a 
 point will eventually be reached when all new- 
 ly created beings can be confirmed in obedience 
 to God without the personal experience of 
 transgression, thus making the moral universe 
 to be advancing ever in the direction of holi- 
 ness and happiness, and in the only ivay possible. 
 
 In this view, a period will eventually be 
 reached when all the sin and misery of the 
 universe will become an infinitesimal as com- 
 pared with its holiness and happiness; so that 
 
Benevolence of the Moral System. 189 
 
 with all this grievous drawback of endless sin 
 and misery, the present moral system will ap- 
 pear to be just infinitely better than none at 
 all, and God's character be vindicated before 
 all worlds as being that of infinite and perfect 
 benevolence. 
 
190 The Endless Future. 
 
 Chapter XI, 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 ENDLESS punishment becomes the inevi- 
 table lot of all who dare go into eternity 
 unforgiven. Not because God desires their 
 perdition, for he is " not willing that any should 
 perish." Not because he does not rather in- 
 finitely desire their salvation, for he has made 
 an infinite sacrifice to render it possible, and 
 now, as he says, "will have all men to be 
 saved." Not because he has left any thing 
 unattempted in the work of human recovery, 
 or could do, properly and consistently, in this 
 direction, any thing more than he has done, for 
 his declaration is clear and explicit: "What 
 could have been done more to my vineyard that 
 I have not done in it?" 
 
 The only reason why any one is lost is, he 
 will not be saved. He will not give up his sin. 
 He loves it and clings to it. He puts the fol- 
 
Conclusion. 191 
 
 lies and vanities of the world in the place of 
 the immortal crown. He resolutely pushes 
 away the realities of death, judgment, and eter- 
 nity from his view, even though he knows he 
 is so soon to meet them. Especially he loves 
 his own way, and is determined to have it, even 
 though he dares by it the wrath of God. 
 
192 The Endless Future. 
 
 - 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 
 QUOTATION FEOM RICHARD BAXTER. 
 
 AND now to the poor, thoughtless ones who 
 are going into eternity with no proper 
 preparation wherewith to meet it conies the 
 solemn address and warning of Richard Baxter : 
 
 11 Men and Brethren: The Eternal God that 
 made you for a life everlasting, and hath re- 
 deemed you by his only Son, when you had 
 lost it and yourselves, being mindful of you in 
 your sin and misery, hath indited the gospel, 
 and sealed it by his Spirit, and commanded his 
 ministers to preach it to the world, that pardon 
 being freely offered you, and heaven being set 
 before you, he might call you off from your 
 fleshly pleasures, and from following after this 
 deceitful world, and acquaint you with the life 
 you were created and redeemed for, before you 
 are dead and past remedy. 
 
 "The Lord seeth how you forget him and 
 
Quotation from Richard Baxter. 193 
 
 your latter end, and how light you make of 
 everlasting things, as men that understand not 
 what they have to do or suffer. He seeth how 
 bold you are in sin, and how fearless of his 
 threatenings, and how careless of your souls. 
 He seeth the dreadful day at hand, when your 
 sorrows will begin, and you must lament all 
 this with fruitless cries in torment and desper- 
 ation, if true conversion now prevent it not. 
 In compassion to your sinful, miserable souls, 
 the Lord hath made it our duty to speak to 
 you in his name, and to tell you plainly of your 
 sin and misery, and what will be your end, and 
 how sad a change you will shortly see, if yet 
 you go on a little longer. 
 
 "He sees and pities you while you are 
 drowned in worldly cares and pleasures, eager- 
 ly following childish toys, and wasting that 
 short and precious time for a thing of naught 
 in which you should make ready for an ever- 
 lasting life; and therefore he hath commanded 
 us to call after you, and tell you how you lose 
 your labor and are about to lose your souls. 
 
 "But alas! to the grief of our souls and your 
 
 . 13 
 
194 The Endless Future. 
 
 undoing, you stop your ears, you stiffen your 
 necks, you harden your hearts, and send us 
 back to God with groans to tell him that we 
 have done his message, but can do no good on 
 you, nor scarcely get a sober hearing. O that 
 our eyes were a fountain of tears! O that the 
 Lord would fill our hearts with more compas- 
 sion for these sinful, miserable souls! Why, 
 if the God that made them and the Christ 
 that bought them might only be heard, the case 
 would soon be altered with tHem. But if 
 nothing can be heard, what shall we do for 
 them? If the dreadful God of heaven be 
 slighted, who then shall be regarded? If the 
 inestimable love and blood of a Redeemer be 
 made light of, what then shall be valued? If 
 heaven has no desirable glory with them, and 
 everlasting joys be nothing worth; if they can 
 jest at hell, and dance about the bottomless pit, 
 and play with the consuming fire, and that 
 when God and man do warn them of it, what 
 shall we do for such souls as these? 
 
 "Once more, in the name of the God of 
 heaven, I shall do the message to you which he 
 
Quotation from Richard Baxter. 195 
 
 hath commanded us, and leave it in these 
 standing lines to convert or condemn you. 
 Hearken, all you that mind not God, and have 
 no heart to holy things! Hearken, all you 
 that by sinning in light have sinned yourselves 
 into infidelity, and do not believe the word of 
 God! He that hath an ear, let him hear the 
 gracious yet dreadful call of God! His eye is 
 all this while upon you. Your sins are regis- 
 tered, and you shall surely hear of them all 
 again. God keepeth the book now; and he 
 will erelong write it all upon your consciences 
 with its terrors, and then you shall keep it 
 yourselves ! 
 
 " O sinners, that you but knew what you are 
 doing, and whom you are all this while offend- 
 ing! The sun itself is darkness before the 
 glory of that Majesty which you daily abuse 
 and carelessly provoke. O that you did but a 
 little know what case that wretched soul is in 
 that hath engaged the living God against him ! 
 If God be against thee, all things are against 
 thee. This world is but thy prison, for all 
 thou so lovest it, and thou art but reserved in 
 
196 The Endless Future. 
 
 it to the day of wrath. The Judge is coming; 
 thy soul is even going. Yet a little while, and 
 thy friend shall say of thee, 'He is dead;' 
 and then thou shalt see^the things that now 
 thou dost despise, and feel that which now 
 thou wilt not believe. O poor soul! there is 
 nothing but a slender veil of flesh between 
 thee and that amazing sight, which will quickly 
 silence thee, and turn thy tone, and make thee 
 of another mind. As soon as death hath 
 drawn this curtain, thou shalt see that which 
 will quickly leave thee speechless. And how 
 quickly will that day and that hour come! 
 When thou hast had a few more merry hours, 
 and but a few more pleasant draughts, and a lit- 
 tle more of the honors and riches and pleasures 
 of the world, thy portion will be spent; and then 
 of all thou soldest thy Saviour and salvation for 
 nothing will be left but the heavy reckoning. 
 
 "And O that you could but see what haste 
 death makes, though he has not yet overtaken 
 you! No post so swift, no messenger more 
 sure. As sure as the sun will be with you in 
 the morning, so sure will death be quickly 
 
Quotation from Richard Baxter. 197 
 
 with you. And then where is your sport and 
 pleasure? Then whose shall all these things 
 be that you have gathered? O that you were 
 wise to understand this, and that you did but 
 consider your latter end! 
 
 "No; this life will not last always, this pa- 
 tience will not wait upon you still. Do not 
 think that you shall abuse your Maker and 
 Redeemer, and serve his enemies, and debase 
 your souls, and trouble the world, and wrong 
 the Church, and reproach the godly, and grieve 
 your teachers, and hinder reformation — and all 
 upon free cost. You know not yet what this 
 must cost you, but you shall shortly know, 
 when the righteous God shalUtake you in 
 hand, unless you prevent it by a sound conver- 
 sion and a speedy obeying of the call of God. 
 
 ' Reader, I have done with thee when thou 
 hast perused this book; but sin hath not yet 
 done with thee, and Satan hath not yet done 
 with thee, and God hath not yet done with 
 thee. As ever thou hopest to see the face of 
 Christ, the Judge, and of the majesty of the 
 Father with peace and comfort, and to be re- 
 
198 The Endless Future. 
 
 ceived into glory, when thou art turned naked 
 out of the world, I beseech thee to hear and 
 obey the call of God. He that hath an ear, let 
 him hear the call of God in this day of his sal- 
 vation." 
 
 Such, with slight alterations, is the way in 
 which this holy man of God addressed the 
 men of his times. Nothing that I could hope 
 to write would breathe such tenderness and 
 solemnity and persuasive power as this; and 
 therefore I have chosen rather to transcribe it, 
 that it may speak in my stead. 
 
 Now, fellow-sinner, in God's name I send you 
 this little book to give you one more warning 
 of that coming wrath, from which there is but 
 one way of escape. It shows you that human 
 probation is a serious and tremendous matter; 
 that God is greatly in earnest in pressing the 
 call to repentance, and that the most stupen- 
 dous sin possible or conceivable is that of 
 slighting the offers of salvation through Jesus 
 Christ; and that if slighted to the last, there 
 will be no way of escaping the dreadful, endless 
 penalty. 
 
Quotation from Richard Baxter. 199 
 
 It is believed that an honest and careful 
 consideration of the foregoing argument will 
 lead to the conviction that this must certainly 
 be the final doom of all who die in impeni- 
 tence. Or if any one should feel that the cer- 
 tainty of this was not made out to his satisfac- 
 tion, it would seem that he must admit that at 
 least the probability is; or if even this shall not 
 be admitted, yet the possibility must be admit- 
 ted. And let it be remembered that the bare 
 'possibility of it is more terrific than all the 
 other certainties of the universe. 
 
 Hear, therefore^ ye dying sinners, the warn- 
 ing voice of God: "Turn ye, turn ye, for why 
 will ye die? " Hear also the despairing cry of 
 his infinite tenderness and benevolence, if you 
 persevere in sin to the last: "How shall I give 
 thee up? My heart is turned within me; my 
 repentings are kindled together." 
 
 THE END. 
 

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