In the passages referred to above, Mt 1039 and parallels, the antithesis or aTo/;o-v: or o ocT6>.=!rx; tv,^ "^uxiy etlrftZ is hardly to be weakened or explained away ;l3 mere wiUingness to lose. There is an attual Im incurred and completed. And the 'ruin' consi-t- ■"" •'- -r-- • • -ff from the ■^'-jx^. of all those qualities and ■ ' ' .■ bound it to the present, and have
niadu :: I , il and sensual. The essential -.J-y^t*;,
the Si ) ; ~ i\ L-d ' by the process, and enters upon
a nL-u a-ase is practicallv equivalent to St.
Johns :: . II, III-' (Jnl225).
In .It iiiiiiii nil til estimate the value of these indic-aiiiiii- with n -ard to the future life of the wickfil. ti-u ;inil ~liglit as they seem to be com- pared with the fulness and frequency of the refer- ences to the blessed lot of the righteous, two preliminary conditions which are essential to their right interpretation need to be borne in mind. In the first place, it was clearly far from the intention of the Teacher to lay dowh or elaborate any meta- physical doctrine of a future existence, such as we might reasonably expect from formal .systems of philosophy. Written across His words and actions is their immediate and practical aim ; and to ha\'e mystified His plain and unlettered hearers with definitions and metaphysics would have been to repel them, and defeat His own inirpose. That task He must leave to successors, vAm in other times, and with other surroundings, will enter into His labours. To expect to find, for example, in the Gospels a well-ordered and articulated defence of natural immortality, so called, is unreasonable. Any such expectation is by the conditions of the case doomed to disappointment. Iliiil^. pic- intimations, there will naturally be. iln- .luciiia tion and development of which will In- tin- (.ue of after age.s ; but completeness, finaliiy. from a logical or philosopliic point of view, will not be foimd ; nor a series of statements which, however fitted they might l;e to meet the requirements of some one or other of the later centuries, were out of touch with the thought of His own day and generation.
Again, the reticence observed as to the fate of the wicked, and the comparative infrequeney of mention thereof, are entirely in harmony with what is found to be the case in the early litera- tures of the other great religions of the world. To
expatiate on a destiny of woe and pain, or upon the duration of the sufferings of the lost, is, judg- ing from all analogy, evidence not of an early but of a late position in the history of religious thought ; and were this a marked feature of the Gospels, it would justly have laid them open to the suspicion of having at least undergone modi- fication in the interests of hiter and more devel- oped forms of belief. The hymns of the Kig-Veda, for example, dwell much upon the blessed estate of the good who do that which is acceptable to the gods, and accordingly go hereafter to dwell with them ; but they contain only slight and passing references to the lot of the evil-doers, who are hurled by Indra into darkness. The Egyptian Book of the Dead relates the varj'ing trials and fortunes of tlie deceased in the nether world, through which he passes successfuUj' by the aid of talismanie formulie and the favour of the gods ; but complete silence is observed with regard to the man who at the bar of Osiris fails to pass the prescribed tests. And it is characteristic also not of primitive but of mature, if not decadent. Buddhism to set forth in vivid description and \vith luxuriant art the series of hells in which carefully graduated torments on an a.scending scale of horror are apportioned with precision to the heinousness of the sinner's crimes. It was not otherwise in early Christianity. There, too, it was left to later a"es to elaborate descriptions and to revel in details of a future life, the real cii-cum- stances of which neither human language is capable of defining nor human thought, tied down as it is to categories belonging essentially to present con ditions, able to conceive. The comparative silence of the earliest authoritative documents, and of the earliest teaching so far as it has eonie do^vn to us, is more eloquent and convincing than the most exhaustive and graphic statement of doctrine coiUd ever have been.
Mohammedanism, it may be said, is an exception to this rule,
and from the very be^^niiin^' lavishes its descriptive powers on
e unbeliever. Islam, however,
■oni the mind of its founder, and
II. Its doctrines have already a
liind them, and, if we could trace
It, would probably be found in all
■\ ailing tj-pe of historic growth.
The results to whicli we have been led may be
briefly summarized as follows : —
(1) The reality of a conscious grave is uniformly assumed and Himself and by tlif writers uf tin
(2) To this futi.iv lifi. til. If .- minus or end. Kailn'i- ilu tin' |ilii that the thnu<_'ht ..f ,-, Ihial .mi.
life beyond the taught by Christ Gospels.
a-signed no ter- n-irs used suggest never presented itself to Speaker or writer as either actual or possible. And where words like WXos, iaxdrv T)lUpa, etc., are employed, the 'end' or ' last day ' is obviously and patently not absolute, but marks and introduces a new beginning. No philosophical theory of immortality is formulated ; such a theory is not to be expected, and was, indeed, under the circumstances hardly ])Ossible. The doctrine of the Gospels, however, of a renewed life after death to which no limit is set, and for which by virtue of the very terms employed no limit appears to be conceivable, is in the last analysis all that we mean, or can mean, by 'eternitj',' 'immortality.'