POSSIBILITY OF A CHANGE.
By Editor
What Men Are Thinking Regarding Future Punishment.
WE take the following from a recent book, entitled "The Ideal Church," by the Rev. W. H. Zweizig, of Reading, Pa.: "It is within the range of possibility that the church of the future will incline toward the belief in 'Conditional Immortality' as the best solution to this intricate problem, laying special stress on the eternal life of the believer and the eternal deprivation of the sinner. There are many statements in the Scriptures which seem to substantiate this belief, and the future unfolding of interpretation may bring the Bible more and more into harmony with this idea." The late Bishop John P. Newman, discussing this subject in the Methodist Review of May, 1892, said: "What ends of justice are involved in the deathless consciousness of sin and misery, of rebellion and torment, of rejection and loss, to such a spirit! The old world was destroyed; Sodom was consumed; Jerusalem was left a desolation; and the mightiest empires, whose cup of iniquity was full, have passed from the vision of the world. Why not the cessation of the existence of the incorrigible soul? Will a clearer and better exegesis of Scripture justify this conclusion? Opinions are changing. Biblical philology is a progressive science. Marvelous changes have taken place. Half of the Protestant world has changed its interpretation since Calvin died. Spurgeon led the Baptists to a more generous creed. Nearly all Christendom has abandoned the old-time rendering of a physical hell, a 'lake of fire and brimstone.' There was a time when the opinion commonly prevailed that the six days of creation were periods of twenty-four hours each; that prior to the fall there was neither animal nor vegetable death; and that the world was to be destroyed in the sense of annihilation. Other and greater changes are possible; but the accepted exegesis of to-day is for life, and not for death." In the same article, after quoting several extracts from sermons by John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards, containing very vivid and realistic descriptions of the literal burning of sinners in hell, Mr. Newman says: "So rapid has been the return of all Christendom to original Christianity, so intense has been the light of Biblical philology upon the sacred text, and so enlarged and exalted are our ideas of the justice and love of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ, that such sermons would find no tolerance now in the house of God the Lord." It is undeniable that a readjustment of thought and interpretation is taking place on this subject.