the hand that chastened us in that school wherein He had designed to try us, and vouchsafed to bid us work out our own salvation." Thus Mr. Gregory attempted to show how the existence of evil, as an argument against the goodness of God, was refutable. With regard to the second point of sceptical objection-namely, the eternal punishment of mankind, he found it more difficult to answer. Because any attempt at explanation must be conjectural, and his own convictions, though formed after mature examination, might still be erroneous, and would certainly by many, be thought irreconcileable with the existing translation and ordinary language of Scripture. He heartily beseeched God for pardon if he had deceived himself, and as earnestly prayed that, if in error, his opinion might not mislead others. Still, what he believed to be Truth he did not shrink from avowing. "With regard to a future state, he considered the doctrine of unlimited punishment depended for credence, not so much on the expressions ascribed to our Lord, and the language of Scripture, as upon the literal meaning of those expressions, and the true signification of the words 'eternal' and 'everlasting.' He pointed out passages, both in the Old and New Testament, where these same terms were employed in a sense signifying unmistakeably a limited duration of time.* The many expressions in Scripture favouring the idea of a limited punishment; the constant use of hyperbole; the figurative character of the Hebrew language, affording a possibility that the awful sentence passed by Christ upon sinners may not generally be understood by us, in the sense He intended; and the consideration of the benign attributes of the Supreme Being-all, as he believed, *For such passages, and for the more complete exposition of this part of the argument, the author refers the reader to Southwood Smith's admirable treatise upon the Divine Government. united to support the doctrine, that the terms 'eternal' and 'everlasting' did not necessarily signify unlimited punishment. "In the first place," continued Mr. Gregory "Christ teaches us to call upon God as our Father. Now, what is the nature and object of punishment in a father? It must be correction with a view to ameliorate. The infliction of suffering for past guilt, without reference to the prevention of future misery as induced by the commission of evil, is not punishment, but revenge. "Such, for instance, is the punishment of death by man. It has no ultimate object beyond that of precluding the repetition of crime which object might be secured by secondary means. "The infliction of positive pain without the ulterior object of producing good to the sufferer, must be positive evil to the sufferer. But hell, which is represented as a state of everlasting misery, could not effect that purpose: therefore hell, or endless pain, is : positive evil and if positive evil, could neither, as he had before said, be designed by a Being perfectly good, nor permitted by a Being infinitely powerful. The ultimate and everlasting misery of any one single created being, could not, according to such belief, possibly be the scheme of a merciful God." Mr. Gregory admitted that in an unadvanced state of the general mind, the inculcation of such a doctrine might operate perniciously in removing the only restraint to vice. But was it not a degrading idea, contrary to the context of Scripture, and at variance with “the first and great commandment" given by our blessed Lord, that man's chief incentive should be fear, not love? Was it not, moreover-if on such a point we might speculate a species of irreverence to entertain such conceptions of the Deity, as regarded Him more in the light of an avenging tyrant than of a loving Father? He believed that the capacity for truth in man was intended to be progressive; that just as virtue and wisdom in an individual augmented in proportion to his capacity for receiving them, so, with the multitude, truth obtained in proportion to the progress of the word's ethical condition; that Providence worked by exoteric principles; that idolatry and heathenism had been permitted as the designed means of progression in one age; that prophecy and miraculous agency had prepared the soil for, and had nourished the seeds of Christianity; that from out of the conflicts of Schism had issued the triumphs of Truth; that the human mind was for ever advancing; that each succeeding age sloughed off some prejudice, and put on some wisdom; that the peculiarities of creed, and the difference of sects, were gradually becoming rather outward than real distinctions; that the opinions of thinking men tended substantially to a similarity of conviction; and that Reason, having become once and for ever established as not VOL. II. D |