t retributions
are awarded to all iniquity here; so

12 Julian, lib. vi. ix.

that at the termination of the present state there is nothing to
prevent the flowing of an equal bliss impartially over all. The
substantive faculties and forces of the soul are always good and
right: only their action is perverted to evil.13 This perversion
will cease with the accidents of the present state; and thus death
is the door to salvation. God's desires and intentions for his
creatures, again they argue, must be purely gracious and blessed;
for Nature, the Bible, and the Soul blend their ultimate teachings
in one affirmation that he is Love. Being omnipotent and of
perfect wisdom, nothing can withstand his decrees or thwart his
plans. His purpose, of course, must be fulfilled. There is every
thing to prove, and nothing, rightly understood, to disprove, that
that purpose is the eternal blessedness of all his intelligent
offspring after death. Therefore, they think they are justified in
concluding, the laws of nature, God's regular habits and course of
government, the normal arrangement and process of things, will of
themselves work out the inevitable salvation of all mankind. After
the uproar and darkness, the peril and fear, of a tempestuous
night, the all embracing smile of daylight gradually spreads over
the world, and the turmoil silently subsides, and the scene
sleeps. So after the sins and miseries, the condemnation and hell,
of this state of existence, shall succeed the redemption, the
holiness and happy peace, of heaven, into which all pass by the
order of nature, the original and undisturbed arrangement of the
creative Father. This view is advanced by some on grounds both of
revelation and reason. It is the doctrine of those Beghards who
taught that "there is neither hell nor purgatory; that no one is
damned, neither Jew nor Saracen, because on the death of the body
the soul returns to God."14 But the proper doctrine of the
Universalist denomination is founded directly on Scripture, and
seems now to be simply the absolute certainty of final salvation
for all. Balfour held that Christ, in obedience to the will of
God, secures eternal life for all men in the most literal manner,
by causing the resurrection of the dead from their otherwise
endless sleep in the grave, a doctrine nearly or quite fossil
now.15

It will be noticed that by this view salvation is an unlimited
necessity, not a contingency, a boon thrown to all