“Z.” Your communication of December, 1863, only came to hand last month. The subject of your MS. is one which we could not possibly admit into our pages, not because we think your matter badly put together, but because we consider your doctrine unsound and dangerous. Controversy is not our province. Indeed, we are resolved to avoid it, and to keep our pages entirely free from all questions that gender strife. Edification has been the one unvarying object of “Things New and Old.” This must be apparent to you, if you have looked through our back volumes. True, we have ventured to bear our feeble testimony to the grand and solemn doctrine of “Eternal punishment,” which, by the way, is very intimately connected with the subject of your paper.
We firmly believe in the immortality of the soul, and we cannot but marvel that not one of those “evangelical clergy and laymen,” to whom you have submitted your paper, has ever “given you a reply, or warned you that you were treading on dangerous ground.” We do not wonder at your “feeling hampered in teaching Sunday School children and others,” for, truly, “the views you hold are completely your own,” and not what we have learned after twenty-five years' study of Holy Scripture.
We deem it very unsound and dangerous to teach that people will only be judged for rejecting the gospel. “For this we know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things [and not merely because of their rejection of the gospel] corn the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.” (Eph. 5:5, 65For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. (Ephesians 5:5‑6).) “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry; for which things' sake, [and not merely because of their rejection of the gospel] the wrath of God upon on the children of disobedience.” (Col. 3:5, 65Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: 6For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: (Colossians 3:5‑6).) “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” (Rev. 20:1212And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. (Revelation 20:12).)
These passages, and many more which might be adduced, teach us distinctly, that men will be judged for their sins, and not merely for the rejection of the gospel. “For every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account at the clay of judgment.” The reception of the gospel takes the soul completely off the ground of judgment for sins. The rejection of the gospel leaves the soul on the ground of judgment; but the judgment will be, in every case, according to a man's works. To deny this is to remove a great moral embankment, and make way for a rushing mighty tide of lust and passion.
We think you have entirely missed the divine object in that governmental act to which you refer at the close of Gen. 3. “And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever; therefore the Lord sent him forth,” &c. This act had nothing to do with the question of the immortality of the soul, but was simply designed to prevent the perpetuation of a life of misery in this world. Had man, in his fallen condition, been allowed to eat of the tree of life, lie would have lived forever in that same state. This the Lord God could not permit, and therefore drove him out. But if He drove him out in government, He followed him in grace, to bring him back to Himself by a new and living way, even through the rent veil of the Saviour's flesh.