Our Contributors.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 529, 9 August 1881, Page 2

Our Contributors.

ECHOES OP MELBOURNE. (From our Own Correspondent) July ffl '27, 1881. The Ministerial elections are just over and all the Ministers have been returned except Mr Gaunson, the Minister of Lands, who was rejected by Ararat. A d- ad set was made upon him by all parties, owing to his having thrown over party after party, and the press unanimously condemned him. He will, however, retain oTioo probably until another seat is fou.ul for him. for which there is a in all probability the Ministry wdl live for luu.o time as

the Conservatives must support it to keep out the Berry party. Sir Bryan O'Loughlen's majority was very narrow, -and at one time he seemed lost.

Very great interest has been taken in Victoria in the revised version of the ..Bible, and our clergy are engaged in enlightening the public on tho subject from pulpit and platform, as they no doubt ire in the neighboring colonies But we have the advantage here of having an exceptionally able, learned eloquent and liberal Anglican Bishop, Dr Moorhouse, whose utterances command the respect of the whole English world, and his lecture on the revised version was so exhaustive and brilliant that I think a ■resume of it will interest all at the prepresent moment, and form the feature of this letter. What the public generally were anxious to know, whether the revision had altered any doctrine and especially the dogmas regarding a future life. Bishop Moorhousc seems to have instinctively understood that the people wanted to know, for he took up the subject in its three principal aspects ; first, the nature of future punishment, secon I, its probation, and third, faith and its fruits. Whether right or wrong, the Bishop appears to me to have made out almost a new gospel, as different from the Galvinistic idea as can be imagined. The Bishop throughout confined himself to the doctrinal effect of ; the changes. He emphatically does away with the idea of hell and reproaches . the revisors for permitting that word '. to appear, even with the second ; reading 'Gehenna' on the margin. . 'Hell' is a Saxon word signifying hollo ff, tillers being known as helliers in early English. Either } ' Gehanne ' (the valley of Hinnon) or , 1 Hades' (the unseen world) should have been used. Having thus disposed 1 of the purely Scandinavian idea of Hell, . the Bishop goes on to show that the \ punishments spoken of by our Saviour j were purely symbolical. He could not . have conveyed ideas tD the people except j by using symbols familiar to them. Thus , He gave them the idea by likening , future punishment to 'scourging with ; stripes' and to being cast into ' outer , darkness.' where there was 'weeping ( and gnashing of teeth,' similes that . could be understood. great ; reality represented, then,' said Dr . Moorhouse,' is sorrow aud despair, but the forms under which this torment is ; represented vary ; now it is a scourging, now a shutting put into the darkness, ; again a casting into the furnace of fire, the particular form in each case being clearly determined by ,the imagery of ; the context.' This is the key ot the Bishop's doctrine, that all the rvords and figures used about a future life are purely symbolical, because it was only possible to use words- and ideas that men could understand to convey an idea of the state hereafter by as nearly as possible that in this world whhh would convey sensations of a like character. lie therefore discountenances .the idea of a material Hell. In 'the following sentences he directly countenances the now celebrated doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked :—' In the " lake of fire, which is the second death,,' we have nothing more than a symbol of destruction. For what are the forms that are said to be cast into it ? (He is arguing on the purely symbolic character of Revelations.) Are they real forms, susceptible of torture, or only ideal forms susceptible of destruction ? They are ideal forms, pure and simple. One is the Beast, the symbol of Godless force ; another is the false prophet, the symbol of Godless wisdom ; another is Death, the impersonation of an accident of human lite ; another is Hades, the unseen world. Does any one think that death or the unseen world is going to be tortured in that lake of fire ? No one ; every one sees that the meaning is they shall be destroyed. There shall be no more death or Hades. And why, then, should any one deny that, when (chap. xxi. 8) the wicked are said to be cast into that lake, the meaning is they shall be destroyed ?' This will startle a good many. Having thus dealt with j the nature of the punishment, he proceeds to discuss its duration. The new version retains the disputed words ' for ever' and ' for ever and ever,' but gives in the margin their Greek equivalent, 'unto the ages,' or 'unto the ages of ages,' i ishop Moorhouse thinks the latter should have been the text, for he says to use the former is to interpret, not to translate, the Greek word. He shows that the duration is to be guessed by the context, and that only once, in the last verse of St Jude's Epistle, is the word c«'<m used in the sense of ' for ever and ever,' or from eternity to eternity, that is, all duration. There are several Greek words for entiles*— atelen-

tos. aperantos —but they are never used. W& The revisers have made 'everlasting' always • eternal,' a word related to the Latin aitas, an age, as the adjective ainios, translated 'for ever,' is to the Greek aion, an age. The Bishop makes his strong point to prove that the words considered cannot be translated as ' for ever,' ( everlasting,' or ' eternal,' as we understand these phrases by referring to the expressions in 11. Timothy i. 9, and * Titus i. 2,' before times eternal. ' Now,' says the Bishop, ' if eternal meant here what we, commonly suppose it means, that which is without beginning and "* without end, this is absolute nonsense, for what could occur before times which had no beginning ? If, however, eternal here only means aionian, cyclhal, dispense tiaial, referring to age>; which had their truth to realise, which realised it, and then passed away, all bocou-i's olor>.«----and most intereeliiig.' He therefore concludes that ages or eyelet, aro spekuu of not eternity. The Bishop next considers the possibly future mok.-ioi <•>;■

any of the dead. The now < version makes it Christ's human spirit that preached to the antediluvians (I. Peter iii. 18), not the Holy Spirit. The Bishop makes out that the probation is for such as those whose moral probation hero has not been completed, such especially as the heathen and those who vied before the truth was revealed, and that it is purely spiritual. 'It is not by fire but by preaching that souls are called to repentance.' He here builds on the verses in I. Peter already mentioned. The next portion must be given entire, becanse it is so important: —' Does the new version throw any fresh light on the extent of redeeming love ? I think it does. In Ephesians i. 10 the expression ' to gather together all thirgs in Christ' is better rendered by the phrase 'to sum up all things in Christ.' . , The vision of redemption thus opened up is so vast that it can scarcely hi said to have limits on earth or in heaven, m time or eternity. Eegarding humanity a similar-largeness of purpose is revealed by the better translation of Eomans v. 15 and 19. Hero, instead of 'many,' which would imply the exclusion of some, the new version by translating ' the many' has pointed out that the Greek refers to all, to the multitude, the mass of humanity. And thus wu learn that in the Divine purpose the gift of Christ's life was not mnde to an elect few, but to the whole family of man.' Summed up, therefore, the Bishop finds the new version rejects the idea of punishment in a material fire and an endless duration of torment, and establishes universal salvation ; further, that Scripture is purely symbolical when referring to that which is unseen, and that the future life but completes what has been left unfinished in the present.

The 'close of the lecture was devoted to other doctrinal points upon which the new version appeared to shed new lights and some of the Bishop's views are rather startling. He holds that as the old reading of Galatians 11. 16, ' A man is not justified by works, but by faith,' has been correctly rendered. ' A man is not justified by works, save through faith.' Works are only necessary to indicate the reality of faith, and further, that faith alone cannot save, but a fruitful faith. The Bishop finds predestination overthrown by the revised translations of two celebrated, verses—' Such as should be saved by the election of God,' being rendered to mean such as are being saved through their own faithful use of God's Grace. ' For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness ; but to us which are saved it is the power of God.' The Bishop says—' While the verse stood in the old form it means that the gospel appeared foolish to them because they wero. destined to perdition, but now it cart have ho such meaning. Those who are perishing through their own disobedience need not finally perish, nor on the other hand c<m it bo said that those who are being saved must be ultimately saved. ' Once in grace, always in grace.' is now shown to be an unscriptured sentiment.' Another cherished doctrine is plio swept away according to Dr Moorhouse. Sudden conversion and being born again are done away with. * Preachers who are always insisting on the necessity-of conversion,' says the Bishop, and are wont at the same time to assign to conversion a 'peculiar and utterly mythical meaning will experience perhaps some little dismay to find their pet word entirely excluded from the gospels. It remains only in Acts XV, 3, and James V. 19, and ought not to have been left in either place. The word formerly translated ' convert' means simply 'turn ' or ' turn again,' and refers sometimes to turning the body from evil. People will now see that where the word refers to a desirable spiritual change, it merely describes a turning of the mind, whether that turning be made gradually or suddenly, whether with ecstatic phenomena or without.'

Summing up his examination of the new version, as bearing on doctrinal points, Dr Moorhouse says :—' The next result is a decided drift, a tendency to obliterate some of the sterner features of the old translation. There is a fuller statement of the spirituality of our holy faith, of the universality of the love of God, and of the long suffering grace which will condemn none till his moral probation is fairly completed. There is besides a clearer exhibition of the symbolic character oi those passages which describe the nature of future punishment and the uncertainty of many which describe its duration. It is the change indicated by John, ' Perfect love castcth out fear, because fear hath torment.' Other clergymen, however, think there has been no interference with doctrines,

and the Rev Mr McDonald, an out and

out Puritan, takes great comfort in the alteration in the Lord's Prayer, of ' Deliver us from evil' for ' Deliver us from the evil one,' which to his mind settles the personality of the Devil.