EXCURSUS V. P. 74

THE VOICE OF SCRIPTURE RESPECTING ETERNAL HOPE.

Before adducing the various passages of Scripture which are here referred to, I may make one or two observations respecting them.

I. In proportion to the deep and unfeigned reverence which I have ever felt for Holy Scripture, is the sense of sorrow, and almost of indignation, with which I view its constant perversion by the attempt to build up infinite systems out of metaphorical expressions and isolated texts. I have spoken of this terrible abuse in one of my sermons; and I have said elsewhere that we must be guided, not by texts torn from their context, but by the whole scope and tenor of revelation. Texts have been perverted from the earliest times to the most unworthy purposes. They have—to the deadly injury of the divine authority of Scripture-been quoted for centuries in the cause of ignorance and sin. They have been abused, by the endless errors of private interpretation, to countenance every absurdity, and check every science, and denounce every moral reformation. They were quoted against Columbus, against Copernicus, against Galileo, against the geologists. They were quoted against St. Peter, against St. Paul, nay, even against Christ Himself. They were quoted against Wycliffe, against Luther, against Wilberforce, against the cause of Education, against the cause of

Temperance. They have been quoted in defence of polygamy, in defence of oppression, in defence of persecution, in defence of intolerance, in defence of "the right divine of kings to govern wrong." I care but little in any controversy for the stress laid on one or two isolated and dubious texts out of the sacred literature of fifteen hundred years. They may be in fragmentary isolation; they may be distorted; they may be misinterpreted; they may be irrelevant; they may be misunderstood; they may-as the Prophets and the Apostles and our Blessed Lord Himself distinctly intimatedthey may reflect the ignorance of a dark age or the fragment of an imperfect revelation; they may be a bare concession to imperfection, or a low steppingstone to progress. What the Bible teaches as a whole-what the Bibles also teach as a whole-for History, and Conscience, and Nature, and Experience, these too are sacred Books,—that, and that only, is the immutable law of God.1

II. Now if the doctrine of endless torment, with all its Calvinistic and popular accretions, be true, it is incredible that there should be barely trace of it in the entire Old Testament, even if we attribute to

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I Two writers, with neither of whom I agree, but who are distinguished by the most devout reverence for the Word of God in Holy Scripture, have recently expressed similar thoughts. "The Bible," says Mr. White, "has fallen much into the hands of those who imagine that a few favourite 'texts will suffice to prove that Omniscience is on the side of even the most extravagant theologies. The world has already suffered too much from systems founded on a handful.f wrested quotations, to allow of much reticence in repudiating those hermen. eutical methods" (Life in Christ, p. 348). "The Gospel," says Mr. Minton, "saves by the revelation which it makes of the heart and mind of God," and when we are faced by such doctrine at "endless torment," is it unnatural to "inquire whether there may not be some mistake in the common interpretation of the four or five passages which are thought to attribute such an intention to the Creator?" 2 Dan. xii. 2-to say nothing of the fact that it only says 66 many of them that sleep," and that the word rendered "everlasting" does not mean "everlast.

the Hebrew phrase "for ever" a sense which it cannot and does not bear. Those who insist on doing this put themselves at once out of court as incompetent and biassed critics. Nor can anything more forcibly illustrate what I have said on the reckless abuse of texts than the ignorant persistence with which such passages as Is. xxxiii. 14, or Eccl. xi. 3, are urged in favour of endless torments, with which they have not the very remotest connection.

III. I have already stated that the Jews, studying the Old Test ament without any polemical bias about this subject, and with every temptation to interpret every passage of it in the darkest sense which might gratify their passionate, and not unnatural, indignation against a world which has treated them with such unbounded cruelty and scorn, have yet never held or taught the doctrine of endless torment as any part of their religion. I have consulted Rabbi H. N. Adler on this subject, and in his very full and courteous reply he assures me that "the Jews do not possess any authorised dog. matic teaching on the subject of endless punishment; and that the views of each rabbi depended on his interpretation of the several Scripture texts bearing upon this point and upon the results of his own reflection and investigation. I have referred to the principal passages of the Talmud bearing upon the question. There are two loci classici.

Rosh Hashana, p. 17.—“But unbelievers, &c., go down into Gehenna and are adjudged therein for generation after generation." This phrase does not, I think, imply endless punishment.

ing "-seems to state, when rightly translated and rightly interpreted, that many shall enjoy the first resurrection, while those who do not shall be doomed to shame and contempt, which (for all that appears in the text) may fall upon them while dead; for the word i here used is applied to "dead corpses in Is. lxvi. 24. On this text see Mr. White's Life in Christ, p. 172. The Jews interpreted the passage of "death and immobility "-Weill, Le Judaïsme, iv dogm. xii. ch. iii. § 1.

Baba Mezia, p. 58.-"All who go down into Gehenna rise up again, with the exception of those who go down and do not rise, the adulterer," &c.1

“Philippson, in his Israelitische Religionslehre (ii. 255), says, when speaking of immortality, "Die Rabbiner nehmen keine Ewigkeit der Höllenstrafen an, auch die grössten Sünder werden nur 'Generationen hindurch' gestraft. Allegorisch drucken sie dies auch so aus, dass zwischen der Hölle und dem Paradiese nur ein Zwei Finger breiter Zwischenraum sei, so dass es also dem reinigen Sünder sehr leicht wird aus der ersteren in das letztere zu gelangen." (Midrash, Kohelet.)

"With respect to the Rabbis of the present day, I think it would be safe to say that they do not teach endless retributive suffering. They hold that it is not conceivable that a God of Mercy and Justice would ordain infinite punishment for finite wrong-doing."

So writes the Rev. H. N. Adler. "Of this you may be quite sure," wrote the late Dr. Deutsch, with his usual impassioned energy, to the Rev. S. Cox, "that there is not a word in the Talmud that lends any support to that damnable dogma of endless torment."

"The upshot is," says Rabbi Marks, "that the Jewish doctors laboured rather to adorn the future of the good, than to adorn the destiny of the wicked. Stronger than their fear of justice is their belief in the Divine mercy. 'He will not contend for ever, neither will He retain His anger to eternity' (Ps. ciii. 9), which is a power

1 It appears from other passages of the Talmud that these latter were supposed by some of the Jews to be annihilated; but even this was the rarer view, though favoured by Maimonides, Jad Hachazaka, Hilchoth Teshuba viii. § 1. Rabbi Adler refers me to two Post-Talmudic Rabbis (R. Saadjah and R. Joseph Albu, in his Sepher Ikkarim iv. 36) who appear to teach endless torments for the few. Hartwig Wessely, the friend of Moses Mendelssohn, wrote a valuable little treatise on Jewish opinion respecting this subject, and there are some remarks in Brecher's Unsterblichkeitslehre.

ful argument against the modern Christian doctrine of everlasting woe."

The Chief Rabbi of Avignon, B. Mosse, has written against the doctrine of endless torments in his local journal, La Famille de Facob.

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The Chief Rabbi Michel A. Weill, in his elaborate work, Le Judaisme, ses Dogmes et sa Mission, distinctly decides that the doctrine of endless torment is Scripturally untenable. He treats Gehenna not as a real denomination, but as a figurative expression for chastiseOf the fire and flames he says, "Qui ne reconnâit dans ces termes l'hyperbole prophétique et poétique, qui est comme le génie Ide la littérature sacrée." He refers to other passages, such as Is. xlviii. 22, lvii. 21, 1 Sam. xxv. 29, &c., to show the spirituality of punishment, while he explains that "they shall no more see the light," of Ps. xlix. 20, as perhaps identical with the , kareth, "excision" of the Mosaic code. "Would there not," he asks, "be a flagrant contradiction between endless torments and the goodness of God so magnificently celebrated in Biblical annals? Does not Moses announce to us, does he not himself invoke in solemn circumstances the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin' (Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7)? Does not the prophet say, in the name of the Lord, 'I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth, for the spirit would fail before me and the souls that I have made' (Is lvii. 16)? And the Psalmist of Israel, how does he speak on this subject? 'His wrath endureth but the twinkling of an eye, but His favour a lifetime' (Ps. xxx. 5). Nothing, therefore, seems more incompatible with the true Biblical tradition than an eternity of suffer. ing and chastisement.”