34. We have already remarked that it was the object of Christ to bring the future state in a very vivid manner before His disciples, so that they might realise its substantial existence, and He has accordingly given them on the one hand exalted descriptions of the joys of heaven, and on the other awful accounts of the fate of the lost. Heaven was variously described by Him as a banqueting house, as a beautiful city, as Abraham’s bosom, and, when speaking to His immediate disciples, as a place where they shall dwell together with their Master. On the other hand, it is believed that Christ’s description of hell was borrowed from the valley of Hinnom, a place near Jerusalem, which formed the receptacle for every species of filth, the combustible parts of which were consumed by fire. Putrefaction, or the worm, was always busy there, and the fire was always burning, and this may have given rise to the expression: ‘Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.’ There can be no doubt, we think, that such descriptions were meant to be allegorical, the intention being by forcible earthly images to convey an idea of what could not otherwise be conveyed.

35. It is well known that many varieties of opinion have been entertained regarding the person of Christ even by those who profess to be His disciples. It is not however here our object to enter into theological controversies; our treatment of this subject is at present historical, and we will therefore bring before our readers only those views regarding the person of Christ and the constitution of the invisible world, which are held by the large majority of those who call themselves Christians.

Whilst all the Christian Churches believe in one God, yet by most of them the Godhead is believed to consist of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The first of these appears to be regarded as the Being or Essence in virtue of whom the Universe exists. Thus in reciting the Apostles’ Creed the Christian disciple says:—‘I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth;’ and the laws of the Universe are regarded by Christian theologians as being expressions of the will acting in conformity with the character of this Being. Thus Nature (according to Whately) is the course in which the Author and Governor of all things proceeds in His works.

But the majority of Christian Churches virtually assert that there are two other Divine Persons, who work through and by the Universe.[21] One great object of the second Person of the Trinity is held to be the manifestation of God to man, and possibly to other beings, in a manner and to an extent which could not be accomplished by finite intelligences. One great object of the third Person is to enter, as Lord and giver of life, into the souls of men, and possibly of other beings, and to dwell there in such a manner as to fit them for the position which they are destined ultimately to occupy in the universe of God.

36. In Christ it is supposed that we have an incarnation of the second Person of the Trinity, and the work which He accomplished is regarded as done not in violation of the order of things as established by God the Father, but rather in strict obedience to it. But while this is generally accepted by the Church of Christ, yet the doctrine of the submission of Christ to law has been held by some as not inconsistent with a view which regards the miraculous works of Christ as manifestations of His divine nature, so changing the order of things as to denote something wrought upon the universe rather than something wrought through it and by its means. We do not think that this theory is borne out by the words of Christ himself. He says: ‘I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father who sent me.’[22] Again, we are told by Paul, that ‘when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that they might receive the adoption of sons.’[23]

Christ also frequently represents His works as wrought by the Father, as for instance when he says:—‘I do nothing of myself; but as the Father hath taught me, I speak these things.’[24] In fine, the whole genius of Christianity would appear to point towards a total submission of Christ in every respect to all the laws of the universe: for these, indeed, as we shall soon have occasion to show, form but another expression for the will of God acting in conformity with His character. To make our meaning clear, we may say that the will of man is accomplished in conformity with the laws of the universe, while on the other hand the will of God, as above defined, constitutes in itself the laws of the universe. Now it appears to us from what we find contained in the books of the Christian religion, that Christ must in this sense be regarded as similar to man; but, inasmuch as the relation of Christ to the universe is there asserted to have been different from that of any mere man, so the works of Christ are to be regarded as different from those which any mere man can accomplish.

37. The Christian system, of which we have thus briefly described the peculiarities, was soon called upon to do battle, on the one hand with the antient philosophies of Greece and Rome, and on the other with the semi-savage creeds of those less civilised races of man which were destined ultimately to overpower the Roman Empire. But it was chiefly when the apostolic pioneers came into contact with the acute minds of the antient philosophers that we have light struck regarding what may be termed the philosophical system of Christianity; thus we have already remarked ([Art. 32]), that the nature of the glorified body is most clearly indicated to us by the Apostle Paul. As respects the more barbarous nations which afterwards embraced Christianity, they were not likely to puzzle themselves about the physical possibilities of a future state, nor even to contest the reality of a place of eternal physical torment. And so it happened that, when dealing with a lower class of converts, some prominent Christians in post-apostolic periods appealed more to their fears than to their hopes, bringing vividly before them awful ideas of the nature of hell; while on the other hand, the higher class of converts, if they had not a very clear idea of heaven, were yet drawn with intense longing to a future which they were to spend in the company of Christ.

38. In the course of a few hundred years we find the whole Roman Empire converted to Christianity, while, however, in Arabia and the East it appears either to have made very little progress, or to have become corrupted into something very different from that which we read of in the New Testament. It had not become the national religion of the Arabs; and we can well imagine that this nation, with their pretensions to be regarded as the most antient representatives of the Semitic race, would not look kindly upon a religion which took its origin in a rival branch of the same family. We can further imagine that, with such a feeling, they would be very ready to welcome any skilfully devised religious system which should spring up amongst themselves. Such an opportunity was afforded them by Mohammed. Acknowledging in some measure the claims of Moses and of Christ, Mohammed yet claimed for himself and his religion a superiority over his rivals, flattering by this means the vanity of his own countrymen, who considered themselves the elder branch of the Semitic race. The heaven which was promised by Mohammed was altogether of a sensuous character, and well calculated to strike the imagination of his countrymen. He succeeded equally well in describing hell as a place of physical torture reserved for those who did not believe in his religion. He further commissioned his followers to propagate his tenets by the sword, so that men became converts from dread of earthly punishment, and were retained in his ranks by the success which attended his arms, and by the promise of a paradise full of earthly delights, as well as by the threat of a horrible material hell which was reserved for unbelievers. We could not possibly have a better or more graphic description of such a system than that which is given us by Byron:—

‘But him the maids of paradise

Impatient to their halls invite,