We believe that the rewards of righteousness are promised to all; and that the practice of righteousness is not limited to any kindred, tongue, or people, or essentially connected with any religious belief. We hold that retribution is the universal sanction of the universal moral law; and if the nature of the sanction be more fully understood by Christians, and therefore practically admitted with greater readiness, let them be as grateful as they will for the great privilege, but beware of supposing that the sanction is abolished to all besides. Under the various obscurations of this sanction, savage virtue may be inferior to civilized,—Hottentot to Roman virtue, as both are to Christian holiness; but there is every reason to believe that the savage who surrendered his hard-earned meal to the hungry stranger, and the Pagan senators and warriors who toiled and bled for their country, were as sure of an appropriate reward as the most benevolent and heroic of Christians.
The unlimited nature of salvation in this sense, leads us on to another great doctrine of the Gospel; viz.
III. A Future State.
This truth, the most important to human improvement, the most interesting to human affections, was so fully brought to light by the Gospel, that Christians have differed respecting it no further than as to the time and mode in which future retribution will take place. That Jesus died on the cross, was inclosed in the sepulchre, and was led forth thence by the manifest power of God, are facts too well authenticated to be questioned to any purpose by the most hardy sceptic; and on them securely rests the sublime belief which, from the midst of obscurity, had already cheered the bereaved, animated the martyr, and exalted the hopes and fears of the great body of the Hebrew nation. They had been led, like many of the Gentiles, by the mournful questionings of their affections, to inquire concerning a future state, and at length to believe in it; but their indistinct belief was widely different in nature and far inferior in power to the firm and clear faith with which the resurrection of Christ authorized them to look forward. Their former belief was strong enough to reconcile them to death; and perhaps they had sufficiently clear convictions that the future life would be a scene of retribution, to govern their own conduct by some regard to it; but the evidence was not such as to authorize their pressing on the minds of others the motives which the doctrine now affords. Without the evidence of the facts of Christ's resurrection, Paul could not have made Felix tremble at the prospect of judgement to come; or have enforced the duties of masters to their servants by considerations of their accountability to a master in heaven; or have felt how far better it was to depart and be with Christ than to pursue his earthly labors. Without this evidence, Stephen could not have met his fate as if he had been welcoming the hour of rest from which the beams of a new day should awaken him. Without this evidence, no one of the Apostles could have passed through his labors and sufferings with zeal, patience, and cheerfulness; for we have their own testimony, that if in this life only they had had hope in Christ, they would have been of all men the most miserable. Without this evidence, not only would the hopes of millions who have since lived have vacillated, the peace of millions have been at the mercy of sickness and death, and their spiritual strength in perpetual peril from temptation, but the state of morals through the whole civilized world, imperfect as it yet is, would have been far inferior to what we see it, and could never attain the purity which we confidently anticipate in some future age. Without this evidence, Christianity would be almost nothing; for the doctrine of future retribution is not only its most important revelation, but it is so intimately connected with every other, as a sanction, that the Church might as well be supposed complete without its chief corner-stone, as Christianity to be efficacious if deprived of this last grand truth. This evidence we have, however; and possessing it, it is of comparatively little importance how widely men differ in their speculations as to the time and mode in which the future life shall succeed to the present, and as to the nature of the rewards and punishments which shall follow their probation. The belief in a certain and righteous retribution is all that is enforced upon us by Christianity, all that is a necessary consequence of our faith in the resurrection of Christ. Yet, as a tendency to unauthorized speculation, and also a misapprehension of some Scriptural expressions, appear to us to have caused a very extensive forgetfulness that retribution is not only certain, but will be righteous, we must enter on some explanation of our views respecting the extent of punishment of which the life to come is to be the scene.
We say respecting the extent only, because the nature of the punishment is a subject of far inferior importance, and one on which we possess so little light that it may fairly be left to the imagination of each individual to conceive for himself. Some persons, perhaps the great majority of every denomination of Christians, believe that the pains of actual burning will be inflicted on a corporeal frame, susceptible of suffering in the same way as the body which we at present inhabit, but rendered indestructible. Others conceive that the Scripture language which describes the wicked as tormented by fire is metaphorical, and that it clearly refers, by way of allusion, to the valley of Hinnom, where corrupt substances were devoured by worms, and where human sacrifices were offered by fire to Moloch. Such imagine that the future sufferings of the wicked will be purely mental, but not therefore the less severe and awful. If it had been necessary to form clear conceptions on this subject, a fuller light would have been cast upon it; and as that fuller light is not granted, we may fairly suppose that we cannot at present understand the exact nature of the evil of which we are emphatically called on to beware. But of the duration of the evil, we believe ourselves so far qualified to judge, as to anticipate that it will not be eternal.
Our reasons for thus determining are various. It is, in the first place, utterly inconceivable that God should appoint to any individual of his creatures a lot in which misery predominates over happiness. Our belief in the Divine prescience requires that we suppose the fate of every man to be ordained from the beginning. Our faith in the Divine mercy requires that we should expect an overbalance of good in the existence of every being thus ordained; and that in no case can the punishment be disproportionate to the offence. Our faith in the Divine benevolence inspires a conviction that all evil is to be made subsidiary to good, and that therefore all punishment must be corrective, all suffering remedial. Thus far the light of nature teaches us to anticipate the final restitution of sinners.
It is confirmed by revelation,—by every passage of the sacred records which represents God as a tender Father to all the human race, as just and good, as incapable of being 'angry for ever,' or of taking pleasure in the punishment of the wicked, and as chastising in mercy, for corrective purposes. It is confirmed by every passage which describes the good brought into the world by Christ as overbalancing the evil produced by the introduction of sin and death. It is confirmed by every passage which prophetically announces the triumph of the Gospel over all adverse powers,—death, sin, and sorrow. Above all, it is confirmed by the whole tenor of the preachings and writings of the Saviour and his followers,—by the spirit of boundless benevolence, of joyful faith, of exulting hope, which is every where blended with their emphatic warnings of the perils of sin, and their mournful regret for the infatuation of sinners. It appears to us that against all this array of evidence on the one side, little or none can be adduced on the other.
That which is brought forward most frequently and with the most show of reason is the expressions commonly translated everlasting, and which are applied both to the future happiness of the righteous and misery of the wicked. These terms (which are much less frequently applied to a future state than is commonly supposed) do not invariably signify 'everlasting' and 'eternal,' as is evident from their being applied to various institutions and states which have already come to an end and passed away: as to the covenant with Abraham, which is declared to have been long since annulled; to the priesthood of Aaron, of which no vestiges remain; and to the flames of Gehenna, which have been quenched for ages. The strictly correct rendering of the terms in these cases is permanent, continual, lasting, and not absolutely eternal.
In order to reconcile the terms as usually rendered with the attribute of Divine justice, some Christians have imagined that the limited punishment of the wicked will be followed by immediate destruction; but this supposition leaves the difficulty where it was before, and is besides destitute of all support from reason or Scripture; as it is incompatible with the character of the Divine dispensations that punishment should be appointed for any but corrective purposes, or that sin and sorrow should triumph in the annihilation of any individual of God's creatures.
If we are asked why then we firmly believe in the immortality of the righteous? we reply, that we found our faith on much better evidence than the use of the terms we have now been considering. We believe it, because the happiness of the creature is the fulfilment of the ends of creation and providence; because happiness is an eternal principle, while misery is only a temporary influence; and because it would argue imperfection in the Deity, if he were either unable or unwilling to prolong a holy and blissful existence.