CONSIDERATIONS ON THE ABSOLUTE INFINITY OF HELL TORMENTS. That to the height of this great argument, may assert eternal providence, And ustify the ways of God to man.” Man shall find grace, And shall not grace find means?” MILTON. So sang the poet who the realms explor'd But let an humbler track by ME be trac'd TO THE READER. THE following observations are the result of much serious thought and reflection. For many years past I could not heartily believe the doctrine of eternal punishment by material fire, as generally set forth by writers on that awful subject; neither, on the other hand, could I ever receive the Antinomian dream of universal salvation, without any punishment after death. Both these notions appear to me absurd, and inconsistent with the essential attributes of that great, good, and tremendous being, who, notwithstanding he is, to all impenitent sinners, a consuming fire," is, nevertheless, " loving to every man, and his mercy over all his works." The shadows of life's evening are now coming on me apace.Sensible that the loving-kindness of the Lord has, from the earliest period of life, been extended to me in mind, body, and estate, I think it my duty to Him, to my cotemporary friends, and to the rising generation, to state my reasons for believing sentiments by many regarded as heretical, and by some as worthy of an harsher name. Having, therefore, at different and distant times, as the subject expanded and opened to my view, (without any previous plan) thrown together the following pages, I have only to request of those who shall think it worth their while to peruse them, to divest themselves of prejudice, and to examine them with candour and deliberation: and although I am not so vain as to imagine that the reasons which have prevailed with me, will have the same influence on all others, I am greatly mistaken if such do not confess that the doctrine of never ending misery and torment has not so firm a foundation for its support, as it has been generally supposed to have, and therefore will suffer me to exercise, unblamed and uncensured, that privilege, which I wish to allow every man, of thinking for himself, as every one of us must give an account of himself to God. 'CASTLE LANE, SOUTHWARK, THOMAS DAY. OCTOBER 2, 1792. IT has long been my opinion, that a very great portion of what passes current in the world for Christian divinity, is not intrinsically worth a bunch of rushes. It would be an easy task to defend this sentiment by recounting the many contradictions and absurdities interwoven in the systems adopted by different sects and parties. All these may be accounted as "wood, hay, stubble," which, notwithstanding they may be built on the "sure foundation," will nevertheless be burnt, when they are tried by that "fire, which shall try every man's work, of what sort it is." Yet, certainly there is a standard or criterion of divine truth to be found in the Oracles of God, by which we ought to try all doctrines and systems of religion. I adopt it as a fundamental maxim, that "the Scriptures cannot be broken;" and therefore what we find therein laid down as the essential attributes of that infinitely great, good, and unchangeable Being, who is " the Father of the spirits of all flesh," and the supreme Governor of the universe, must certainly be that standard and criterion; to these every doctrine must be brought; by these every doctrine must be judged: and therefore, That no solid argument, to establish the truth of any opinion, can be drawn from the length of time such tenet has been received by, or the universal belief of, any Christian sect or party, is evident from this single consideration, That opinions and tenets, utterly repugnant and contradictory to these and to each other, have been universally believed and received for ages, by different sects of Christians-the doctrines of transubstantiation and absolute reprobation, when contrasted with their opposites, are irrefragable proofs of the truth of this remark. The doctrine of eternal punishment for sin (in the sense generally received) being, in my apprehension, one of those indefensible tenets, it shall be my endeavour, in the following lines, to lay down those reasons which have induced me (notwithstanding the prejudice of education) to believe, That the punishment of the wicked shall have an end, and That the redemption which is by our Lord Jesus Christ, will finally extend to all the hnman race. But first, it is necessary to premise, that I firmly believe "it is a 'fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." I believe that "He is not mocked, and that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap;" that God is a consuming fire" to all impenitent sinners; and that he will render to every man according to his works"—" to all who do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil;", and that those who die in their sins, shall have their part in the lake which "burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." Yet, I believe this punishment will have an end: and shall therefore proceed to lay down my reasons for, and endeavour to answer some of the objections to, my belief. In the first place, then, I take notice, that Adam is universally allowed to be the head and representative of the whole race of mankind; all fell in him; all derive that corruption of nature, the innate propensity to evil from him. He was, consequently, the greatest sinner of the whole human race: but no one ever yet doubted whether Adam was finally saved or not: all suppose him to be personally interested in that original gracious promise, "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." How, then, it can accord, either with the justice, mercy, or promise, of that divine and gracious Being, who so loved the human race, that he gave his only begotten son, as a propitiation for the sins of the whole world, to felicitate the head without the members, the root without the branches, is, to me, an inexplicable mystery! Secondly. We are expressly told by the great apostle, that "God willeth ALL inen to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." A doctrine, therefore, of such importance to mankind as the ENDLESS punishment of wicked men, would most certainly have been as soon, as clearly, and as expressly revealed to mankind as the original promise of redemption, above recited. But I cannot recollect one passage in the Old Testament, which has been, is, or can be construed to have the least reference to this doctrine, before Isaiah and Daniel, who lived near 3600 years from the creation. As, therefore, this doctrine does not appear to have been revealed to mankind either in the patriarchal or Mosaic dispensation, it is (to me at least) a conclusive argument that no such doctrine was promulged during those dispensations, and therefore cannot be founded in truth. Thirdly. The love of " the Father of the spirits of all flesh" is as infinite and unbounded as his power or his wisdom-but I cannot help thinking, notwithstanding all that Calvinists or Arminians have said on this subject, that if, as they represent, so great a proportion of the human race are to be everlastingly miserable, without hope or remedy; it bears exceeding hard on all these his glorious attributes, as it absolutely renders them imperfect-his love will not, his power cannot, and his wisdom knows not how to extricate the creatures his hands have formed, from a state infinitely worse than never to have existed: all which is, in my apprehension, "Horrid to think, more horrible to tell!" "But an infiinte God requires an infinite satisfaction." This I have indeed heard strongly asserted by very eminent divines-I answer, Where is this written? I never could find it in the Bible, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelations! Yet suppose we grant this extraordinary position-Jesus is that infinite satisfaction-and he is the propitiation, not for believers only, but for the sins of the whole world." Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin (the aggregate sin) of the world." The JUSTICE of God, therefore, am VOL. IV. E by no means hinder the exertion of his LOVE, his POWER, or his WISDOM; which certainly will be all united in fulfilling that original, great, and glorious promise, "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." Fourthly. That this is the case, (to me at least) plainly appears from considering the many strong and positive injunctions to the children of men, which are all summed up in "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father which is in heaven is merciful." For, notwithstanding all the metaphysical and abstract reasonings of the Calvinists, to reconcile a PARTIAL redemption with, that universal love to mankind which the Scriptures affirm to dwell in the Father of the spirits of all flesh; or the more nervous arguments of the Arminians in favour of universal redemption, I cannot help thinking, if that redemption does not finally extend to all the human race, but that all those precepts, and consequently any arguments that can be drawn from them to enforce the general practice of mercy and benevolence, lose all their force and efficacy: for although, as Dr. Young observes," a God all mercy is a God un ust,” yet, stretching the justice of God to such an extreme as to exclude the possibility of mercy in any stage of our existence, annihilates, as I before observed, some of his most glorious attributes, and substitutes vindi&tive wrath in the place of punitive justice; a supposition, (in my apprehension, at least) absurd and inconsistent in the greatest degree, and totally irreconcilable with a thousand passages of Holy Writ; as it implies those passions of the human soul to dwell and inhabit in the Supreme God, which are therein represented as totally contrary to the mind which was in Christ, and that renovation of our nature which is the very essence of our redemption into the "the liberty of the glory of the sons of God." Let no one say, that the punishment of the next world will NOT soften the most obdurate or hardened sinner-that the horrid sentiment which Milton puts into the mouth of Satan, will be the sentiment of the lost spirits of the human race for ever! Oh, no! many a proud, imperious, haughty spirit do we see (in this present scene of things) humbled by poverty and afflictions of various kinds; and if the short, transitory punishment of this fleeting world, has compelled so many proud. and stubborn hearts to bow down before poor worms, like themselves, how much more will the misery of that state humble them, where “ the Smoke of their torment ascendeth for ages of ages *?" When, therefore, I consider the literal meaning of this text, and what “ fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God"—the shortness a Rex. xiv. 11. in our translation rendered for ever and ever," yet I appeal to all who understand the Greek language, whether the above is not the literal construction of, that important text: vngiv in secula seculorum, as it is literally rendered in the Greek and Latin interlineary version of Montanus, published at Antwerp in 1583; and in the margin of Mr. Worsley's translation, whenever the phrase is used.. -the of human life -the severity of the punishment after death-the unavoidable innate depravity and corruption of human nature-the present blind and helpless state of a great majority of mankindvast disproportion that a never-ending punishment, in my apprehension at least, bears to the transgressions of a short and finite state-and above all, the many declarations in Scripture (for the Scripture cannot be broken) of the universal love of God to the children of men-and that love manifested by giving his son Jesus Christ to be a propitiation for the sins of the whole world-I cannot help thinking but that Almighty Wisdom knows how to make a punishment, however severe or lasting, yet limited in its duration, subservient to bringing about the grand object of his love in the redemption of mankind, and delivering "the creation * itself from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God." "But doth not Christ himself, in Mark, ix. 43, 45. expressly speak of the fire that never shall be quenched?" I answer, expressly and positively, No! Notwithstanding the great stress usually laid on this passage of St. Mark, I flatly aver there is no such text in the chapter abovementioned, nor in all the New Testament. This very objection struck me at first very forcibly; but great was my astonishment on finding the words in the original, rendered in our translation "the fire that never shall be quenched," to be siç т up to aσßer v, in ignem inextinguibilem-into the fire inextinguishable or unquenchablet.And surely so it is, to any power less than the Almighty; but who will either deny that to HIM it is possible; or affirm, that because his almighty power only can accomplish this, it therefore never will be extinguished? “But our Lord himself, in the last verse of the xxvth chapter of St. Matthew, makes use of the same word (wor) in describing the happiness of the righteous, and the punishment of the wicked." I grant it but before we proceed to consider this, which is perhaps one of the strongest objections, that is or can be urged against limited punishment, by the advocates for never ending-misery and torment, I beg it may be well observed, that throughout the whole of these considerations, I speak only of that punishment which includes misery and torment-yet actual punishment (however the ideas may have hitherto been inseparably connected) does not necessarily include, but may subsist without either misery or torment: and therefore, in a sound and solid sense, we may take this word aaoy in its utmost latitude of extent, and allows that the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment. I have before observed, that" the Scripture cannot be broken;" we are expresly KTIF. See Rom. viii. 19-22, and let common sense judge of the impropriety of rendering this word, in the same passage, creature and creation! † Mr. Wesley translates it in his Arminian Magazine for December, 1782, p. 632," the fire the unquenchable." |