conduct would legitimately descend, it was thought, upon all
mankind. If he had kept himself obedient through that easy yet
tremendous probation in Eden, he and all his children would have
lived on earth eternally in perfect bliss. But, violating the
commandment of God, the burden of sin, with its terrible penalty,
fell on him and his posterity. Every human being was henceforth to
be alien from the love of goodness and from the favor of God,
hopelessly condemned to death and the pains of hell. The sin of
Adam, it was believed, thoroughly corrupted the nature of man, and
incapacitated him from all successful efforts to save his soul
from its awful doom. The infinite majesty of God's will, the law
of the universe, had been insulted by disobedience. The only just
retribution was the suffering of an endless death. The adamantine
sanctities of God's government made forgiveness impossible. Thus
all men were lost, to be the prey of blackness, and fire, and the
undying worm, through the remediless ages of eternity. Just then
God had pity on the souls he had made, and himself came to the
rescue. In the person of Christ, he came into the world as a man,
and freely took upon himself the infinite debt of man's sins, by
his death on the cross expiated all offences, satisfied the claims
of offended justice, vindicated the inexpressible sacredness of
the law, and, at the same time, opened a way by which a full and
free reconciliation was extended to all. When the blood of Jesus
flowed over the cross, it purchased the ransom of every sinner. As
Jerome says, "it quenched the flaming sword at the entrance of
Paradise." The weary multitude of captives rose from their bed,
shook off the fetters and stains of the pit, and made the cope of
heaven snowy with their white winged ascent. The prison house of
the devil and his angels should be used no more to confine the
guilty souls of men.1 Their guilt was all washed away in the blood
of the Lamb. Their spirits, without exception, should follow to
the right hand of the Father, in the way marked out by the
ascending Redeemer. This is the first form of Universalism, the
form in which it was held by several of the Fathers in the earlier
ages of the Church, and by the pioneers of that doctrine in modern
times. Cyril of Jerusalem says, "Christ went into the under world
alone, but came out with many." 2 Cyril of Alexandria says that
when Christ ascended from the under world he "emptied it, and left