LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
" THE SECOND DEATH " AND THE CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The almost entire disappearance from current theology of the old intolerable doctrine concerning the fate of those who die unconverted, is a fact to which attention has been frequently
called during the last few years. Since the day when Mr. Maurice uttered his protest against this doctrine, and suffered the penalty of dismissal from his office at King's College by what Mr. Glad- stone describes as "the unwise and ruthless vehemence" of the majority of the Council, the Church of England, relieved from so oppressive an incubus, has been conscious of breathing more freely ; and not many years elapsed before Mr. Maurice was wel- comed as Professor of Moral Theology by the University of Cam- bridge, and appointed by the strictly orthodox bishop who now presides over the metropolitan diocese to the office of Whitehall Preacher. Nonconformists have taken courage by degrees to claim the same liberty, and it is notorious that a great change in this respect has passed over the preaching of Evan- gelical Dissent. The strongest proof that could be given of this change is that even Revivalist preachers shrink from seasoning their appeals with the old familiar threaten- ings. It has been justly urged on behalf of Mr. Moody by his supporters that he has been very sparing in his allusions to the future misery of the unconverted. He has intimated, indeed, now and then, that he himself believes in "the old-fashioned Hell," but he evidently accepts the fact that Hell, in the sense of a con- dition of hopeless torment and impotent rebellion awaiting all who die impenitent, has become old-fashioned, and he is willing to preach accordingly. Revivalism without this element hardly remains revivalism, and we are all glad to acknowledge the tame and orderly character of the so-called "Revival" of the day.
This time, however, has been chosen by the Society for Pro- moting Christian Knowledge to issue a tract of the "old-fashioned" kind upon "The Second Death." It is old-fashioned alike in the horrors of its doctrine and in its ignorant textualism. Its doctrine is as follows :—
"The second death is the separation of the soul from God,—complete
separation, judicial separation, eternal separation from God So unutterably painful will it be, that God's own Word describes it as being
cast into a lake of fire With the unsaved there shall be nothing but crying, nothing but pain This great separation is hopeless.
' The wrath of God abideth on them.' This great separation will
not only be dreadful, eternal, and hopeless, but nothing will ever diminish its anguish or lighten its terrors No supporting arms, no tender sympathy, no comfortable words, no glimmer of hope, will solace the lost. The second death will be gloom without a gleam,' and not one drop of water will be given to cool the tongue."
As regards the Scripture proofs with which the doctrine is sup- ported, it is due to the author of the tract to note that he does not produce the text, "Where the tree falls there it lies "as evidence of the unchangeableness of the state after death. So much respect he pays to modern exegesis. But let me take, as an example of the proofs on the strength of which we are to believe such things of a just and gracious God, the text quoted above. "The wrath of God abideth on them," therefore the separationlis hopeless. The text in full is this, "He that believeth on the Son bath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." The meaning of it is plain and indisputable. The believer, in proportion to his faith and at the time of his believing, has life ; he who refuses to believe, so long as he refuses, will not see life ; the wrath of God abides upon the state of unbelief. This is said of the present life, with no express reference to death at all. To bring the text into con- formity with the doctrine of the tract, we must read it thus : The wrath of God does not yet abide upon the unbelieving, for up to a certain moment they have the opportunity of believing, and if they do they will enter into life, but from that moment the wrath of God will make it impossible for them to believe. The doctrine of the tract denies the actual statement of the text, and
imports into it another which is entirely foreign to it. The text, indeed, is one which may be quoted with all but conclusive force against the doctrine of the tract ; for we may reasonably urge that, wherever any such language is to be found applied to the state after death, we are at liberty to interpret it in the same way in which we are compelled to interpret it as applied to the state before death.
I do not know how much significance ought to be attached to the appearance of this tract. It may have been accepted through some inadvertence, which I am the more inclined to believe, because I received in the same packet with this a series of tracts entitled " From Cellar to Garret," as objectionable in taste as this is in doctrine, which can hardly have undergone deliberate considera- tion. But, as Mr. Gladstone happens to remark in his last article, tracts of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge may be reckoned amongst " works of authority ;" and it has seemed to me and to other members of the Society, that the new publication of such doctrine under its sanction ought not to pass without an open protest. I have tried another channel before asking the hospitality of your columns, but the Guardian, which is read by more members of the Christian Knowledge Society, and which has a deservedly high character for liberality with regard to the admission of correspondence, has declined to insert a letter from me on the subject.
I hope I am not wrong in feeling sure that of the moderate Anglicans whom we are accustomed to regard as managing the affairs of the Society, not one would endorse with his own name the dogmas and expositions of this tract. There is hardly a bishop on the Bench whom one might not go to hear with a reasonable confidence that one would not be distressed and put to shame by such teaching. If, however, it should appear that a reaction has begun to set in, a controversy which most of us had gladly be- lieved to have been closed must be reopened. There are many loyal sons of the Church of England who will not consent that the assertions of this tract should be published without refutation Its modern Anglican doctrine.—I am, Sir, &c.,
J. LLEWELYN DAVIES.
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