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| There is No Ground in Scripture for the Opinion of Those Who Deny the Eternity of Future Punishments.
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Chapter 112.—There is No
Ground in Scripture for the Opinion of Those Who Deny the Eternity
of Future Punishments.
It is in vain, then, that some,
indeed very many, make moan over the eternal punishment, and
perpetual, unintermitted torments of the lost, and say they do not
believe it shall be so; not, indeed, that they directly oppose
themselves to Holy Scripture, but, at the suggestion of their own
feelings, they soften down everything that seems hard, and give a
milder turn to statements which they think are rather designed to
terrify than to be received as literally true. For “Hath God”
they say, forgotten to be gracious? hath He in anger shut up His
tender mercies?”1304
Now, they read this in one of the
holy psalms. But without doubt we are to understand it as spoken of
those who are elsewhere called “vessels of mercy,”1305
because
even they are freed from misery not on account of any merit of
their own, but solely through the pity of God. Or, if the men we
speak of insist that this passage applies to all mankind, there is
no reason why they should therefore suppose that there will be an
end to the punishment of those of whom it is said, “These shall
go away into everlasting punishment;” for this shall end in the
same manner and at the same time as the happiness of those of whom
it is said, “but the righteous unto life eternal.”1306
But let
them suppose, if the thought gives them pleasure, that the pains of
the damned are, at certain intervals, in some degree assuaged. For
even in this case the wrath of God, that is, their condemnation
(for it is this, and not any disturbed feeling in the mind of God
that is called His wrath), abideth upon them;1307
that is, His wrath, though it
still remains, does not shut up His tender mercies; though His
tender mercies are exhibited, not in putting an end to their
eternal punishment, but in mitigating, or in granting them a
respite from, their torments; for the psalm does not say, “to put
an end to His anger,” or, “when His anger is passed by,” but
“in His anger.”1308
Now, if this anger stood alone, or
if it existed in the smallest conceivable degree, yet to be lost
out of the kingdom of God, to be an exile from the city of God, to
be alienated from the life of God, to have no share in that great
goodness which God hath laid up for them that fear Him, and hath
wrought out for them that trust in Him,1309
would be a punishment so great,
that, supposing it to be eternal, no torments that we know of,
continued through as many ages as man’s imagination can conceive,
could be compared with it.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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