Love's Final Victory Part 23

And if the fate of extinction would thus cause everlasting regret how much more would the knowledge that our friends are in everlasting torment. Surely our knowledge of such a fate would be unendurable. Would there not be everlasting distress in that world of joy? In fact it would be no world of joy. We shall have the same nature then as now. It will be only enn.o.bled and purified. Certainly sympathy--which is one of the n.o.blest of our feelings--will be more tender and intense than now.

George Eliot said that she estimated her entire moral condition by her capacity of sympathy. We may imagine then the horror of the situation if we have to think of our friends as being in everlasting torment.

Surely this is a strong argument for Restoration. We might endure, and even rejoice in, a mild degree of suffering on the part of friends, if we knew that such was a necessary process of purification, and that by and by they would rise to eternal happiness. But to think of them as being forever in torment--inflicted for punishment, and not for purification--would be unspeakable torture. We have indeed heard of zealots who taught that the saved would even rejoice in the sufferings of the d.a.m.ned, as the effect of G.o.d's glorious justice. For the credit of humanity we would believe that such lurid representations were rare, and but the product of temporary excitement, or perhaps a mistaken zeal for orthodoxy.

I was lately staying at a Presbyterian Manse. The minister was from home, but his wife engaged me in several topics of conversation. Among other things she instanced the case of a family some members of which were saved, and some were lost; and she asked me if there was any means of explaining away the agony of such a separation. Thinking she might not be ready for a thorough discussion of the subject, I tried to dismiss it by some casual remark. But it would not do; again and again she returned to the point. At length I stated plainly that I did not believe in endless torment, or eternal separation. At once, and with evident relief, she responded that such was her own view.

Now I think that case is typical of thousands and thousands more. They have been brought up in the orthodox idea of eternal torment; it is enshrined in their thought by the sacredness of childish a.s.sociation; they have the conception that it is an evidence of soundness in the faith. But by and by, when they begin to think, their heart rebels; the idea hitherto accounted true seems opposed to every humane instinct, and much more opposed to that mercy that is from everlasting to everlasting.

There is thus a sea of conflicting ideas, and they know not which way to turn. My hope is, that when they read these pages they will see that a large pan of the church has been for a long time under a dark cloud of error, and that their humane instinct is but a dim reflection of Eternal Love.

The lady referred to told me that her husband's view and hers do not agree. It is his idea, she said, that the point of view of the saved will gradually be uplifted until it coincides with G.o.d's, and that then they will be able to contemplate the tortures of the d.a.m.ned with perfect satisfaction! And this is orthodoxy! O, for the day when this dark pall will be lifted from the heart of the world!

Thus men have distorted the finest feelings of their nature that they might view with complacency the eternal torments of the d.a.m.ned. They really believed, or tried to believe, that such was G.o.d's feeling and att.i.tude; and to that divine ideal they felt that they must aspire. It was surely hard work, and would naturally issue in a degree of sanctimoniousness and unreality. Yet it was necessary, if the doctrine of eternal torment were true. But the moment that doctrine is seen to be untrue, what a change of ideal! Then it is discerned that all this hardening process is opposed to the best that is in human nature, and utterly contrary to the character of G.o.d. We can never estimate the spiritual loss that it has been to mankind to have had such ideas of the Infinitely Merciful One.

When it is once discerned that there is no endless torment, but that suffering in the next life is a divinely appointed means of reformation, how the mind is enlarged in the contemplation of the wisdom, power, and love of G.o.d! Yea, and what an uplift, and what a new direction, is given to our ideas of human perfection and blessedness! If there were nothing else, we have surely here a strong argument for final Restoration.

Eternal blessedness is consonant with our nature; and though details of it are not revealed, it is reasonable to believe that it will ultimately be attained. But eternal suffering is abnormal and repugnant. Especially is it so as we rise in the moral scale. As a worthy ultimatum it cannot be entertained. It is far more reasonable to believe that under the perfect government of G.o.d, sin and all its resulting pain will finally be done away.

Further; it would be hard to find a case of such utter wickedness as not to have some mixture of good as well. That gives us the reasonable hope that ultimately the good will triumph. And sometimes we find great goodness mixed with great evil. Just now I notice a very affecting report in the newspaper of a criminal in whom there must have been a wonderful mixture of good and bad. He was convicted of a serious crime, and sentenced to three years in the penitentiary. When he was leaving the city under arrest, and being taken on board the train that was to convey him to the place of confinement, a number of his late companions in crime appeared on the railway platform. They had come to bid him good-bye. And it was no formal leave-taking. With tears and sobs they flung their arms about his neck, and kissed him. So affecting was the scene that the policeman in charge was utterly broken down. But the man had to go to prison; and the chances are that the evil influences of prison life will dissipate much of that extraordinary goodness which must have been in him to develop so much affection.

Be that as it may, the question must suggest itself to every thoughtful mind, "Where will that man go should he die in the meantime?" He is far too good for the world of woe; yet he is not fit for the better world until his criminal propensities are eliminated. How reasonable it is to believe in--we might say what a moral necessity there is for--a process of development of the good, and elimination of the evil. On the principle that what is good will survive, and that the evil will be extinguished, we can hope for nothing less. And when we remember that all men, and all conditions, and all worlds, are under the control of Him whose love is from everlasting to everlasting, we may believe that such a man's final destiny is the inheritance of the saints.

Another argument is derived very naturally from the case of departed friends whose spiritual condition was doubtful. Have we not known of acquaintances who pa.s.sed away, of whose spiritual condition we could have no well grounded a.s.surance? But the moment they were gone we became charitable, glossed over their faults, and hoped for the best. Would it not be a far more reasonable thing to do, to imagine them as having pa.s.sed into some purifying process, from which they would emerge in due time? In the case of many we can believe that such a purifying process might involve no great suffering; and we could endure the thought of it when we believed in its glorious issue. In fact we would become more like G.o.d Himself, who is inflicting pain every day with a view to moral perfection by and by.

Well do I remember spending an evening with a personal friend. He was a man of sterling character. In his ordinary demeanor, however, he was a very John Bull of a man; you would not think there was a particle of sentiment in his whole composition. During our conversation, reference was made to the case of departed friends whose spiritual condition was doubtful; and before I knew, my friend utterly broke down and wept. No doubt he was thinking of one in such a case. I could not at that time offer him the consolation of the larger hope; and it is doubtful if with his education he could have accepted such consolation. What a solace it will be, when we can think of departed friends in whom the work of grace was manifestly very incomplete--possibly not begun--as having gone, not into a state of hopeless, everlasting torment--but as having pa.s.sed into a state where the work of grace will be completed.

But speaking of the reformatory process, there is one circ.u.mstance that may seem to indicate that it may be very long. I refer to the fact that Satan has been so long incorrigible. I take him of course to be a conscious personality. In the Word of G.o.d I suppose there are a hundred references to him as a person. If you have any doubt on that point look up the references, and I think you will be convinced.

Now, since his temptation of Adam, and we know not how long before, Satan has been persevering in a course of evil. Does not that fact seem to indicate that sinners must have a long period of suffering in the next life before they are reclaimed, if they ever are?

WE HAVE NO DATA.

To this view a number of answers may be given. In the first place, Satan is of another race; we know very little of his former history, or the circ.u.mstances of his fall; and we know not if any means for his recovery have been provided. In the next place, a few thousand years may be but a span in the long sweep of his existence. Then further, he does not seem to be in a state of suffering at present. There is a hint in the Book of Revelation that he will be so by and by; and we know not what may be in store for him. As intimated before, some think he will be restored; others think he will be annihilated. With such ignorance of the circ.u.mstances of the case, it is plain that we have no data for forming an opinion one way or the other. At the same time, we cannot help being in sympathy with the words of Burns; they certainly touch a chord in all our hearts:

"Then fare ye weel, auld nickey Ben; O wad ye tak' a thought and men'

Ye aiblins micht--I dinna ken-- Hae still a stake."

As I have said, there are those who teach that Satan will be ultimately extinguished. And they lay down that theory with great positiveness.

While there are some hints to that effect in the Word of G.o.d, it does not seem to me that they are clear enough to warrant us in being positive. We would hardly expect so much. It is not our business to know much of "other world" affairs for the present.

So far as we may judge, it would appear instead that Satan's long continuance in sin gives some hope of his ultimate Restoration. For the question will naturally arise: Why should G.o.d spare him so long, if He foresees that he must be extinguished at last? Why not extinguish him at once, and thus avoid so much temptation to evil? I am by no means curious on such a question. I merely cite these possibilities to show that the subject is utterly beyond us.

It really comes to this, that on such high topics it is wise to be reverently silent. But with the fact that we do not know, we ally the privilege of eternal hope. So we would say with Tennyson:

"Behold, we know not anything; We can but trust that good shall fall, At last far off, at last to all; And every winter change to spring."

If you dissent from some of the views I have advanced, I would ask you not to be hasty in forming conclusions. It may be that after some years you will see differently. I was myself many years before coming to entertain these views. But they were growing on me, perhaps unconsciously, and at length they took this p.r.o.nounced form. It may be so with you. The ideas which you entertain now may be perhaps the result of early training as much as of patient study. Let us ever look for divine guidance. We have the promise. "Ye shall know the truth; and the truth shall make you free."

I cannot but forecast the new era of joy that will come to the world when the doctrine of Restoration is generally accepted. It will be like a burst of sunlight from behind a dark cloud. The world is sad; and I am convinced that one cause of its sadness is the dark view of endless torment that has so long prevailed. The view, from long habit, may be held almost unconsciously; but the dark shadow of it has cast a heavy gloom over human life. What an uplift all hearts will have, what a radiance of joy will be infused into life, we can now but dimly antic.i.p.ate. Then we can adopt the dictum of Browning, and it will be no cheap optimism:

"G.o.d's in His heaven; All's right with the world."

After all, that is only our poor human way of expressing the majestic thought, "The Lord G.o.d omnipotent reigneth!"

XVIII.

NOT REALLY BELIEVED.

Present Enthusiasm for Missions--Former La.s.situde--The Basis of Missionary Enterprise--Supposed d.a.m.nation of the Heathen--If Really Believed, Would Drive Us to Frenzy--Ministers' Monday Meeting --Pretence Cuts the Nerve of Enthusiasm--Restoration the True Incentive --Effective Because Reasonable--Torment Not Really Believed--The Heart Often Truer Than the Head--Necessity for Preparatory State--Could not Have Details Revealed--Orthodoxy of the Torment View--Trying to Believe It--Be Not Afraid of the Truth--Extreme Calvinists Signally Honored--The Reason Why--Our Innate G.o.d-given Convictions--Meagre Expenditure for Missions--Tacit Acknowledgement That Endless Suffering Is Not Believed.

Would not the doctrine of Restoration, as I have tried to commend it, cut the nerve of enthusiasm for missions? No, I think not; but it would provide a saner basis for them. For what is the true basis of missions?

Is it not the command of our Lord to preach the Gospel to every creature?

That the command extends down to our own time is clear from the fact that the disciples were commanded to go into all the world. They could not do so in their own time; so the command extends to their followers.

Moreover, Christ said he would be with them until the end of the world.

But they were not to continue to the end of the world; so the command was intended not only for them but those who would succeed them. Thus the duty comes home to the Christian church now, and cannot be evaded.

INCREASED INTEREST AND SYMPATHY

And all the Christian churches are agreed that this duty has been laid upon them, The churches are alive to this duty as they never were before. And this is one of the most hopeful signs of the age. It does seem at times as if society were getting worse at the core; yet in regard to sympathy and helpfulness, especially in regions remote, it is certainly improving. And this increased interest and sympathy relates both to the bodies and the souls of men. This age has witnessed marvels of kindness and enterprise that would have been impossible only a few years ago.

Surely it is time. It must be confessed that the church in general has been very slow to take up the subject of missions with any zeal. There was great activity in the first century of the Christian era, and a little later. If it had only been sustained until the present time, possibly the whole world would have been evangelized. But there was a deplorable lapse of interest and of effort. And it was long continued.

We might say that for sixteen hundred years the church was almost indifferent on the matter. But now there is renewed enthusiasm and enterprise.

This long lapse of interest should certainly make us moderate in our interpretation of Scripture. Here were the Saviour's words, clearly before the eyes of the church for sixteen hundred years; and it seems we did not see or hear them. He commanded us--and it was one of his last commands--to preach the Gospel to the world. But we took almost no notice. The world might have been dying in heathenism, but we seemed not to care. We had not the spiritual alertness to realize that the words of Christ had any application to ourselves. Such torpor of spiritual understanding and sentiment, I say, ought to keep us from being unduly positive, or self-a.s.sertive, in our interpretation of Scripture. Happily there is renewed interest now; and in this all the churches are agreed.

WHAT BECOMES OF THE HEATHEN?

But what is the basis of all missionary enterprise? I have said that it is the command of Christ. It is not necessary to believe that the heathen who do not hear the Gospel are lost. There were certainly some heathens who were not far from the kingdom of G.o.d. The possibility of men being raised to such a high spiritual level, even without the Gospel, gives us a hint of the ways and means that G.o.d can use for the ultimate salvation of the heathen world.

And it is to be noted that Christ made no special appeal to us in order to evoke our enthusiasm for the heathen. He gave no hint that there is but the one alternative of d.a.m.nation if they do not receive and accept the Gospel. He had evidently no morbid hysteria on that ground. He simply gave the command; and that ought to be sufficient. He knows what possibilities of grace are in reserve; but that was not the time nor the place to speak of them.

Besides, if we could realize that every heathen who does not hear and accept the Gospel is doomed to eternal fire, the thought would drive us to frenzy. We cannot bear the thought of a person, though he were an enemy, being even burned to death. In such a case, there would be a crowd of ardent sympathizers, though it were known that their sympathy would be unavailing. Failing all relief, there would be sighs, and groans, and prayers on every hand. It is not possible to witness unmoved such a scene of suffering. And it lasts but a short time. But the supposed case of the heathen is endless agony; and it does not move us.

The only conclusion is that it is not really believed. We may think we believe it; we may count it orthodox to believe it; but if we did really believe it, it would drive us to insanity.