Spirits in Prison

“By which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison.” — 1 Perr. iii. 19. “For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead.” — 1 Per. iv. 6. “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things... under the earth.” — Purt. ii. 10.

In the discussion of such a theme in the audience of a miscellaneous assembly, it would be impracticable to enter into that minute verbal criticism which could be understood and appreciated by those only — who have devoted special attention to the philology of the sacred writings. It may be profitable, however, to present the results of such criticism as have been evolved by the ripest scholars in Christendom. The question which I propose to discuss is this: Did Jesus Christ, between His crucifixion and resurrection, go into the place of departed spirits (the Sheol of the Old Testament or the Hades of the New) and preach to its occupants? If so, in what sense are we to accept the word “preach”? Did Christ preach the gospel to them with a view to their salvation? It will be important to remember that throughout the analysis and exposition of this theme the word “prison” will not be regarded as equivalent to the word “hell” in its ordinary acceptation. Sheol, Hades, or prison, is used to denote the place of departed spirits; not Gehenna — -not the lake of fire — not the abode of the damned — not what we now understand by the word hell. Those who forget this explanation will be thrown into hopeless perplexity; those who remember it will find light on every step of their progress.

It has been the practice of many eminent commentators to spiritualize the words “spirits in prison,” and the words “them that are dead;” the meaning being spiritually in prison, and spiritually dead. Other equally eminent expositors read — “spirits now in the prison of hell;” “them that are now dead.” It has been affirmed that the antediluvians were the “spirits in prison,” that the Spirit of Christ was in Noah, and that thus Christ representatively preached to them.

Opinions which have been expounded and defended by the wisest and holiest teachers in the church have no little claim upon our confidence and veneration; and for this reason I wish to be most modest in asserting that I cannot accept such expositions of these difficult passages, and that these words represent profounder truths than are evolved by such methods of interpretation.

Anxious to avoid dogmatism, but yet more anxious to ascertain truth, I shall simply proceed to inquire whether the suggestion that Jesus Christ did really enter hell and preach the gospel there with a view to the salvation of its human occupants, is at all in harmony with certain great principles, universally regarded as fundamental, and at all compatible with what is generally understood to be the analogy of faith. If this inquiry should conduct me to an affirmative conclusion on these two points, the popular method of spiritualizing shall be rejected as superficial and unsatisfactory.

What was Christ’s object in coming from heaven? His own answer is conclusive: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Do we sufliciently consider all that is implied in that word “lost”? I regard that as a key-word. Some will say that the word “lost” relates to man while he is in the body and upon the earth. But by what authority is such limitation attached to the word? When Christ said “lost,” who can tell what idea was present in His yearning, His infinite love? Was man lost in body, or was he lost in spirit, and in body merely as an effect? It was in his sprit that man was “lost;” and when Christ came to save the “lost,” it was not the mere flesh and bones which make a human body that He came to redeem and sanctify, but the spirit dowered with the heritage of immortality. When Christ said “lost,” who can tell how far His eye penetrated the region that to man is invisible — how far He looked down the terrible chasm into which man had descended — what He saw in the darkness deeper than the gloom of the grave? Who can tell? We have our own little ideas about what is involved in the word “lost;” we have our own shallow notions as to what is signified by rwin; but when Jesus Christ, to whom Infinitude gives up its secrets and Eternity tells its unending story, looks upon a human being and says “lost,” we know not from what depth of His heart the sad word springs, or what breadth of shadow darkens the unutterable idea.

. This standing-point must be made clear as noon. If we fail to comprehend what Jesus Christ really came to do, we shall never comprehend either the spirit or method of His working. I abide by His own answer, He “came to seek and to save the lost:” and are we to imagine that He came into the war-field four thousand years after the battle had begun? Was no one “lost” prior to the birth of the World’s Child in Bethlehem? Did He take no note of the unnumbered millions who had thronged the nations long before His redemptive advent? You will say that He came by promise even into the garden of Eden, that He was preached by prophets, that He was represented by sacrifices, every word of which is literally true; but the peculiar phraseology of the text I have quoted from His own lips must be well marked, — “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” He “is come” to do a certain work, not by type or representative, but in His own proper person. The foregoing ages of the world had had the gospel in promise, in prophecy, in type, in dim, mysterious, wonder-waking shadow; but now He himself, who is the Son of man, “zs come” to seek and save every human being who comes within the range of the condition “lost.” He has left the ninety and nine worlds that have kept their first estate, to seek the world that has become the vagabond of the universe, that He may bring it back with shoutings of gladness and triumph. Do you meet Him at the threshold of His work, and tell Him that He is too late, because some men have already gone into the captivity of hell — have passed away, laden with mountains of guilt, into the unseen regions — that the devil has imprisoned million on million beyond all numbering — and that at best Christ can save but a few of the inconsiderable remnant? I pronounce such a view dishonouring to the omnipotence of the divine Redeemer. What doth Christ himself say? He came, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. He is mighty to save. “I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, Iam alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” It is impossible to shut Christ out of any region of His universe. He has a right everywhere. Hell and destruction are open before

Him. He tracks “lost” man down to the deepest - and darkest cavern, Even devils could not shut their gate of flame upon Him. He “is come to seek and to save that which was lost;” and I rejoice to believe that every “lost” child of Adam shall have at least the opportunity of accepting Christ’s mediation — that Chrsit’s great work has been published through the universe — and that even from hell’s floor of fire, clear up to heaven’s loftiest pinnacle of jasper, the story of redeeming love is known in all the pomp of its simplicity, all the omnipotence of its pathos. y

This is the first position, then, in the argument; viz., that Christ came upon His mediatorial mission for the express purpose of saving that which was lost ; — in other words, to meet the very extremity of human guilt and human want; to go down to the very lowest prison into which man had fallen, and to publish the good news of possible pardon and emancipation. My reading of the passages quoted from Peter’s epistle brings me to the conclusion that between Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection He went and preached to the spirits in prison, to them that are dead, to them who are in Hades, in the invisible state of the departed, and that He did this that they might be judged according to men im the flesh, but live according to God im the spirit ; — in other words, that He might supply an evangelical basis of judgment, and an evangelical possibility of spiritual life.

By an evangelical basis of judgment is meant that in the final assize, in which the human economy shall be brought to an issue, all human kind shall be judged by one Judge, judged by one great law, judged by the relationship sustained to one person, for we must all stand before the judgment seat of Curist. Who shall judge the world? The answer is most solemn, tender, and suggestive; viz., He who offered to save the world! “The Lord Jesus Christ shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom.” “He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.” What wondrous vision of judgment was that which he saw who was permitted to close the written volume of Revelation? Sublime and awful are his words: “The dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.” There is, then, a day foretold in which the Lord Jesus shall gather all nations before Him, and divide them one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. There is a day foretold on which Christ shall call forth the dead who are in the sea, the dead who are in the dust, the dead who are in hell. “The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice,” and the eyes of every dead man shall be opened to see the Lamb in judgment. Thus, the idea of sderifice is to run clear through all the terrestrial economy, even till the last judicial word has determined eternal destinies. It is the Lamb that shall be the judge. He who was man’s sacrifice shall be man’s arbiter. He who expired on the tree shall be lifted up on the judge’s throne. “Every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him.” “‘The kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” In the face of all these testimonies as to the nature and the range of the final judgment, I cannot but believe that Christ has personally given, or will give by His chosen ministers, an opportunity of accepting Him as the Saviour to every human being, from Adam down to Adam’s last descendant. It little becomes us, indeed, who from head to foot are full of guilt and uncleanness, to speak about equity and righteousness on the ‘part of Almighty God, for whatever may become of our hypotheses and expositions, the Judge of all the earth shall assuredly do right; yet reading, as we are obliged to do, in the dim twilight of earth and time, we can see that when all men have had an opportunity of accepting Christ, when salvation has been offered to every human creature under heaven, that the judgment of the world by Christ is the most awful, yet the most righteous, judgment which Almighty God could have instituted.

Other aspects of the question may be best treated by examining one or two objections which may be laid against the theory thus suggested. For example, it may be contended that, under the old dispensations — as, for instance, in the case of the antediluvians here cited by the Apostle, — men sinned and were driven into the invisible world with God’s wrath burning upon them. This is literally true. Men did sin; men did die in their iniquity; men were driven into another state of being in the very midst of their transgression. Let it be remembered, however, that those men lived and died in the grey of the world’s young morning. They had never heard of Christ, except as a deliverer who was to come, perhaps, in some far-off age of human history. They had seen nothing but shadow, and type, and symbol, and dim hint; and we can hardly conceive of such men being placed side by side before the great white throne with men who died amid the noon-blaze of civilization, and actually counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and being sentenced to an equality of condemnation. On the other hand, let it be affirmed that all human creatures have had an opportunity of accepting Christ himself, and then we have a basis of judgment wide as the family of man, righteous as the heart of God. Some persons, I am aware, incline to leave these questions as mysteries: for my own part, I deem nothing mysterious which is open to the application of a rational and reverent suggestion; and as there are many subjects which we are compelled to regard as mysterious, which, in their infinite delicacy, draw the veil more closely over themselves the more we attempt to penetrate their significance, I submit that it is unwise to regard anything as a mystery which, in reality, is capable of full interpretation. It may be quite as irreverent to regard a revelation as a mystery as to regard a mystery as a revelation. The fog of human criticism is sometimes mistaken for the veil of divine secrecy. Thus much may be replied to those who wish to leave every apparently difficult question for ever unsolved. With regard to the old-dispensation cases of retribution, it is ever to be borne in mind that in the first revelations of retributive power the physical element largely predominates, God lifts up His iron rod, and brings it down with shivering power upon the flesh and bones of His rebellious creatures. When His anger is fully kindled, He takes vengeance upon men with a high hand. Upon them He pours the waters of the deluge; upon them He rains fire and brimstone, as on Sodom and Gomorrah; upon them He sends the embattled host, thirsting for blood which hath been poisoned against His government. Look through all the Old Testament record of retribution, and see how largely the physical element preponderates. Coming up from Sodom and Gomorrah, look at Egypt, plagued with frogs, and lice, and flies, and hail, and locusts, and thick darkness, and death of innumerable firstborn. Look at the fiery serpents chastising the discontentment of Israel. See the fire that is gone out of Heshbon, and the flame from the city of Sihon. See the earth rending, and swallowing up unholy men. Go on through the thrilling pages, and you find battle, and blood, and fire, and ruin: Tyre is a desolate rock; Babylon has taken the millstones, and is grinding meal; Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, are made a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse; and on through suffering never to be described, and to be comprehended never; on, until the day that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble — the day that shall burn them up, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch (Mal. iv. 1). Thus all through we have the

awful presence of physical devastation. On well nigh every page the Lord is proclaimed as “a man of war,’ and He smites the nations with “the edge of the sword.” This was all in keeping with the childage of the world, and its various stages of development; but the more we come into the heart of the gospel economy, the more we feel the insignificance of physical chastisement, and the more we dread that punishment of the heart — that moral retribution which lights its unquenchable fires in the conscience, that remorse which gnaws like an undying worm. While, therefore, it is clearly recorded that men did die in iniquity in every age of the world, I am not aware that there is one passage of Scripture which, being grammatically and philosophically interpreted, forbids the supposition that our Saviour did personally go down to their “prison,” and offer them salvation. Many grounds could be suggested on which He might enter that dreary abode, and offer pardon and deliverance; and in the absence of any scriptural declaration to the contrary, I hold the doctrine that all “lost” men have had an opportunity of returning to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls,

Against this view, the case of the rich man and Lazarus may be strongly urged. That case at first sight appears to be totally at variance with the idea now propounded. “The rich man died, and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments.” He wished for a drop of water. His appeal to Abraham elicited the awful answer that communication between the two worlds is impossible. His appeal, also, on behalf of his godless brethren was rejected. How, then, it may be asked, does all this bear upon the theory that Jesus “preached unto the spirits in prison”? In answering this, a fourfold reply might be suggested as to the case generally. (1) That Christ’s preaching to the spirits in prison is perfectly isolated and unique, and is consequently not to be judged by any supposed precedents or analogies. (2) That this man asks for a physical, and not for a moral blessing. (3) That even had he asked for a moral blessing, Abraham is not the hearer and answerer of prayer. (4) That so far as his brethren were concerned they were upon the earth, and therefore cannot be compared with “the spirits in prison.” Those who object to the theory now suggested should be cautious how they use this parable, for by their own methods of construction and interpretation they might be led to conclusions which they would emphatically reject; for example, because this man appealed to Abraham, therefore it is right to pray to saints in heaven; and again, Abraham says that the rich man received good things in this life and is now tormented, — that Lazarus received evil things and is now comforted, therefore all rich men are going to hell, and all poor men to heaven! And again, if Moses and the prophets were sufficient for one family, why not for all families? and if for all families, why did Jesus come into the world, and suffer, and die, and rise again? Was not this a work of supererogation? And yet again, if men will not believe “though one rose from the dead,” how is it that One who has risen from the dead is travelling through the earth in the greatness of His strength, seeking to save all human kind? — “For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living.” We must be careful, then, how we lay down canons of interpretation, for sectarianism cannot grasp the infinite; bigotry cannot hold the heart of God! I do not accept this parable as analogical at all — I put it out of court entirely, in the consideration of this case; for if I regarded it as literally analogical it would, even so far as Christ is concerned, lead me to conclusions which are known to be morally fallacious, though logically inferential and irresistible. For example, in addition to what has just been suggested, Lazarus could not go from heaven to preach the gospel, therefore CHRIST could not come down to save sinners; if Lazarus had risen from the dead it would have been an unavailing expedient so far as the salvation of this family was concerned, therefore it was utterly useless for CHRIST to rise again from His grave!

Such is the general answer which might be suggested; but waiving these points altogether, I take my stand upon this particular reply : — The act of Christ preaching to the spirits in prison was a special feature in His mediatorial mission, and is not to be arraigned before any bar that was constituted for the settlement of other questions. The Creator is not to be measured by the creature. A redemptive act is not to be measured by a governmental ordinance. Redemption is necessarily personal, unique, solitary, unapproachable; without parallel or duplicate; sublime in. its individuality; too majestic for analogy, too awful for imitation.

Why was Jesus Christ three days im the grave? Why was He in the grave at all? Pierced in the hands, pierced in the feet, pierced in the side, bleeding at the temples, pronounced even by His enemies to be dead, why did He not instantly awake? This would have been resurrection, quite as much as though He had lain in the grave until His flesh had fallen into utter dust. Say, had He not some wondrous work to do during those three days? Might He not answer, “I must walk to-day, and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected”? Did He not take the one thief to “paradise”? And who shall say that He did not preach to the other “in prison”? I am willing to believe that He did. I am willing to believe that He bruised the serpent’s head in the serpent’s own den. I am willing to believe that while Satan was triumphing in the imagined victory of

K the crucifixion, at that very moment he sustained his severest blow, and that his supposed victim then “led captivity captive.” And why believe all this? Because I find nothing in Scripture contrary to its spirit; because it enlarges my idea of the Saviour’s empire; because it clears away many a difficulty in my reading of history; because it invests the coming judgment with a more august magnificence; because while it deepens hell into a denser gloom, it brightens heaven into a fuller glory!

I am aware that many speculative questions might now be started which it would be utterly impossible to answer. But if there be any destructive power in inquiries which human reason cannot satisfy, then I could undertake no easier task than to destroy Almighty God himself. We wish to know what terms were offered; how many accepted them; how they passed into heaven; and much of the same nature we would like to comprehend. There is, however, a limit to our inquiry. If the disembodied Messiah was accepted as a Saviour by every imprisoned spirit — if He left the old deceiver, the devil, trembling in the solitude of a lonely hell, without one human victim to break the appalling silence — I should cry out with gladdest joy that He had “spoiled principalities and powers,” and that men had been turned “from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.”

Some may inquire why there should be a special reference to the case of the antediluvians, “which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing”? I answer that this case may have been introduced for the purpose of teaching the doctrine of baptism which immediately follows; or, more probably, that the antediluvians are set forth as the representatives of the old world, as indeed they are called by this same Apostle in his second epistle: “And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly” (2 Pet. ii. 4, 5). I think that this is evidently the meaning. The reference to the deluge is representative and inclusive. This is the most impressive instance of retribution upon record, and may, therefore, well be selected as an historical standpoint. If Christ preached in the spirit to the antediluvians, He also preached in the spirit to the postdiluvians, so that even on the common theory of explanation there could be no reason for this specific allusion: but regard the deluge as God’s most signal display of retributive justice, and at once it stands out as the great event of olden history, the great vindication of moral government.

Brought thus far along the argumentative line, I can see a depth and beauty in the language of

Paul, which declares that “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things wnder the earth,” which could not be discerned before. This expression — “things under the earth” — has greatly baffled the commentators. They have forgotten that Jesus Christ came into the world to “bruise the head” of the serpent, and that right down to the deepest depth of moral degradation the fact of His victory was to be proclaimed. The head of the Crucified One is in heaven, and His pierced foot is on the head of the serpent. He filleth all in all. The angels crown His honoured head, the serpent dreads His bruising foot, and man is welcomed to His open side! “He must reign till He hath put. all enemies under His feet.” Heaven shall declare Him King; earth shall worship at His footstool; and hell’s hoarse Amen shall fill up the measure of His infinite victory!

I shall be asked, What of the heathen? If men die in heathen darkness who have never so much as heard of the name of Jesus Christ, how can they render Him homage? Will Christ preach the gospel to them after they have entered the state of the dead? The Apostle returns a decisive answer : — “When the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another” (Rom. ii 14, 15).. “The Judge of all the earth shall do right” by’ the heathen. Christ hath given His church a commission, — “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” That is the duty of the church. She is to be a traveller. No provision has been made for her to sit down indolently. Her mission will permit no rest but the rest of philanthropic toil. She is to be more daring than mailed warriors; more enterprising than the boldest navigators; more eager of conquest than the most ambitious kings. This is the boundary of our obligation. We are to take the good news of salvation and tell it under the fire of the tropics, and tell it under the cold of the undissolving ice. “All the world” is Christ’s wide word of evangelical commission; “every creature” is Christ’s limit of evangelical election. Let us do our simple and noble duty to those who sit in darkness, and leave the speculation to Him who would have “all men everywhere to be saved.”

Certain passages in the Old Testament may be referred to as apparently opposed to the view now vindicated; such as, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man;” “The wicked shall be turned into hell, with all the nations that forget God.” These passages are literally consistent with the proposed interpretation. They are prophetic. They are declarative of an awful fact in the divine government. <A period shall come when all restorative means shall cease to operate, and the kingdom of the Mediator shall be given up unto the Father.

The subject must be guarded from misapprehension. I have not been speaking of men who once on earth enjoyed every opportunity of being saved through Christ, as the persons described as “spirits in prison.” I dread the possibility of not being able to speak with convincing clearness upon this point. I warn every man, with most rigorous fidelity, and most tender solicitude, against the notion that, after he has passed into the state of the dead, he will have another opportunity of receiving the offer of salvation. O how black a lie lurks at the heart of that mad delusion! “If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” Christ’s’ salvation hath already appeared unto us.. The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, have besought us to repent and live. We are not to compare ourselves with the men of Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, Egypt and Babylon. We do not live in the early morning, but in the faradvanced shining of the sun. We do not assemble round the typic altar, but around the atoning Man-I speak with fullest reverence, with most trembling awe, in declaring that God has exhausted Himself upon us, in giving up His Son to die, the just for the unjust. Mercy’s sweetest tone has been sounded. in our ear. Love’s mightiest persuasion has assailed our stubborn heart. Omnipotence itself has interposed between our souls and death. Tremendous, then, are our responsibilities. So far as we are concerned, the line of mercy is most broadly and vividly drawn. If we deafen our ear against the good tidings, our deafness shall become eternal. The case of some of you is awful beyond all midnight blackness. You were born of pious parents. The hands that rocked your cradle were hands oft clasped in prayer. From the womb you were spoken of as being lent unto the Lord. The dew of grace richly glittered on the morning of your devoted life. Alas! where are you now? With savage hands you have torn God’s book to rags; with a maniac’s frenzy you have cast down the altar at which parents offered their intercession; with demoniac rage you have gnashed your teeth in the face of Infinite Love! Say, was it not you that passed by and wagged your head scornfully in presence of the dying Lamb? Was it not you that pierced the heaving side of the suffering

Immanuel? Was it not you that laughed the scorner’s wild, frantic laugh in reply to the Saviour’s tenderest welcome? Review your life. God gave you a noble youth, and you deliberately put through it the knife of the suicide; God gave you a manhood that might have been noble, and you sold it to the service of the devil; and now that you have come to old age, your very bones are putrid with guilt, and your tottering feet tremble on the brink of ruin. I must be plain with you. You must not be allowed to pillow your head upon a lie. If you are imagining that after all you will have an opportunity of entering the abode of the blest, you give God contradiction to His face, and you crucify His Son afresh! “To-day if you will hear His voice harden not your hearts.” “Now is the accepted time.” The day is at hand, and the terrible word is, “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still” While Mercy hovers over the earth, you may find a lodgment in her heart; but once gone, she returns no more for ever. (The subject thus presented greatly enlarges one’s idea of the completeness of the Saviour’s work, and the vastness of His empire. It throws noonlight over many dark wonders in the world’s primitive history. I do not look upon Old Testament arrangements as final: the Old Testament period was emphatically the period of hope and promise; a conqueror was foretold; a prophet was to be raised up; a branch was to grow; a light was to shine: meanwhile, sin was committed and punishment was awarded, — that punishment consisting of the imprisonment of the rebellious. The public virtue of the universe must be maintained; God must set his brand upon sin: all this was necessary, even under a dispensation of promise and hope. ‘“In the fulness of time,’ manhood’s second birthday came. The Child of prophecy was. born. Prediction was consolidated into history. The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost. He began His work where man began his apostasy. He started where man started. He began at the beginning. And having “once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust;: being put to death in the flesh,... He went and preached unto the spirits in prison.” Thus His work was complete. Being no respecter of persons, the men who lived in the world’s first age were as dear to Him as the men who shall witness its final conflagration. To those men the promise of His coming was originally announced, and. now, in person, He offered to turn them “from the power of Satan unto God.” Thus Christ’s mission was, and will be, to all mankind; so that when all nations are gathered before Him, they will see One from whom they have had direct and gracious offers of mercy.

It has been suggested that this view gives the antediluvians an advantage over others; for while men in our day have but one opportunity, they had two, of becoming prepared for heaven. Apart altogether from the selfishness which, to the end of the world, will wickedly persist in charging God with injustice, because He gives a penny to each labourer, irrespective of the time spént in labour, this objection is altogether unphilosophical. It is not true that such an arrangement would give an advantage to the antediluvians; and even if it were true, its truthfulness would not destroy the force of the argument, for nothing can be clearer than that God carries on His system of government and discipline by what may be called a system of unequal advantages. To one He gives two talents, to another five, and to another ten. Is not that giving one man an advantage over another? On one nation shines the full light of the gospel, on another settles the midnight of utter paganism. While the great majority of men can see, tens of thousands are born blind. While some men are endowed with commanding genius, others from their birth are doomed to idiocy. While the eyes of the wicked stand out with fatness, the godly poor seek water and there is none. And so all through we have a system, I repeat, of unequal advantages. These things are among the mysteries of the Most

High. Out of this chaos He will mould the most luminous and symmetrical order.

It has been said that this view of the subject adds a deeper’gloom to the lot of the finally impenitent. “The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment.” The smoke of their torment shall ascend for ever and ever. It is right that it should be so. They have resisted the loving Father; they have despised the atoning Son; they have quenched the striving Spirit. All the economy ot grace they have set at nought. They have gone straight past the open door of the Saviour’s entreating heart. They have looked with a mocker’s eye at the uplifted cross. What can become of them but that God should laugh at their calamity, and mock when their fear cometh? What can the universe — weary and groaning under the intolerable load — do but shake them out of its indignant breast, and let them fall into the unbottomed lake of fire?

May our soul never come into the mystery of this fate.