CONFERENCE ON CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY.
[THE following extract, taken from a pamphlet sent us by Elliott Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, London, E. C., will be found interesting as showing how the truth upon the subject of the nature of man is finding its way among the learned men of London.
C. W. S.] On Monday, May 15th, 1876, there gathered together at the Cannon Street Hotel a large number of believers in the ancient, long-lost, but now again widely-received doctrine that Eternal Life, or Immortality, is not the natural, unconditional, and indefeasible endowment of every human being born into the world, Christian and heathen, saint and sinner, infant and patriarch, sage and idiot, alike; but the “gift of God” (Rom. vi. 23), bestowed only upon the true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and by virtue of his vital union with him who is at once the Author and the Prince of Life (1 John v. 11, 12, 20; Acts iii. 15). The object of the gathering was threefold. Firstly, to give a distinct and public testimony to what is believed to be a clearly revealed and unspeakably precious truth of Holy Scripture; secondly, to afford an opportunity for Christian brethren holding this doctrine to fraternize one with another; and lastly, to give moral encouragement and support to such as, by reason of this their faith, have been subjected to opposition, unkindness, and even persecution in various forms. As being of a more social and also less obtrusive character, the proceedings on this, the first occasion of the kind, took the form of a public breakfast, followed by a Conference. At the Conference, which was held in the Pillar Hall of the hotel, the chair was taken by Lieut.-General Goodwin; nearly all the seats were filled, and among the friends present may be mentioned the Revs. Henry Constable, M. A.; B. Heard, M. A.; G. A. Hayward; W. Leask, D. D.; S. Minton, M. A.; A. Mursell; J. F. B. Timling, B. A.; Edward White; Professor Barrett, F. R. S. E. (Royal College of Science, Dublin). After prayer, and some introductory remarks, the chairman called upon the Rev. Mr. Minton, who spoke as follows:— I have been asked to make a brief statement of our main position; but the extreme difficulty of condensing within the limit of the time allotted to me, necessitates absolute silence upon a host of subsidiary questions which arise at nearly every point. That we differ among ourselves on many of these minor questions, no more disproves our foundation theory, than the differences among Christians disprove Christianity, or the differences among Atheists disprove Atheism. Some believers in conditional immortality may not agree even with every part of the following statement. I profess to give only what I believe is in the main the expression of the substantial belief of those who are represented by this assembly. The very first article of our creed is,—That God only hath immortality inherent in himself; and that all creatures are sustained in being through various outflowings of divine energy, simply at their Creator’s will. “For thy pleasure they exist, and were created.” That this was so in man’s case, is shown by the first account of him in the book of Genesis. Whether that account be understood literally or figuratively makes no difference to the present argument. The tree of life was either the means of preserving man in immortal vigor, or represented his being so preserved. It was not that once eating it would ensure his immortality, or he might have taken its fruit first and the fruit of the forbidden tree afterwards; thereby fixing himself in an immortality of wretchedness. To be secured against death, he must continue to eat of it; and that he would be allowed to do only so long as he remained obedient. If he sinned he would forfeit his life; he did sin, and the sentence was executed upon him virtually, by debarring him from access to the tree of life. That exclusion abundantly fulfilled the warning, “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”; inasmuch as nothing more was needed to ensure his return to the dust. That the death threatened him would be a painless one he could hardly have expected,—that the prospect of it would cause him great anguish of mind was a matter of course. But that he must have understood the death-penalty to mean entire deprivation of being is as certain as the narrative can make it. There was no hint of its being enforced to one part of his nature only—not a hint of his being partly mortal and partly immortal; and we assert it to be utterly inconceivable if the real penalty of sin had been endless misery, that not a word was said about it; that Adam’s attention should have been exclusively fixed, both before and after the fall, on such a comparatively insignificant preliminary to it as bodily death. What matter could it make to him whether his body returned to the dust or not, if his soul, without access to the tree of life, was to live forever in a state of sin and misery? Take what view you like of man’s nature and of the effect produced upon that nature by bodily death, it seems absolutely impossible, if the slightest moral credit is to be attached to the primary record, that the death which is the wages of sin can involve the everlasting misery of any part of man’s being. This is our first position; and we maintain that the whole tone and tenor, letter and spirit of Holy Scripture, from its first to its last page, does everything to confirm that position. The main purpose of revelation is to illustrate the nature and consequence of man’s fall, together with the nature and consequences of Christ’s salvation. On the general aspect of these subjects there are no distinctive differences between us and our brethren; but so far as we differ from them our creed is this,—we hold that the object of Christ’s work is to restore to man the two things which he has lost, holiness and immortality, or eternal life; such immortality being necessary, both from the nature of the case, and from God’s revealed purpose to bring all evil to an end. We further hold that the actual enjoyment of these benefits by any human being to whom the gospel comes, depends upon his acceptance of it; involving, as that does, his seeking for glory, honor, and immortality, by patient continuance in well-doing. We hold that those who, by refusing to do so, judge themselves unworthy of eternal life remain under the original sentence of death, but liable to additional stripes in the execution of it, on account of the special guilt they have incurred through rejecting the proffered mercy: an aggregation of their punishment, which is obviously suggested by its being called “destruction,” and represented, literally or figuratively, as being effected by the most terrible of all destructive agents, fire. All this is not a theory which we propound as the probable solution of some difficulty—it is not a “view” to which we lean. We regard it as the plainest of all possible truths, declared as positively as human language could declare it, and written, as with a sunbeam, upon the whole face of inspiration. There are points of detail upon which questions may be asked that we are unable to answer even to our own satisfaction, and which, probably, only the event will clear up; but as to the great principle and the main outline we have not the slightest shadow of doubt; and we deny that there is any appreciable difficulty about them whatever, moral or exegetical. On the exegesis of the question, it is impossible for me now even to touch. I may just say, however, that most of us would be willing to stake our whole case on the natural prima facie meaning of the words, “life” and “death,” “immortality” and “destruction.” These with their cognates, are the key words of the controversy, occurring so frequently as to exceed tenfold all other words and expressions used together, that are employed to describe the consequences of, receiving or rejecting Christ. Life or death! This is what runs through the Bible from beginning to end, and constitutes the great mass of its testimony on the question at issue. Now, common sense would tell us, that here we must look for an answer to that question—that this is what the Spirit would impress upon our minds; that by the burning light of these reiterated declarations we must interpret the few other isolated expressions which are also used in the same connection. Can anything, for instance, be more ridiculously perverse than to begin by taking the phrase “everlasting punishment,” which is only found once in a very difficult parable, and attempting to decide the question upon that? We maintain that the Spirit of God manifestly intended us to be guided first and foremost, by the natural meaning of life, death, immortality, destruction, with other words of like import, which he manifestly regarded as words intelligible and absolutely decisive—that he meant by these expressions to make the practical issue before us as clear as daylight to unprejudiced minds; and to leave no room whatever for any reasonable doubt. We assert that, if allowed to speak for themselves, no more intelligible and decisive words could be found in human language. We regard it as truly incredible that what constitutes the very warp and woof of Scripture teaching on such a vitally important subject should be meant to be understood in a secondary or figurative sense; eternal life and immortality representing an everlasting condition of holiness and happiness; death and destruction, an everlasting life of sin and misery. We do not for a moment deny that figurative language may properly be used even on such a subject as this; but it is impossible to conceive that the main bulk of God’s revelation as to our future destiny, which St. John emphatically calls “the record which God hath given of his Son,” should be conveyed in language which, from its very simplicity and familiarity, would necessarily mislead any unprejudiced, unsophisticated mind that went to Scripture with an honest desire to understand its meaning. With reference to the moral question on which we are assailed, chiefly from the right,—a position of honor that we must do our Universalist opponents the honor of assigning them,—we confess ourselves unable to see any force in the objections made, either to the theory of human perishableness, or to the belief that some human beings will actually perish. Some of the objections can be distinctly answered now; and the rest, we can easily believe, will be answered abundantly by the result. Briefly, we say, that to pronounce it a degradation to humanity for any single human germ which reaches some undefined point of development, not to live as long as the Creator himself, is surely the ne plus ultra of human self-exaltation. The great marvel, we hold to be, is, that any creature should do so. But to suppose that every member of the entire race, and that a fallen one, must necessarily have an everlasting life of some kind or other, we maintain to be as arbitrary, as unreasonable, and as extravagant an assumption as could enter into the mind of man. Furthermore, if this great gift of immortality was to be bestowed on any creature, we see nothing inconsistent with the Divine character, but everything in perfect accordance with it, that the gift should be made conditional on such creatures’ being accounted worthy to obtain it; and whether the question be approached from the side of Divine Sovereignty, or from that of free will, it seems equally unlikely that every member of such a race as ours would be thus approved, and “have right to the tree of life.” As to the nature and duration and severity of the suffering which will have been undergone by the finally impenitent before the last moment of their existence, or as to the means by which, and the circumstances under which, they will be put out of existence, we know very little indeed; and we are wholly unaffected by any difficulties that have been raised in connection with such matters of detail, being confident that God will ultimately justify all his proceedings, whatever they may be, to the entire satisfaction of the intelligent universe. What it would or would not be right for this or that person to suffer within the limits that revelation renders possible, we cannot tell; but we can see as plainly as any moral truth can be seen by such vision as ours, that neither love, justice, nor anything else, requires the Creator to continue to a creature the highest trust that can be committed to him, that of life, if he persistently abuses it. On the whole, we declare that the doctrine of conditional immortality satisfies our minds; and we know that it has brought unspeakable relief and comfort to thousands of our fellow-Christians; and we have no hesitation in asserting, what indeed must be the case supposing the doctrine to be true, that, if it fails to satisfy any of our Christian brethren who really understand it, the fault must be in themselves. They have set up, however unconsciously, an imagination of their own, not in harmony with the mind of God, to which they will make everything bend; the consequence is, that they either wrest the Scriptures to make them say the very reverse of what they cry aloud with a thousand voices; or else they raise an artificial mist around the whole subject, and then attribute to God the intention of leaving man’s future destiny in doubt and obscurity. We do not for a moment deny that by our defective way of stating the doctrine, possibly by errors which we may have engrafted upon it, we ourselves may be responsible for some of the misunderstanding that prevails upon the subject. But we believe that so far from there being anything “hideous,” “revolting,” “miserable,” or “degrading,” in the doctrine itself—I am quoting, of course—it is in the highest degree honoring to God, and in perfect accordance with the truth of man’s nature, whether as regards its creaturely weakness or its high capabilities. We believe that in addition to the positive mischief of giving such a representation of God’s character as is involved in the popular view, or of assuring every man that he will necessarily enjoy an eternity of happiness, the gospel loses much of its power by the offer of immortality through Christ to those who seek it being eliminated from its message; and that the record which God has given of his Son, that in him we have eternal life, is incomparably a more powerful instrument for the conviction of sinners and the edification of believers, than anything which can be substituted for it by the wisdom of men. Believing this, we earnestly appeal to all who know the truth,—especially ministers, teachers, and preachers,—openly to avow their faith. What is the use of uttering Scripture language, if we know that it will all be misunderstood by the bulk of our hearers? How will the declaration that “the wages of sin is death,” and that “the gift of God in Christ is eternal life,” enlighten those who have been taught from infancy to regard “death” as meaning misery and “life” as meaning holiness and happiness? What is this, but using words to conceal our thoughts? If the doctrine of life in Christ be the very truth of God, surely it ought to be declared plainly, openly, and forcibly. Why is it not so declared by some honored brethren who believe it? There is one reason, sometimes frankly confessed, on which I, at least, have not the heart to speak. Soon after avowing my own conviction I received a letter from an evangelical minister, in which he said he held precisely the same views, but that he dare not proclaim them, because he and his family would be brought at once to beggary, his whole congregation would leave him, and he would have absolutely nothing to depend upon but his pew rents. It would be hypocrisy in me to pretend that I have suffered nothing in this sense; but as God in his mercy has not seen it needful to put me to any such severe test as that, my voice, at least, refuses to condemn a Christian brother for shrinking from a trial which I am very far indeed from being sure I should be able to face myself. There is another reason, however, for silence, still more frequently confessed, on which I can speak more freely. It is a fact, very well known to some present, that honored and successful Christian workers, lay and clerical, have been and are afraid of confessing this faith, lest it should injure their usefulness in other ways. Some would refuse any longer to support them; others, any longer to hear them. Now I have no wish to escape any blame that may justly attach to myself for my long silence. I made a clean breast of it in a Fragment of Autobiography, published eighteen months ago; and by that I am willing to stand or fall. The truth compels me to say, that the whole aspect of the case has vastly altered in the last few years. At that time (I speak of nearly thirty years ago) the question was hardly, as they would say in Parliament, “before the house;” now it is one of the blazing questions115of the day; and we may fairly ask all our brethren to consider whether, under existing circumstances, it is not every one’s duty, before God and man, openly to declare himself in this great cause; and more especially we would ask those whose position is strong enough to bear the shock, whether it is honest, manly, or Christ-like for them to stand by sheltered behind their own silence or reserve, while their weaker brethren—weaker in natural resources, though stronger in faith and self-sacrifice, are being knocked down and trampled upon for preaching a faith which they themselves secretly hold. I knew a man who lived and died acting thus. One word from him would,—I do not say have changed the creed,—but have silenced the tongue of condemnation and paralyzed the arm of persecution throughout a wide circle of devoted Christians. Usefulness! do we really think that God cannot carry on his work without us? or that he would have us retain some apparent vantage ground at the cost of helping to imprison the truth, refusing to take the part of an oppressed brother in the faith, lest we should lose the support, and draw upon ourselves the vengeance, of his oppressors? We admit the entire purity of the motive which leads some honored brethren to say by their silence, “I do not know the man.” There may be some who dread being put out of the synagogue, because they love the praise of men more than the praise of God; but there are others who firmly believe that they are doing God the best service by adopting such a course. We must, however, pronounce it a false expediency, and earnestly pray that they may be shown the duty of throwing off all reserve, and girding themselves for the battle. “Brother! up to the breach
For God’s freedom and truth;
Let us act as we teach,
With the wisdom of age and the vigor of youth.
Heed not their cannon balls;
Ask not who stands or falls;
Grasp the sword
Of the Lord,
And—Forward!”