Probation after Death by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 21, 1883

Probation after Death.

By Editor

It seems that Joseph Cook, in one of his recent Monday lectures on "probation after death," has stirred up quite a controversy on that subject, and some of the leading papers of New York City are trying their hand. The Christian at Work, in reply to a correspondent who referred to the prodigal son to prove probation, makes the following sensible reply, which we clip from its editorial:—

"Our writer inquires concerning the prodigal, 'Had he been cut off then, would he have had no other opportunity of coming to himself?' And he impliedly answers his question by declaring that 'such an idea conflicts with all worthy ideas of the Deity, and would go far to prove that God is not Christian.' We are sorry to reproduce such language in our types, but we reply by saying that the prodigal had his countless opportunities all the weary years—yes, during all those squandered months, weeks, days, hours, even minutes, that he was boarding with the hogs. By and by he 'came to himself,'—and it was about time! And if this libertine, this spendthrift, this riotous, lecherous sinner had chosen not to repent at all, but had gone down to his death unrepentant, hardened, defiant—why, Almighty God must put his arms around the hardened sinner and say, 'Come, now, repent, do,' and so give him 'more than one term'—or 'God is not Christian!' Out upon such a caricature and travesty of the gospel!"