A BAPTIST MINISTER ON ENDLESS MISERY

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, May 20, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 21

A BAPTIST MINISTER ON ENDLESS MISERY.

The distinguished Rev. John Foster, of England, than whom, perhaps no greater light ever arose in the Baptist Church, says of endless misery:—

“I object to it in general, that it is revolting to every sensibility of the soul, to every feeling of humanity, to all that is generous in religion and reason. It dishonors and demonizes the God of the universe! Look at it! The whole heathen world inevitably damned! Have you pondered this fearful proposition! What a wholesale destruction is here. Two-thirds of the human race damned every thirty years, without the possibility of salvation, not including the vast array of reprobates in Christian countries! Not less than seven millions of souls damned every generation! All reprobates! Behold that dreadful column marching forward to the unavoidable doom! Twenty-one hundred millions—twice the population of the whole globe every hundred years—damned! consigned to the vengeance of eternal fire, to endure the woes of hell forever! Behold them, as that column sinks away into the mouth of the burning pit, but ever supplied with new recruits at the farther end, and thus moving on from age to age, filling the insatiable jaws of the yawning gulf. And as you see that column move, and hear the roar of the devouring abyss, into whose flaming jaws they plunge, ask the question, ‘Why are all these damned?’”

“Add to this melancholy, dreadful procession, all the descendants of Adam, and all the reprobates in nominally Christian countries. Stop until your vision takes in the utmost of the slowly moving column of souls. Behold the cataract of immortal souls, dashing on perpetually down the steep, ever-yawning abyss. Lo! that river, as it stretches away through ages and generations—a river of immortal beings swallowed up in hell. And now, pause and consider again, ‘Who are these?’ What is that hell into which they plunge? And why are they so damned? These are God’s creatures made and fashioned by himself. That abyss into which they are cast, is the place of eternal torment. Stop, take in the thought, Eternal! Eternal! No end! A million of years are gone, they suffer on. As many million of ages as there are grains of sand in the solid globe have passed—they suffer still! And still, as many myriads more as atoms in the universe multiplied by every second that had passed before—and now their woe has just commenced. Not a second compared with their eternal years is passed. And now their woe has just begun. To them there is no hope! No light will ever dawn upon their dungeon, no mercy will ever speak peace to their troubled spirits

. They dwell amid the flames of endless burnings. My spirit shivers and burns at the horrid imputation! What has God done that his rational creatures should so foully slander his adorable character? Pardon me, every power of my soul revolts at the blasphemy!”