Among the evangelicals, only one voice, so far as I know, is heard
to protest against eternal torture; and all honour is due to the Rev.
Samuel Minton, for his rare courage in defying on this point the opinion
of his "world," and braving the censure which has been duly inflicted on
him. He seems to make "eternal" the equivalent of "irremediable" in some
cases and of "everlasting" in others. He believes that the wicked will
be literally destroyed, burnt up, consumed; the fact that the fire is
eternal by no means implies, he remarks, that that which is cast into
the fire should be likewise eternal, and that the fire is unquenchable
does not prove that the chaff is unconsumable. "Eternal destruction" he
explains as irreparable destruction, final and irreversible extinction.
This theory should have more to recommend it to all who believe in
the supernatural inspiration of the Bible, than the Broad Church
explanation; it uses far less violence towards the words of Scripture,
and, indeed, a very fair case may be made out for it from the Bible
itself.
It is scarcely necessary to add to this small list of dissentients from
orthodox Christianity, the Unitarian body; I do not suppose that there
is such a phenomenon in existence as a Unitarian Christian who believes
in an eternal hell.
With these small exceptions the mass of Christians hold this dogma, but
for the most part carelessly and uncomprehendingly. Many are ashamed of
it even while duteously confessing it, and gabble over the sentences in
their creed which acknowledge it in a very perfunctory manner. People
of this kind "do not like to talk about hell, it is better to think of
heaven." Some Christians, however, hold it strongly, and proclaim their
belief boldly; the members of the Evangelical Alliance actually make the
profession of it a condition of admittance into their body, while many
High Church divines think that a sharp declaration of their belief in
it is needed by loyalty towards God and "charity to the souls of men." I
wish I could believe that all who profess this dogma did not realize
it, and only accepted it because their fathers and mothers taught it to
them. But what can one say to such statements as the following, quoted
from Father Furniss by W. R. Greg in his splendid "Enigmas of Life:" I
take it as a specimen of Roman Catholic _authorized_ teaching. Children
are asked: "How will your body be when the devil has been striking it
every moment for a hundred million years without stopping?" A girl of
eighteen is described as dressed in fire; "she wears a bonnet of fire.
It is pressed down all over her head; it burns her head; it burns into
the skull; it scorches the bone of the skull and makes it smoke." A
boy is boiled: "Listen! there is a sound just like that of a kettle
boiling.... The blood is boiling in the scalded veins of that boy. The
brain is boiling and bubbling in his head. The marrow is boiling in his
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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