{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_40207/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_40207","id":"gutenberg_40207","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40207","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Hell"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF HELL\n\nBy J. M. Wheeler\n\n1890.\n\n\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF HELL\n\nI WOULD not willingly quit this world without having said my say upon\nthe most terrible of all its superstitions, the doctrine of eternal\ntorments--which Archdeacon Farrar describes as the \"hideous incubus of\natrocious conceptions\"--and which, in my own experience, is the cause of\nappalling apprehensions and even insanity in the minds of the sensitive\nand weak-minded.\n\nIf there is a hell, that is the most important fact in the universe.\nCompared with an eternity of torment, all that this little life has to\noffer is but as nothing. If there is no hell, then, it seems to me,\nthe faith in Jesus is vain, for no such salvation as that offered by\northodox Christianity is necessary. Not only is the doctrine of eternal\ntorments clearly taught in Scripture, but it is, as I shall show,\nhistorically bound up with the creed of Christendom.\n\nIt may be said, why attack a superstition confessedly falling into\ndecay? Satan, that once excellent scapegoat for all misdeeds, is\nsuperannuated. Hell is never mentioned to ears polite. Since Freethought\ncame into the world its temperature has considerably decreased. The\nbrimstone business threatens to become obsolete. It is none the less the\ncorner-stone of the whole system, and when it finally collapses it will\nbring down other doctrines with it. The Salvationist, no less than the\nJesuit, knows its power. As the old beadle said, \"A kirk without a hell\nis'na worth a damn.\"\n\nUpon the healthy-minded the doctrine of eternal torments will soon have\nno more effect than water upon a duck's back. But mental health and\nstrength are not the inheritance of all. If the dogma was not taught\nuntil minds were mature enough to examine it, it might safely be left;\nbut while it is continually taught to infancy, to seek to eradicate\nit is the duty of those who regard it as a pernicious error. To me it\nappears that the best way to do this is to show what the doctrine has\nactually been in the days when Christianity was unquestioned. Christians\nare becoming ashamed of their hell--which they rarely realise as\npossibly the fate of themselves or their friends; that way madness lies.\nThey cannot get rid of the definite statements in the New Testament, but\nthey avoid dwelling on them, or attempt to construe them figuratively.\nHell was hot enough when religion was powerful. As it declines it is\ndiscovered that hell is not so terrible after all.\n\nModern exegesis, striving to explain hell away, only steps in when\nconscience and freethought have declared against it. It is taught in\nthe plainest terms. Take but the passage, Matt. xxv. 46, \"These shall\ngo away into _everlasting_ punishment, but the righteous into life\n_eternal_.\" It is said everlasting does not mean lasting for ever, and\nin some cases this might be granted, but surely it is a different matter\nwhen eternal punishment is, without any limitation, directly compared\nwith eternal life, and the same word is applied to both. Again, exactly\nthe same expression which is used to signify the eternity of God, that\nof his being _for ever and ever_, as in Rev. iv. 9, v. 14, x. 6, and xv.\n7, is used of the torments of those in hell in Rev. xiv. 11.\n\nIn the explanation of the parable of the tares, Jesus tells his prosaic\ndisciples: \"The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the\nend of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares\nare gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of\nthis world\" (Matt. xiii. 39-40). There we see the simile is used to\nillustrate hell; not hell used as a simile to illustrate something else.\nThe early Christians undoubtedly believed in a literal Devil, angels,\nand end of the world, and with equal certainty in a literal hell and\nmaterial fire. Yet we are now asked to believe that when Jesus spoke of\nhell, \"where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched\" (Mark ix.\n46), since there is _no_ fire it cannot require quenching.\n\nJesus relates, in the most matter-of-fact way (Luke xvi.), that a\ncertain rich man died, and \"in hell,\" \"being in torments,\" he lifted up\nhis eyes and beheld Lazarus in Abraham's bosom. He cried for a drop of\nwater to cool his tongue, \"for I am tormented in this flame.\" The man\nhad committed no other recorded offence than faring sumptuously, yet he\nwas met with the stern response, \"between us and you there is a great\ngulf fixed.\" He then asks that his brethren may be warned of his fate,\nand this, too, is denied. The voice of humanity cried from hell, and\nheaven answered with inhumanity. If this picture of heaven and hell is\ntrue, God and his saints are monsters of infamy. If false, what other\n\"revealed\" doctrine can be credited, since this is so devised for the\nbenefit of those who trade in terrorism? If hell is a metaphor, of which\nthere is no indication in the narrative, so also is heaven. Give up\nmaterial fire and brimstone, you must resign the bodily resurrection,\nthe visible coming of Christ, and the New Jerusalem. Allegorise hell,\nyou make heaven unreal. A figurative Devil suggests a figment God.\n\nThe Revelation of St. John expressly speaks of the worshippers of the\nbeast, or enemies of God, being \"tormented with fire and brimstone in\nthe presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And\nthe smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever\" (xiv. 10-11).\nNice enjoyment, this, for the elect. Fancy parents regarding the eternal\nanguish of their children! Converted wives looking on while their\nunbelieving husbands are tormented and \"have no rest day nor night\" in\n\"the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone\"! Picture it, think of\nit, Christian, and then offer praises to your God for having provided\nthis place of eternal torture for some other than yourself.\n\nWho go to hell? According to the Bible and the creeds the immense\nmajority of mankind. \"Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which\nleadeth unto life, and few there be that find it\" (Matt. vii. 14). Many\nare called but few chosen; and there is no other name under heaven, save\nthat of Jesus, whereby men can be saved. The proportion of those\nwho lived before Christ must be, even according to Bible chronology,\nimmensely larger than all who have lived since, and of these now, after\neighteen centuries of the divine religion, not more than a third of the\nworld's inhabitants are even nominal Christians. When we consider\nhow few Christians are really believers, and how scarcely any of them\nattempt to carry out the precepts of their Master, it must be allowed\nthat the population of hell is out of all proportion to that of heaven.\n\nThe doctrine of the church has been \"He that believeth and is baptised\nshall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.\" The idea of\nthis text has probably done more harm to humanity than it has benefited\nfrom the rest of the gospel, for it has countenanced all the\nill-will and persecution that has everywhere followed in the train of\nChristianity. I know it will be said that this passage, indeed the whole\nof the sixteenth of Mark from the ninth verse to the end, is wanting\nin some of the ancient manuscripts; but while the Authorised version is\ncirculated as the word of God, it is properly cited. And indeed if this\ndoctrine is discarded there is much else that must go with it.\n\nFreethought having discredited the doctrine of eternal torments\nas absurd and dishonoring to God, stress is now laid upon passages\nindicating a more hopeful doctrine. To one who looks at the general\ntenor of Scripture, these are of no weight in opposition to the clear\nand emphatic declarations I have cited. There is no express statement\nthat punishment hereafter will be terminable. On the contrary, the\nevident teaching is that as the tree falls so it must lie. No hope is\nextended to the rich man in hell.\n\nThat the current belief in the time of Jesus was in the eternity of\npunishments, we have the testimony of Josephus, who declares this both\nof the Pharisees and the Essenes.* We have also the testimony of the\nFathers. Clement, the apostolic father, said to be the \"fellow laborer\"\nof Paul, mentioned in Philip iv. 3, says in his Second Epistle, chap.\nviii., \"Once cast into the furnace of fire there is no longer any help\nfor it. For after we have gone out of the world no further power of\nconfessing or repenting will belong to us.\" Polycarp, when threatened\nwith martyrdom, is said to have made answer (Ep. to Philippians, xi.),\n\"Thou threatenest me with fire which burneth for an hour, and after\na little is extinguished, but art ignorant of the fire of the coming\njudgment and of eternal punishment reserved for the ungodly.\" Ignatius\ntoo speaks of \"the unquenchable fire\" (Ep. to Ephesians, 16).\n\n     *Antiq. xviii. 1-3; Wars ii, 8, 11-14.\n\nAll the early Fathers considered the fire of hell as a real material\nfire. Justin Martyr, who wrote before the collection of the Gospels,\nsaid in his first Apology, chap. xxi., \"We believe that those who\nlive wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire.\" In\nnumerous other passages he refers to punishment in eternal fire; and\nsays (First Apol., chap. hi), \"then shall they repent, when it profits\nthem not.\" Athenagoras, too (chap. xxxvi.), declares that \"the body\nwhich has ministered to the irrational impulses of the soul, and to its\ndesires, will be punished along with it.\"\n\nSt. Iren\u00e6us, the first of the Fathers who definitely alludes to the four\nGospels, says, in his work against heresies (bk. ii., chap. 28, \u00a7 7),\n\"That eternal fire is prepared for sinners, both the Lord has plainly\ndeclared, and the rest of the Scriptures demonstrate. And that God\nforeknew that this would happen, the Scriptures do in like manner\ndemonstrate, since He prepared eternal fire from the beginning for those\nwho were afterwards to transgress His commandments.\" What a blessed\nthing is Christianity to reveal such a nice loving Father as this!\n\nSo Bishop Hippolytus, in his _Refutation of all Heresies_, bk. x. chap.\n30, speaks of \"the boiling flood of hell's eternal lake of fire, and the\neye ever fixed in menacing glare of [wicked] angels chained in Tartarus\nas punishment for their sins.\"\n\nTertullian, in his treatise on the Resurrection of the Flesh, chap.\nxxxv., declares \"The fire of hell is eternal--expressly announced as an\neverlasting penalty,\" and he asks, \"whence shall come the weeping and\ngnashing of teeth if not from _eyes and teeth?_\" In his treatise, _De\nAnima_, chap. vii., he thus alludes to the story of Dives. \"Do you\nsuppose that this end of the blessed poor man and the miserable rich man\nis only imaginary? Then why the name of Lazarus in this narrative, if\nthe circumstance is not in [the category of] a real occurrence?\" This\nChristian Father absolutely gloats over the prospect of witnessing these\ntorments:--\"Which sight gives me Joy? which rouses me to exultation?--as\nI see so many illustrious monarchs, whose reception into the heavens was\npublicly announced, groaning now in the lowest darkness with great Jove\nhimself, and those, too, who bore witness of their exaltation; governors\nof provinces, too, who persecuted the Christian name, in fires more\nfierce than those which in the days of their pride they raged against\nthe followers of Christ!\" He exultingly continues: \"I shall have a\nbetter opportunity then of hearing the tragedians, louder-voiced in\ntheir own calamity; of viewing the play-actors much more 'dissolute' in\nthe dissolving flame; of looking upon the charioteer, all glowing in his\nchariot of fire; of witnessing the wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but\ntossing in the fiery billows.\"* An echo of this famous passage may\nbe traced in Cardinal Newman's sermon \"On Neglect of Divine Calls and\nWarnings.\"\n\nSt. Cyprian, in his address to Demetrianus, says: \"We are rendered\npatient by our security of a vindication to come. The innocent give\nplace to the guilty; the guileless acquiesce in their punishments and\ntortures, certain and assured that anything we suffer will not remain\nunavenged.... What joy for the believers, what sorrow for the faithless;\nto have refused to believe here, and now be unable to return in order\nthat they may believe! Hell ever burning will consume the accursed, and\na devouring punishment of lively flames; nor will there be that from\nwhence their torments can ever receive either repose or end. Souls with\ntheir bodies will be saved unto suffering in tortures infinite. There\nthat man will be seen by us for ever, who made us his spectacle here\nfor a season; what brief enjoyment those cruel eyes received from\nthe persecutions wrought upon us will be balanced against a spectacle\neternal.\" And the savage saint backs up his pleasant prospect with \"Holy\nScripture.\"\n\n     * De Spectaculis, c. 30. I have quoted the rendering in the\n     orthodox Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. xi., pp. 34-35.\n     Gibbon's version is more forcible.\n\nLactantius, in his Divine Institutes, bk. vi., chap. 3, contrasts the\nimmortality promised to the righteous with \"everlasting punishment\nthreatened to the unrighteous.\" In bk. vii. chap. 21, he says, \"because\nthey have committed sins in their bodies, they will again be clothed\nwith flesh that they may make atonement in their bodies; and yet it\nwill not be that flesh with which God clothed man, like this our earthly\nbody, but indestructible and abiding for ever, that it may be able to\nhold out against tortures and everlasting fire.\"\n\nSt. Chrysostom represents the torments of the damned in a variety of\nhorrid pictures. He says: \"But if you are speaking against luxury, and\nintroduce discourse by the way concerning hell, the thing will cheer\nyou and beget much pleasure. Let us not then avoid discourses concerning\nhell, that we may avoid hell. Let us not banish the remembrance of\npunishment, that we may escape punishment. If the rich man had reflected\nupon that fire, he would not have sinned; but because he never was\nmindful of it, therefore he fell into it.\"*\n\n     * Homily on 2 Thess. i., 1-2.\n\nIn Homily on 2 Thess. i., 9-10, \"It is not only not milder, but much\nmore terrible than is threatened.\" Hear the golden-mouthed Father\n(Homily on Heb. i., 1-2): \"Let us then consider how great a misery it\nmust be to be for ever burning, and to be in darkness, and to utter\nunnumbered groanings, and to gnash the teeth and not even to be\nheard.... Think what it is when we are burning with all the murderers of\nthe whole world neither seeing, nor being seen.... Wherefore I entreat\nyou,\" continues the saint, \"to be _ever_ revolving these things with\nyourselves, and to submit to the pain of the words, that we may not have\nthe things to undergo as our punishment.\" Again he says (Hom. Heb. xi.\n37-38), \"Why, what are ten thousand years to ages boundless and without\nend? Not so much as one drop to the boundless ocean.... Were it not well\nto be cut [by scourging] times out of number, to be slain, to be burned,\nto undergo ten thousand deaths, to endure everything whatsoever that is\ndreadful both in word and deed?\"*\n\nOrigen, for considering that the punishment of the wicked consisted\nin separation from God, was condemned as heretical by the Council of\nCarthage, A.D. 398, and afterwards by other Councils.\n\nSt. Augustine (_City of God_, bk, xxi. chap. 17) censures Origen for his\nmerciful view, and says \"the Church, not without reason, condemned\nhim for this and other errors.\" In the same book (chap. 23) this great\nfather declares that everlasting is used by Jesus (Matt. xxv. 41) as\nmeaning \"for ever\" and nothing else than \"endless duration.\" He argues,\nwith ingenious varieties of reasoning, to show how the material bodies\nof the damned may withstand annihilation in everlasting fire. He held\nthat hell was in the centre of the earth, and that God supplied the\ncentral fire with earth by a miracle. Jerome and the other orthodox\nFathers no less held to a material hell.\n\nIn the middle ages Christian literature was mainly composed of the\nlegendary visions of saints, in which views across the gulf had a large\nshare.\n\nThe Devil was represented bound by red-hot chains, on a burning gridiron\nin the centre of hell. The screams of his never-ending agony made its\nrafters to resound; but his hands were free, and with these he seized\nthe lost souls, crushed them like grapes against his teeth, and then\ndrew them by his breath down the fiery cavern of his throat. Demons with\nhooks of red-hot iron plunged souls alternately into fire and sea. Some\nof the lost were hung up by their tongues, others were sawn asunder,\nothers gnawed by serpents, others beaten together on an anvil and welded\ninto a single mass, others boiled and then strained through a cloth,\nothers twined in the embrace of demons whose limbs were of flame.**\n\n     * Library of the Fathers, pp. 15-16.\n\n     * Lecky, History of European Morals, vol. ii., p. 222.\n\nIs it strange that the ages when Christian barbarism overcame Pagan\ncivilisation were known as the Dark Ages? \"George Eliot\" well says that\n\"where the tremendous alternative of everlasting torments is believed\nin--believed in so that it becomes a motive determining the life--not\nonly persecution, but every other form of severity and gloom are the\nlegitimate consequences.\"\n\nGrandly horrible is the reflection in Dante's _Inferno_ of the doctrine\nof hell, held in the palmiest days of Christianity. The gloom of that\npoem is relieved by a few touches of compunction at the doom of noble\nheathen and of tenderness for those who sinned through love; proving\nthe poet superior to his creed. Yet consider the punishment of heretics,\nburied in burning sepulchres while from their furnace tombs rise endless\nwails. Think of the terrible inscription, _Lasciate ogni speranza voi\nch'entrate_. Remember that Dante placed in this hell his political\nopponents, and how he depicts himself as striking the faces and pulling\nthe hair of the tormented; then answer, is not this great poem a lasting\nmonument of Christian barbarity?\n\nSt. Thomas Aquinas, the angelic doctor, treats of the punishment of hell\nunder the title _Poena Damnatorum_,* and teaches (1) that the damned\nwill suffer other punishments besides that of fire; (2) that the\n\"undying worm\" is remorse of conscience; (3) that the darkness of hell\nis physical darkness, only so much light being admitted as will allow\nthe lost to see and apprehend the punishments of the place; (4) that\nas both body and soul are punished, the fire of hell will be a material\nfire, of the same nature as ordinary fire but with different properties;\nand the place of punishment, though not certainly known, is probably\nunder the earth.\n\nHagenbach, in his _History of Doctrines_, 209, note cliv., says of the\nblessed, \"They witness the suffering of the damned without being seen by\nthe latter,\" and refers to Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas.\n\nEven the mystic Suso expressed himself as follows:--\n\n'Give us a millstone,' say the damned, 'as large as the whole earth, and\nso wide in circumference as to touch the sky all around and let a little\nbird come once in a hundred thousand years and pick off a small particle\nof the stone, not larger than the tenth part of a grain of millet, and\nafter another hundred thousand years let him come again, so that in ten\nhundred thousand years he would pick off as much as a grain of millet,\nwe wretched sinners would desire nothing but that the stone might have\nan end, and thus our pains also; yet even that cannot be.'**\n\n     * Summ\u00e6 Suppl. qu 97.\n\n     ** Quoted in Hagenbach's History of Doctrines, 210, vol.\n     ii., p. 152\n\nThe work of Father Pinamonti, entitled _Hell Opened to Christians_, has\nbeen for over two hundred years one of the most popular among Catholic\nChristians. It has also circulated among Protestants. An English\nversion, with horrible pictures of the torments of the damned, has gone\nthrough many editions. We recommend its purchase to those who complain\nof the illustrations in the _Freethinker_, or who desire to see how\nsavage the Christian religion is at bottom. The Christian Father of\ncourse accepts the literal meaning of hell fire. He says (p. 28): \"Every\none that is damned will be like a lighted furnace, which has its own\nflames in itself; all the filthy blood will boil in the veins, the\nbrains in the skull, the heart in the breast, the bowels within the\nunfortunate body, surrounded with an abyss of' fire out of which it\ncannot escape.\"\n\n_The Sight of Hell_, by the Rev. J. Fumiss, C.S.S.R., is another popular\nwork issued \"permissu superiorum\" among \"Books for Children and Young\nPersons.\" A more atrocious composition it is difficult to conceive. The\nagony is piled on as though the imagination of the writer revelled in\nthe description of torture. One specimen, a mild one, will suffice:--\n\nPerhaps at this moment, seven o'clock in the evening, a child is just\ngoing into Hell. To-morrow evening at seven o'clock, go and knock at the\ngates of Hell and ask what the child is doing. The devils will go and\nlook. Then they will come back again and say, _the child is burning!_\nGo in a week and ask what the child is doing; you will get the\nsame answer--_it is burning!_ Go in a year and ask, the same answer\ncomes--_it is burning!_ Go in a million of years and ask the same\nquestion; the answer is just the same--_it is burning!_ So if you go for\never and ever, you will always get the same answer--_it is burning in\nthe fire!_\n\nI declare I would rather put into the hands of any young child\nBoccaccio's _Decameron_, or any of the works put on the Roman _Index\nLibrorum Prohibitorum_, with which I am acquainted, than this pious work\nby a Christian Father.\n\nProtestantism did nothing to lighten the realm of outer darkness.\nRather, by its repudiation of the priest-serving doctrine of purgatory,\nit rendered more glaring the contrast between the condition of the saved\nand that of the non-elect. Calvin asks: \"How is it that the fall of Adam\ninvolves so many nations, _with their infant children_, to eternal death\nwithout remedy, unless that it so seemed meet to God?\" The same holy\nChristian says of the damned: \"For ever harassed with a dreadful\ntempest, they shall feel themselves torn asunder by an angry God,\nand transfixed and penetrated by mortal stings, terrified by the\nthunderbolts of God, and broken by the weight of his hand, so that to\nsink into any gulf would be more tolerable than to stand for a moment in\nthese terrors.\"\n\nAccording to the _Westminster Confession_, ch. xxxiii.: \"The wicked who\nknow not God and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into\neternal torments.\" And the _Larger Catechism_, A. 29, declares: \"The\npunishments of sin in the world to come are everlasting separation from\nthe comfortable presence of God, and most grievous torments in soul and\nbody, without intermission, in hell fire forever.\" \"They that have done\ngood shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil into\neverlasting _fire_,\" is the doctrine of the _Book of Common Prayer_.\n\nBishop Jeremy Taylor, the prose poet of the Church of England, says in\nhis discourse on the Pains of Hell*: \"We are amazed at the inhumanity of\nPhalaris, who roasted men in his brazen bull: this was joy in respect of\nthat fire of hell which penetrates the very entrails without consuming\nthem.\" \"Husbands shall see their wives, parents shall see their\nchildren, tormented before their eyes.\" Picture it, think of it,\nChristian, and then give praises to your demon God. The good, really\ngood, bishop tells us the bodies of the damned shall be crowded together\nin hell like grapes in a wine press, which press one another till they\nburst. \"Every distinct sense and organ shall be assailed with its own\nappropriate and most exquisite sufferings.\" Surely the creed is\naccursed which led so worthy a man as Taylor to paint with unction this\ndescription of the Pains of Hell.\n\n     * Contemplation of the State of Man, ch. 68.\n\nOur own Milton, liberal in theology though he was, adheres to the\nBiblical idea of\n\n     Regions of Sorrow! doleful\n         Shades! where\n     Peace And Rest can never dwell;\n         Hope never comes,\n     That comes to all: but\n         Torture without End\n     Still urges, and a fiery\n         Deluge fed\n     With ever-burning sulphur unconsum'd.\n\nBishop Hall says: \"What, oh, what is it to conceive of lying in a _fire\nmore intense than nature can kindle_, for hundreds, thousands, millions,\nyea millions of millions of years, which, after all, are only a minute\nof time compared with eternity.\"\n\nDr. Barrow asserts that \"our bodies will be afflicted continually by a\nsulphurous flame piercing the inmost smews.\" Wesley says:\n\n     Eternity and deep despair\n     On every flame is written there.\n\nAgain he says: \"From the moment wherein they are plunged into the lake\nof fire, _burning with brimstone_, their torments are not only without\nintermission, but likewise without end.\"\n\nThe sight of the torments of the damned in hell will increase the\necstacy of the saints in heaven. This is the doctrine of St. John,\nand it has been repeated by orthodox Christian preachers times without\nnumber. And though orthodox Christian preachers dare not preach it now,\nit is the legitimate outcome of their belief. In heaven the angels see\nall, and must therefore witness the torments of the damned; and these do\nnot diminish their happiness, though the damned be their own parents or\ntheir own children.\n\nJonathan Edwards, one of the most consistent Christians that ever\nbreathed, devoted a work to the subject. The Thirteenth Sermon of\nhis _Works_ is entitled \"The End of the Wicked contemplated by the\nRighteous,\" and is particularly devoted to the illustration of the\ndoctrine that \"the sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of\nthe saints forever.\" \"It will,\" he continues, \"not only make them more\nsensible of the greatness and freeness of the grace of God in their\nhappiness, but it really makes their happiness the greater, as it will\nmake them more _sensible_ of their own happiness. It will give them a\nmore lively relish of it; it will make them prize it more. When they\nsee others who were of the same nature, and born under the same\ncircumstances, plunged in such misery, and they so distinguished, it\nwill make them the more sensible how happy they are.\"* In his direful\npoem on the Last Day, the once popular Dr. Young makes one of God's\nvictims vainly ask:\n\n     This one, this slender, almost no request:\n     When I have wept a thousand lives away,\n     When torment is grown weary of its prey,\n     When I have ran of anguish'd years in fire\n     Ten thousand thousands, let me then expire.\n\nThe pious Dr. Samuel Hopkins thus displays the Divine character and\nillustrates the loving kindness of the blessed Scripture promises: \"The\nsmoke of their torment shall ascend up in the sight of the blessed for\never and ever, and serve, as a most clear glass before their eyes, to\ngive them a bright and most effective view. This display of the Divine\ncharacter will be most entertaining to all who love God, will give them\nthe highest and most ineffable pleasure. Should the fire of this eternal\npunishment cease, it would in a great measure obscure the light of\nheaven and put an end to a great part of the happiness and glory of the\nblessed.\"\n\nContrast with this holy utterance of the pious Christian, the burning\nwords of the Atheist poet, James Thomson:\n\n     If any human soul at all\n     Must die the second death, must fall\n     Into that gulph of quenchless flame\n     Which keeps its victims still the same,\n     Unpurified as unconsumed,\n     To everlasting torments doomed;\n     Then I give God my scorn and hate,\n     And turning back from Heaven's gate\n     (Suppose me got there!) bow, Adieu!\n     Almighty Devil, damn me too.**\n\nBaxter, in his _Saint's Everlasting Best_, declares: \"The principal\nauthor of hell torments is God himself. As it was no less than God whom\nthe sinner had offended, so it is no less than God who will punish them\nfor their offences. He has prepared those torments for his enemies....\nThe everlasting flames of hell will not be thought too hot for the\nrebellious; and when they have burnt there for millions of ages, he will\nnot repent him of the evil which is befallen them.\"\n\n     * The Eternity of Hell Torments, p. 25 (London. 1789).\n\n     ** Vane's Story.\n\nWas not Shelley right when he described the Christian God:--\n\n     A vengeful, pitiless and almighty fiend,\n     Whose mercy is a nick-name for the rage\n     Of tameless tigers hungering for blood.\n\nIt would be easy to multiply citations. Spurgeon, among living divines,\nhas preached hell as hot as anybody. But the doctrine is decaying\ntogether with real faith in Christianity.\n\nWalter Savage Landor well says: \"The priesthood in all religions sings\nthe same anthem. First, the abuses are stoutly defended, but when the\nground is no longer tenable, then these abuses are to be distinguished\nand separated from the true faith.\" But what are we to think of the\nsudden conversion of a church that has taught falsity so long? If it did\nnot know the truth on this important point, how can it be credited with\nknowing it upon any other matter? The rejection of hell cuts the ground\nfrom under the gospel. Salvation supposes a prior damnation. If there\nis no hell no Savior is needed. Christianity is all of a piece, and, its\nmain prop gone it must fall like a house of cards.","title":"The Christian Doctrine of Hell","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":5078}