IV

If, now, when criminals are shielded from suffering with almost morbid care, men, the best of men, think with very little concern of the unutterable woe of the lost, how, I ask, could Universalism have arisen of itself in an age like that of the fathers? Consider further. The larger hope is not, we are informed, in the Bible; it is not, we know, in the heart of man naturally; still less was it there in days such as those we have described, when mercy was unknown, when the dearest interest of the church forbade its avowal. But it is found in many, very many, ancient fathers, and often, in the very broadest form, embracing every fallen spirit. Where, then, did they find it? Whence did they import this idea" Can we doubt that the fathers could only have drawn it, as their writin gs testify, from the Bible itself?