16 JULY 1881, Page 24

What is the Truth as to Everlasting Punishment ? By

the Rev. F. Nutcombe Oxenham, MA. (Rivingtons.)—This is an answer to Dr. Pusey's recently published treatise, "What is of Faith as to Ever- lasting Punishment ?" and, as an argumentum, ad hominem, it is very effective. Dr. Pusey, it will be remembered, put the matter thus,— that there were four points contained in popular notions of Hell, one of which only he held to be de fide. These four are,— (1), the physical torments ; (2), the endless duration ; (3), the opinion that it is incurred by the mass of mankind; (4), that it is a doom passed irreversibly at death. As to the first, Dr. Pusey says that "neither the Church nor any portion of it has so laid down any doctrine irt regard to this, as to make the acceptance of them an integral part of the doctrine itself." But Mr. Oxenham shows conclusively by quota- tions—if, indeed, there was any need to show it—that this teaching has been, in point of fact, strongly enforced by Church doctors of the highest authority, and that Dr. Pusey himself has stated it in the most vigorous language. The second, Dr. Pusey holds to be de fide. The third he declares to be limited to a few Calvinists, and held only half-heartedly by them. Here, again, Mr. Oxenham joins issue. AR the orthodox teachers of the Church have maintained it, Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, in fact, doctors without number have asserted that the saved are but few. And, indeed, as Mr. Oxenham points out, it must be so, if those only are saved who die "in a state of grace." No definition of "a state of grace" can be invented which would take in any but a small minority. As for the fourth, Dr. Pusey, again following the orthodox, would limit the operation of any purifying influences after death to those who die "in the faith." But the book is not limited to the personal argu- ment. It treats the whole subject exhaustively, and it is well worth studying.