acter of his views upon this subject. Failing to discover any indication of those "dreadful pains" being apportioned according to character here, he concludes man must expect them hereafter. He had very little appreciation of those spiritual judgments which the guilty soul always bears within itself. He lightly esteems that terrible desolation, that stinging remorse, that perpetual unrest of the tempest-tost soul, which are a vindication of the present justice of the divine rule. Failing properly to estimate the inflictions of a guilty conscience on the one hand, we cannot be surprised that he failed to appreciate the promptings of God's paternal love and grace on the other. Indeed, such was the natural severity of his own mind, that the hopeful views of several of the Christian fathers were unacceptable to him. While Clemens Alexandrinus, the renowned Origen, Titus, bishop of Bostra, Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, and others, both among the distinguished and the undistinguished of that time, were Universalists, Tertullian was a believer in the strict eternity of punishment. Nor did he dissent from the noblest views of his time with any apparent pain. On the contrary, he manifested an evident delight in contemplating the luminous prospect before him." You are fond of your spectacles," said he in an apostrophe to the Pagans; "there are other spectacles that day disbelieved, derided, by the nations, that last and eternal day of judgment, when all ages shall be swallowed up in one conflagration-what a variety of spectacles shall then appear! How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many kings, worshipped as gods in heaven, together with Jove himself, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness! So many magistrates who persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in raging fire, with their scholars whom they persuaded to despise God, and to disbelieve the resurrection; and so many poets shuddering before the tribunal, not of Rhadamanthus, not of Minos, but of the disbelieved Christ! Then shall we hear the tragedians more tuneful under their own sufferings; then shall we see the players far more sprightly amidst the flames; the charioteer all red-hot in his burning car; and the wrestlers hurled, not upon the accustomed list, but on a plain of fire." 36 "Such," says the author of the Ancient History of Universalism, from whose pages we make this extract,"such is the relish with which his fierce spirit dwells on the prospect of eternal torments. We may safely say that of all the early fathers there was none with whose natural disposition the doctrine of endless misery better accorded, than with Tertullian's." Tertullian is reputed to have been the first Christian writer who expressly asserted that the torments of the damned will be of "equal duration with the happiness of the blest." 37 Where others had spoken indefinitely, using such phrases as "eternal punishment" and the like, Tertullian spoke definitely, using such phraseology as "endless misery;" "in that terrible day Christ shall condemn them to endless misery and torments; "38 "who will punish us with an eternity of pain and sorrow; " 39 and consign them over to eternal punishment in another world.40 What honor, in the coming ages, will be found to be attached to the distinction of having first assumed such a position, remains to be seen; but whatever it may be, it is believed that Tertullian may fairly claim it. From the time of Tertullian, through a period of about two hundred years, the doctrines of Universalism and of endless misery prevailed side by side without, in the slightest degree, disturbing the harmony of the church.41 Tertullian did not believe, however, that the dead in general enter at once upon their final state. He supposed that an indefinite period of conscious existence in an intermediate state would elapse, in which neither the happiness of the good nor the misery of the wicked would be complete. Both the happiness and the misery in that state, he supposed to be indicative of the perfected bliss or woe which awaited them respectively in the resurrection state. At one period of his life, he seems to have believed that those destined to eternal happiness are purified in the intermediate state from all the stains of this life.42 Martyrs, however, form an exception to the general rule. 36 Tert. De Spectaculis, cap. 30. 37 Pref. to Anc. His. of Univ. 38 Apology, sect. xxxiv. 39 Ib. sect. lviii. 40 Ib. sect. xxxii. 41 Pref. to Anc. His. of Univ. 42 Kaye's Ec. His. p. 343. Tertullian taught that they receive immediate admission to the perfected bliss of heaven.43 All the other dead, he supposed, are detained in a deep and vast recess in the very heart and bowels of the earth. He sometimes divides this recess into two portions; the wicked dwelling in the lower, and the righteous in the higher, which he calls Abraham's bosom. This last abode is still below the earth, and is one of only partial good. The doctrine of "no change after death" is a comparatively modern one, and was wholly unknown in the time of Tertullian. There are many topics connected with Christian doctrine, not then in controversy, upon which Tertullian has expressed no opinion. Thus we find no trace of the doctrine of predestination; no distinct information on that of original sin; and only incidental light on various other doctrines. Many practices, on the other hand, now looked upon as indifferent, were by him severely reprehended. He taught that Christians should not serve as civil magistrates; should not bear arms; should engage in no art or trade connected with idolatry; and, above all, should not hold the office of executioner. Had he lived in our time, when professing Christians volunteer to hang even negroes, he would have found no words burning enough to express his indignation. With all his moroseness, he was in this regard far above the level of our time. He was loyal, and urged loyalty upon Christians in general, whenever that virtue was possible without the sacrifice of Christian principle. But whenever obedience to the government demanded that sacrifice, he stood forth in noble contrast with the practical atheism of our time, and urged patient endurance of contumely, of suffering, and of death itself, rather than to entertain a thought of apostacy from God. He believed that the world would end when the Roman empire should be overthrown. Hence he found motive for the double work of urging the Christians to pray for the prosperity of the government, and of persuading the rulers to confide in the Christians. We must here bring our recital to a close, notwith 43 Kaye's Ec. His. p. 142. standing much remains to be said. If we have presented Tertullian in the character exclusively of a theologian, our apology must be found in the fact that it is in that character alone he is known to our time. On the whole, we find him to have been a man of extreme positions and tendencies, especially in the line of severity. It was this element of his character, more than any other, which led to his separation from the regular church, and his union with the Montanists. Although this sect was heretical, its theology, in some of its features, approached more nearly to what has been orthodoxy in later ages, than did that of the regular church. This orthodoxy, which was so largely moulded by Augustine, which was modified in several particulars by Calvin, and which some of the strongest minds of our own time labor in vain to commend to the reason of our age, received its first cast in the hands of the extravagant, the severe, though in many respects profound, Tertullian. As an example of a great mind struggling with great difficulties, he is worthy of the attention of all; but as a teacher of systematic theology, either in its letter or its spirit, he should be studied with the greatest caution. A. A. M. ART. XIII. What is Will? THERE are two distinct definitions of this word, from which have arisen very different doctrines, and concerning which there has been no little controversy. According to the first definition, will is the purpose or determination of the soul, formed after motives have been presented and considered, and is subsequent to choice, but precedes action. According to the second, will is an independent, self-determining faculty of the soul, able not only to choose without motives, but to act in opposition to the strongest which may be presented. All other definitions will be found to be modifications of these. Buck, in his Theological Dictionary, says, "Will is the faculty of the soul by which it chooses or refuses any thing offered to it." Others have defined it in a similar manner. It has been called "the faculty which chooses good or evil." By others it has been called the executive faculty of the soul, and made responsible for all volitions and actions. All these correspond with the second definition. They represent will as anterior to choice, as the power which forms the choice. In discussing any question, much depends upon having definite ideas of the terms used. The terms soul and faculty, in the second definition, are often used in a very loose or indefinite manner. Soul is often made. synonymous with mind, reason, judgment, understanding, and will. Locke, with all his care about words, has failed of his ordinary precision in the use of this term. A little care in this respect would prevent frequent misapprehension of the meaning of writers, and often much unprofitable controversy. By the term soul, all Christians mean that indestructible principle, which comes from God, and may exist in the body or out of it. Hence we speak of it as leaving the body at death. It leaves its tenement, the body, and returns to God. Paul speaks of it as leaving the natural body, to dwell in the spiritual. This is the common, and, I think, the scriptural use of it. Having settled upon this meaning, we may proceed to learn more about it by defining its faculties. We say the soul is the principle or power which feels, perceives, reasons, chooses, wills, or determines, and acts by, or through, its various faculties. It is the living principle, the "conscious energy," the man. We hold it responsible for all conscious or voluntary acts of the body, because the body can not act without it. Thus we understand the soul to be the principal, the body the mere instrument. And while we regard the body and its faculties as the medium through which the soul holds communion with others, yet they are not essential to its existence. It may exist in the body and apparently have no means of communication. We suppose infants to possess souls, but they lack the necessary development of the physical organs to be able to communicate with us. We always regard idiots as having souls; otherwise we should feel |