being? In this way they may be made subservient to more purposes of Providence than we are acquainted with; but to annihilate them, besides that it is the bungling work of doing and undoing, is to make them of no use at all. If it be said, that annihilating them will be an act of favour to them, this is the other consideration against it; which take in the words of Dr. Whitby P: "God is not obliged to annihilate the souls of wicked men, "for then it must be so on this account, because he "is obliged to put them out of that misery which they have brought upon themselves by their own folly and rebellions; and if so, since this must certainly be an act, not of strict justice, but of grace "and favour, God must be bound to shew an act of 66 66 66 66 66 66 grace and favour towards men, purely because they have provoked and rebelled against him, i. e. "because they have done that which renders them "the proper objects of his hatred and his indigna❝tion, and be obliged to save men from that misery, "which by their stubborn disobedience to all his "calls and admonitions, his exhortations, and all "the gracious methods his providence had used "to preserve them from it, they wilfully have "brought upon themselves. Whereas indeed the "riches of his goodness, being designed to lead "men to repentance, or to encourage them in the 66 ways of holiness and piety, hath only for its pro 66 66 -We hear • Dr. Clarke's Letter to Mr. Dodwell, p. 11, 66 62. nothing of their annihilation: as indeed it would be very strange we should; for this would be as much as to say, God had made "such beings as he could not continue in being with consistency "with his own attributes."-Letter concerning Origen, p. 73. Appendix to 2 Thess. chap. i. per object such as are capable of being made the better by it; it cannot therefore be the goodness and mercy of a God to shew kindness to persons obstinately and incorrigibly wicked, because it cannot be the goodness and mercy of a Being infinitely just and holy; for seeing all the divine perfections must agree together, that cannot be a divine perfection which contradicts any other perfection." I might proceed to confirm my point from the estimonies of the primitive writers. But, besides hat this would be too tedious a work, it is the less ecessary, because the truth sufficiently appears, notvithstanding all his disguise, from the authorities collected even by Mr. Whiston himself. The first piece with which he begins his catalogue of ecclesiastical writers, after he has done with what he calls the books of the New Testament, is the fragment of Josephus concerning hades. And it is remarkable that this author, though he asserts the wicked shall receive their bodies at the resurrection subject to "the same diseases wherein they died," yet is clearly of opinion that they will not undergo any future dissolution. "To these," says he, "belong an unquench"able and endless fire; and a certain fiery worm, not dying, nor destroying the body; but continuing its eruption out of the body, with never-ceasing grief." For a man to attempt to gloss away such a testimony as this, only shews that he is capable of practising upon any thing that stands in his way. Some other of the testimonies which he produces are so expressly against him, that he has no way to rid his hands of them but by calling one "a poetical description," another "a philosophical romance;" by 66 66 66 which sort of expedients one may invalidate any testimonies whatsoever. Arnobius indeed seems to speak to his purpose; but it is to be considered that Arnobius was hardly a Christian when he wrote his book. Nor does he profess, in the particular point before us, to be guided by the authority of scripture, or any Christian writer, but by the authority of Plato. And here indeed lies the root of the matter. It was vain philosophy that made men affect to be wise above what is written. Origen is noted by Photius for studying to bring the Greek mythology into the church of God 9. His singular conceits might find some countenance there, but there are no traces of them to be met with in the scripture. And his being so distinguished by them is a plain argument, that they differed from the common and received doctrine of the catholic church. Windet s seems to think that Arnobius borrowed his notion of the Jews; which is not so likely. But wherever he borrowed it, it is certain he had it not from the scripture, which affords no evidence that the wicked shall be "annihilated and come to nothing; and so 9 Photii Epist. i. p. 11. See also Mr. Ridley's Lecture-Sermons, p. 174. Quis enim catholicus Christianus vel doctus vel indoctus non vehementer exhorreat eam quam dicit malorum purgationem, id est, etiam eos qui hanc vitam in flagitiis et facinoribus et sacrilegiis atque impietatibus quamlibet maximis finierunt, ipsum etiam postremo Diabolum, atque angelos ejus, quamvis post longissima tempora, purgatos atque liberatos regno Dei lucique restitui? Et rursus post longissima tempora omnes qui liberati sunt, ad hæc mala denuo relabi et reverti, et has vices alternantes beatitudinum et miseriarum rationalis creaturæ semper fuisse, semperque fore? Aug. de Hares. cap. 43. s De Vita Functorum Statu, sect. ix. 1 ! "avoid their pains by being dissolved for ever." As the confession of an adversary is of some weight, I shall conclude with that of Crellius, who says, that neither does the scripture assert, nor any reason evince, that God will annihilate the souls of the wicked after the day of judgment. "Animas impio"rum Deum post judicium annihilaturum, nec scrip"tura asserit, nec ratio evincit ulla, multo autem "minus, quod idem nunc faciat." [Vide vol. iv. p. 533. Problem. N. cum solut. J. C.] I shall now, at the end of this chapter, add a few pages concerning the doctrine of repentance in hades. It is of no great consequence perhaps to the main point, whether that word is used in scripture in a general sense, so as to denote the state of all departed souls both good and bad, or only that of the latter. St. Austin somewhere says, that he nowhere meets with it, (or, what is the same thing, the word that answers to it in Latin,) in the canonical scripture, taken in a good acceptation. But the question is, whether it is not used in a sense in t "Proinde, ut dixi, nondum inveni, et adhuc quæro, nec mihi "occurrit inferos alicubi in bono posuisse scripturam, duntaxat "canonicam.Quamquam et illud me nondum invenisse con"fiteor, inferos appellatos ubi justorum animæ requiescunt." No; and the reason is, because it has a more complex idea, denoting the state or place of all souls whatsoever. He might have observed, on the other hand, that it does not signify peculiarly the place "ubi impiorum animæ cruciantur." If circumstances in a text sometimes limit it to that sense, yet that does not make the word itself to be of an ill sense, any more than other texts in which it is used, which point out a state of happiness, make it to be of a good sense. It retains the generality of its meaning in both cases; and it is something else in the text, or context, or character of the person, or the like, that gives us the idea of happiness or misery. different and general, including the state of all departed souls, abstracting from their happiness or misery. It does not, it is acknowledged, particularly denote the state of good and happy souls; but neither does it, in an exclusive sense, denote the state of those that are miserable. The affair of happiness or misery may indeed often be determined by the context where the word is used, or by other circumstances; but never merely from the use and import of the word itself; which, where it does not mean the grave only, the receptacle of the body, denotes that invisible place, or state, which is the receptacle or habitation of souls till the day of judgment ". But there is no necessity to intermix any verbal disputes in the question before us. Be this as it will, what follows is certain; that, with regard to the generality of the Christian world, (all, except those who shall then be found alive,) there is an interval, some space of time, more or less, and to many a very long one, between the day of each man's death and the day of the general judgment. The question therefore is the only one that is of practical moment, and in which alone Christians, as such, are now concerned, whether they who die impenitently in their sins, and consequently without pardon in this world, can repent in the interval mentioned, so as to obtain pardon at the last day. It is obvious, that the question thus stated is so distinct from that other, viz. whether Christ or his apostles preached the gospel to the souls in hades who had lived in the ages before the gospel, that the proof of this (if it could be proved) would by no means be a "See Ger. Joh. Vossii Theses Theolog. Disputatio Sexta, de Statu Animæ, p. 94, &c. in 4to. and Suicer sub voce. |