thly lot.
It is therefore foolish to entertain, or encourage any one else to
entertain, an expectation of any other state of probation except that
which we certainly have here in this world. 'It is appointed unto men
once to die, and after that the judgement.' But if St. Peter could
speak (as of a familiar subject) of the 'gospel' as having been
'preached' by our Lord's human spirit in Hades 'to the dead,' i.e. to
those who had perished in their wickedness under the divine judgement
of the flood: and preached with the intention {212} that _the judgement
might be turned into a blessing and means of spiritual life_--and he
certainly does speak thus (1 Peter iv. 6, cf. iii. 19): I do not see
how we can deny the possibility at any period, or in the case of any
person, of an unfulfilled probation being accomplished beyond death.
(_c_) Careful attention to the origin of the doctrine of the necessary
immortality or indestructibility of each human soul, as stated for
instance by Augustine and Aquinas[1], will probably convince us that it
was no part of the original Christian message, or of really catholic
doctrine[2]. It was rather a speculation of Platonism taking
possession of the Church. And this consideration leaves open
possibilities of the ultimate extinction of personal consciousness in
the lost, which Augustinianism somewhat rudely, closed.

But to have convicted our forefathers of going, in certain parts of
their teaching, beyond what was certainly revealed, affords no
justification for doing the same ourselves in an opposite extreme; by
asserting for example positively (_a_) that almost all men will be
'saved'; or (_b_) that there is probation to be looked for beyond
death; or (_c_) that the souls of 'the lost' will be at the last
extinguished. These positive positions are no more justified than
those of our forefathers which we have deprecated. We must recognize
the limits of positive knowledge.

And when we have come to the end of what a legitimate reaction from the
teaching of our forefathers restores to us, in the direction of a
'larger hope,' we are still face to {213} face with the fact of
'eternal judgement.' Men, as far as their individual destinies are
concerned, are passing towards one of two ends, not towards one only--a
divine judgement of approval _or_ of condemnation; and both judgements
are represented as final and irreversible; and they are the inevitable
outcome of the moral law by which our