things, He says, I do, and bring in desolation, that I may extinguish men's madness and rage after idols." Augustine, 354-430 A.D., was born in Numidia; taught rhetoric at Milan, where he heard Ambrose. He was the greatest of the four great Latin Church Fathers (Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, and Gregory the Great). His influence probably more than that of any other of the Church Fathers brought forward and emphasized the doctrine of never-ending punishment. He spoke with greater consideration for those who differed with him than many of the moderns. "And now I see I must have a gentle disputation with certain tender hearts of our own religion, who are unwilling to believe that everlasting punishment will be inflicted, either on all those whom the just Judge shall condemn to the pains of hell, or even on some of them, but who think that after certain periods of time, longer or shorter according to the proportion of their crimes, they shall be delivered out of that state." (De Civ. Dei, lib. 21, c. 17). And in Encheirid. ad Laurent, c. 29, re refers to "The very many in his day, who tho not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments." He does not declare them unorthodox. Augustine, in replying to the Manichees, says: "Who is so blind as not to see that evil is that which is opposed to the nature of a thing? And by this principle is your heresy refuted; for evil as opposed to the nature is not a nature. But you say, that evil is a certain nature and substance. That what is opposed to nature struggles against it and would destroy it. So that which exists tends to make non-existence. For nature is only what is understood, after its kind, to be something . . . If then you will consider the matter, evil consists in this very thing; namely, in a defection from being, and a tendency to non-being." "If this is so,” says an able writer, "what becomes of Augustine's doctrine of never-ending punishment, which surely is never-ending existence in evil ?" Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and others argue against evil having absolute reality, it could not therefore continue in eternity. In collecting the above testimonies we have given only a representative portion of the great leaders of the Church of the first four hundred years. During this whole period it seems clear that over half of the authoritative teachers in the Church held the ultimate salvation of all, and in no case was this view regarded as heretical. When we remember that many who taught this view spoke the language of the New Testament and represented the first promulgators of the Gospel, the evidence is strengthened. In later years some of the objectors could not even read the Bible in the original language. We need to remember also that on account of the doctrine of Reserve which was held by so many of the Church Fathers (see chapter on Doctrine of Reserve), some who are quoted as holding to the doctrine of never-ending torment have other passages which teach quite the contrary. Many held the doctrine of the ultimate salvation of all for themselves and for the other doctors of divinity; but felt that it was not safe for the multitude, and therefore taught them an endless perdition. When we remember the cruelty and militarism of the Roman Empire, and also the pagan teaching that was permitted to enter on this great subject because it was found in the pagan and barbarian religions of many who profest allegiance to Christianity, many of these we fear, judging from their actions, had not received a truly Christian spirit, and we are not surprized that "endless torment' was so largely incorporated in the Western Church. Besides this, it took the dark ages and medieval ignorance to render this doctrine almost universal. It is time to return to the Bible and to the teaching of the early Church, which is not only Biblical but is sane and is also consistent with a God of love and the sacrifice of His Son who was a "propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (I John 2:2). XXVIII THE WITNESS OF THE POETS DR. F. W. GUNSAULUŞ introduced a series of lectures on the Higher Ministries of Recent English Poetry with these words: "Next to religion, poetry is the most vital, and at the same time the most far-reaching, of those movements of the human soul by which it declares its deeps of feeling and its heights of aspiration. Verse is the innocent manifestation of the primal music of humanity, as the seer, the Vates, stand with man and the mysteries which surround him. Along with the smoking altar comes the ballad of the remotest savage; and the latest child of culture begins to see that if the word "minister" is to go out of his vocabulary, that the other word “minstrel,” joined with it in the same ancient root, will perhaps depart also. The Psalmist, if he be truly such, is as much a poet as he is a religionist." Another spiritual thinker has said: "I am a great debtor to poems. Poets always seem to me to say deeper things than other teachers; perhaps deeper than they themselves are conscious of. For they speak out of the heart and the heart is the real seer, often shaming the head, which thinks it knows so well.” 1 We do not put the witness of the poets on the same plane as the Bible. We rest our case on 1 Letters of Andrew Jukes, edited by Herbert H. Jeaffreson, page 96 (Longmans, Green & Co., London). God's infallible Word, but it is interesting to note how many of the poets teach the ultimate triumph of good over evil and of God over Satan. Those who do not like poetry need not waste their time on this chapter, but those who do love the poets and other verse may learn a truth from them that they might not get elsewhere. Our own Whittier wrote in a letter in 1882: "Especially I am glad that so many dear friends, whose names recall the worthies of past generations, are able to partake with me of the great hope that He whose will it is that all should turn to Him and live, and whose tender mercy endureth forever and is over all the works of His hands, will do the best that is possible for all His creatures. What that may be, we know not, but we can trust Him to the uttermost. This hope and this trust in the mercy of the All Merciful I have felt impelled to express, yet with a solemn recognition of the awful consequences of alienation from Him and a full realization of the truth that sin and suffering are inseparable. Let me say that the hope which I humbly cherish for myself and my fellow creatures rests not upon any work or merit of my own, but upon the Infinite Love, manifested in the life and death of the Divine Master, and in the light and grace afforded to all. In the communion and fellowship of that faith in the guidance of the Spirit of Truth, which is the vital principle of our Religious Society."2 We might expect from Whittier the following poem: THE CRY OF A LOST SOUL "In that black forest, where, when day is done, 2 Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, by Samuel T. Pickard, Vol. 2, page 683 (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). |