ole practical moral consciousness. It enjoins as well as judges, and
is occupied with the present and the future, as well as with the past.

[1] In LXX [Greek] _ou gar sunoida emauto atopa praxas_.

[2] Vol. i. p. 103, n. 2.

[3] e.g. when conscience was described by Epictetus as the grown man's
inward tutor [pedagogue], which must obviously mean that it is to
instruct as well as reprove.

NOTE C. See vol. i. p. 129.

RECENT REACTIONS FROM THE TEACHING ABOUT HELL.

There is no doubt that there has been within the last forty years a
great, and in large measure legitimate, reaction from the
old--mediaeval and Calvinist--teaching about hell. But one who reads
the early chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, or the Gospels, or
other parts of the New Testament, in view of this reaction, will
probably feel an uncomfortable sense that it has gone too far. It is
worth while then to try and discriminate.

To put the matter in as brief a summary as befits a note, I should hold
that the reaction has been legitimate so far as it has involved a
repudiation of--

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(1) the Calvinist doctrine that God has created some men, no matter
whether many or few, inevitably doomed to everlasting misery. This
doctrine is flat contrary to some particular statements of the New
Testament (as to its general spirit) and is only a misunderstanding of
others (see above, pp. 8, 29).

(2) any such crude idea of the divine judgement as that God condemns
men for merely _external_ reasons, e.g. because in fact, apart from any
question of will, they were not baptized, or remained pagans or
heretics. Such a conception is quite inadequate, for the divine
judgement penetrates to the heart. God is a father: He is absolutely
equitable: He judges men in the light of their opportunities. He will
reject none whose will is not set to evil. 'This is the judgement that
... men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were
evil' (John iii. 19).

(3) the tendency to exaggerate what is revealed to us, and what,
therefore, we can say we _know_ about the state of man after death.
Thus (_a_) there is nothing really revealed to us as to the relative
proportions of saved and lost. (_b_) It is certain that we only _know_
of a probation for man here and now--'Now is the accepted time--now is
the day of salvation.' And the absolutely equitable Father may see the
conditions of an adequate probation equally in every man's ear