MR. ERSKINE'S VLEV4r OF LIFE. [TO 711131 EDITOR OF Tug
"EING74.70R:1 SIR, —Believing, with Mr. Erskine, that the earthly life of every individual should be regarded as an education rather than a pro- bation, I am glad to have the opportunity of considering Dr. Thirlwall's objection—perhaps the most forcible that can be urged in opposition to that view—viz., the apparent failure of the divine purpose in the case of many who " grow worse and worse, more and more hardened, blinded, and depraved the longer they live." If thorough sympathy with Mr. Erskine's views can give any insight into his spirit, I may venture to say, that while maintaining the doctrine of perfect freedom of choice for every man, he could not have accepted as regards any man, without great qualification, the statement " God cannot make him good." On the contrary, I think he would have said, " None but God can make any of us good ;" and he has said in more than one letter of the series to which Dr. Thirwall refers, that " God's purpose is to make man good." What he did maintain was, that man is not created good, but created to be made good. For the experience of every Christian confirms the Lord's words :—" Except a man be born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." " No man can come to Me except the Father draw him." There is a divine compulsion by
which Satan's bondsman becomes the Lord's freed-man Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power."
Dr. Thirlwall's objection, though free of that leaven of the Pharisees which causes many to estimate degrees of iniquity and inward hardness of heart merely by the outward signs of amis.' evil, seems to limit somewhat the fullness of God's saving power to the few years of natural life. " What hope," he asks, "of a better result, if they [the hardened and depraved] bring into the second school the habits and character which they have formed in the first ?" I reply, the sure and certain hope of God's unlimited mercy and long suffering. If wo read in the light of this hope Leviticus xxvi. 14-46, Amos iv., and many other similar passages in the prophets, we shall see the brightness of the eyes of love shining through the mask of auger. If one grievous infliction or series of inflictions will not bring the people to their God, they shall receive another, and yet another still more grievous, until the end has been accomplished. There is not a word of vindictiveness in the threatenings ; we simply see the fixed purpose of love that no measure of suffering shall be spared until the children have
returned to their Father. Can we seriously believe that the ever- lasting patience and long-suffering of God are wearied out at the end of threescore and ten years? " Must He not know," as Bishop• Thirlwall rightly asks, "what fits every man best ?"—and, so• knowing, assign to every one the place in this life and the next which will best fulfil the purpose of his creation ? The difficulty is• not one that attaches merely to Mr. Erskine's view, it is inseparable from every view of man's destiny except the most ultra-Calvinistic-
doctrine of election and reprobation. God knows antece- dently to every man's entrance into the world whether he can be saved or not, and we may feel assured that the Allwise makes no fruitless efforts towards the unattainable. If- Saul of Tarsus, after resisting all that he had heard of Jesus of Nazareth before the Crucifixion, and after hardening his heart against the eloquent testimony in word and deed of the martyr Stephen to the truth and power of the Gospel, had been struck- dead on his way to Damascus, he would doubtless have been spoken of as one cut off without remedy by the just judgment of God. Is• it too much to hope that the sight of Jesus glorified, though in the other life, may avail much in the case of many like Saul the perse- cutor? He had, as Paul, to begin de novo, but there was not one event in his past experience that did not aid his mission and give weight to his words. lie loved much, because much had been for- given. If Love has less power to save in the other life than in this, the beet has not been done for any who die impenitent, for they might have been taken away in childhood. I would not over-estimate the influence of the more event of physical death, one way or the other. No doubt many, for a time, become worse after- than they were before their departure from this world ; but the only instance throughout the whole of Scripture in which the veil that divides the seen from the unseen world has been lifted for a moment reveals the germ of the divine life asserting its presence and capa- city of growth in spite of, and because of, the torments that follow a selfish life. Granting that the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. is mainly to teach the lesson in its concluding sentence, I must believe that every expression of the Logos is as truthful in detail as every tree and every lily in the field of his Creation. There, is a great gulf between Dives and Lazarus, but not so- great as existed between them in this world, for they can see across and recognize each other as sons of Abraham ; and not so• great that the cry of a suffering soul cannot be heard and responded. to on the other side. Thou though the first petition is naturally " Have mercy on me," the second is " Save my brethren." Have- we not hero more than ground of hope that this was not the last nor the best result of the spirit of heaven-directed prayer new born in the breast of the rich man, and that he would learn to cry to One mightier and more compassionate than even father Abraham ?•• It is some ground of consolation also to believe from the history of Judas that the evil nature in the case of the most criminal may be something in them, rather than of them,—a demoniac possession, of the soul from which the immediate presence of Christ can alone- deliver, though first, as in the case of the body of the child at the- foot of the Mount of Transfiguration, the evil spirit is permitted to- throw down and tear its victim, insomuch that many say of the-
man, "He is dead."—I am, Sir, &c., J. W. F.
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