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Wheeler - </title> - <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> - - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; - margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; - text-align: right;} - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - -</style> - </head> - <body> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - -Project Gutenberg's The Christian Doctrine of Hell, by Joseph M. Wheeler - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Christian Doctrine of Hell - -Author: Joseph M. Wheeler - -Release Date: July 11, 2012 [EBook #40207] -Last Updated: January 26, 2013 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF HELL *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - -</pre> - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF HELL - </h1> - <h2> - By J. M. Wheeler - </h2> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <h3> - 1890. - </h3> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <h1> - THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF HELL - </h1> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - I WOULD not willingly quit this world without having said my say upon the - most terrible of all its superstitions, the doctrine of eternal torments—which - Archdeacon Farrar describes as the "hideous incubus of atrocious - conceptions"—and which, in my own experience, is the cause of - appalling apprehensions and even insanity in the minds of the sensitive - and weak-minded. - </p> - <p> - If there is a hell, that is the most important fact in the universe. - Compared with an eternity of torment, all that this little life has to - offer is but as nothing. If there is no hell, then, it seems to me, the - faith in Jesus is vain, for no such salvation as that offered by orthodox - Christianity is necessary. Not only is the doctrine of eternal torments - clearly taught in Scripture, but it is, as I shall show, historically - bound up with the creed of Christendom. - </p> - <p> - It may be said, why attack a superstition confessedly falling into decay? - Satan, that once excellent scapegoat for all misdeeds, is superannuated. - Hell is never mentioned to ears polite. Since Freethought came into the - world its temperature has considerably decreased. The brimstone business - threatens to become obsolete. It is none the less the corner-stone of the - whole system, and when it finally collapses it will bring down other - doctrines with it. The Salvationist, no less than the Jesuit, knows its - power. As the old beadle said, "A kirk without a hell is'na worth a damn." - </p> - <p> - Upon the healthy-minded the doctrine of eternal torments will soon have no - more effect than water upon a duck's back. But mental health and strength - are not the inheritance of all. If the dogma was not taught until minds - were mature enough to examine it, it might safely be left; but while it is - continually taught to infancy, to seek to eradicate it is the duty of - those who regard it as a pernicious error. To me it appears that the best - way to do this is to show what the doctrine has actually been in the days - when Christianity was unquestioned. Christians are becoming ashamed of - their hell—which they rarely realise as possibly the fate of - themselves or their friends; that way madness lies. They cannot get rid of - the definite statements in the New Testament, but they avoid dwelling on - them, or attempt to construe them figuratively. Hell was hot enough when - religion was powerful. As it declines it is discovered that hell is not so - terrible after all. - </p> - <p> - Modern exegesis, striving to explain hell away, only steps in when - conscience and freethought have declared against it. It is taught in the - plainest terms. Take but the passage, Matt. xxv. 46, "These shall go away - into <i>everlasting</i> punishment, but the righteous into life <i>eternal</i>." - It is said everlasting does not mean lasting for ever, and in some cases - this might be granted, but surely it is a different matter when eternal - punishment is, without any limitation, directly compared with eternal - life, and the same word is applied to both. Again, exactly the same - expression which is used to signify the eternity of God, that of his being - <i>for ever and ever</i>, as in Rev. iv. 9, v. 14, x. 6, and xv. 7, is - used of the torments of those in hell in Rev. xiv. 11. - </p> - <p> - In the explanation of the parable of the tares, Jesus tells his prosaic - disciples: "The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end - of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are - gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world" - (Matt. xiii. 39-40). There we see the simile is used to illustrate hell; - not hell used as a simile to illustrate something else. The early - Christians undoubtedly believed in a literal Devil, angels, and end of the - world, and with equal certainty in a literal hell and material fire. Yet - we are now asked to believe that when Jesus spoke of hell, "where the worm - dieth not and the fire is not quenched" (Mark ix. 46), since there is <i>no</i> - fire it cannot require quenching. - </p> - <p> - Jesus relates, in the most matter-of-fact way (Luke xvi.), that a certain - rich man died, and "in hell," "being in torments," he lifted up his eyes - and beheld Lazarus in Abraham's bosom. He cried for a drop of water to - cool his tongue, "for I am tormented in this flame." The man had committed - no other recorded offence than faring sumptuously, yet he was met with the - stern response, "between us and you there is a great gulf fixed." He then - asks that his brethren may be warned of his fate, and this, too, is - denied. The voice of humanity cried from hell, and heaven answered with - inhumanity. If this picture of heaven and hell is true, God and his saints - are monsters of infamy. If false, what other "revealed" doctrine can be - credited, since this is so devised for the benefit of those who trade in - terrorism? If hell is a metaphor, of which there is no indication in the - narrative, so also is heaven. Give up material fire and brimstone, you - must resign the bodily resurrection, the visible coming of Christ, and the - New Jerusalem. Allegorise hell, you make heaven unreal. A figurative Devil - suggests a figment God. - </p> - <p> - The Revelation of St. John expressly speaks of the worshippers of the - beast, or enemies of God, being "tormented with fire and brimstone in the - presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And the - smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever" (xiv. 10-11). Nice - enjoyment, this, for the elect. Fancy parents regarding the eternal - anguish of their children! Converted wives looking on while their - unbelieving husbands are tormented and "have no rest day nor night" in - "the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone"! Picture it, think of it, - Christian, and then offer praises to your God for having provided this - place of eternal torture for some other than yourself. - </p> - <p> - Who go to hell? According to the Bible and the creeds the immense majority - of mankind. "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto - life, and few there be that find it" (Matt. vii. 14). Many are called but - few chosen; and there is no other name under heaven, save that of Jesus, - whereby men can be saved. The proportion of those who lived before Christ - must be, even according to Bible chronology, immensely larger than all who - have lived since, and of these now, after eighteen centuries of the divine - religion, not more than a third of the world's inhabitants are even - nominal Christians. When we consider how few Christians are really - believers, and how scarcely any of them attempt to carry out the precepts - of their Master, it must be allowed that the population of hell is out of - all proportion to that of heaven. - </p> - <p> - The doctrine of the church has been "He that believeth and is baptised - shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." The idea of - this text has probably done more harm to humanity than it has benefited - from the rest of the gospel, for it has countenanced all the ill-will and - persecution that has everywhere followed in the train of Christianity. I - know it will be said that this passage, indeed the whole of the sixteenth - of Mark from the ninth verse to the end, is wanting in some of the ancient - manuscripts; but while the Authorised version is circulated as the word of - God, it is properly cited. And indeed if this doctrine is discarded there - is much else that must go with it. - </p> - <p> - Freethought having discredited the doctrine of eternal torments as absurd - and dishonoring to God, stress is now laid upon passages indicating a more - hopeful doctrine. To one who looks at the general tenor of Scripture, - these are of no weight in opposition to the clear and emphatic - declarations I have cited. There is no express statement that punishment - hereafter will be terminable. On the contrary, the evident teaching is - that as the tree falls so it must lie. No hope is extended to the rich man - in hell. - </p> - <p> - That the current belief in the time of Jesus was in the eternity of - punishments, we have the testimony of Josephus, who declares this both of - the Pharisees and the Essenes.* We have also the testimony of the Fathers. - Clement, the apostolic father, said to be the "fellow laborer" of Paul, - mentioned in Philip iv. 3, says in his Second Epistle, chap. viii., "Once - cast into the furnace of fire there is no longer any help for it. For - after we have gone out of the world no further power of confessing or - repenting will belong to us." Polycarp, when threatened with martyrdom, is - said to have made answer (Ep. to Philippians, xi.), "Thou threatenest me - with fire which burneth for an hour, and after a little is extinguished, - but art ignorant of the fire of the coming judgment and of eternal - punishment reserved for the ungodly." Ignatius too speaks of "the - unquenchable fire" (Ep. to Ephesians, 16). - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - *Antiq. xviii. 1-3; Wars ii, 8, 11-14. -</pre> - <p> - All the early Fathers considered the fire of hell as a real material fire. - Justin Martyr, who wrote before the collection of the Gospels, said in his - first Apology, chap. xxi., "We believe that those who live wickedly and do - not repent are punished in everlasting fire." In numerous other passages - he refers to punishment in eternal fire; and says (First Apol., chap. hi), - "then shall they repent, when it profits them not." Athenagoras, too - (chap. xxxvi.), declares that "the body which has ministered to the - irrational impulses of the soul, and to its desires, will be punished - along with it." - </p> - <p> - St. Irenĉus, the first of the Fathers who definitely alludes to the four - Gospels, says, in his work against heresies (bk. ii., chap. 28, § 7), - "That eternal fire is prepared for sinners, both the Lord has plainly - declared, and the rest of the Scriptures demonstrate. And that God - foreknew that this would happen, the Scriptures do in like manner - demonstrate, since He prepared eternal fire from the beginning for those - who were afterwards to transgress His commandments." What a blessed thing - is Christianity to reveal such a nice loving Father as this! - </p> - <p> - So Bishop Hippolytus, in his <i>Refutation of all Heresies</i>, bk. x. - chap. 30, speaks of "the boiling flood of hell's eternal lake of fire, and - the eye ever fixed in menacing glare of [wicked] angels chained in - Tartarus as punishment for their sins." - </p> - <p> - Tertullian, in his treatise on the Resurrection of the Flesh, chap. xxxv., - declares "The fire of hell is eternal—expressly announced as an - everlasting penalty," and he asks, "whence shall come the weeping and - gnashing of teeth if not from <i>eyes and teeth?</i>" In his treatise, <i>De - Anima</i>, chap. vii., he thus alludes to the story of Dives. "Do you - suppose that this end of the blessed poor man and the miserable rich man - is only imaginary? Then why the name of Lazarus in this narrative, if the - circumstance is not in [the category of] a real occurrence?" This - Christian Father absolutely gloats over the prospect of witnessing these - torments:—"Which sight gives me Joy? which rouses me to exultation?—as - I see so many illustrious monarchs, whose reception into the heavens was - publicly announced, groaning now in the lowest darkness with great Jove - himself, and those, too, who bore witness of their exaltation; governors - of provinces, too, who persecuted the Christian name, in fires more fierce - than those which in the days of their pride they raged against the - followers of Christ!" He exultingly continues: "I shall have a better - opportunity then of hearing the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own - calamity; of viewing the play-actors much more 'dissolute' in the - dissolving flame; of looking upon the charioteer, all glowing in his - chariot of fire; of witnessing the wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but - tossing in the fiery billows."* An echo of this famous passage may be - traced in Cardinal Newman's sermon "On Neglect of Divine Calls and - Warnings." - </p> - <p> - St. Cyprian, in his address to Demetrianus, says: "We are rendered patient - by our security of a vindication to come. The innocent give place to the - guilty; the guileless acquiesce in their punishments and tortures, certain - and assured that anything we suffer will not remain unavenged.... What joy - for the believers, what sorrow for the faithless; to have refused to - believe here, and now be unable to return in order that they may believe! - Hell ever burning will consume the accursed, and a devouring punishment of - lively flames; nor will there be that from whence their torments can ever - receive either repose or end. Souls with their bodies will be saved unto - suffering in tortures infinite. There that man will be seen by us for - ever, who made us his spectacle here for a season; what brief enjoyment - those cruel eyes received from the persecutions wrought upon us will be - balanced against a spectacle eternal." And the savage saint backs up his - pleasant prospect with "Holy Scripture." - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - * De Spectaculis, c. 30. I have quoted the rendering in the - orthodox Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. xi., pp. 34-35. - Gibbon's version is more forcible. -</pre> - <p> - Lactantius, in his Divine Institutes, bk. vi., chap. 3, contrasts the - immortality promised to the righteous with "everlasting punishment - threatened to the unrighteous." In bk. vii. chap. 21, he says, "because - they have committed sins in their bodies, they will again be clothed with - flesh that they may make atonement in their bodies; and yet it will not be - that flesh with which God clothed man, like this our earthly body, but - indestructible and abiding for ever, that it may be able to hold out - against tortures and everlasting fire." - </p> - <p> - St. Chrysostom represents the torments of the damned in a variety of - horrid pictures. He says: "But if you are speaking against luxury, and - introduce discourse by the way concerning hell, the thing will cheer you - and beget much pleasure. Let us not then avoid discourses concerning hell, - that we may avoid hell. Let us not banish the remembrance of punishment, - that we may escape punishment. If the rich man had reflected upon that - fire, he would not have sinned; but because he never was mindful of it, - therefore he fell into it."* - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - * Homily on 2 Thess. i., 1-2. -</pre> - <p> - In Homily on 2 Thess. i., 9-10, "It is not only not milder, but much more - terrible than is threatened." Hear the golden-mouthed Father (Homily on - Heb. i., 1-2): "Let us then consider how great a misery it must be to be - for ever burning, and to be in darkness, and to utter unnumbered - groanings, and to gnash the teeth and not even to be heard.... Think what - it is when we are burning with all the murderers of the whole world - neither seeing, nor being seen.... Wherefore I entreat you," continues the - saint, "to be <i>ever</i> revolving these things with yourselves, and to - submit to the pain of the words, that we may not have the things to - undergo as our punishment." Again he says (Hom. Heb. xi. 37-38), "Why, - what are ten thousand years to ages boundless and without end? Not so much - as one drop to the boundless ocean.... Were it not well to be cut [by - scourging] times out of number, to be slain, to be burned, to undergo ten - thousand deaths, to endure everything whatsoever that is dreadful both in - word and deed?"* - </p> - <p> - Origen, for considering that the punishment of the wicked consisted in - separation from God, was condemned as heretical by the Council of - Carthage, A.D. 398, and afterwards by other Councils. - </p> - <p> - St. Augustine (<i>City of God</i>, bk, xxi. chap. 17) censures Origen for - his merciful view, and says "the Church, not without reason, condemned him - for this and other errors." In the same book (chap. 23) this great father - declares that everlasting is used by Jesus (Matt. xxv. 41) as meaning "for - ever" and nothing else than "endless duration." He argues, with ingenious - varieties of reasoning, to show how the material bodies of the damned may - withstand annihilation in everlasting fire. He held that hell was in the - centre of the earth, and that God supplied the central fire with earth by - a miracle. Jerome and the other orthodox Fathers no less held to a - material hell. - </p> - <p> - In the middle ages Christian literature was mainly composed of the - legendary visions of saints, in which views across the gulf had a large - share. - </p> - <p> - The Devil was represented bound by red-hot chains, on a burning gridiron - in the centre of hell. The screams of his never-ending agony made its - rafters to resound; but his hands were free, and with these he seized the - lost souls, crushed them like grapes against his teeth, and then drew them - by his breath down the fiery cavern of his throat. Demons with hooks of - red-hot iron plunged souls alternately into fire and sea. Some of the lost - were hung up by their tongues, others were sawn asunder, others gnawed by - serpents, others beaten together on an anvil and welded into a single - mass, others boiled and then strained through a cloth, others twined in - the embrace of demons whose limbs were of flame.** - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - * Library of the Fathers, pp. 15-16. - - * Lecky, History of European Morals, vol. ii., p. 222. -</pre> - <p> - Is it strange that the ages when Christian barbarism overcame Pagan - civilisation were known as the Dark Ages? "George Eliot" well says that - "where the tremendous alternative of everlasting torments is believed in—believed - in so that it becomes a motive determining the life—not only - persecution, but every other form of severity and gloom are the legitimate - consequences." - </p> - <p> - Grandly horrible is the reflection in Dante's <i>Inferno</i> of the - doctrine of hell, held in the palmiest days of Christianity. The gloom of - that poem is relieved by a few touches of compunction at the doom of noble - heathen and of tenderness for those who sinned through love; proving the - poet superior to his creed. Yet consider the punishment of heretics, - buried in burning sepulchres while from their furnace tombs rise endless - wails. Think of the terrible inscription, <i>Lasciate ogni speranza voi - ch'entrate</i>. Remember that Dante placed in this hell his political - opponents, and how he depicts himself as striking the faces and pulling - the hair of the tormented; then answer, is not this great poem a lasting - monument of Christian barbarity? - </p> - <p> - St. Thomas Aquinas, the angelic doctor, treats of the punishment of hell - under the title <i>Poena Damnatorum</i>,* and teaches (1) that the damned - will suffer other punishments besides that of fire; (2) that the "undying - worm" is remorse of conscience; (3) that the darkness of hell is physical - darkness, only so much light being admitted as will allow the lost to see - and apprehend the punishments of the place; (4) that as both body and soul - are punished, the fire of hell will be a material fire, of the same nature - as ordinary fire but with different properties; and the place of - punishment, though not certainly known, is probably under the earth. - </p> - <p> - Hagenbach, in his <i>History of Doctrines</i>, 209, note cliv., says of - the blessed, "They witness the suffering of the damned without being seen - by the latter," and refers to Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas. - </p> - <p> - Even the mystic Suso expressed himself as follows:— - </p> - <p> - 'Give us a millstone,' say the damned, 'as large as the whole earth, and - so wide in circumference as to touch the sky all around and let a little - bird come once in a hundred thousand years and pick off a small particle - of the stone, not larger than the tenth part of a grain of millet, and - after another hundred thousand years let him come again, so that in ten - hundred thousand years he would pick off as much as a grain of millet, we - wretched sinners would desire nothing but that the stone might have an - end, and thus our pains also; yet even that cannot be.'** - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - * Summĉ Suppl. qu 97. - - ** Quoted in Hagenbach's History of Doctrines, 210, vol. - ii., p. 152 -</pre> - <p> - The work of Father Pinamonti, entitled <i>Hell Opened to Christians</i>, - has been for over two hundred years one of the most popular among Catholic - Christians. It has also circulated among Protestants. An English version, - with horrible pictures of the torments of the damned, has gone through - many editions. We recommend its purchase to those who complain of the - illustrations in the <i>Freethinker</i>, or who desire to see how savage - the Christian religion is at bottom. The Christian Father of course - accepts the literal meaning of hell fire. He says (p. 28): "Every one that - is damned will be like a lighted furnace, which has its own flames in - itself; all the filthy blood will boil in the veins, the brains in the - skull, the heart in the breast, the bowels within the unfortunate body, - surrounded with an abyss of' fire out of which it cannot escape." - </p> - <p> - <i>The Sight of Hell</i>, by the Rev. J. Fumiss, C.S.S.R., is another - popular work issued "permissu superiorum" among "Books for Children and - Young Persons." A more atrocious composition it is difficult to conceive. - The agony is piled on as though the imagination of the writer revelled in - the description of torture. One specimen, a mild one, will suffice:— - </p> - <p> - Perhaps at this moment, seven o'clock in the evening, a child is just - going into Hell. To-morrow evening at seven o'clock, go and knock at the - gates of Hell and ask what the child is doing. The devils will go and - look. Then they will come back again and say, <i>the child is burning!</i> - Go in a week and ask what the child is doing; you will get the same answer—<i>it - is burning!</i> Go in a year and ask, the same answer comes—<i>it is - burning!</i> Go in a million of years and ask the same question; the - answer is just the same—<i>it is burning!</i> So if you go for ever - and ever, you will always get the same answer—<i>it is burning in - the fire!</i> - </p> - <p> - I declare I would rather put into the hands of any young child Boccaccio's - <i>Decameron</i>, or any of the works put on the Roman <i>Index Librorum - Prohibitorum</i>, with which I am acquainted, than this pious work by a - Christian Father. - </p> - <p> - Protestantism did nothing to lighten the realm of outer darkness. Rather, - by its repudiation of the priest-serving doctrine of purgatory, it - rendered more glaring the contrast between the condition of the saved and - that of the non-elect. Calvin asks: "How is it that the fall of Adam - involves so many nations, <i>with their infant children</i>, to eternal - death without remedy, unless that it so seemed meet to God?" The same holy - Christian says of the damned: "For ever harassed with a dreadful tempest, - they shall feel themselves torn asunder by an angry God, and transfixed - and penetrated by mortal stings, terrified by the thunderbolts of God, and - broken by the weight of his hand, so that to sink into any gulf would be - more tolerable than to stand for a moment in these terrors." - </p> - <p> - According to the <i>Westminster Confession</i>, ch. xxxiii.: "The wicked - who know not God and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast - into eternal torments." And the <i>Larger Catechism</i>, A. 29, declares: - "The punishments of sin in the world to come are everlasting separation - from the comfortable presence of God, and most grievous torments in soul - and body, without intermission, in hell fire forever." "They that have - done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil - into everlasting <i>fire</i>," is the doctrine of the <i>Book of Common - Prayer</i>. - </p> - <p> - Bishop Jeremy Taylor, the prose poet of the Church of England, says in his - discourse on the Pains of Hell*: "We are amazed at the inhumanity of - Phalaris, 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 their wives, parents shall see their children, - tormented before their eyes." Picture it, think of it, Christian, and then - give praises to your demon God. The good, really good, bishop tells us the - bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in hell like grapes in a - wine press, which press one another till they burst. "Every distinct sense - and organ shall be assailed with its own appropriate and most exquisite - sufferings." Surely the creed is accursed which led so worthy a man as - Taylor to paint with unction this description of the Pains of Hell. - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - * Contemplation of the State of Man, ch. 68. -</pre> - <p> - Our own Milton, liberal in theology though he was, adheres to the Biblical - idea of - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - Regions of Sorrow! doleful - Shades! where - Peace And Rest can never dwell; - Hope never comes, - That comes to all: but - Torture without End - Still urges, and a fiery - Deluge fed - With ever-burning sulphur unconsum'd. -</pre> - <p> - Bishop Hall says: "What, oh, what is it to conceive of lying in a <i>fire - more intense than nature can kindle</i>, for hundreds, thousands, - millions, yea millions of millions of years, which, after all, are only a - minute of time compared with eternity." - </p> - <p> - Dr. Barrow asserts that "our bodies will be afflicted continually by a - sulphurous flame piercing the inmost smews." Wesley says: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - Eternity and deep despair - On every flame is written there. -</pre> - <p> - Again he says: "From the moment wherein they are plunged into the lake of - fire, <i>burning with brimstone</i>, their torments are not only without - intermission, but likewise without end." - </p> - <p> - The sight of the torments of the damned in hell will increase the ecstacy - of the saints in heaven. This is the doctrine of St. John, and it has been - repeated by orthodox Christian preachers times without number. And though - orthodox Christian preachers dare not preach it now, it is the legitimate - outcome of their belief. In heaven the angels see all, and must therefore - witness the torments of the damned; and these do not diminish their - happiness, though the damned be their own parents or their own children. - </p> - <p> - Jonathan Edwards, one of the most consistent Christians that ever - breathed, devoted a work to the subject. The Thirteenth Sermon of his <i>Works</i> - is entitled "The End of the Wicked contemplated by the Righteous," and is - particularly devoted to the illustration of the doctrine that "the sight - of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever." "It - will," he continues, "not only make them more sensible of the greatness - and freeness of the grace of God in their happiness, but it really makes - their happiness the greater, as it will make them more <i>sensible</i> of - their own happiness. It will give them a more lively relish of it; it will - make them prize it more. When they see others who were of the same nature, - and born under the same circumstances, plunged in such misery, and they so - distinguished, it will make them the more sensible how happy they are."* - In his direful poem on the Last Day, the once popular Dr. Young makes one - of God's victims vainly ask: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - This one, this slender, almost no request: - When I have wept a thousand lives away, - When torment is grown weary of its prey, - When I have ran of anguish'd years in fire - Ten thousand thousands, let me then expire. -</pre> - <p> - The pious Dr. Samuel Hopkins thus displays the Divine character and - illustrates the loving kindness of the blessed Scripture promises: "The - smoke of their torment shall ascend up in the sight of the blessed for - ever and ever, and serve, as a most clear glass before their eyes, to give - them a bright and most effective view. This display of the Divine - character will be most entertaining to all who love God, will give them - the highest and most ineffable pleasure. Should the fire of this eternal - punishment cease, it would in a great measure obscure the light of heaven - and put an end to a great part of the happiness and glory of the blessed." - </p> - <p> - Contrast with this holy utterance of the pious Christian, the burning - words of the Atheist poet, James Thomson: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - If any human soul at all - Must die the second death, must fall - Into that gulph of quenchless flame - Which keeps its victims still the same, - Unpurified as unconsumed, - To everlasting torments doomed; - Then I give God my scorn and hate, - And turning back from Heaven's gate - (Suppose me got there!) bow, Adieu! - Almighty Devil, damn me too.** -</pre> - <p> - Baxter, in his <i>Saint's Everlasting Best</i>, declares: "The principal - author of hell torments is God himself. As it was no less than God whom - the sinner had offended, so it is no less than God who will punish them - for their offences. He has prepared those torments for his enemies.... The - everlasting flames of hell will not be thought too hot for the rebellious; - and when they have burnt there for millions of ages, he will not repent - him of the evil which is befallen them." - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - * The Eternity of Hell Torments, p. 25 (London. 1789). - - ** Vane's Story. -</pre> - <p> - Was not Shelley right when he described the Christian God:— - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - A vengeful, pitiless and almighty fiend, - Whose mercy is a nick-name for the rage - Of tameless tigers hungering for blood. -</pre> - <p> - It would be easy to multiply citations. Spurgeon, among living divines, - has preached hell as hot as anybody. But the doctrine is decaying together - with real faith in Christianity. - </p> - <p> - Walter Savage Landor well says: "The priesthood in all religions sings the - same anthem. First, the abuses are stoutly defended, but when the ground - is no longer tenable, then these abuses are to be distinguished and - separated from the true faith." But what are we to think of the sudden - conversion of a church that has taught falsity so long? If it did not know - the truth on this important point, how can it be credited with knowing it - upon any other matter? The rejection of hell cuts the ground from under - the gospel. Salvation supposes a prior damnation. If there is no hell no - Savior is needed. Christianity is all of a piece, and, its main prop gone - it must fall like a house of cards. - </p> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christian Doctrine of Hell, by -Joseph M. Wheeler - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF HELL *** - -***** This file should be named 40207-h.htm or 40207-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/2/0/40207/ - -Produced by David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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