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fire.”⁷ St. Peter repeats the same doctrine, that “judgment must begin at the house of God, and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God; for if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ?”⁸ He further says of “false teachers,” who “deny the Lord that bought them,” that they “shall bring upon themselves swift destruction," and, like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha, “shall utterly perish in their own corruption.”⁹ St John's words are at least as strong, that “the fearful, and unbelieving, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their place in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death;”¹⁰ and that “those who worship the beast, and his image, shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and the presence of the Lamb, and they have no rest day nor night, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.”¹¹

      Words could not be stronger. The difficulty is that all this is but one side of Scripture, which in other places seems to teach a very different doctrine.For instance, there are first the words of God Himself, repeated again and again by those same Apostles whom I have just quoted, that “in Abraham's seed all the kindreds of the earth shall be blessed;”¹² words which St. Peter expounds to mean

      that there shall be “a restitution of all things,” adding that “God hath spoken of this by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”¹ St. Paul further declares this wondrous “mystery of God's will, that He hath purposed in Himself, according to His good pleasure, to rehead² and reconcile³ unto Himself, in and by Christ, all things, whether they be things in heaven, “that is the spirit-world, where the conflict with Satan yet is,⁴ “or things on earth,” that is this outward world, where death now reigns, and where even God's elect are by nature children of wrath, even as other men.⁵ Further St. Paul asserts that “all creation, which now groans, shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”⁶ In another place he declares, that “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself,”⁷ and that Christ “took our flesh and blood, through death to destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;”⁸ that “if by the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many;”⁹ that “therefore as by the offence of one, or by one offence, judgment came on all to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, or by one righteousness, the free gift should come on all unto justification of life,” while “they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ;”¹⁰ that “as sin hath reigned unto death, so grace might reign unto eternal life,” yea, that “where sin abounded, grace did yet much more abound.”¹¹ To another church he states the same doctrine, that “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,”¹² and that “the end” shall not come “till all are subject to Him,” that “God may be,” not all in some, but “all in all; for He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet; the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”¹³ So he says again, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, . . . that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth,even in Him.”¹⁴ To the same purpose he writes in another epistle, “that at the name of Jesus, (that is Saviour,) every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father;”¹⁵ “for to this end

      Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living.”¹ He further declares that “for this sake he suffers reproach, because he hopes in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those who believe;”² that this God “will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth;” that therefore “thanksgivings as well as prayers should be made for all,” because there is “a ransom for all, to be testified in due time;”³ and lastly that “God hath concluded all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all.”⁴ The beloved Apostle St. John repeats the same doctrine, that “the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world;”⁵ “for God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world by Him might be saved;”⁶ further he teaches that the Only-Begotten Son “is the propitiation, not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world;”⁷ that He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,”⁸ and “was revealed for this very purpose that He might destroy the works of the devil,”⁹ and that, as a result, “there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor pain, because all things are made new, and the former things axe passed away.”¹⁰ For “the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand;”¹¹ and the Son Himself declares,” All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me. And this is the Father's will, which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.”¹²

      Now is not this apparent contradiction,— few finding the way of life, and yet in Christ all made alive,— God's elect a little flock, and yet all the kindreds of the earth blessed in Abraham's seed,— mercy upon all, and yet eternal punishment,— the restitution of all things, and yet eternal destruction,— the wrath of God for ever, and yet all things reconciled to Him,— eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, and yet the destruction through death, not of the works of the devil only, but of him who has the power of death, that is the devil,— the second death and the lake which burneth with fire, and yet no more death or curse, but all things subdued by Christ, and God all in all. What can this contradiction mean? Is there any key, and if so, what is it, to this mystery?

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