OLD - FASHIONED DOCTRINE AND MR. LLEWELYN DAVIES.
[To THE ED/TOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") '8ix,—There is no anomaly certainly in Mr. Davies protesting as he did in your publication of Saturday week against the revival of the " old-fashioned " doctrine of the "Second Death," but to many it must appear strange that he should call upon the Church of England to repudiate a doctrine which to all intents and purposes is still a recognised doctrine of their religion. He must be aware that all the sympathy he could receive would necessarily be indivi- dual and fragmentary, and could in no way be taken as a disap- proval of the doctrine by the English Church ; and that the result of such appeal, if responded to, could only be to deceive each other for a time, and hide from sight the true bearings of popular dogmatic theology.
The old " veteran " doctrine of the "Second Death," however seldom to be met with in the sphere in which Mr. Llewelyn Davies moves, has not, unfortunately, as he supposes, almost en- tirely disappeared from current theology during the past few years. It is true that the more ugly features of the doctrine have been smoothed down, and that a milder phraseology has taken the place of the old, honest, denunciatory style ; but, in its modern garb, I believe the doctrine has been as hurtful, if not more so, of late years as when it bore all its objectionable features on its front, and gloried in its unreasonableness. What Mr. Davies calls a " revival " of the doctrine is only a return to the old phraseology,—a plain, unqualified statement of the condition. Amongst the great body of the Church it has always been an im- portant, if latent, point of faith ; and Mr. Davies, I think, makes a great mistake if he imagines that the theology of Mr. Maurice and his disciples has so permeated the Church as to merit the title of "current theology." If this old-fashioned doctrine is still one of the doctrines of the Church of England, then by all means let it be preached, and that faithfully.
Compromise, however, is apparently the order of the day, and Mr. Davies is evidently quite willing to accept it. But compromise at the best is a sorry business, and in religious matters is wholly deceptive in its tendencies. I cannot, for one, view with satisfac- tion, as Mr. Davies does, the fact that Mr. Moody and others still believe in the "old-fashioned hell," but, from a feeling that it is old-fashioned or something else, refrain from preaching it ; for this, I should say, they deserve censure, not praise. But it is no uncommon position, this, to assume. Presumed facts are shirked, and instead of certain formidable doctrines being met and either recognised as facts or discarded as idle tales, they are per- mitted year after year to lie in abeyance, fresh and necessarily, in some cases, false relations coming into existence the while. Not only, as Mr. Davies says, have "revivals" become tame, but the general teaching of the pulpit, so far at least as doctrine is concerned, has become pointless and vague. Hell has become a mere bugbear, not a stern reality ; and the anomalies which exist in the religious world arise in great part from the fact that people will persist to recognise those things as realities which fail to sensibly affect their actions.
With Mr. Davies, I protest against this doctrine of the "Second Death" as inhumane, enervating, and debasing ; that it throws a "gloom without a gleam" upon the simple heart and the honest mind ; that it is contradictory to history, and proved false by individual life ; that it is entirely repugnant to the highest dictates of humanity, and if thoroughly believed in would make impossible the consolidation of society ; but, on the other hand, let us not argue ourselves into the belief that it has no existence, let us have clear, honest speech,—no compromising of matters which will end in false relations and mutual distrust. An honest expression of belief in what is unreasonable, or even repugnant, is to be preferred before mental reservation, and consequent mis-
understanding.—I am, Sir, &c., HERBERT ETHELSTANE.
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