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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



Whereunto the king rejoined, " Not he who 

 dared the deed will shrink at words." We have 

 prefixed this reply as motto to our article ; for it 

 happily exposes the delusion which prevails about 

 the Divine morality. Whoever, in conceiving of 

 that morality, strains at the gnat of even benefi- 

 cent misrepresentation, while he swallows the 

 camel of eternal punishment, should bind the 

 motto about his neck, and write it on the table 

 of his heart. But our popular teachers are deaf 

 to such advice. They scorn to depict God as an 

 idealized Edward III., pardoning those whom he 

 had doomed to destruction ; but they scruple not 

 to depict him as a Torquemada in excelsis. 



But, after all, it is superfluous to show that, 

 assuming orthodoxy, Divine deceptions may oc- 

 cur : orthodoxy herself practically admits that 

 they have occurred. How does she account for 

 the scientific statements in the Bible, which are, 

 to say the least, calculated to mislead ? She af- 

 firms that those statements were needful accom- 

 modations : which being interpreted is, that God, 

 to teach a great truth, had to teach a little error. 

 But there are graver forms of Divine deception 

 to which the Bible directly bears witness. Lu- 

 cian justly complains that Zeus, in the "Iliad," 

 " deceived Agamemnon by sending him a lying 

 dream, so as to cause the death of many Greeks." 

 In exactly the same way, Jehovah, in the book of 

 Kings, deceived Ahab by sending him a lying 

 spirit, so as to cause the death of many Hebrews 

 (Deus fallit per alium). At another time, he 

 " gave them also statutes that were not good, and 

 judgments whereby they should not live ; " and 

 " if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken 

 a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet " 

 (Deus fallit per se). 1 



Nor is it only in the Old Testament that such 

 •deceptions are mentioned : they are attested also 

 in the New. 2 I am careful to notice this latter 

 testimony, inasmuch as it is on the earliest Chris- 

 tian traditions and sentiments — those recorded 

 in the Synoptical writings and the Apocalypse — 

 that the case for eternal torture chiefly rests. 

 St. Paul, on the other hand, inclined toward Uni- 

 versalism : 3 and it does not lie with the Church 

 to neglect his authority ; for ecclesiastical Chris- 

 tianity is based far more on the Pauline Epistles 

 and the Fourth Gospel than on the genuine say- 

 ings of Jesus. But St. Paul himself would have 

 been the first to disclaim any such preeminence, 

 and to admit that the servant is less than his 



1 Compare Deuteronomy xiii. 3; Jeremiah xx. 7. 



2 2 Thessalonians ii. 11. 



3 Romans xi. 32. 



Lord. Numquid Paulus crucifixus est pro vobis ? 

 Aut in nomine Pauli baptizati estis ? It is, there- 

 fore, with especial interest that we inquire wheth- 

 er a strong case for eternal torture can be made 

 out of the language of the Synoptical records. 

 To me their expressions seem very strong : inso- 

 much that, when Mr. Oxenham holds up their 

 damnatory phraseology and virtually asks with 

 Hubert de Burgh : " Can you not read it ? Is it 

 not fair writ ? " I most reluctantly echo Prince 

 Arthur's answer : 



" Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect." 

 Not only is this concession in itself painful : 

 it also involves a painful inquiry. For it be- 

 hooves us to prove, not merely that there are er- 

 rors in the Bible — thus much all rational Chris- 

 tians now admit — but that there are errors even 

 in the words ascribed to the Master. Yet, in 

 this thankless demonstration, it is a comfort to 

 feel that we are only affirming a principle which 

 all Neochristians practically assume, and which 

 is indeed the corner-stone of their system ; for 

 it is certain that what may be termed the non- 

 populousness and the non-eternity of hell are 

 staked on the fallibility of Christ. From this 

 point of view, then, all Christians, even those 

 who believe our conclusions to be false, ought to 

 wish them to be true. If a great physician told 

 us that we were going to die of a lingering and 

 loathsome disease, we should wish—he would ex- 

 pect us to wish, and would himself wish — that 

 he might be mistaken ; and so, when the Object 

 of our deepest reverence has proclaimed sad tid- 

 ings of great sorrow which are unto all people, 

 common humanity bids us hope that even he was 

 liable to error. 



Before proceeding further, I must guard 

 against a misconception. Some readers may be 

 estranged from this inquiry, through supposing 

 that I am about to assail the doctrine of the In- 

 carnation. Such, however, is not my intention ; 

 for, having a clear case before me, I mean to 

 avoid all disputable matter. I will, therefore, 

 remark that those who deny the infallibility of 

 Christ do not necessarily deny his Divinity ; they 

 need only subject that Divinity to limitations 

 which, in theory, are hardly greater than those 

 to which it is subjected already. To make my 

 meaning clear, I will first observe that in differ- 

 ent ages the word God has been held to con- 

 note very different sets of attributes. Thus, 

 Mr. Oxenham assumes that God is infallible; 

 and, as we have seen, he thinks it blasphemous 

 to suggest that the Incarnate God could deceive. 

 Xenophanes, on the other hand, deemed it bias- 



