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cannot consist with the amendment of the sinner. Clement of Alexandria, the teacher of Origen, makes the following representations, according to Redpenning: The deep corruption of mankind fills God with compassion for man as unlimited as his hatred towards evil, not with anger-for He is never angry--but with the tenderest and most pitiful love. Hence He continually seeks all men whom he loves for their own sakes and their resemblance to God, as the bird seeks her young who have fallen from the nest. His omnipotence, to which nothing is impossible, knows how to overcome all evil, and convert it to good. He threatens, indeed, and punishes, but yet, only to reform and improve; and though in public discourse the fruitfulness of repentance after death be asserted, yet hereafter, not only those who have not heard of Christ will receive forgiveness, but it may be hoped that the severer punishment which befalls the rebellious will not be the conclusion of their history; for man, like every other spiritual being, can never lose his free will. By means of this power, at all times here and hereafter, noble minds, aided by the divine power, which is indispensabe to success, are lifting themselves from ignorance and deep moral corruption and drawing nearer, in greater or less degree, to God and the truth."

Basilides (who was born about A. D. 75, wrote a commentary on the Gospels in twenty-four books)-Shedd affirms, "Admitted no such thing as the objective justification in the sight of God, or forgiveness of sin in the sense of deliverance from guilt and punishment of sin. Every sin, whether committed before or after faith in the Redeemer or baptism, must according to his scheme be in like manner expiated by the suffering of the individual himself." "Expiate," remarks Shedd, "in the sense of purification only is meant in the above extract. Suffering is disciplinary only. Evil, in the eye of Basilides, was only the disciplinary suffering the sinner undergoes in the process of purification."

Valentinus lived contemporary with Basilides. He was a very learned and distinguished man. "The school of Valentinus," says Shedd, "held the same general views on this point, representing punitive justice as something irreconcilable with the perfect goodness of the supreme God, who is unmixed benevolence. Valentinus regarded the capital punishment of the murderer as only a second murder, because it was retributive instead of disciplinary and educational." What if these ideas had not been suppressed by the Roman Catholic power, but had prevailed over the Christian world, where would have been the millions of martyrs burnt by those professing the Christian name? Would John Calvin have applied the torch to the faggots at the feet of Michael Servetus. "Oh, it was the age in which Calvin lived," says his apologist, "that led him to approve of the torture and burning to death of those who conscientiously differed with him in religious belief. It was not the doctrine he professed that hardened and petrified his heart, and dried the tears of human sympathy in his eyes." Look at the primitive followers of Jesus, those twelve hundred years prior to Calvin regarding the "capital punishment of the murderer only as a second murder, because it is retributive instead of disciplinary and educational." Was it the "age" in which Valentinus lived that rendered him so compassionate; or was it the doctrines of him who said, "do good to them that hate you?"*

*Contrary to what we should expect, magnanimity and compassion are not attributes of God popularly acceptable. The masses of men being selfish and inclined to tyrannize readily accept a tyrannic, passionate, tormenting God; for such a God they would themselves be if they had a chance. * * * As a matter of fact the priests and preachers who scare people and then admit them to safety at a reasonable cost, and by a mode sufficiently mysterious, have always been more popular than the philosophic and philan

"Clement of Alexandria and Origen," says Shedd, "asserted with great earnestness the tenent of a plenary and inalienable power in the human will to overcome sin. The destiny of the soul is placed in the soul itself. The power of free will cannot be lost, and if not exercised in this world it can be in the next; and in full light of the eternal world and the stimulus of suffering there experienced nothing is more probable than that it will be exerted. Hence in opposition to the Catholic faith, Origen maintained the doctrine of the final restoration of all human souls. He calls the fear of eternal punishment a 'pious deception.''

Neander says:

"With great zeal Clement of Alexandria maintained the doctrine of progressive development after death, as one necessarily grounded in the universal love and justice of God, with whom is no respect of persons. The beneficent power of our Saviour, he affirms, is not confined barely to the present life, but operates at all times and everywhere. The Alexandrians held as the ultimate end of all, a universal redemp tion, consisting in the annihilation of all moral evil, and universal restoration to that original unity of divine life out of which all had proceeded."

Illustrative of Origen's method of preaching and direction of thought, the following is too precious to be omitted. It is an extract from one of his sermons, delivered nearly 1700 years ago, and copied into Neander's "History of the Christian Religion:"

"God's Wrath and Anger."

"When the Holy Scriptures speak of God in his divine majesty as God, and when they do not present the divine agency as interwoven with human circumstances and relations, they say 'He is not like men; for his greatness is unsearchable.' (Ps., 145: 3.) "The Lord is a great God; a great King above all Gods." (Ps., 95: 2.) But when the divine agency is represented as interwoven with human circumstances and relations, God assumes the feelings, the manner and language of men, as we, conversing with a child two years old, accommodate ourselves to the child's language, since if we preserved the dignity of riper years, and conversed with children, without letting ourselves down to their language, they could not understand us. So conceive it in relation to God when he lets himself down to the human race, and especially to that part of the race who are still at the age of infancy. Observe how we grown-up men in our intercourse with children alter even the names of things; how we call bread by one particular name and drink by another, employing a language which belongs not to those of mature age but to children. Should some one hear us so conversing with children, would he say, 'This old man has lost his understanding!' So God speaks also as with children. 'Behold I,' says the Saviour, and the children which God has given me.' (Heb., 2:13.) When thou hearest of the wrath of God, believe not that this wrath is a passion of God, It is a condescension of language, aiming at the conversion and improvement of the child. for we ourselves assume an angry look to our children, not in accordance with the feelings of our hearts, but with a feigned expression of countenance. If we expressed the feelings of the soul towards the child on our countenance and let our love be seen without altering our looks, as the good of the child requires, we should spoil him. So God is described to us as angry, when in truth he is not angry. But thou wilt suffer the wrath of God, if thou art punished by his sothropic Unitarians and Universalists." Thomas K. Beecher, in "Our Seven Churches," pp. 118-119.

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called wrath, when thy own wickedness shall draw down upon thee sufferings hard to endure."

Lamson says, "Hist. Ch., 1st 3 Cen:"

"Origen believed in the final restoration of all beings to virtue and happiness. All are subjected to influences which sooner or later will prove successful. Superior orders of intelligences are appointed to instruct, guide and perfect the lower. Of the glorious spirits who have imitated the divine perfections, some as the reward of their merits are placed in the order of Angels; others of virtues; others of principalities; others of powers, because they exercise power over those who require to be in subjection, others of thrones, exercising the office of judging and directing those who have need. To the care and rule of these orders the race of man is subjected, and using their assistance and reformed by their salutary instructions and discipline, will in some future, though perhaps distant, age, be restored to their primitive state of felicity. The sufferings of a future life, as Origen taught are all peculiar and remedial.* All will be chastened exactly in proportion to their demerits; but their sufferings will have an end, and all will be finally restored to purity and love.

This Origen repeatedly asserts. The end and consummation of all things, he observes, is the perfection and happiness of all. To this end, condition or state, he says, we think that the goodness of God through Christ, will recall his universal creation; all things becoming finally subjected to Christ, 'For all things must be subject to Him.' (1 Cor. 15: 24-28.) Now what is this subjection, he asks, with which all things must be subject to Christ? I think the same with which we also desire to be subject to him; with which the Apostles and all the saints who have followed Christ, are subject to him. For the very term 'subjection,' in this case implies that they who are subject, have obtained the salvation which is of Christ. Then it is that Christ himself shall also be subject to the Father, with and in those who have been made subject. This he observes, is asserted by the Apostle, when he says. And all things shall be subdued to Him, then shall the Son also, himself, be subject to Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.' And this subjugation of all Christ's enemies to himself, and that of himself to the Father, Origen contends is good and salutary subjection. If the latter is such, the former is so too; and hence, as when it was said, the Son is subject to the Father, the perfect restitution of the universal creation is declared; So when the enemies of the Son are said to be subject to Him, the salvation through Him of those subject, and the restitution of the lost are implied.

Again in his seventh homily of Leviticus, he contends that subjection to Christ, implies subjection of the will and affections, and that as long as any thing remains opposed to him, in other words, as long as there is sin, his work is not consummated. But, he adds, 'when he shall have consummated his work, and brought his universal creation to the summit of perfection, then he himself shall be subject in those

"The great Origen believed in aionian punishment-not endless-and also in universal restoration, basing his argument on the New Testament, Dr. Beecher says of him: "He states the doctrine of future retribution as aionian life and aionian punishment, using the words of Christ. Now, if Origen understood aionian in the sense pertaining to the world to come, there would be nothing to prevent him from regarding it as a remedial punishment, destined to result in the restoration of all to holiness. On the other hand, if he understood aionian as meaning strictly eternal, then to pursue such a course would involve him in gross and palpable self-contradiction. After setting forth the creed of the church, as already stated, including aionian punishment, he forthwith proceeds with elaborate reasoning, again and again, to prove the doctrine of universal restoraton.

The conclusion from these facts is obvious. Origen did not understand aionian as meaning eternal, but rather as meaning pertaining to the world to come." See articles of Dr. Edward Beecher, in "Christian Union,", 1873.

whom he has subdued to the Father, and in whom he has comsummated the work which the Father gave him to do.'

The rewards of the blessed, Origen makes to consist in an intimate union, or oneness with God, according to the prayer of Christ. (John XVII; 21-24.) These do not, however, rise to the summit of this felicity at once; but through several successive steps. as first by knowledge and instruction, which remove the darkness of their understandings, then by being brought into a moral resemblance to God, then by being taken into union with Him, in which consists the supreme good. This union is explained as a union of affection, will and purpose."

Those doctrines of Origen have never been extinguished in the Eastern church, but (if we may credit a modern Russian writer, Alexander de Stourdza, Counselor of State to the Emperor of Russia,) they exist in that ancient and immense communion. Stourdza in his able exposition of the doctrines and practices of the Greek church, contrasted with those of the Roman, says:

"Evil is a corrosive ulcer, which exists only negatively. It will cease when there shall be no more victims. How? That is the secret of the eternal God. The Scripture points us to that epoch, but very mysteriously as if beyond our reach. It is designated by the expression, 'And God shall be all in all.'

"Before disputing boldly then upon the eternity of pains, it would first be requisite to know what is the duration of evil. It remains for us to admire the wise course of our church, (the Greek,) which does not comment upon a doctrine which cannot be measured by our intelligence. The church of the West, (Roman,) unhappily has not observed the same religious caution."

To show that these ancient ideas are now forcing themselves upon the Protestant mind generally, I quote from George Christian Knapp's "Christian Theology"-a standard Text Book, in orthodox Theological Seminaries. Speaking of positive punishments, Dr. Knapp says: "To hope that God would remove the positive punishments of sins, in case the sinner, even in the future life, should come to the knowledge of himself and truly repent, would seem to be agreeable to the divine goodness. That the repentance of the sinner in the future world is absolutely impossible, is not taught in the Scriptures."*

Discourse the Eighth.

PRIMITIVE INTERPRETATION.

(In the Second and Third Centuries, A. D.)

The Christianized Pagans of Greece and Rome did not rightly interpret nor understand the Jewish Scriptures; because the language of Europe was literal and not allegorical; while the language of the Jews, (caused by the influence of the hieroglyphic or picture language of Egypt upon the Hebrew,) was figurative or allegorical. It is known that the Egyptians were the earliest of all nations to have a written language. Their writings were but pictures on the walls of their edifices. In order that their language might be adapted to writ ing they were obliged to speak in figures or pictures. If they would say, for instance that the moral faculties of man must ultimately dominate the animal faculties, they would say:

"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb-the leopard lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion and fatling together, and a little child shall lead them."

Who does not see that these are pictures, all prepared and ready to be engraven on the pyramids? If there was no other proof than * This opinion is very general among the German Lutherans.

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the Hebzrew language itself, (so allegorical, so figurative,) that the Jews had once and for a long time "sojourned in Egypt," the learned could come to no other conclusion than that they had.

The Europeans arose to enlightenment after the invention of letTo read the Bible in the ters. Their language is essentially literal. light of European literature and Paganism, it must impart a very gross and erroneous meaning. In the early days of Christianity there arose a division in the Christian church. Justin the Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian and other teachers, claimed that the Scriptures should be interpreted literally, while Clement of Alexandria, Origen and almost the whole race of Jewish, Egyptian and Asiatic scholars, assigned to the Scripture language a figurative sense.

When Constantine, the Great, was converted, and church and state united, the Roman or literal interpretation prevailed over the Jewish, or allegorical,-not by the force of reason and truth, but by force of the civil and military arm, and the Jewish, Egyptian and Asiatic scholars and Christian fathers, who held to the allegorical method, were declared heretics.

"The method of interpreting Scripture adopted by Clement of Alexandria, and Origen," says Moshiem, "was the same as that in use Ernesti goes farther and among the Jews, before the Christian era.

seeks its origin in the schools of the Prophets."

Again he says:

"Origen unquestionably stands at the head of the interpreters of the Bible in the century in which he lived. He adopted the mode of interpreting the Scriptures that was sanctioned by the Jews, and was current among Christians before the time of Origen. But he gave definite rules for it and brought it into a systematic form."

Geissler, in his "Church History," says:

"Origen gained for himself the merit of reinstating the grammatical interpretation of Scripture in its rights, by a more accurate distinction between the literal, the moral and the spiritual sense."

Moshiem says:

"Origen maintains that "The letter of Scripture is a mere envelope of an idea allegorically considered;' that under the literal reading is contained a hidden and concealed sense which must be preferred to the literal meaning of the words. This remote sense he divides into the moral and spiritual or mystical. The former, containing instruction relative to the internal state of the soul and our external action; and the latter, acquainting us with the nature, the history and laws of the spiritual world, which he maintains is both celestial and terrestrial. "The literal sense of Scripture," Origen says, 'corresponds with the body; the moral is analogous to the soul; and the spiritual sense analogous to the rational mind. As the body is the baser part of man, so the literal is the less worthy sense of Scripture; and as the body often betrays good men into sin, so the literal sense leads us into error. Yet the literal sense is not wholly useless.'

The following, according to Moshiem, is Origen's general rule for determining when a passage of Scripture may be taken literally, and when not, viz:

"Whenever the words, if understood literally, will afford a valuable meaning-one that is worthy of God, useful to man, and accordant with truth and correct reason, then the literal meaning is to be retained; but whenever the words, if understood literally, will express what is absurd or false, or contrary to correct reason, or unworthy of God, then the literal sense is to be discarded and the moral and mystical alone to be regarded.' This rule he applies to every part of the Old Testament and the New. And he assigns two reasons why fables and literal absurdities are admitted into the sacred volume. The first is,