consider what bearings it may have on the final ending of sin. Such discussion, however, would demand a careful and exhaustive exegesis, needing a long paper for itself. We limit ourselves now to the single point raised by Canon Farrar in his first book, and strenuously pleaded for in this one,-the probability of sin taking end, in the large majority of cases at least, by means of a Purgatory after death. The name has an evil sound in Protestant ears, and the 22d Article of the Church of England pronounces the "Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory, pardons, worshipping and adoration, as well of images as of reliques, and also invocation of saints," to be "a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God." It will be best, therefore, to represent Canon Farrar's position in his own words : 6 "Cardinal Wiseman is reported to have said that the belief that there would be suffering in the day of judgment would satisfy the doctrine of Purgatory.' If so, many English Churchmen would find little difficulty respecting it. They might prefer, for the avoidance of mistakes, to call the intermediate state, with any purifications or retributive sufferings which it may involve, by some other name than Purgatory, just as many theologians of the Greek Church do; but, as a Greek theologian says, while they shun the name as though it were something frightful, they believe in different conditions of the dead in Paradise or in Gehenna; and in very varied degrees of punishment and of blessedness; and even that some may be in anguish who yet hope for the resurrection of life; and this practically amounts to something but little distinguished from a purgatorial fire. And this view is freely admitted, and has long been admitted, by Lutheran and other Protestant divines. And in views like these I see a strong confirmation of all that I said in Eternal Hope, and a very sensible mitigation of the horrors which are preached by popular theology.”—P. 71. Again, at the close of this book, we find the following propositions, stated after the fashion of a creed :— : "I think that even if some portion of the 'pain of loss' may continue for ever, there is nothing to sanction the assertions that such hopes as sinners may here embrace, may not also be open to them, at least until the great judgment, in the intermediate state beyond the grave. "I believe that man's destiny stops not at the grave, and that many who knew not Christ here will know Him there. "I believe that hereafter-whether by means of 'the almost-sacrament of death,' or in other ways unknown to us-God's mercy may reach many who, to all earthly appearance, might seem to us to die in a lost and unregenerate state. What is a state of grace'? 51 "I believe that Christ went and preached to the spirits in prison, and I see reason to hope that since the Gospel was thus once preached to them that were dead, the offers of God's mercy may in some form be extended to the soul, even after death." We place this statement in italics, as being almost the solitary proof from Scripture on which the writer relies. The only other is the following: "I believe, as Christ has said, that all manner of sin shall be forgiven unto men, and their blasphemies however greatly they shall blaspheme,' and that as there is but one sin of which he said that it should be forgiven neither in this æon nor in the next, there must be some sins which will be forgiven in the next as well as in this." These statements are sufficiently plain. Dr. Farrar does not shrink from the responsibility of teaching men that there is hope for them, even although they may go on neglecting the Gospel quite to the end of this life. In order to give a fair representation of Dr. Farrar's views, it is necessary to explain that his theory of purgatory differs in one remarkable feature from the "fond thing, vainly invented by the Romish Church." The Church of Rome allows the hopes of purgatory only to such as die "in a state of grace"-meaning by that phrase anything but what evangelical Christians mean by it. Cardinal Newman, in his correspondence with Canon Farrar's master, Professor Plumptre,' held him tightly to the cruel consequences of the opposite belief; and Dr. Pusey has done the same by Canon Farrar. Now, the Canon (so far to his credit) does not hold the same doctrine of sacramental grace as Newman and Pusey, and quotes with surprise a saying of Pusey's about "a man dying in a state of grace whose soul here had no longings for God." "No popular teaching which I have ever heard," says Dr. Farrar, "would (apart from some visible repentance) have admitted that such a soul would still die in a state of grace." (We cannot pass this without saying that the Churchman in Westminster has been more fortunate than a Presbyterian in Birkenhead, in not having met with such disastrous "popular teaching" from some of his brethren in the Church of England. But to the point.) Being unable to believe, with Newman and Pusey, that men, whatever their moral character, may 1 See Contemporary Review for May 1878. be secured in "a state of grace" before death by the virtue of sacraments, Canon Farrar explains himself thus: "What I did mean was, the doctrine that men do not pass direct from life to hell or to heaven, but to a place in which God's merciful dealings with them are not yet necessarily finished; where His mercy may still reach them in the form, if not of probation (for on that I have never dogmatised), yet of preparation. . . . And here comes in the truth that, as even saints are not perfect, but are still sinners, so even sinners are very rarely-perhaps never—fixed, finished, and incurable in sin, when seized by their mortal sickness. . . . Ere the great Day of Judgment has come, and in Hades, there must have been many a change before it is easy to distinguish between the best of the evil and the lowest of the good.”—Pp. 157-159. We have now Dr. Farrar's position distinctly before us in his own words. I. It occurs to us to say at once that it is open to objection as a gratuitous and ineffective attempt to penetrate into the secrets of Hades. The state between death and the judgment is atons, the unseen and unseeable state; and it appears to be an essential feature of God's present dealing toward us to withhold light as to what takes place there; the veil, thin but strong, has many solemn uses which are obvious. Is there warrant for any attempt, specially for an attempt so persistent and elaborate as this one is, to discover what God seems to have so entirely concealed? We think there is the reverse of warrant. The revelation given to us in the present state is declared to be sufficient for our practical guidance, although it may not satisfy our intellectual curiosity; and it is part of the discipline to which God meanwhile subjects us that we are required to accept truths and obey precepts on the mere ground that He announces and enjoins these, even while full intellectual satisfaction is denied us. "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing." "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law." And if it be objected that these texts belong to the darker dispensation, there are those sayings of the Master: "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter;" and the demand which He makes so tenderly that we shall trust Him in respect of whatever He conceals, "In my 1 Prov. xxv. 2; Deut. xxix. 29. Possibilities of the disembodied state. "1 53 Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you: I go to prepare a place for you.' The Saviour tells us that some knowledge is in the meantime withheld, and bids us trust Him, that what is so withheld is not necessary for our present guidance. Is it not our duty and our safety to receive the lesson as little children? Dr. Farrar lets us see that the reason which urges him into those speculations regarding the unseen world is the state of imperfect sanctification in which the greater number of Christians leave this world; and we can all more readily sympathise with his longing to know how the gap between that condition and one of sinless perfection is to be covered than we can excuse the means by which he tries to satisfy himself and others. Might he not have reflected on the innumerable cases of infants and persons of unsound mind. whose place in the kingdom of heaven is secure, although we cannot in the least understand the processes by which they are fitted for it? May we not, without at all allowing ourselves to guess at the details of what takes place in Hades, get some guidance by thinking on the vast possibilities of the disembodied state? That is a state of which as yet we have no experience, but we do know that temptations from the flesh and from the world will at least be finally removed, and the change thus produced must be immense. Dr. Farrar appeals to his observation of deathbeds. He has surely seen many, as we have, in which nothing more seemed required in order to perfection. in holy obedience than that the dying saint, already trusting and loving the Lord Christ, should be thus released from the world and the flesh. And that is not all; our knowledge is not merely negative; we are assured that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord; and who will be so bold. as to determine what the rate of progress made by the separate spirit shall be when it is "seeing him as he is" ?? We only hint at these things, however, in order to indicate that there are lines in which thinking-but not speculation—is lawful and soothing. Our main contention is that He who says, "Fear not, I am the First and the Last, and the Living One; and I became dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore; and I have the keys of death and Hades," is fully to be trusted; 1 John xiii. 7; xiv. 2. 2 1 John iii. 2. and that any speculations which would render our trust less simple and childlike are as dangerous as they are vain. "Lord, I will follow Thee with fearless tread All through the dim recesses of the dead, To widening mansions of the Father's rule; Hearts may untroubled beat with Thee that go,— II. Looking at the hypothesis of a Purgatory in the light of Scripture, we find a strong argument against it in its tendency to unsettle many of our fundamental Christian beliefs. We are not yet examining the slight Scriptural basis on which the Protestant Purgatory is rested, nor are we as yet bringing forward direct Scripture testimony against it, but we wish the reader to consider whether it can be entertained consistently with the common belief concerning pardon and regeneration, concerning the call of the Gospel, and concerning the union of the believer to Christ. 1. We have been accustomed to believe that full forgiveness and a new heart are the free gift of Christ to every believer, instant, sure, and never to be revoked. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life." "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new." "O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? is sin; and the power of sin is the law: God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." It will not, we trust, be so much as suggested that these and many like words apply only to a small class of more favoured believers: they belong to all who are through faith in a state of grace, however brief the time that may have passed since they believed, however far they may be from perfect sanctification. It is obvious (1) that for such the present state has been thoroughly decisive of their eternal The sting of death but thanks be to 1 John v. 24; Rom. vii. 24, 25; 2 Cor. v. 17; 1 Cor. xv. 55-57. |