* Universalism (III.), Ritschl dismissed as 'sentimental.' Hia own inclination was towards a doctrine of conditional immor- tality, but he left his eschatologj' somewhat in the dark.
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The controversy has gone to sleep. Or judgment in the cause goes by default.
Literature. — Besides Ritschl and Hastie, referred to above, the attentive reader will find fossil marks of the controversy in some of the hymns of the Evangelical Revival, both Calvin- istic and Wesleyan.
III. Universal ultimate salvation. — !. At the present day, ' Universalism ' most naturally suggests to the reader the doctrine of the final restitution of all souls (there are Universalist churches in America in this sense). The doctrine is not, indeed, a novelty. It is found, qualified by his extraordinary insistence upon individual free- will, in Origen's closely-knit speculative system ; also in Gregory of Nyssa, and others. And Ritschl [Gesch. des Pietismus) notes, with scorn, among the symj)toms of post-Reformation ' pietism,' that, ever and anon, hope is exjjressed even on behalf of con- demned and lost souls. The most earnest and ardent supporters in Great Britain of the univers- alist doctrine have been Thomas Erskine of Lin- lathen (in his later years; d. 1870), Samuel Cox (Salvator Mundi, 1877), and Caleb Scott of Man- chester. But Tennyson's /to ilfewioHam (1849) has perhaps done more than any formal theological work to move opinion in this direction ; and there has been a great break-up of the old unhesitating belief in literally unending punishment. Some have taught conditional immortality (E. White, Life in Christ, 1875 ; Petavel [French-Swiss], The Problem of Immortality, 2 vols. 1890-91 (Eng. tr. in one vol. 1892) ; W. D. Maclaren), others a mitigated punishment (F. W. Farrar, Eternal Hope, 1878, Mercy and Judgment, 1881 ; hinted also in J. R. Illingworth's Reason and Revelation, 1902, ch. xii.). Others plead for uncertainty (E. H. Plumptre, Spirits in Prison, 1884, with full and interesting references ; Plumptre's brother-in-law, F. p. Maurice [Theological Essays, 1853), had stated philosophic doubts as to the meaning of 'eternal.' Present writer's Essays Towards a Neiv Theology, 1889). An original and very curious suggestion is found in A. M. Fairbairn's Christ in Modern Theo- logy, 1893, p. 467. Deity ' cannot ' annihilate, but the sentence of condemnation \s,indeterminatera.t\\e\: than eternal (like sentences of committal to Elmira reformatory prison, N.Y.). Repentance always remains possible. If or when the damned repent, they shall emerge. Besides all these changes or innovations in belief, the growing reticence, and one may say reluctance, among those who maintain full traditional orthodoxy is even more significant. Few would now write as Charles Reade did (1856) in his brilliant novel. Never Too Late to Mend (ch, 21), as if the last moments of life on this side the veil were necessarily the last moments of hope for the soul (' Never ' too late ?).
2, Much of what we have just mentioned con- cerns us only in so far as it represents a great s-waying of opinion towards universalism (in the fullest sense). The three senses of the word which we have been studying form a climax — Christ for all races, Christ for all souls, Christ actually re- deeming and winning all. In the theological discussion just noted — Fairbairn is an exception — ■ the question is generally argued as one of NT interpretation. The present writer does not think that hojieful. He sees no ground for challenging the old doctrine on exegetical lines. Words often applied to the universalist liope — Apokata stasis, ' restitution of all things,' Ac 3^1 (cf. Mt 17" ||, Ac 1") — do not really bear the meaning supposed. One passage teaches probation after death (1 P 3'"), but it hardly falls within the limits of this article. Eternal punishment had come to be the doctrine of the synagogue, and it passed into the NT Avith perhaps even sharper definition, as a witness to the unspeakable evil of sin. True, the doctrine
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UNPARDONABLE SIN
was not rigorously formulated, and it is a question among interpreters whether St. Paul's teaching is eternal punishment or rather a certain type of conditional-immortality doctrine. But generally the NT is clear, even the language used by Christ ; although we note that what is freshest and most personal in our Lord's words (Lk 12^''*'*^) goes to modify the dreadful wholesale dogma, and fore- shadows, at however remote a time, the ultimate challenging of the letter of this article of the theological creed. Again, as a matter of exegesis, we cannot claim either the Johannine teaching of our Lord (Jn 12*-), or the culminating point in St. Paul's great argument (Ro IP^), as asserting universal salvation. Other plainer passages are decisive. There is a ' son of perdition ' (Jn 17^^), and St. Paul denounces ' eternal destruction ' on sinners (2 Th P). Still, the question recurs here, too, whetlier the spirit and inner drift of such words — words spoken on the mountain-tops of spiritual vision — can be satisfied by anything less than their full meaning.
3. Recent change in theological opinion is largely a matter of moral recoil. We may sum up the moral postulate by saying that, as long as there is hope of rescuing the soul, any severity is a holy and even — ^though one trembles at the words — a gracious thing. But if character sets permanently in the ways of evil, can we credit long-drawn-out suffering '! Our generation, from a sense of duty,