HELL AND TEE DIVINE VERACITY. 



497 



(orepe'&jjua) — these are delusions which the plan of 

 universe has done its very best to foster, which 

 are common to primitive races, and which primi- 

 tive writers, inspired as well as uninspired, have 

 emphatically shared. In the face of these delu- 

 sions, will the paradox that the course of Nature 

 is a representation, however imperfect, of the 

 Deity, a not inglorious "mirror where the Al- 

 mighty's form glasses itself in " moral tempests, 

 be seriously maintained ? If so, we are driven to 

 the monstrous conclusion that there are qualities 

 in the First Cause little akin to those of Nathanael. 

 Arid hence would arise the analogical presumption 

 that, in revelation, God, according to St. Paul's 

 happy euphemism, " calleth those things that be 

 not as though they were." 



Xenophanes blames Homer for attributing to 

 the gods — 



otrtra. nap' 6n/9puiiT0i<Tiv bveiSea <a\ if/oyos £<ttCv . . . 

 KkenTeiv /jLOixeveiv re Kal a\\rj\ovi airaTeveiv. 



In this strikingly modern passage two things may 

 be noted. First, divine deceit is not put in a 

 class by itself; it is merely ranked with other 

 forms of divine guilt. Secondly, the various forms 

 of divine guilt are pronounced to be such, only 

 on the assumption that the gods are bound by 

 human morality ; the acts are condemned because 

 they would be deemed wrong and disgraceful 

 among men. Now, it must be owned that to cre- 

 ate millions of sentient beings, foreknowing that 

 most of them were doomed to eternal tortures, 

 compared with which the perpetual extraction of 

 a sensitive tooth would be hailed as a relief 1 — 

 such an act is unlike those which are thought 

 praiseworthy among men. Are we not, then, 

 bound to blame this act when imputed to God ? 

 For, in truth, there are two standards, and only 

 two, whereby acts so imputed can be judged : 

 there is the standard of human morality, and there 

 is the immoral standard of natural analogy. Al- 

 most always, in weighing Christian and non-Chris- 

 tian theologies, we play fast and loose with these 

 two standards. Will it be said that Christianity 

 is in itself superior to the best non-Christian the- 

 ology ? It is ; but we vastly exaggerate the su- 

 periority by applying to the different theologies 



1 1 give this realistic comparison in order to bring 

 home to my readers what the popular doctrine is. 

 People who talk glihly about glad tidings should read 

 (in Wall's " History of Infant Baptism") Augustine's 

 and Falgentias's expressions about the fate of unbap- 

 tized (including still-born) infants. It is, however, 

 satisfactory to know that, although Augustine (once at 

 least) explicitly declared that all unbaptized children 

 would be damned, yet he trusted that " this fire would 

 be to them the most moderate of all " (Wall). 



68 



different tables of weights and measures. The 

 divergence between these tables far exceeds what 

 is commonly supposed. Weighed in the balance 

 of natural analogy, no historic gods are found 

 wanting ; weighed in the balance of human moral- 

 ity, all. The like may be said of the comparison 

 between damning and deceiving. If God is wholly 

 beyond the pale of human morality, we cannot 

 guess whether he ought to damn or not to damn 

 — to deceive or not to deceive. If, however, be 

 is within that pale, we may conclude that (if om- 

 nipotent) he ought neither to damn nor to deceive ; 

 but that the guilt of deceiving is as dust in the 

 balance when compared with the guilt of damn- 

 ing. I say " if omnipotent," for the following 

 reason : That a good spirit of limited powers 

 might, in extreme cases, have to deceive his creat- 

 ures, is just conceivable. In those extreme cases 

 we might agree with J^schylus, that airaTris Siicatas 

 ovk dTro<TTaT€? 6e6s. But that such a spirit should 

 be one 



" Wha, as it pleases best bissel, 

 Sends ane to heaven, and ten to hell, 

 A' for his glory," 



is utterly inconceivable and revolting. The or- 

 thodox, however, take a view the opposite of 

 ours ; they virtually assume that the text, " Let 

 God be true, but every man a liar," is itself true 

 in a more literal sense than the text, " God is 

 love." Indeed, to their apotheosis of veracity may 

 be due some of the exaggerated commonplaces 

 that are current as to the absolute universality of 

 the duty of truth-telling. I remember, when a 

 boy, being told that it was sinful in Napoleon to 

 encourage the Guard at Waterloo with the mis- 

 statement that their comrades, having crushed 

 Bliicher, were in sight coming to help them. Yet 

 it certainly seemed that to tell the Guard a lie for 

 which, if it had succeeded, they would have been 

 grateful, was, at worst, what Sophocles would have 

 called 6'<na Travovpye?v, and Shakespeare would 

 have called "a virtuous sin;" and that, at all 

 events — in judging of that long crime, Napoleon's 

 career — to single out this peccadillo for reproba- 

 tion showed a want of moral perspective. But 

 what should I have answered if my teacher had 

 gone on to ask whether it was not uncharitable 

 to suspect a man like Napoleon of telling such a 

 lie ? My answer would, or should, have been in 

 words of (Edipus. When (Edipus had adjured 

 the unknown murderer of Laius to give himself 

 up, the chorus was so sanguine as to suggest that 

 further efforts at detection would be needless; 

 without doubt, the criminal, on hearing the im- 

 precation, would make haste to confess his guilt. 



