Eternal Punishment by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 1, 1875

Eternal Punishment.

By Uriah Smith

BAIN VS. HERFORD.

To the Editor of the Chicago Tribune:—

CHICAGO, May 14.—In Monday’s Tribune appeared a sermon preached the day before by the Rev. J. W. Bain, which shows how pettifogging a preacher can be when an honest statement does not serve his purpose. His subject is the doctrine of future punishment, and is an answer to Mr. Brooke Herford’s sermon on “Common-Sense Christianity.” Mr. Herford does not believe in the dogma of endless punishment, and ventured to say so in his sermon. This red rag roused Mr. Bain, and he proceeded to gore Mr. Herford. Here is one of his conundrums: “Mr. Brooke Herford says that for God to suffer the sinner to be eternally miserable is unjust. We ask, How do you know, Mr. Herford? Can you comprehend what is right for the infinitely wise, holy, and just One to do? . . . Gather any number of criminals together, and the greater their number the more common will be their sense that to punish them adequately is unjust.” Here is an uncalled-for insinuation that Mr. Herford is a criminal. Will Mr. B. please state what crime he has committed? Or is he a criminal only in a Pickwickian sense? Mr. Herford said: “It is not possible for man, in the brief period of threescore and ten years, to sin sufficiently to jeopardize his soul for eternity.” To which Mr. Bain replies: “We know that, according to human law and the finite sense of justice, man in five minutes can commit sin enough to forfeit his liberty for ninety-nine years, or to forfeit his life.” That is true enough; but what has it to do with what Mr. Herford said? Will Mr. Bain please tell how much, “according to human law and finite sense of justice,” a man would have to sin in order to deserve the punishment of having hot lead poured into his ears continually for ninety-nine years, supposing that he could live through it? If the greatest criminal that ever lived were to be sentenced to such a punishment for one week, or even one hour, I believe that Mr. Bain himself could be persuaded to enter a mild protest. But this would be very homeopathic punishment compared to what God (according to Mr. B.) has in store for sinners when he gets them into the lake of fire. Some people are ready to condemn cruelty and torture when practiced by man; but, when God acts the fiend, it is all right, and everything is lovely.

Mr. Bain thanks God that there are thousands besides Mr. Spurgeon who believe this “fearful creed.” Well, I have no wish to deprive Mr. Bain of the comfort this affords him, if he will only refrain from making false statements as to the effect of this dogma on the character of men. He claims that a rejection of it “enfeebles the character in warp and woof; the texture is soft and loose as woolen threads, . . . and men are more like empty mill-bags than pillars in society;” and that “a faithful preaching of this dread might save even the filthy debauchee, the very learned, polite moralist and infidel, and some Unitarians, from making their eternal abode there.” Where does Mr. B. get his authority for these sweeping assertions? Let us look up some of these “mill-bags.” We will take Abraham Lincoln, Charles Sumner, Horace Greeley, Samuel J. May, etc., as specimens. When we consider how feeble in warp and woof the character of these mill-bags was, and what a Pillar of Hercules Mr. B. is, we must admit “this fearful creed” is a big thing. Whether a preaching of this “dread truth” saves anybody from an eternal abode in hell or not, I have no means of knowing. What I would like to know is, does it make men honest and useful in this life, and “pillars in society”? If Mr. B. can show that all men who do not subscribe to his “dread truth” (?) are thieves, swindlers, and rapscallions, and that all who do subscribe to it are men of uprightness of character—that is, pillars—then I shall hasten to join his church and indorse his preaching.

E. A. E.

We might remind Mr. B. that God does not purpose nor threaten to inflict any punishment on the wicked which will outrage sound reason, that God-given endowment of the mind. So he says, even to the sinner himself, “Come let us reason together.” He calls upon us to recognize his justice and mercy. He must therefore have given us powers of mind, capable, when rightly used, of determining these attributes. But every conception of either justice or mercy is felt to be outraged by the idea of eternal torment. As Bishop Newton remarks, we may assent to it, but we “cannot seriously believe it, nor reconcile it to God and goodness.” It must be felt to be just and right, that they who judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life, should cease to exist, and “be as though they had not been.” And we may well rejoice that this is the uniform testimony of the Scriptures also.

U. S.