pravity,' 'the fallen state,' ‘inability', ‘imputation', and kindred words and phrases, once voiced the surest convictions of great and earnest souls, and are still, for some, the clear signs of facts; but for a growing host, accepting, in essence, precisely the same facts, they have lost their primary and spiritual import, and are chiefly interesting as THE FOSSILS' of a theological cabinet"!!

I need scarcely give many extracts from such writers, to shew their views on Eternal Punishment; as the publications on this subject are numerous indeed, and wide-spreading in their influence. Nevertheless to complete the catena of evidence, I will give an extract from one writer only; which fully sets forth the perverted views of most writers on this subject, in all their naked and hideous deformity. Speaking of what is now called, "The larger hope," he says:

"The Scriptures, then, have much to teach us of the future, though not much of the final, estate of men. And what they teach, in so far at least as we have been able to gather it up, comes to this. No man is wholly good, no man is wholly bad"—although the Scriptures solemnly assure us that "there is none that doeth good, no, not one;" and that "the carnal mind is emnity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."2 "Still some men may fairly be called good on the whole, although much sin and imperfection still cleaves to them; and others

may fairly be called bad on the whole, although there is still much in them that is good, and still more which is capable of becoming good! When we die, we shall all receive the due recompense of our deeds, of all our deeds, whether they have been good or whether they have been bad. If by the grace of God we have been good on the whole, we may hope to rise into a large and happy spiritual kingdom, in which all that is pure and noble and kind in us will develop into new vigour and clothe itself with new beauty; in which also we shall find the very discipline we need in order that we may be wholly purged from sin and imperfection; in which we may undo much that we have done wrongly, do again and with perfect grace that which we have done imperfectly, become what we have wished and aimed to be, achieve what we have longed to achieve, attain the wisdom, the gifts and powers and graces to which we have aspired; in which, above all, we may be engaged in errands of usefulness and compassion, by which the purpose of the Divine love and grace will be fully accomplished! If we have been bad on the whole WE MAY HOPE-AND WE OUGHT TO HOPE FOR IT-to

pass into a painful discipline so keen and searching that we shall be conscious of our sins and feel that we are only receiving the due reward of them; but since there has been some good in us, and this good is capable of being drawn out and disentangled from the evil which clouded and marred it [!], we may also hope, by the very discipline and torment of our spirits, to be led to repentance, and, THROUGH REPENTANCE, UNTO

LIFE; we may hope that the disclosures of the spiritual world will take a spiritual effect upon us, GRADUALLY RAISING AND RENEWING US till we too are prepared to enter the Paradise of God and behold the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power; we may hope that our friends who have already been redeemed will pity us and minister to us, bringing us not simply a cup of cold water to cool our tongue, but words of INSTRUCTION AND LIFE!! And as for the great mass of our fellow-men, we may hope and believe that those who have had no chance of salvation here will have one there [!]; that those who have had a poor chance will get a better one; that those who have had a good chance and lost it will get a new but a severer chance, and even as they suffer the inevitable results of their folly and sin will feel the hands that reach through darkness moulding men"-unutterably lying and deceiving doctrines, which are almost in the very words of the demons themselves!!

'This, on the whole, I take to be the teaching of Scripture [!] concerning the lot of men in the age to come a teaching which enables us to see beneath the abyss of hell a bottomless abyss of love.' And if it clash with some dogmas that we have held and some interpretations which are familiar to us, it nevertheless accords, not with 'the mind of Christ' only"—an awful lie1" but also with the dictates of REASON and

1 Mat. x. 28; xiii. 40-42; xxiii. 32, 33; xxv. 46; Mark ix. 43-49; Luke xvi. 22-26; &c., &c.

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conscience, the voices of God within the soul!! It presents no such sudden break in our life"-the demons say the same; and speak of it as "the law of PROGRESS and association 'as, in the teeth of all probability, we have been wont to conceive; NO HEAVEN for which we feel even the best of us must be unfit, NO HELL which is a monstrous offence to OUR SENSE of justice"-which is exactly what the demons themselves say!! "It promises to every man the mercy of justice, of a due reward for all he has been and done; and, while it impresses on us the utter hatefulness and misery of sin [!] it holds out to every one of us the prospect”—i.e., in the future world—“ of being redeemed by that just God Who is also a Saviour! Nor does it less accord with the demands of science than with the dictates of reason and the moral sense [!!] for it carries on THE EVOLUTION of the human race THROUGH ALL THE AGES TO COME!! And, therefore, let others think as they will, and cherish what trust they will but as for us, with the Apostle of the Gentiles [!!], our own Apostle, 'we trust [!] in the living God Who is the Saviour of all men'" [!!]-a vain and delusive trust indeed, while he is at the same time denying His Holy Name and His Word!

Such then are some of the God-dishonouring and lying doctrines of so-called "Modern thought": and I would now ask my readers whether they are not identical in every particular with the "doctrines of the demons" themselves-nay, whether they do not in some. cases even surpass them in blasphemous denial of the

truths of God? And I would further ask, whether this does not prove to a demonstration, that they emanate from the same source? And if any of my readers be inclined to think me uncharitable in so judging; I would ask them to consider well, what is written on this subject in the Divine Word itself. "It is written," of the children of God, that "in time past" even they "walked according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now energizeth in the children of disobedience." "It is written again," that "the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity;" which "defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell; "2 and that when Ananias "lied" unto a man, even unto Peter, he "lied to the Holy Ghost "-he "lied unto God;" and that Satan" had "filled his heart," to do this! 3 And if any of my readers should still be inclined to ask, "How does this affect the question?" I answer perfectly because all denials of God's truth, are lies unto God; and proceed from "the devil," who "is a liar, and the father of it." And if they would ask again, "But can this possibly apply to any, who may be children of God?" I reply again, Most assuredly : for our blessed Lord Himself, after commending Peter for his noble confession of faith in Him, as "the Son of God": which, says He, "flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven "-almost immediately afterwards, on Peter's

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1

1 Eph. ii. 2.

2 James iii. 6.

3 Acts v. 3, 4.

4 John viii. 44.