declared not to die, and the fire to be unquenchable in the Valley of Hinnom, while the contrary was the literal fact, therefore the allusion, when made to apply to future punishment, signifies "eternal." Other passages clearly show that the expression " unquenchable fire" does not mean eternal duration, Isa. xxxiv. 9, 11; Ezek. xx. 45-48. The metaphor "fire" is used in two general sensesto denote refinement or purification by suffering, and also a high degree of pain or distress, arising from incurring the divine displeasure; and according to either of these senses, it does not countenance the doctrine of eternal torment. Fire is itself a perishable thing, and is properly applied to that divine anger or corrective punishment of the sinner's offences, which endureth but for a moment amidst the endless being of God, passing away when its design is accomplished. There are a few other scriptural allusions adduced in favour of the dogma we condemn, such as the case of Judas, and the gulf between the rich man and Lazarus, but we cannot enter upon an examination of them. They afford, we think, no countenance whatever to the doctrine, and are but rarely advanced in support of it.

As already observed, we consider the deduction of the doctrine of eternal punishment from the words con and conios altogether strained and unnatural. We may add, that, in repelling that doctrine as founded on the use of those words, it is not necessary to fix their precise import, and we think any interpretation must be preferable, according to the rules of fair criticism, to one which contradicts the spirit and design of the gospel, as well as its express declarations. Mr. Maurice maintains that the word "eternal" acquires its proper meaning only when applied to God, of whom the New Testament is the highest revelation. He manifests himself, not negatively, but positively, as the righteous, loving, and truthful Deity. He promised a clearer revelation of his perfections than Judaism afforded, and hence the Jew came to regard the divine attributes as external and substantial things, not to be found in ancient idolatry. The apostle John, therefore, speaks in this intelligible strain"The life was manifested, and we have seen it, and we declare unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and which has been manifested unto us." "The eternal life is

the righteousness and truth and love of God, which are manifested in Christ Jesus; manifested to men, that they may be partakers of them, that they may have fellowship with the Father and with the Son. This is held out as the eternal blessedness of those who seek God and love him. This it is of which our Lord must have spoken in his last prayer, if he who reports that prayer did not misinterpret his meaning."* Eternity, then, derives in the scriptures, from its relation to God, a new signification; and the expression "eternal punishment" must, in harmony with the context, simply mean that alienation from God, which is our greatest unhappiness. After all, however, there is a divine love tending ever to root out sin, a love which can never fail. There is much force in Mr. Maurice's examination of the opinions held by the early Christians on the subject of future punishment. He shows that the notion of a material hell and of a purgatory arose from the desire to give a definite form to the remedial discipline of the Deity, although those ideas have been perverted in the hands of the Calvinist and the Romanist. Whatever weight is fairly attributable, in many respects, to the views of Mr. Maurice on the subject before us, we cannot share his difficulty in the application of the word rendered "eternal" in two senses. Our opinions are confirmed by the reasoning of a very able article by M. de Quincey, in 'Hogg's Instructor," vol. 10. He rejects at once the idea that the word in question must be held to express the eternity of punishment, because otherwise it might not indicate the immortality of the righteous. He defines an aon, in the use and acceptation of the Apocalypse, to be "the duration or cycle of existence which belongs to any object, not individually for itself, but universally in right of its genus." "The world has an conian life or period-so has the race of different animals and that of man. grandeur of the terms, as used in the scriptures, in relation to great events, consists partly in the difficulty of setting the limit to them, and the inadequateness of human chronology. The cons in this vast sense are terminable by laws of their own, unknown to

6

The

Maurice, M.A., Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn. Second "Theological Essays," by Frederick Denison Edition. P. 449.

us, but in strict harmony with the great subjects to which they refer. Hence every object, as punishment and happiness, has its separate œon, or period. The cons are in each case determined by God upon principles consistent with his perfections, and we know that evil tends to dissolution. True cons are exactly the same, as a tenth or twelfth is always the same, but they differ in duration, according to laws of their own, or, in other words, the divine appointment." "That man who allows himself to infer the eternity of evil from the counter eternity of good, builds upon the mistake of assigning a stationary and mechanic value to the idea of an aon, whereas the very purpose of scripture in using this word was to evade such a value. The word is always varying, for the very purpose of keeping it faithful to a spiritual identity. The period or duration of every object would be an essentially variable quantity, were it not mysteriously commensurate to the inner nature of that object as laid open to the eyes of God. And thus it happens, that everything in this world, possibly without a solitary exception, has its own separate con:-how many entities, so many cons. If it can be an excess of blindness which can overlook the conian differences amongst even neutral entities, how much deeper is that blindness which overlooks the separate tendencies of things evil and things good. Naturally, all evil is fugitive and allied to death." "Having anchorage in God, innumerable entities may possibly be admitted to a participation in the divine œon. But what interest in the favour of God can belong to falsehood, to malignity, to impunity? To invest them with conian privileges is, in effect, and by its results, to distrust and insult the Deity. Evil would not be evil if it had that power of self-subsistence which is imputed to it in supposing its conian life to be co-eternal with that which crowns and glorifies the good."

If anything were required in addition to what has been already stated to show that the doctrine of eternal punishment is contrary to Christianity, reference might be made at length to the numerous passages of

the scriptures, which imply or express the final restoration of the wicked-vide Ephes. i. 9, 10; Col. i. 19, 20; 1 Tim. ii. 3, 4; iv. 10; Phil. ii. 9-11; Heb. ii. 8, &c., &c. In drawing this article to a close, we would notice the prevalent idea that, if future punishment were not eternal, wickedness would receive encouragement. We believe this is a great mistake. In the vast majority of cases it is not the idea of the eternity of punishment, but the unquestionable fact of its awful character, as threatened by One whom we have offended, and who is just, which makes the idea potential. Anything, however, which makes the sinner think that God is vindictive and unjust, hardens his heart, and he ends by disbelieving the doctrine, and acting in opposition to God's will. -Men inclined to do well often fail, in consequence of this doctrine, to find hope and consolation in Christianity; and even if they love it in ordinary circumstances, in the more painful exigencies of life there is a struggle between despair and hope. What we require-what all men need, is the conviction that God is good-is the bringing again from the venerable scriptures the truth which they contain, but which has been obscured-the revelation of a Father. We would conclude in the words of Mr. Maurice: "If you take from me the belief that God is always righteous, always maintaining a fight with evil, always seeking to bring his creatures out of it, you take everything from me, all hope now, all hope in the world to come. Atonement, redemption, satisfaction, regeneration, become mere words, to which there is no counterpart in reality." "But I know that there is something which must be infinite. I am obliged to believe in an abyss of love which is deeper than the abyss of death. I dare not lose faith in that love. I sink into eternal death if I do. I must feel that this love is encompassing the universe. More about it I cannot know. But God knows. I leave myself and all to him.” T. U.

NOTE.-The author of the foregoing article is indebted for a part of its reasoning to Dr. Southwood Smith's work on the "Divine Government."

141

"It is fine

To stand upon some lofty mountain thought,

And feel the spirit stretch into a view."-Bailey. AFTER reading the negative article commencing this debate, we were led intuitively to the inquiry, What is the question at issue? With careful examination we ascertained the terms of the question submitted to our consideration to require arguments for or against the reasonableness of assigning to other spheres animated existence, and not the comparative truthfulness of arguments contained in two books, respectively entitled, "More Worlds than One," and "An Essay." Had we been reading a critical review of the contents of these two books, we should have felt grateful to H. D. L. for the pleasure he had afforded us; but the circumstances are slightly different, and we are inclined to imagine that his whole article is completely hors de combat, so far as the readers of the Controversialist are concerned on this occasion. The propriety of these remarks will become more apparent as we proceed, and we have no doubt that H. D. L. will appreciate fully the hint we now give, and kindly bear in mind what the question is which we are required to discuss, so that we may have the benefit of his thoughts upon the real question, and not on a fictitious one, when he favours us with his concluding remarks.

All the knowledge man receives from observation and experience is clouded with some degree of uncertainty, and his judgment is constantly wavering between the more and less certain; hence there arises in the human mind the idea of probability, and of its opposite, improbability-states of the mind in which the measure of certainty preponderates or not in a given direction, according to the amount and value of evidence upon it. Evidence is a fact, or series of facts, showing more clearly the truth of some other facts with which they are associated, and "the conclusiveness of evidence

consists in such a conjunction of a number of facts, that there remains only one way in which they can all be consistently ex-plained."

We know that this universe is subjected to certain influences, which have been observed to act so uniformly for a long series of years, as to be generally recognized by man as general laws of the universe. We recognize the fact that this earth forms a part only, a mere speck, in the immensity of the material universe; we can demonstrate, with mathematical certainty, that this earth has similar motions, effected by the same power, and controlled by the same agencies, as some other portions of the universe. Moreover, we cannot deny that the centre of the universe sustains a common relation, and exercises similar influences upon these different portions of the universe. Philosophy has not only taught us the high probability of these things, but it assures us of their absolute certainty. The progressive attainments of science show us still farther the high probability that those portions of the universe which are most definitely observable, possess land to walk on, air to breathe, water to drink, and fire for warmth. Then why is it not equally probable that there is some concrescence of animated existence to enjoy the provision of other spheres? We know that appropriate inhabitants live here to enjoy and use them, and is it not a well-recognized rule of reason to judge of things beyond observation by things known and admitted within the limits of observation? We are therefore pledged to believe that reason requires the same to be affirmed of more spheres than one: but we proceed.

However learned or acute may have been the various writers on this subject and its correlates which have recently occupied the public attention, their works must be valued merely as conjectural. We therefore attach but little importance to the detached por

cept a fish, no creature bringing forth its young alive, no frogs, no tortoises, no snakes, no lizards, nothing that could breathe air, except a few insects, and two species of beetles, had been discovered in rocks so ancient as those of the coal. The first clue to the probable existence of air-breathing animals was furnished by a singular tooth, found in the cannel coal of the Fifeshire coal-fields. The animal to whom this tooth belonged seemed to have been a true fish, but its tooth indicated that some parts of its organization were higher than a mere fish." Herein geology furnishes us with a condition of this earth, much less fitted for habitation than that presented by many of the spheres immediately contiguous to our own, furnishing a probability for the affirmative of our debate. H. D. L., we presume, will be somewhat inclined to relinquish the friendship of geology, as he finds it untrue to the colours to which he has summoned it. "If the earth was for ages a turbid mass of lava and of mud, why may not Mars and Saturn be so still?" (p. 21.) We repeat the query, Why not? While the earth was in this state, certain conditions of animated existence were in being. Why, then, may not Mars and Saturn also be possessed of these conditions of animated existence, if, as alleged, they are now turbid masses of "lava and of mud"? Is it more unreasonable for them to have shiny fishes, frogs as large as elephants (the labyrinthidon), carnivorous marine reptiles, thirty feet long, with the snout of a porpoise, the teeth of a crocodile, the head of a lizard, the vertebræ of a fish, the sternum of an ornithorhynchus, and the paddles of a whale (the ichthyosaurus), when these monsters inhabited our earth, when "the earth was brute, * * * countless centuries before man was created"?

It is argued that animal existence is impossible in the planets from their relation to the sun as the source of heart, as it is said that planets nearer than our earth must be subjected to a greater heat, in proportion as the distance between them and the sun is lessened, and that planets farther removed from the sun than our earth must suffer from a proportionate diminution of heat. With respect to this, we reply by urging the well-known fact, that the velocity with which the planets move in their orbits and upon their axes, necessarily modifies their

temperature by increasing or decreasing the sun's influence upon them. It is an established fact here, that the greater the velocity with which the wind travels, the less is the heat, the more intense the cold: or rather, the absence of heat is more sensible. Is not the velocity of the wind, in a great measure, controlled by the rotatory and orbicular motion of the earth? Farther, we would urge that facts are opposed to such an assumption, for we find that the sources of heat are numerous; we particularize three only as equal to our exigencies in the present case-the sun, the stellar orbs, and the planet itself. Start not, reader, at the allegation, for it is not our intention to take you on the wings of excited fancy, through the aery labyrinth of imagination; we set you down before a fact on our own mother earth. We like facts, there is something so tangible, so real, and life-like about them; they shrink not on your approaching to examine them, but court investigation with a free open-handedness, altogether unlike the thin transparencies of hypothesis and fiction. Experiinents made by that learned philosopher, M. Pauillet, have shown that, if a given effect, produced on this earth at a certain time and place by solar influence, be represented by 100, the influence of celestial or stellar heat under the same circumstances will be correctly indicated by 85: thus, as solar heat is to 100, so is stellar heat to 85; to which, if we add the amount of heat strictly emanating from the earth as terrestrial heat, we shall find that the heat felt at the surface of the earth is derived chiefly from other sources than the sun, or in other words, that the sun supplies somewhat less than one-half of the heat sensible to inhabitants of the earth. Applying these remarks to other orbs, we find the relative position of those most open to our observation to be such as to manifest but little variation in temperature from the thermal condition of our earth: thus at Mercury heat would be 25 per cent. greater than here; at Venus, a little less; at Mars, about 25 per cent. less than at the earth; and at Jupiter, about 40 per cent, less than at the earth;-variations much less in every case than the extremes of temperature experienced at various seasons on the earth. Again: these thermal conditions we find are modified by a variety of causes on the earth, producing the pleasing