Do the Scriptures Teach the Annihilation of the Wicked or Finally Impenitent?
By S. S. Griswold
BY S. S. GRISWOLD.
If the annihilation of the wicked be a fact in the eschatology of mankind, the evidence of such fact must be drawn almost, if not entirely, from revelation in the Bible. The almost, if not quite universal instincts, intuitions, consciousness, and beliefs of mankind, have ever been in the direction of the opposite, viz., that mankind have endless existence. The endless misery of the wicked, or their final restoration, has been the almost universal belief of mankind. As mankind have almost universally believed in the existence of God, and atheists have ever been but a small fraction of mankind, so mankind have as universally believed in their endless existence, and annihilation has ever been as small a fraction of belief.
It is pertinent to inquire, Why have men so universally believed in their endless existence, and so few in annihilationism? Nor is the answer equivocal. It is because the human mind was so constructed by the Creator that it could not, without perversion, believe otherwise. Such a belief, as consciousness, intuition, or instinct, was therefore necessitated; except when the mind by false reasoning perverted its own inherent consciousness or intuitions. The normal belief of mankind is in endless existence; the abnormal, annihilation. Now I ask, Would the Creator have so constructed the human mind as to make it so universally believe a falsehood? For if annihilationism be true, and if the human mind is so constituted as to almost universally believe the contrary, then has not the Creator made man to believe that which is not true in fact. The intuitive beliefs of mankind are not to be lightly set aside. Any supposed revelation that sets aside those laws of being which are written on the heart must be closely questioned.
Melanchthon says: “Those precepts which learned men have committed to the common reason and common feelings of human nature, are to be accounted as not less divine than those contained in the tables given to Moses; and that it could not be the intention of our Maker to supersede, by a law graven on stone, that which is written by his own finger on the table of the heart.” The question now is, Has God revealed in the Scriptures the annihilation of the wicked when he has so universally revealed the contrary in the intuitive consciousness of the human mind? Has God contradicted himself?
The Scriptures affirm that man was made in the image of God. Man must then have been a partaker of the divine nature which is immortal, incapable of annihilation. This, of itself, is proof irrefutable that the wicked are not annihilated. But should we concede this fact (which we by no means do) and admit that death and annihilation were synonymous, the apostle Paul positively affirms that as in “Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive.” Hence if death was annihilation, all are made to revive. Nor is this reviving conditional. For to the same extent (whatever that is) that men die in Adam, to the same extent are they made alive by Christ. Now put what meaning one pleases to death, from that death all men are made alive. If death by the first Adam means annihilation, then life from the second Adam (Christ) is a resurrection or reliving from that annihilation. But is not the “second death” annihilation? The wicked, we are told by the revelator, were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone, and with the devil are to be tormented day and night forever and ever. That is the second death. Now whatever may be the import of the figures or symbols there used, annihilation is not one.
But there is one feature of annihilationism which seems most abhorrent, so abhorrent that all true ideas of justice, goodness, mercy, or love, seem to forbid its being true, viz., that the wicked are restored to life for the sole purpose of punishing them, and that, too, in a manner that must ever shock every benevolent mind. For, according to the annihilationist theory, the wicked become unconscious or cease to exist at death, and would ever thus continue unconscious, except the divine power of God restores them to life again. And why are they restored to life? Not that they may repent and be saved, but simply and alone that they may be tormented again, and again made to endure the agonies of dying by the slow process of pain the most intolerable, and in cases of great sinners, of almost infinite duration, where the incorrigible ones will writhe and shriek and blaspheme the name of that being who awoke them from unconsciousness for the very purpose of thus subjecting them to the unmitigated sufferings of being tormented while being consumed by inches. And this is said to be a more merciful doom than the orthodox one of endless misery. Admitting the orthodox hell to be a fact (which I do not), it would be a heaven compared with this feature of annihilationism, as far as either the justice or mercy of the divine character is concerned. But the Scriptures teach neither the one nor the other; but that the final punishment of the wicked is consecutive as well as retributive, that our future life is the continuance of this in such a way as that there we reap what we sowed here. “For whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.”
Some annihilationists deny that there is any resurrection or reliving of the wicked, in order to get rid of the awful view above referred to. In his conversation with the Sadducees concerning the woman of seven husbands, Christ denies annihilationism by affirming that mankind become like angels in the future state, indestructible, and that such cannot die any more. The apostle most explicitly affirmed the resurrection or future state of both the wicked and the righteous.
The use of the terms, life and death, by annihilationists as meaning existence and non-existence, find no authority in the Scriptures. The limits prescribed me in these articles forbid the examining, at length, those terms. I can say, that those words, life and death, are never used in Scripture to denote simply existence and its opposite, but as representing the moral effects of sin and salvation from it. Ezekiel 3:18–21, and 18:4–24, we have the true import of the terms live and die, where it is said, if a righteous man turn from his righteousness, he shall die, and if a wicked man turn from his wickedness he shall live, and yet, the natural death of neither of them was effected therefor. Hence the words die and live refer to a moral condition.
Stress is laid upon the word “destruction” as being synonymous with annihilation, but whoever will examine the use of the word in the Scriptures will see that it has no such meaning. In fact, annihilation is never used in the Bible as referring to the final condition of the wicked, if it is ever used at all. Annihilationists have coined a word to teach this doctrine, as the Scriptures utterly fail to give them one. This of itself is suspicious of the unscriptural support of this doctrine.
The Bible doctrine of a future life, as believed by the Jews and as taught by Christ and his apostles, and universally accepted and believed by the Christians of the first, second, and third centuries, was that mankind at death immediately entered upon a conscious existence in the underworld, or the place of the dead, called by the Hebrew, sheol, and by the New-Testament writers, hades. These were not the grave or place of the sepulcher for the body, but the place of departed spirits. Into this condition or place of the unseen world all souls or spirits of the dead immediately entered at death. In the 14th of Isaiah we have a most graphic description of the entrance of the king of Babylon to these regions. Thus the Jews said respecting the death of their friends, “They were gathered to their fathers;” thus Jacob went down to sheol to meet his son whom he supposed to be dead and gone there. It was into this region, hades, that Christ went after his death, and previous to his resurrection, which was a coming up out from the dead, the spirits of the departed to whom he had been preaching, during his sojourn there, and it was the vast multitude of the righteous dead who had long been in that world, in hades, who accompanied him in his resurrection or ascension out from among dead ones, joined his grand triumph over hades, and ascension to glory, by which he abolished death, or the hades region, and brought life, eternal joy and glory to light. The Catholic doctrine of purgatory is the corruption of this once cardinal doctrine of the Bible: but which has almost been annihilated by modern Christianity. And not until the church returns to the faith once delivered to the saints upon the doctrine of the future life, will she eliminate the errors of annihilationism, and other errors which have lead to it. The doctrine of the personal return of Christ to this earth, the unconscious state of the dead, the annihilation of the wicked, the literal resurrection or reconstruction of the body, the burning of the world, and the return of the saints to re-inhabit this world, involve such a similar exegesis, that they will stand or fall together. The inherent immortality which man had given him by creation will necessitate an unending existence to the race.
REMARKS.
If this immortality of which Bro. G. speaks is anywhere declared in the Bible to be the natural possession of man, all we have to do is to receive it. But no such fact is revealed. The statement that he was made in the image of God, no more proves his immortality than it proves his omnipotence, his omniscience, or his infallibility. That expression does not involve any such attributes of the deity.
The universal belief of mankind does not prove it. While God has implanted in every heart something of a sense of moral obligation, a distinction between right and wrong, which Paul calls the “work of the law written in their hearts,” it is a singular idea that God has also written there the great truths of the revelation he had to make to man. If we may go to the heart for doctrines, the revealed will of God as contained in his word is a superfluity.
But what is the nature of the heart as a source of authority? From Eden the majority of the race has been apostate. They “became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God, into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” Of the thirteen hundred millions of the human race, over one thousand millions believe in, and practice in some shape the worship of images. Why? Because the “inherent intuition” of their darkened and foolish minds teaches them that it is the right way to worship the deity. We venture to say that this is, and has been, more universal than the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Is it therefore true?
It is under the same cloud of darkness, superstition and error that the dogma of the immortality of the soul has flourished. The pedigree of this doctrine, it is not difficult to trace. It is the cause of all the woe and ruin that sin has wrought in this world. It was the first thing that disturbed the peace of Eden. The devil first proposed it as an article of faith to Eve. She was unfortunate enough to accept it and act accordingly. Its illustrious father found congenial soil for the same theological tenet in the masses of heathendom. From them it was received into that mixture of heathenism and Christianity, the papal church; and unfortunately the reformed churches that have come out from that communion have not been careful to leave behind that ingredient of the wine of her fornication.
Not long after the doctrine was announced in Eden, “Ye shall not surely die,” the experience of the race apparently gave it the lie; for death actually came into the world. The devil could then save his reputation only by making the living believe that what they saw was not death, but that the real man, invisible, intangible, unrecognizable, far removed from the province of any and all of our senses, lived right on in a higher and larger sphere. (“Ye shall be as gods.”) And, strange to say, he saved his first assertion by finding many to receive the second. And notwithstanding the daily sight of our eyes, multitudes sinking cold and stark and stiff into the silence of death, and the corruption of the grave, men still believe and assert that there is no death. The devil bewitched Adam and Eve out of all proper faith in God and his word; he has bewitched their descendants out of their very senses. That Adam and Eve in their new experience, might be made to believe that they could not die, may not be so strange; but that men can now be made to believe that so plain a fulfillment of the sentence as death really is, is no death but really a higher life, is one of the anomalies of this present state which baffles explanation.
But while this doctrine has been received by many, that it has been so universal as Bro. G. asserts appears not to be a fact. This point in his argument we meet with an unqualified denial, and refer for proof of our assertion to a work published at this Office, entitled, “History of the Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul.”
But that God should raise the wicked to punish them—how horrible! On this point we cannot answer Bro. G. as he keeps his own position in the dark; but as he thinks that the orthodox hell (which he repudiates) is Heaven in comparison with our view, all we can do is to look at them a moment together. Why, according to the popular view, are the wicked at death turned into the fiery regions of hell, to sin and suffer in its burning flame, their load of guilt accumulating, and their torment augmenting, forever and ever? It is the punishment for their sins. What sins? Those simply of this life? No, those are soon expiated. But the sinner sins more grievously in hell than in this life; and for these sins he is continually punished. So then the Judge when he sentences the sinner to hell, pronounces sentence not upon his past sins merely, but upon those which, by his sentence, he is doomed to commit in the future to all eternity, and in comparison with which his sins in this life will eventually be but as a drop in the ocean. The same as if a judge in an earthly court should pronounce upon a criminal a sentence a thousand fold more severe than his crime demanded and then excuse it by saying that the excess in the sentence was for sins the criminal would be sure to commit after he went to jail. This is consistency with a vengeance!
But to return to eternal misery. The continual and uninterrupted torment of the sinner to the full extent of the capacities of his being, to all eternity, is declared to be Heaven in comparison with the same tribulation and anguish continued only for such a length of time, as to make the punishment adequate to the different degrees of guilt incurred by a life of sin here upon earth. Surely the mind that can reason thus, must be laboring under the influence of some strange infatuation.
But why should the sinner having been once unconscious in the grave, be raised to suffer for his sins? Strange to say, many seem to find great difficulty in this matter. But the answer is easy. It is because God has ordained that every one shall answer at the Judgment seat of Christ for the deeds done in the body; 2 Cor. 5:10; and in case of the dead this can only be done by a resurrection. And this, in reference to the wicked, is neither vindictive, nor unjust, nor abhorrent to reason or mercy. Look at the circumstances. Adam sinned and the sentence of death was passed upon him and his posterity. And had no redemption been provided this would have been the end of the race—all perished through Adam’s sin. But Christ interposes to relieve the whole race irrespective of character, from the death which, irrespective of character, they die in Adam.
This is how and why all that die in Adam are made alive in Christ. And this is done so that all may answer for their own actions, and the eternal destiny of every individual may be determined by his own course of life. This is all mercy even to the sinner. It is a mercy that we have this life of probation granted us here by which eternal life is placed within our reach. It is a mercy that all are to be released from the Adamic penalty. Mercy attends the sinner all the way up to the Judgment seat. And when there all that can be done is that the threatenings which are a part of the means by which God would restrain us from sin here, should be carried out in the cases of the unrepentant. This is all just and consistent. And however much any man may now profess to be shocked by such treatment, he will one day acknowledge it.
Those who in the future are equal unto the angels and can die no more, are “the children of God,” not the wicked. Luke 20:35, 36.
Bro. G. admits that the region of the dead is called in Hebrew sheol, and in the Greek, hades. And what does Solomon say of the condition of those in sheol? “The living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything.” “For there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave (sheol) whither thou goest.” Eccl. 9:5, 10.
On Isa. 14 we inquire, Has he ever heard of the figure of personification by which trees talk, stones cry out, beams answer, hills skip, the forests clap their hands, and the unconscious inmates of sheol and hades are represented as endowed with life and activity? Does he really suppose that the inhabitants of hades are on thrones and that the king of Babylon went in before them covered with worms, and that they rose up in mock obeisance and taunted him with becoming weak as they? And does he suppose the dead carry their weapons of war with them into hades? See Eze. 32:27, &c.
He says there is no instance in the Bible where the terms life and death mean existence and loss of existence: an assertion which we entirely overthrow and nullify by another declaration equally good, thus: There is no instance in the Bible where the terms life and death mean simply happiness and misery.
What a man sows he shall reap. And Paul tells us what the sinner reaps: “He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Gal. 6:8. Paul says again that corruption doth not inherit incorruption. 1 Cor. 15:50. Corruption and everlasting existence either in hell-fire, or anywhere else, cannot go together.
Every expression is used in regard to the wicked that can be used to denote utter loss of existence. They are given to destruction, to slaughter, to be destroyed, consumed, cut off, rooted out of the land of the living, blotted out of the book of life. They are spoken of as slain, and as carcasses. They are compared to the broken fragments of a potter’s vessel, a passing whirlwind, moth-eaten garments, scattered thistle-down, vanished waters, chaff, tares, withered branches, and bad fish cast away to corruption. It is said that they shall consume away like the fat of lambs, into smoke and ashes, melt like wax, burn like tow, and consume like thorns and chaff. If these can all be made to harmonize with the idea of an eternal incorruptible existence, then let the dictionary of our language be revised, or the writers of the Bible be taught how to use it.
If evil is to be eternal, Satan has succeeded in forever marring the work of God. If it shall come to an end in the persons of its author and its victims, his rebellion is a failure, the lesson of the development and punishment of sin is equally good, and the universe is clean at last. Rev. 5:13.
HIS COMING.
By E. L. Sands
“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”—Isaiah.
“And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds, with power and great glory.”—Mark.
SEVEN centuries had passed away,
As time sped on with rapid sway;
Yet sure as prophet’s tongue had spoken,
And from his lips the accent broken,
“The voice” was heard on Judah’s hills,
From craggy rocks by sparkling rills,
Where Jordan rolls its waves along,
And the Dead Sea chimes in with song,
A requiem for them that sleep,
The cities slumbering in the deep.
“He crieth in the wilderness,”
Yet not a cry of sore distress—
“Prepare the way and make it straight,
Repentance is the only gate,
The heavenly kingdom is at hand,
The paradise of Eden land.”
He spoke the message he had heard,
Forgetting not a single word;
And when they heard the prophet’s fame,
Out from Jerusalem they came,
And were baptized as we are told,
Where Jordan’s waters calmly rolled.
“Then cometh Christ from Galilee,”
The incarnate Son of Deity;
Demanding at the hands of John,
To be baptized—God’s only Son;
“But John forbade him,” with the plea,
“I have more need to come to thee;”
But Jesus said with meek address,
“Suffer it now for righteousness.”
And when he from the water came,
God’s Spirit fell in holy flame,
Descending gently like a dove,
Upon the object of his love;
“And lo, a voice from Heaven, ’tis done;
Saying, This is my beloved Son,
In whom I am well pleased. I give
Him for a way, that man may live.”
A grander coming soon shall be,
Than e’er was sung by minstrelsy;
No prophet from the desert bare,
Clothed with a coat of camel’s hair,
Nor the “young child” that Bethlehem’s star,
Guided the shepherds to from far,
By night, across Judea’s plain,
The Lamb of God on Calvary slain;
But Judah’s Lion in his might,
On clouds of everlasting light,
With glory crowned from Heaven’s bright dome,
Will come and take his children home,
Who cry to him from morn till night,
For crowns of gold, and robes of white.
The mountains then shall be made low,
The lofty hills their heads shall bow,
The crooked, straight, “rough places, plain,”
Without one wrinkle, spot, or stain.
All that through Adam’s fall was lost,
Will be redeemed at Jesus’ cost;
“The kingdom under the whole heaven,”
Restored and to the ransomed given;
Then he will rule from zone to zone,
Forever king on David’s throne.
E. L. SANDS.
Decatur, Neb.
Remarkable
REMARKABLE.—Not a murder was reported all day long in New York on Wednesday, the first day of the new year. A good beginning.
Daily Self-Examination
We should every night call ourselves to an account. What infirmity have I mastered to-day? What passion opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired?
The Sabbath Recorder and Future Punishment.
By Editor
OUR recent articles on the punishment of the wicked have called out a vigorous protest from the Sabbath Recorder. In its issue of Jan. 23, 1873, it says:—
“We deprecate the course pursued by the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald on the question of the duration of the future punishment of the wicked. To us, its course seems disingenuous. We would not use ungenerous language, but to us, it does not seem candid to use the universally conceded fact, that the eternal punishment of the wicked is a truth fearful to consider, as a worthy and solid argument against it. The authors whom it quotes, as using strong language, did not employ it as a proof against the doctrine in any sense. The question is one of Scripture interpretation, and any appeals to the mere nervousness of men as a rule or ground of interpretation, is deceptive, and unworthy of the cause. If the Scriptures teach this doctrine, any appeal from them is a vain procedure, for the doctrine is true. And if they do not teach it, it is not true, and no amount of reasoning can establish it.”
But this question is capable of a home application, by appealing to men's fears against the method of punishment defended by Destructionists. Only think of the insufferable stench of a vast lake of brimstone, liquefied by heat, and on fire, into which the wicked are plunged and held by the Infinite One, until, though slowly, yet surely, they are finally burned to a crisp! Some of these are consumed, perhaps, in a brief time, while the existence of others is continued (and who can tell how long) until they have been fully punished for their sins, and the anger of the All Merciful One (?) is appeased!
Reader, if you can, pardon us. We only meant to hint at the weakness and unsatisfactory character of this form of argument so common with a certain class of writers, and to show, in a word, that there are difficulties on the other side of this question which could be put in a very strong light. Would that the Herald had a heart to drop this question, which will not be affected by its arguments, and with its whole soul, warmed by the love of Christ, stand by the cross, and entreat, with all its eloquence, the sinner to come, and in penitence and faith look upon Him who there bore his guilt upon that tree, that, justly condemned as a criminal, might, through the matchless power of grace, be saved eternally in the kingdom of God's dear Son!”
That our arguments will not affect what is revealed on this question, is true; and this is not their object. But we do trust they may affect the views of some, leading them to believe what is revealed, instead of bowing as the majority do, to the voice of tradition, or the dicta of heathen mythology, in this matter. And this is the more needful, because this very doctrine of eternal misery tends to render the cross of Christ of none effect. The gospel itself loses its power with men who are compelled to view God through a medium which gives us a distorted idea of his character, as really as the horrible images of paganism give us a distorted idea of his form.
But when the true doctrine of the destiny of the sinner is set forth, placing the character of God in a consistent and attractive light, clearing his word of difficulties, and lifting the great stumbling block from the path of infidelity, then we can take our stand at the cross of Christ, and, with all confidence and earnestness, plead with the sinner to accept the blessings which the Saviour has to give.
The quotations we gave in No. 5 from believers in the popular view, were not designed to convey the idea that they gave utterance to those sentiments to disprove the idea of eternal misery; we gave them only to show the difficulties under which they labored, and to suggest the query whether a view from which our reason, unless held down by chain and staple, instantly revolts, had not better be very carefully examined in the light of the Scriptures, before we make them responsible for it. We do not urge the fearful nature of future punishment as any argument against it, but when it is carried to the extent above indicated, before we urge so extreme a view, it is best to be very well convinced that the Bible teaches it.
What the Recorder's ideas of the popular hell are, we know not. If they accord with the generally received view, it can not, with any very good grace, draw invidious comparisons between its own conceptions, and all the “brimstone” and “stench” which our view involves. We conceive it to be a characteristic of scriptural doctrines, that they can rest on the very phraseology which inspiration has seen fit to use. And so here we have no wish and no occasion to say more than the Bible says. It uses on this point the following explicit language:—
2 Pet. 3: 7: “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” Verses 10–12: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?”
This is the perdition of ungodly men, and the hell in which we believe. And in this fiery doom the wicked find themselves involved because they did not flee in time to the ark, Christ Jesus, as the antediluvians perished in the waters of the flood because they sought not safety in the ark of Noah. And in this fiery ordeal, which is to burn to the lowest depth to which sin has struck its pollution or the curse its scar, the wicked will certainly be consumed, devoured, destroyed, and resolved into the original elements of their being; for out of it the earth is to come forth purified, to be the everlasting abode of the righteous.
The question of the destiny of the wicked is one of the living, vital questions of the day. God who adapts his truths to the want of every age, has caused the light to shine forth gloriously here right at this time, to meet and expose the most terrible deception that Satan has ever sprung upon the world. Before this light, spiritualism with its foul brood flees away. Purgatory, saint worship, universalism, and a host of other errors all go down. If the Recorder thinks it can ignore this question, the advancing light of truth and the quickened thought of this generation will surely ignore it. It may appeal with all eloquence from the cross, but if it disregards this question in which is involved the character of God, and the scope of the plan of salvation, its appeals will fall on callous hearts and deadened ears.
Spirit of the Sunday-law Movement.
We give the following article which appeared in a late Detroit paper to show the spirit with which the Sunday agitation is accompanied, and in which it is fostered. We expect to see still more violent feeling manifested before the question is finally settled. Under the heading of “An Unhappy Discussion,” the paper says:—
There is, as every body knows, now going on in Chicago a warm contest over a proposition to repeal the Sunday law. Quite a number of the members of the Common Council of that city are in favor of the repeal of the Sunday law. In fact, a majority of the Councilmen are, or have been, in favor of a repeal; but the Mayor is understood to take the position that he will veto any action, whether to repeal the law or to make it more stringent, unless the proposition is first submitted to the vote of the people. Naturally in such a discussion there has been some hot argument, and much angry talk that might better not have been indulged in. Last Sabbath, the Rev. Dr. Fowler, President of the Northwestern University, preached in the Centenary Methodist church, to a very large congregation, on the “Sunday Question.” His sermon was reported at more or less length in the various city papers. President Fowler appears from these reports to have indulged in a number of decidedly sweeping assertions, and some language that, in his cooler moments, it is to be supposed he will regret. According to the report of the sermon published in the Inter-Ocean, he declared that, “unless the Sabbath law is enforced, it will be better to make all poor men work, and become the victims of capital.” The Chicago Tribune gives this sentence thus: “Unless the Sabbath law is enforced, they had better keep all men at work, and get no rest.” The Inter-Ocean gives the following sentence as the exact words of the preacher:—
“In the presence of this congregation and Almighty God I arraign these aldermen as the murderers of the boys that shall be shot or stabbed in the next three months. If that law is repealed, my humble prayer to God is that the murdering, if it must take place, shall come to their own homes. [Applause.]”
The Tribune gives its substance only, without pretending to quote exactly, as follows:—
“He arraigned those aldermen as the murderers of all the boys shot and stabbed after the law was repealed; and his prayer was that, if murder must begin, it should begin at their homes. [Amen—Applause.]”
The painful shock which this language will occasion in every calm mind is a marked comment upon and condemnation of it. It is charity, and doubtless only justice, to ascribe this language to “the heat of eloquence,” the speaker really not meaning all he said. For it is morally impossible to conceive of any sane man actually kneeling down and praying God that the sons of anti-Sunday law aldermen may be murdered within the next three months, if anybody is! And it is almost equally impossible to conceive that any sane man really means, if any body is murdered by any ruffian, to arraign the anti-Sunday law aldermen as the murderers!
On the other side of this question, doubtless, there has been similar violence of expression, only, as there have been no set discourses made and reported on that side, the public attention is not attracted so much as in the case of this sermon. It is exceedingly desirable that the discussion of all such questions shall be conducted with calmness, charity, decorum, and sound judgment; but it is the deplorable fact that such discussions very rarely are conducted in a proper temper.
God’s Judgment.
Rev. John S. Davenport preached in St. James Hall on “The Judgment of God, coming upon Christian Nations.” His text was Luke 17: 26, 27, 28:—
“And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot:” &c.
These words were spoken by our Saviour Jesus Christ in reference to events that would occur at the time of his second advent. The reference to Noah and to Lot implies that that great event will be preceded by severe and terrible judgments coming upon the world. The days of Noah were the days of the flood, which destroyed the world of the ungodly. The days of Lot were the time of the destruction of Sodom, and the cities of the plain, by an overflowing of fire and brimstone. These instances indicate the approach of a great catastrophe coming upon human society. This catastrophe is in the nature of a judgment, but it also shows that men will no more be prepared for it than they were for those destructive events.
These predictions of evil become more exact in the words of the Lord himself in the 24th chapter of Matthew, and they are still more fully exhibited in the book of Revelation, the visions of which are a foreshadowing of what is to occur at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Special reference may be made to chapters 8 and 9; also to chapters 16 and 18, in the latter of which the fall of Babylon is set forth.
It is very certain that these prophecies relate to events which are to occur in the course of human history, and which are yet future, and that they are destined to have a practical effect upon us. Although it is a painful fact that the majority of men, even those who profess and call themselves Christians, will not receive the heart and literal truth of these sayings.
The coming of the Son of man is an event attended both with salvation and judgment. It is the introduction of a number of things, and must, of necessity, involve great and important changes and the removal of all things that hinder its progress.
But why should Christendom be visited with judgment? Because she has departed from God. The Christian nations have hitherto stood in very close relations to God and to his church, but they have long since ceased to recognize their obligations, and the laws the world over are not such as God approves, and a new state of things has grown up which stand in the way of the fulfillment of God’s purposes to bring in the kingdom of his Son, and it must be done away.
Christendom is in revolt against God and his authority. In the matter of legislation, in intellectual pursuits, and in all these ways, the opposition of man to God is apparent. Ample illustrations of these facts are found in the corruptions that prevail among ourselves. There is no remedy for this. The salt has lost its savor, and the evil must go on till it issues in judgment.
We already see signs and tokens of what is to come, in what is now going forward, especially seen in the present condition of the church; the fall of the papacy from its position as a temporal power, the confusion that exists among all the nations of Europe, and the calamities by fire in our own land, should be regarded as directing our thoughts in the same direction. The speaker referred especially to the wide-spread influence of materialism and the doctrine of annihilation as a strong delusion, which was the most effective of any delusion to destroy piety and render religion impossible. As in former ages there has always been a remnant who have not been involved in the corruption of the times, so it is now, and God says to such, “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.” And our Lord says, “Pray always, that ye may be counted worthy to escape the things that are coming on the earth, and to stand before the Son of man.”—Buffalo Express.