68 



VERY REV. W. R. INGE, M.A.^ D.D.^ ON 



that there must be such a world by some purely philosophical 

 arguments, which I have not time to discuss — contradictions 

 involved in the ideas of time and space, obliging us to postulate 

 an eternal world, above these categories ; contradiction in the 

 ideas of change and permanence, of unity and plurality. This 

 purely intellectual consideration converges upon the same point 

 with the moral aspiration for a perfection realized somewhere, a 

 goal of striving ; and with the beatific vision, already seen in 

 mists and shadows dim " by the mystic. 



In this world of ultimate reality the contradictions above 

 mentioned are reconciled. Instead of time we have eternity — 

 a state in which all that ever has been or will be lives together 

 in a timeless present — lives in its real character and ultimate 

 tendency^ as God knows it to be. Instead of space, with its 

 mutual exclusiveness of all objects, we have to aXKo iv aWw^ 

 There is no hindrance to union in the spiritual world except 

 discordance of nature. All are transparent and known to each 

 other. In this sphere we believe that the mind and purpose of 

 God are fully realized and also fully active ; for this is another 

 antinomy which is transcended eVet. The divine attributes of 

 goodness, wisdom and beauty, make a triple star ; they cannot 

 be resolved into each other ; none is subordinate ; all are shining 

 together in harmonious perfection. There evil, if not annihilated, 

 is overcome and transmuted ; there all in our world that has any 

 real meaning and value, all that has any divine and eternal quality, 

 is preserved safe for evermore. All human spirits live with God 

 in the rank which belongs to them, and enjoy the felicity which 

 is possible to them. There are, no doubt, lost spirits — mysti- 

 cism is not concerned to assist universalism ; but their punish- 

 ment must be such as a perfect being could inflict. Poena 

 damni, yes ; torture, no. In this, the spiritual world, relation 

 between subject and object is closer than ivravOa. Spirit 

 beholds the spiritual world as identical with itself. They 

 cannot be separated. The eternal " ideas " are not outside the 

 eternal mind — they are its expression, its speech, its actuality. 

 In this world the soul finally comes to itself, and reaches its 

 true home ; but in thus attaining its consummation it passes 

 from the lower soul-life into that higher and completer life 

 which we call spiritual. It lives in God's presence, with face 

 ever turned to him. 



Popular religion thinks and speaks of heaven as future, A 

 recent philosopher has said that to cast the ideal into the future 

 — to identify heaven with some future triumph — is the destruc- 

 tion of all sane idealism. Certainly, to the mystic, heaven is a. 



