MR. CONWAY ON " PRIESTLY FICTIONS."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] find a question in the Spectator of April 13 which I beg- to answer. You say, after alluding to a paper of mine in thev Theological Review, " Why is Mr. Conway so hard upon what lur calls priestly fictions about a future life, while he himself assert& immortality ?" The priestly fictions, as I conceive them, are amt. vice and virtue do not receive their just awards in thislife. That notion carries with it the idea that the great moral laws do not.
prevail everywhere, but are localized in some region reached through death. One can, I submit, believe in the continuation of existence after death, and yet hold that justice is done in each moment of time. Among the great truths which I have heard enunciated by the late Mr. Maurice, none seemed to me more impressively stated than that a true faith brought immediately with it eternal life, while he who believes not is "condemned already." The idea that eternal life and death refer to the future and not to this life, seem to we priestly fictions.—I am, Sir, &c.,
M. D. CONWAY.
[Does Mr. Conway mean by his view that " justice is done in each moment of time," that justice has nothing to do with the relation between successive events? If he does, he holds what seems to us a wholly unintelligible doctrine. If he does not, then he can hardly deny that the events of the future,—whether of this life or the next,—may be necessary to work out the requisitions of divine justice.—ED. Spectator.]
Previous page
