THEOLOGICAL CONVULSIONS.
By Editor
The earthquake which has been agitating the whole country for some weeks past in reference to the question of eternal misery, has not yet subsided. The old castle of eternal torment, which has proved in so many cases to be the residence of old Giant Despair, and in so many others, the grand recruiting station of skepticism and infidelity, is rudely shaken, and begins to show some alarming fissures, indicating the possibility of its soon tumbling into ruins. If the doctrine of endless misery was founded on the plain declarations of the Scriptures, its friends need have no fears for it. But, as it has been in the past, so it is now, what men cannot defend by the Bible, they endeavor to defend by the anathemas of the church. This is the way they are dealing with the question in Brooklyn, N. Y., according to the following paragraph:— “The Second Baptist Church, Brooklyn, has taken decided action on the future-punishment question. Deacon James R. Gibson dissented from the views of the pastor, who believes in a material hell, and expressed the opinion that the Bible did not prove the inherent immortality of the soul. The deacon was asked to retract or be expelled from the church. He declined to retract, and, without hearing his defense, the church adopted, almost unanimously, a resolution of expulsion. W. H. Gomes and L. B. Giles thereupon expressed their concurrence in Gibson’s views, and, on the next Friday evening, they were expelled. The action of the church has caused, it is reported, great excitement among the Baptists of Brooklyn, the majority approving.” The agitation of this question will result in good. While many, with partisan feelings, will blindly rivet upon themselves more firmly than ever the shackles of bigotry and superstition, many will find themselves liberated from their former theological thralldom, rejoicing in the better views of God and his Son, which they are able to maintain in the light of the true teaching of his word in reference to the final disposition of the incorrigibly wicked. It will prepare the way for the investigation and readjustment of views upon other great Bible doctrines, over which, throughout almost all Christendom, the fog of the Dark Ages still hangs, dense and heavy. If we rightly apprehend the situation, the Sabbath question is to cause the next great upheaval in the theological world. The doctrine that the seventh day is the Sabbath, than which there is no doctrine more clear and beautifully simple in all the Bible, is destined to agitate this country to as great an extent as any other question within the past century. We hail the approach of the hour when it shall assert its claims with power, and the world shall learn that if they defend the wrong at all, it must be with other weapons than are found in the word of God.