CHAPTER XI. THE GENERAL DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH IN ALL AGES IS, THAT, IN A FUTURE STATE, THE WICKED SHALL BE EXCLUDED FROM THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD AND THE GLORY OF HIS POWER. Awful Characteristic of Retribution after Death as Compared with Earthly Suffering. -Anti-Scriptural Opposition to this Ancient Doctrine Notably Developed of Late Years.-Citations from the Gross and Shocking Views of God's Character which have prevailed.-The True Theory is that Punishment is the Inevitable Sequence of one's Own Chosen Conduct.-The Universe, alike Material and Spiritual, Founded on Divine Laws.-Order, Harmony, and Happiness, the Ordained Outcome of Obedience to these Laws.-All Disorder, Physical and Moral, is Produced by Disobedience. Explanation of the Origin of Evil as Found in the Free Agency of Man.Man's Voluntary, Intentional, Unrepented Sin, alone Culpable.-A Vastly Greater Number of those Born on Earth will be Saved than will be Lost.-The now Favorite Theory that Punishment is Reformatory and Preventive, is Proved False by most Abundant Evidence.-Though Justice Involves Punishment in the Case of Intentional Guilt, the Acceptance of Christ's Atonement Secures Forgiveness.-Unequal Penalties Characterize Earthly Laws and Courts, but the Award of God is Unerringly in Accordance with the Deeds done in the Body.-No Additional Motives or Opportunities for a Moral Change Possible in Another World.-God is without the Shadow of Passion or Vindictiveness in Dealing with Sinners. By Rev. JOSEPH CUMMINGS, D.D., LL.D.,Methodist Episcopal, THAT all men must die no one denies, and there are relatively few who deny that there is a future state, a life beyond the grave, which, by its nature, is unending. It is a question that most deeply concerns all, and one that cannot be regarded with indifference, what will be the nature of that life. That those who are acceptable to God, the righteous, the justified, and the holy, will dwell in his presence, having endless joy and blessedness, all believe; but the great question is, what shall be the state of those who reject God, spurn his grace, and die in their sins. The general doctrine of the Church in all ages is, that in a future state the wicked shall be excluded from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power, that they will ever be under condemnation, and will forever suffer the penalty of sin. We all know suffering and have a dread of pain, but the anguish we here endure is but temporary, and we are cheered by the expectation of relief; but the awful characteristic of retribution after death is, that it is endless, without hope of remedy or release. It is impossible for us to realize what is implied in such a state, and we shrink from its contemplation. We think a plain, candid man, who, without instruction from others, shall read without note or comment the Word of God as spoken by Christ and inspired men, must believe that for devils and impenitent men it reveals endless punishment as their doom. The record says: "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep at his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, and these shall go away into everlast "If thy hand offend thee, ing punishment" (Matt., 25: 31, 46). cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched" (Mark, 9:43, 48). "Fear not them which kill the body; but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt., 10: 28). "Unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall never be forgiven" (Luke, 12: 10). "He that believeth not shall be damned" (Mark, 16: 16). "At the end of the world the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire" (Matt., 13:49, 50). "The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation" (John, 5: 28, 29). Would such a candid reader believe that Christ, who uttered these fearful warnings and taught such statements, believed that the time would ever come when wicked men and devils would be happy in the presence of God?* Should the man, in the case supposed, deny that the doctrine of endless punishment is taught by the Scriptures, he would be far more unreasonable than Theodore Parker, who said, "I believe that Jesus Christ taught eternal torment; I do not accept it on his authority." Within a few years past there has been developed by many, strong opposition to this ancient doctrine, as abhorrent to their sympathies, and every way contrary to their ideas of the great, good, and merciful God, on the part of members of the churches in whose literature the doctrine is interwoven, and whose liturgies express it as does the prayer of anguish, "From thy wrath and from everlasting damnation, good Lord, deliver us." Some of the reasons for this change are readily suggested. There is more independence of thought, individuality of opinion, and less respect for the authority of religious opinions than in times past. The Church now tolerates opinions contradictory to its standards and creeds, that fifty years ago would have led to prompt investigation and the expulsion in disgrace from its communion of those entertaining them. There is also a strong, natural, and becoming revolt against former doctrines of the Church, relative to the nature of God and the modes of future punishment. God has been represented as vindictive, as taking delight in the torments and anguish of his creatures which he directly inflicts upon them. The language of the Bible relative to material things and the anguish produced by their use, such as "the lake of fire," "the fire * Shedd, Doctrine of Endless Punishment, 16-18. and brimstone," "the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched," has been declared to be literal, and horrible descriptions of the sufferings of the lost were given, from which intelligent, sensible persons now shrink with horror. These Bible representations of material things are now regarded as figurative, as there is no more reason for believing in a literal lake of fire and brimstone, than for believing in a city whose length, breadth, and height are equal, whose streets are gold, and whose gates are pearls, or in believing in the literal water of life and the tree of life whose branches bear twelve kinds of fruit. As there is ever a tendency to pass in opinions from one extreme to another, it is not surprising that people were frighted and shocked at gross and terrible descriptions of punishment, and were led to deny the existence, in any form, of punishment in a future state. Former representations of punishment were so horrible, we hesitate to repeat them, but present a few as illustrations out of many of a similar nature. : "The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.” * "God holds sinners in his hands over the mouth of hell as so many spiders; and he is dreadfully provoked, and he not only hates them, but holds them in utmost contempt, and he will trample them beneath his feet with inexpressible fierceness, he will crush their blood out, and will make it fly so that it will sprinkle his garments, and stain all his raiment."† "The world will probably be converted into a great lake or liquid * Edwards; Sermon, "Sinners in the hands of an Angry God." † Edwards's Works, Vol. vii., p. 499. Alger's History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 535. globe of fire,-a vast ocean of fire, in which the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, in which they will be tossed to and fro, having no rest day or night, vast waves or billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, of which they shall forever be full of quick sense within and without; their heads, their eyes, their tongues, their hands, their feet, their loins, and their vitals, shall forever be full of glowing, melting fire, fierce enough to melt the very rocks and elements; and also they shall eternally be full of the most quick and lively sense to feel the torments; not for one minute, nor for one day, nor for one age, nor for two ages, nor for a hundred ages, nor for ten thousands of millions of after another, but for ever and ever, without any end at all, and never, never be delivered.” * 66 ages one Rugged old Tertullian, in whose torrid veins the fire of his African deserts seems infused, revels with infernal glee over the contemplation of the sure damnation of the heathen. At that greatest of all spectacles, the last and eternal judgment,' he says, 'how shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in redhot fires with their deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish than ever before from applause.'”† "Jeremy Taylor says, in that discourse on the Pains of Hell,' where he has lavished all the stores of his matchless learning, and all the wealth of his gorgeous imagination, in multiplying and adorning the paraphernalia of torture with infinite accompaniments of unendurable pangs and insufferable abominations: 'We are amazed at the inhumanity of Philaris, who roasted men in his brazen bull; this was joy in respect of that fire of hell which penetrates the very entrails, without consuming them. Husbands shall see *Edwards's Works, Vol. viii., p. 166; see Alger, &c., p. 516. ↑ De Spectaculis, cap. xxx.; see Alger, p. 513. |