The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

VI. Anglican Test Case of Wilson v. Fendall Decided in 1864

As previously noted, ⁸ the original Forty-two Articles of Religion of the Anglican Faith, of 1553, included one on “the mysterious question of the eternity of final punishment.” ⁹ But ten years later, in 1563, the Convocation deleted three of the Forty-two Articles, reducing the number to Thirty-nine. After its formal exclusion from the Thirty-nine Articles, the question of everlasting punishment did not come up for test, officially, until 1862. The setting for the events that followed is briefly this:
In 1860 a book titled Essays and Reviews was published by the Reverend H. B. Wilson, former professor at Oxford, which gave expression to hope for all, especially hope of the ultimate salvation of infants. Thus was denied the fixed endlessness of future punishment. Wilson was brought to trial for his utterance, and in 1862 an adverse judgment was rendered against Wilson by Dr. Lushington, dean of the Court of Arches, that is, the court of appeal for the province of Canterbury. An appeal from that decision was then carried to the higher judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which included the two archbishops and the bishop of London, as well as the Lord Chancellor of England. CFF2 394.4

1. ACQUITTAL COMES AT HEIGHT OF CONTROVERSY

After due deliberation Dr. Lushington’s decision against Wilson was reversed by the Judicial Committee in 1864 and the case dismissed without costs to Wilson. Thus it was that, in the current jest of the time, “Hell was dismissed with costs.” ¹⁰ To have affirmed the judgment of the lower Court of Arches would have been tantamount to reinstating the expelled Article, which, they said, “we have no power to do.” The Lord Chancellor delivered the concurrent judgment of the high,Judicial Committee and, after referring to the withdrawal of the Fortysecond Article, said:
“We are not required, or at liberty, to express any opinion upon the mysterious question of the eternity of final punishment, further than to say that we do not find in the formularies, to which this article refers, any such distinct declaration of our Church upon the Subject as to require us to” condemn as penal the expression of hope by a clergyman, that even the ultimate pardon of the wicked, who are condemned in the clay of judgment, may be consistent with the will of Almighty God.” ¹¹ CFF2 395.1

This acquittal came when the mid-nineteenth-century controversy over Eternal Torment was at its height. Belief in a literal eternal Hell had by 1865 largely disappeared in certain circles. And the hideous pictures of a lurid, unending Hell had been replaced by vague expressions regarding “perdition.” CFF2 396.1

2. DISCUSSION GROWS IN INTENSITY

But the reversal only accentuated the controversy. According to Dr. Percy Dearmer, King’s College professor, the majority still held the dogma of Eternal Torment, and some eleven thousand clergymen signed a declaration against the judgment of the judicial Committee acquitting Wilson. On the other hand, Dr. E. B. Pusey headed a movement to support it, comprising both high and low churchmen, and preached a university sermon strongly denouncing the dogma of eternal punishing, seeking to have it brought up at the next general election. ¹² Dr. F. W. Farrar, dean of Westminster, declared, “By no single formulary of the Church of England is such a dogma required.” ¹³ CFF2 396.2

Numerous books appeared on both sides of the Atlantic, including Dr. William Alger’s noteworthy Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Punishment (1864), condemning the traditional view. W. E. H. Lecky, in his History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe (1865), thrust himself into the battle of peers with the Tractarians. Many noted clerics repudiated the medieval position, and the conflict grew in intensity. Soon Dean Stanley, Bishop Magee, Dr. Perowne, and other churchmen, including Dr. Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, entered the fray. CFF2 396.3

In 1867 Andrew Jukes published a strong plea in behalf of Universalism, in The Second Death and the Restitution of All Things. And Dr. Plumptre, chaplain of King’s College and member of the Old Testament Revision Committee, protested when Dr. F. D. Maurice was forced to resign from his professorship at King’s College for denying Eternal Torment. Dr. Samuel Cox, with his Salvator Mundi (1877), was still another advocate of the “larger hope.” ¹⁴ The battle was intense and diversified. CFF2 396.4

3. THE STAGE SET FOR FURTHER EVENTS

In the same year Canon F. W. Farrar preached his famous five sermons in Westminster Abbey on the “Eternal Hope,” which appeared in book form in 1878—to be noted shortly. These aroused tremendous popular interest, as well as concern, on both sides of the Atlantic. Dr. Pusey published an answer, What Is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment? (1880), and Farrar replied with Mercy and Judgment (1881). It was a tense, embattled period. There were constant recruits to the lists. Thus it was that John Henry Newman entered the fray on one side, and the celebrated Dr. Richard Littledale on the opposite. It was the theological talk and the tension of the day. The stage was set for further major events. CFF2 397.1