Paul writes of "the meekness and gentleness of
Christ"; and for many of the chapters of Christ's life that is the right
headline; but there are other chapters which by no possible manipulation
can be brought under that heading, and they also are part of the story.
It was Jesus who said that in the day of judgment it should be more
tolerable for even Tyre and Sidon than for Bethsaida and Chorazin; it
was Jesus who uttered that terrible twenty-third chapter of St.
Matthew's Gospel, with its seven times repeated "Woe unto you, scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites!" it was Jesus who spoke of the shut door and
the outer darkness, of the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not
quenched, of the sin which hath never forgiveness, neither in this
world, nor in that which is to come, and of that day when He who wept
over Jerusalem and prayed for His murderers and died for the world will
say unto them on His left hand, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the
eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels." These are
_His_ words, and it is because they are His they make us tremble. He
_is_ "gentle Jesus, meek and mild"; that is why His sternness is so
terrible.
These things are not said in order to defend any particular theory of
future punishment--on that dread subject, indeed, the present writer has
no "theory" to defend; he frankly confesses himself an agnostic--but
rather to claim for the solemn fact of retribution a place in our minds
akin to that which it held in the teaching of our Lord. We need have no
further concern than to be loyal to Him. Does, then, such loyalty admit
of a belief in universal salvation? Is it open to us to assert that in
Christ the whole race is predestined to "glory, honour, and
immortality"? The "larger hope" of the universalist--
"that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring"--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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