The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

IV. Edward White—Pre-eminent Champion of Conditionalism

The latter half of the nineteenth century witnessed a new awakening over the issues of eschatology. The breakdown of hitherto implacable barriers of prejudice and the recruiting of a large number of stalwart advocates take Conditionalism out of the realm of heresy and give to it a respected place in Christian doctrine. And the beginning of this new movement is to be dated from the issuance of Edward White’s original Life in Christ in 1846. Here is the story. CFF2 322.2

EDWARD WHITE, D.D. (1819-1898), most widely known British exponent of Life Only in Christ, made a profound impression on his generation and left a distinct mark upon the entire theological world through rescuing from obscurity what he believed to be a great truth. More than any other individual in the nineteenth century, White was instrumental in bringing the principles of Conditional Immortality to prominence and respect by his uniformly Christian, courteous, and scholarly advocacy of them, based upon his broad, lifelong study of the subject. His attitude was recognized as that of a highly effective herald of neglected Biblical truth. ¹⁵ CFF2 322.3

White’s early training was received at Mill Hill, founded for the education of the sons of Protestant Dissenters. Here he came under the influence of noted teachers who inspired in him a love of languages. White continued his studies at Glasgow, graduating from the university, where he excelled in Greek and logic, with first honors in the latter. He was prominent in the debating society. Here he also formed many valuable friendships. CFF2 322.4

Picture 2: Dr. Eward White
Dr. Edward White (d. 1898), eminent congregationalist of Hawley Road—famous british champion of conditionalism.
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From childhood there had been instilled in him the Calvinistic concept of predestination and the traditional doctrines of Heaven and unending Hell. Although he was a member of the Congregational Church, White was soon torn between the conflicting claims and divergencies of Calvinism and Arminianism. The Arminian Methodists held that man’s free will made it possible for all who would to escape Hell by the exercise of saving faith in the Saviour. On the other hand, White understood that the Calvinists taught that only a certain predestined number of those born into the world could be saved, while the rest were foredoomed to suffer Eternal Torment. This greatly concerned and confused him. CFF2 323.1

1. TROUBLED IN TWENTIES OVER NATURE OF MAN

White came of well-to-do parents, and a prosperous commercial life lay before him. But he chose instead to devote himself wholly to the gospel ministry. In conformity with the practice of the times, he continued his specialized study for the ministry under the tutelage of a prominent Congregational clergyman. After this further training he was sent to pastor a small congregation at Cardiff, and thence was tranferred to Hereford, where he ministered for nearly ten years. CFF2 323.2

When still in his twenties he had been troubled over the nature of man, and wrote a remarkable letter to Edward Pryce, declaring that he believed the traditional position was primarily supported by a figurative interpretation of “life” and “death.” And in this connection White uttered this penetrating truism:
“If two or three texts [such as the parable of the rich man and Lazarus] are to explain five hundred figuratively, why may not five hundred explain two or three [difficult] texts.” ¹⁶ CFF2 324.1

2. PERSUADED OF CONDITIONALISM BY FONTAINE

In 1838, while continuing his private study at home, White bought a small volume in a secondhand bookstall in Holborn, London. It was titled Eternal Punishment Proved to be not Suffering but Privation, and Immortality dependent on Spiritual Regeneration. Though it was purchased for a trifle, and was issued anonymously by “A Member of the Church of England,” the book was readily identified by White as written by James Fontaine. ¹⁷ It was this book that led White first to become a profound believer in, and then an effective teacher of, the largely neglected truth of Life Only in Christ for the regenerated only. The concept there set forth came first to color, and then to mold, White’s entire life, until he came to be recognized everywhere as the master advocate of the truth of Life Only in Christ. CFF2 324.2

White was first awed, and then gripped, by the simple truth unfolded in this modest volume. The crisis hour came one majestic moonlight night in a garden on the bank of the Thames, as White prayed under the starry heavens, seeking for decisive light. He saw that this truth had been thrust aside and lost from view, just as had other gospel truths before and during the Dark Ages. This compelling conviction was followed by seven years of systematic study of the Bible and consultation on the subject. It resulted in the unshakable conclusion that Fontaine was right—(1) that man is mortal; (2) that the Fall brought the sentence of death; (3) that the supreme object of redemption is to renew in man the divine image, with endless life through union with the life of Christ; and (4) that out of Christ man will utterly perish without hope of recovery. The little book had done its work. CFF2 324.3

3. SEVEN-YEAR SEARCH RESULTS IN CLEAR CONVICTIONS

From his intense, systematic, and exhaustive investigation of the Bible evidence on this whole question, White then painstakingly turned to the history of the great departure, compassing the Church Fathers, and tracing step by step the disastrous role that Platonism had played in it all. He then checked and rechecked with scholarly friends—such as John Foster, already noted. It was this exhaustive study that enabled him finally to issue an authoritative challenge and appeal to the religious world. CFF2 325.1

As to the Biblical side, it was unreasonable and illogical, he constantly maintained, that four or five obscure passages should set at nought some five hundred clear and explicit texts. White’s disarming candor and his solemn sense of responsibility brought his message home to the bar of reason and of conscience, and enabled him to breech the entrenched fortresses of what he firmly believed to be theological error. He presented the full weight of inspired and secular evidence. CFF2 325.2

It was in 1841, while he was still investigating the question, that White received from the celebrated essayist and veteran in the Baptist ministry, John Foster, of the Bristol Baptist College, that long and important letter in answer to his inquiry regarding the future life of the redeemed and the fate of the unsaved. ¹⁸ Yet, as soon as it was published, it was both attacked and defended by the press. Nevertheless, this proved another incentive to spur White on to a continuing study of these questions. CFF2 325.3

4. FIRST BOOK (1846) CREATES STORM OF INDIGNATION

White was ordained in 1842, and began lecturing as well as preaching, and then writing for various publications, reviving publicly the Life Only in Christ witness of the past and presenting an imposing array of scriptural and historical evidence. In 1846 he brought out his first book—a four-chapter Life in Christ that in its later enlarged form had a sale of ten thousand copies in the first few years. In this he sought to rescue a great truth from the obscurity in which it had been largely buried under unscriptural theology, spawned, as he put it, by the pagan concept of man’s inherent immortality. (He also edited the Christian Spectator for five years.) CFF2 326.1

Picture 3: Title Page of White’s Epochal Volume
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But the publication of White’s convictions on Conditionalism in book form created a driving storm of indignation. He was immediately castigated as a heretic, and for a time it looked as though his service in the Congregational ministry was ended. More than that, it seemed that he would be debarred from every Nonconformist pulpit in the land. And, for conscientious reasons, he felt that he could not enter the more liberal National (Anglican) Church. At this time Henry Dunn, ¹⁹ revered secretary of the British and Foreign School Society, and likewise a firm believer in Conditionalism, rose to the defense of young White against the merciless attacks. However, the furor only drove White to renewed and deeper study. He must be absolutely sure of his ground. And this but confirmed his previous convictions. CFF2 327.1

5. BUILDS CONSTITUENCY OF FRIENDSHIP FROM HAWLEY ROAD

In his extremity and ostracism White went to London, where he was unknown, to seek a new opportunity amid the broader environs and larger populace of the great metropolis. There, in 1852, White found and secured the unused St. Paul’s Chapel, Hawley Road, in Kentish Town, North London, in the vast suburban area of St. Pancras. Here, without any constituency, and unacquainted with a single Christian in the community, he started all over again. Some warned all who “valued their immortal souls” not to cross the threshold. But as soon as the building was renovated and readied for worship, several distinguished ministers participated in the dedication and a number of heroic souls cast in their lot with White in membership. CFF2 327.2

Slowly White built up an independent congregation. Then a definite change came, and he developed a widening circle of new friends. These included Dr. Robert W. Dale, of Birmingham; Sir George G. Stokes, of Cambridge; Bishop J. J. Perowne, of Worcester; Dr. R. F. Weymouth, of Mill Hill; Dr. Emmanuel Petavel, of Switzerland; Harriet Beecher Stowe, of the United States; as well as Thomas Binney, David Livingstone, J. F. B. Tinling, Samuel Minton, William Leask, and others. And last, but not least, was William E. Gladstone. CFF2 328.1

White had a winsome personality, and his public utterances were marked by freshness and originality, often with brilliancy. He attracted an increasing number of listeners, all the way from peers and cabinet ministers to artisans and cabmen. His church was filled. CFF2 328.2

6. HONORED WITH CHAIRMANSHIP OF CONGREGATIONAL UNION

In 1870 White wrote three well-reasoned letters to the Christian World expounding his belief in the true destiny of man. These produced an immediate and far-reaching effect, and prepared the way for his 1875 revised and enlarged Life in Christ. Avowed Conditionalist that he was, it was not long until he was honored with the chairmanship of the London Congregational Union. Tolerance had triumphed. However, controversies continued through the years among religious leaders in England over the issue of Conditionalism. CFF2 328.3

White undeviatingly contended that it was through the introduction of the great Platonic falsehood that this doctrine had made its disastrous way into the Early Church. And he set forth what seemed to him to be the inescapable alternative: “It [Immortal-Soulism] is either a great truth or a great lie, a useful and encouraging doctrine or a pernicious error.” And it was inevitable, he held, that a truth that had been lost so early, and which loss had involved Christendom in such confusion and difficulty, should logically and inevitably be followed by the loss of the truths of regeneration and justification. That had occurred. And the Reformation had resulted in their recovery. CFF2 328.4

In time White came to be recognized as one of the ablest Free Church representatives in England. But of all his friends, Minton and Tinling in England, and Petavel and Byse on the Continent, continued to be White’s most effective supporters. CFF2 329.1

7. FIRST CONDITIONALIST CONFERENCE IN CHRISTIAN HISTORY

In 1876 an epochal Breakfast Conference was held at the Cannon Street Hotel, with many leading speakers—White, Minton, Leask, Constable, Heard, Tinling, et cetera—participating. It was apparently the first Conditionalist conference in the history of the Christian Church, and as such was a momentous occasion. CFF2 329.2

But year by year men of distinction came to hear White preach the Word—and Conditionalism—in Hawley Road Chapel. He was intensely evangelical and had clear and decided convictions. The Bible, he had come to believe, was fundamentally a revelation of everlasting life, offered to “whosoever will.” And his participation as guest speaker in the 214-year-old Merchants’ Guild Lecturers of London, from 1880 to 1882, added to his fame. During his thirty-six-year Hawley Road pastorate unnumbered conferences with scholars of various nations and persuasions were held. He preached for Dr. Dale at Birmingham, who gave sturdy and steady support in the struggle against theological and ecclesiastical prejudice and ostracism. He took part in the Moody revival by assisting in the inquiry room, participated in symposiums on immortality, and fraternized with national and international leaders. He also taught. CFF2 329.3

8. MADE CHAIRMAN OF CONGREGATIONAL UNION OF BRITAIN

Prejudice and ostracism had slowly given way to tolerance in the theological world. Many clergymen no longer preached endless suffering. In 1886 when White was again elected chairman of the London Congregational Union, his opening address was delivered in Conditionalist Joseph Parker’s City Temple. ²⁰ White was also one of the directors of the London Missionary Society. He gave numerous addresses at colleges, and for two years occupied the chair of homiletics at New College. CFF2 329.4

Then in 1887 White was elected to the chairmanship of the Congregational Union of England and Wales—the highest honor within the power of the Congregational churches of Britain. And this, be it noted, was forty years after his public espousal of Conditionalism. It was only natural that Conditionalists were justly proud, not only because of the choice of the man but because of the triumph of the principle of the right of inquiry into “What Is Truth?”; and that its confession, when found, no longer resulted in social, civil, or religious liability. In fact, out of the 790 ballot cards marked, White’s name appeared on 506. CFF2 330.1

9. HONORED AS PRE-EMINENT CHAMPION OF CONDITIONALISM

White’s Life in Christ was translated into French, in 1880, by the Swiss linguist and theologian Charles Byse, under counsel of Dr. Petavel. It exerted a powerful influence not only on the Continent but in many other lands as well. And few books, it might be added, have fallen into the hands of more able and understanding translators. It was also put into Danish by Countess Bernstorff. CFF2 330.2

In 1882, at the time of the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of Hawley Road Chapel, in a special service, Dr. White was honored by his congregation and by many former members who were living at a distance. CFF2 330.3

At the conclusion of this memorable service White thanked God for a part in this “latest revival of such a truth,” which “brings joy and gladness wherever it shines forth,” and “brings intenser faith and more personal love to CHRIST,” and “more unbroken confidence in God, whose justice and mercy have alike become more intelligible,” and which “brings more solid conviction of the truth of the Gospel as the only light of life beyond, and gilds the tomb itself with the radiance of the blessed hope of resurrection.” It was a moving occasion. CFF2 330.4

10. REAFFIRMATION OF TRUTH AND REPUDIATION OF ERROR

Reaffirming his profound belief in Life Only in Christ, as rooted in sound exegesis of the Word, in antiquity, and in modern testimony, White made this declaration:
“I solemnly this day confess the doctrine which was taught here at first, that man is not represented in the divine revelation as immortal since the Fall, but as a being who has lost the hope of everlasting life, which he can regain only by spiritual regeneration and union with the immortal SON of GOD. And, therefore, I protest again, with all my heart and soul and mind, against what appear to us still those two opposite errors, both springing from the common root of faith in man’s natural immortality; first, against the doctrine of endless torments to be inflicted in hell on unsaved men, whether civilised or barbarian; and, secondly, against the now popular doctrine of the absolute final salvation of all men, good and bad; as directly contrary both to the letter and spirit of the Christian revelation recorded in Holy Scripture.” ²¹ CFF2 331.1

It was the old issue of the trilemma, which had plagued the church through the centuries. CFF2 331.2

Dr. White had lived to see hostility change into merited recognition and praise. In 1889 he participated in the American symposium That Unknown Country; and Petavel’s classic, The Problem of Immortality, was dedicated to him. His last sermon was preached May 23, 1897, a year before his death. CFF2 331.3

The Edward White Scholarship at Mill Hill was established in his honor to encourage Bible study in the original Greek and Hebrew. White was ever known as the pre-eminent champion of Conditional Immortality. Ernest Hampden-Cook, in The Register of the Mill Hill School, records that White was— CFF2 331.4

“justly honoured and loved, alike for the acuteness of his intellect, the tenacity with which he clung to his convictions, the enthusiasm of his preaching, the geniality and raciness of his platform utterances, the consistency of his practice with the loftiest standards of duty, and the tenderness and breadth of his social sympathies.” ²² CFF2 331.5

11. SHIFTED EMPHASIS FROM NEGATIVE TO POSITIVE

Edward White had a compelling sense of mission. He felt that he had recovered a trampled truth with which he had been entrusted. He must be faithful to that trust. And his fidelity to truth was impressive to all who knew him. The record of his conviction is stated thus:
“I was chosen to be one of a little group of men who were called to bring ... [the Life Only in Christ concept] again into public knowledge, after ages of ‘natural immortality’ teaching.” CFF2 332.1

Prior to White’s approach, Conditionalism had been largely put forth in negative form—as a denial of eternal suffering as the penalty of sin or punishment of the unsaved. And negatives are never constructive or truly successful. It was only when White began to proclaim Life Only in Christ in positive form—in inseparable relation to the fundamental provision of salvation in Christ, as a doctrine of life, made possible through the incarnation of the Life-giver—that it began to attract favorable attention and be widely accepted. CFF2 332.2

White’s mode of presentation proved so effective that after many years of opposition the long-dominant icy barriers began definitely to melt. Other men had presented a doctrine of death; White presented a doctrine of life. And it was unquestionably this emphasis that gave standing to the whole subject among theologians and resulted in a galaxy of supporting nineteenth-century literature in Britain, Europe, and America, and even in India, China, Africa, and other lands. It was obviously because of this approach that it gained recognition and standing in influential centers and seats of learning. CFF2 332.3