otson's sermon on what was often described as 'the
dispensing power,' is so important that any estimate of his influence
upon religious thought would be very imperfect without some mention of
it. There are many theological questions of great religious consequence
which are discussed nevertheless only in limited circles, and are
familiar to others chiefly in their practical applications. The future
state is a subject in which everyone has such immediate personal
concern, that arguments which seem likely to throw fresh light upon it,
especially if put forward by an eminent and popular divine, are certain
to obtain very wide and general attention. Tillotson's sermon not only
gave rise to much warm controversy among learned writers, but was
eagerly debated in almost all classes of English society.

Perhaps there has never been a period in Christian history when the
prospects of the bulk of mankind in the world beyond the grave have been
enwrapped in such unmitigated gloom in popular religious conception, as
throughout the Protestant countries of Europe during a considerable part
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This is no place to compare
Scripture texts, or to show in what various senses the words of Christ
and His Apostles have been interpreted. It may be enough to remark in
passing that perhaps no Christian writer of any note has ever doubted
the severe reality of retribution on unrepented sin. Without further
reference then to the Apostolic age, it is certain that among the early
fathers of the Church there was much difference of opinion as to the
nature, degree, and duration of future punishment. Hermas, in one of
those allegories which for three centuries enjoyed an immense
popularity, imagined an infinite variety of degrees of retribution.[257]
Irenaeus and Justin Martyr, in closely corresponding words, speak of its
period of duration as simply dependent upon the will of God.[258] The
Christian Sibylline books cherished hopes in the influence of
intercession. Ambrose and Lactantius,[259] Jerome,[260] and in a far
more notable degree, Clement of Alexandria[261] and Origen write of
corrective fires of discipline in the next world, if not in this, to
purify all souls, unless there are any which, being altogether bad, sink
wholly in the mighty waters.[262] 'Augustine's writings show how widely
those questions were discussed. He rejects the Origenian doctrine, but
does not consider it heretical.... None of the