The Bishop of Lichfield, Dr. Maclagan, seems not to be
afraid of the charge of heresy. If the report of his recent charge in the Times can be trusted, he assured his clergy that the Greek word translated in our Version " eternal " or "everlast- ing," in relation to the penalties of the future state, did not mean literally "endless," but only "very long," and he advised his clergy, not, indeed, to keep back the darker teaching of Scrip- ture on this subject, but "not to dwell too prominently upon. it." We believe the Bishop to be quite right, so far as this,. —that no word in Scripture is ever used in a very sharply scientific sense, but only so as to convey the full moral im- pression belonging to it, to the hearers,—more after the fashion in which orators and poets use language, than after the fashion in which modern men of science use it. Nor is there certainly a single passage in Scripture which can be taken to show that gelimos- was used in a mathematical sense, as denying absolutely any limit to that to which it is applied. Were it ao, it would never have been applied, as it so often ia in Scripture, to.physical objects. Nevertheless, Dr. Maclagan will be freely charged with heresy, for this opinion.
Previous page
