Hell without Purgatory

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 1, 1876

Hell without Purgatory.

On the supposition that eternal torture is to be inflicted as a penalty for a life of sin in this world, were man asked if God's conduct in this respect was just, his own innate sense of justice, not yet wholly obliterated by the fall, would prompt him to a universal and determined, No! The framers of different religious systems have felt this, and seem to have searched sharply for some avenue of escape from the fearful wrong of this horrid theory. So Plato had his Acherusian lake from which at least some of the wretched sufferers in Tartarus, after a purgative process, might issue forth again to the upper air. Augustine following Plato in his notion of an abode of unending pain for some, had also his purgatory from which others might find a road to Heaven. Rome has only a purgatory, the fires of a finite period, for the millions within her communion. Origen conceived of a purgatory wider than Plato's, Augustine's or Rome's, from which all should at length be restored to the favor of God.

The churches of the Reformation have generally accepted of Augustine's hell, but denied his purgatory. In the Protestant denominations, therefore, we have this doctrine in its most horrid aspects. And it is no marvel that many who have felt compelled by their creed to accept it, have shrunk from its advocacy, and have tacitly, if not openly, confessed that they could heartily wish it were a lie.

Saurin at the close of one of his sermons thus speaks:—

“I sink, I sink, under the awful weight of my subject; and I declare, when I see my friends, my relations, the people of my charge,—this whole congregation, when I think that I, that you, that we are all exposed to these torments; when I see in the lukewarmness of my devotions, in the languor of my love, in the levity of my resolutions and designs, the least evidence, though it be only possible or presumptive, of my future misery, I find in the thought a mortal poison, that diffuseth itself through every period of my existence; rendering society tiresome, nourishment insipid, pleasure disgusting, and life itself a cruel bitter. I cease to wonder that the fear of hell hath made some melancholy, others, mad; that it hath disposed some to expose themselves to a living martyrdom, by fleeing from all commerce with the rest of mankind, and others, to suffer the most terrible, violent torments.”

Albert Barnes, the well-known preacher and commentator, speaks on the same point as follows:—

“I confess when I look upon a world of sinners, upon death-beds and grave-yards, upon the world of woe filled with hosts to suffer forever; when I see my friends, my parents, my family, my people, my fellow-citizens; when I look upon a whole race all involved in this sin and danger, and when I see the great mass of them wholly unconcerned, and when I feel that God only can save them, and yet he does not do it—I am struck dumb. It is all dark, dark, dark to my soul, and I cannot disguise it.”—Sermons, pp. 124, 125.

Such is the effect of the doctrine of eternal misery with some, according to the confession of its own advocates. No one can say that such effects are either good or desirable. And why does it not have this effect upon more? We answer, it is because the lips only mechanically assent to what the heart and reason either will not try to realize, or else do not seriously believe. Says Bishop Newton:—

“Imagine a creature, nay, imagine numberless creatures produced out of nothing . . . delivered over to torments of endless ages, without the least hope or possibility of relaxation or redemption. Imagine it you may, but you can never seriously believe it, nor reconcile it to God and goodness.”—Dissertation, No. 60.