SELECTIONS by Thomas Vincent

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 13, 1858

SELECTIONS.

By Thomas Vincent

Eternity without Repentance.

[We present the following article from the pen of Thomas Vincent, as an illustration of the absurdity into which people are driven by the unscriptural yet popular doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and the unending conscious torment of the finally impenitent. Let it show also the horrid light in which this doctrine places the character and justice of the Great Jehovah. We ask the reader to put into one scale of the balance, the unlimited years of fiery torment which he will find enumerated below, and into the other the transactions of a fleeting life, of perhaps three-score years and ten, and see if he can behold therein any of that justice and judgment which are the habitation of God's throne—any of the attributes of a Being who styles himself a God of mercy and love; and who, though Justice demands and will alone be satisfied with, the death of the sinner, declares nevertheless, that he has no pleasure therein—Ed.]

THE punishment of the wicked will be eternal. Hell fire will be unquenchable. Mark ix, 34. Ev

erlasting. Matt. xxv, 41. The smoke of their torment will ascend up for ever and ever. Rev. xiv, 11. This eternity of punishment, will be a fearful aggravation of it; if you saw a malefactor torn to pieces, with wild horses, or thrown down in a fiery furnace and there burnt to ashes, you would say that either of these were dreadful punishments, though the pain possibly might not endure a quarter of an hour, for death concludes all bodily pains here. What then will it be to endure the torments of hell fire for ever? A small pain if it should last long would be very irksome; much more such racking pains by the stone, stranguary, gout, cholic and the like; if they should continue for a year or a month together, how miserable would they make life to be? Yes, if a man should hold but one of his fingers in the fire but for a day, it would afflict him more than all outward comforts could delight him. The torments of hell will not be in one part only, but in every part, not in a weaker degree, but in the greatest extremity; not for a day, or a month, or a year, but for ever; the wicked will be always dying, never dead; the pangs of death will be ever upon them, and yet they shall never give up the ghost; if they could die they would think themselves happy; they will always be roaring and never breathe out their last; always sinking and never come to the bottom; always burning in those flames, and never consumed; the eternity of hell will be the hell of hell. When our Saviour endured equivalent punishment to this of hell for his people, it had not this circumstance of eternity in it, there being not that need, because of the excellency of his person; in that though the pains of hell got hold on him, yet they could not keep him in hold; but he brake through them, and triumphed over them, and could say in the conclusion, It is finished; but the damned will not be able to break through their punishment; they will be compassed with it, and hedged in and shut down, and never be able to lift up the head; never shall they say of this punishment, it is finished, for their pains will always be as it were beginning. When they have spent the time of as many years in hell as there are stars in the firmament, sands on the sea shore, and motes in the sun, their torment will be as it were beginning, and no nearer a conclusion than the first day they were cast into that place. Who can express this eternity? When we launch forth our thoughts in the consideration thereof, we lose them quickly, it being such a deep which cannot be fathomed; such a vast ocean which cannot be measured; yet a little to extend your thoughts in the consideration of the eternity of the wicked's punishment, I shall by one or two suppositions illustrate something of the vastness thereof.

Suppose this globe of the earth on which we tread was hollow, that it were filled up with great folio books as full as it could hold; and moreover there were books heaped upon it to fill up the whole circumference of the air round about it; yea, that the whole space to the place of the utmost verge of the ethereal heavens were filled with books, and all this vast number of books were filled with figures in the highest degree of multiplication. O what a number of books would there be in the whole space! What a number of figures in these books! And what a vast number would there be deciphered by these figures? A bit of paper half as broad as a half-penny will hold the figures of the number of as many years as has been since the creation of the world. What then would a whole leaf of a great folio book hold? What then would a room full of folios hold? What would the world full of folios hold? Now if at the end of time, when the wicked go to hell, God should fill the whole space of the world full of folios, full of figures, of numbers, and tell the wicked that every thousand years one of these numbers should be subtracted, and promise them when all the numbers were subtracted out of all these books, they should have a release out of their torments; they would have a small spark of hope, that after the subtraction of so many millions, millions millions of innumerable numbers, in the revolution of so many millions, millions millions of innumerable years, yet at last there would be an end, there would be a time then set, and a wearing towards an end. Yea, if we could cast our thoughts so far on a supposition, that all this number of years, wherein all this number of years were subtracted, by one in a thousand years, were past and gone, yea, wherein they were all subtracted, as many thousand times as the numbers of the figures in all these books would amount to; yet even then the punishment of the damned would be as far from ending as at the very first beginning of them.

Yet if there were as many worlds, as the number of the books before supposed would arise unto, and these worlds continue as many years, as by this account there would be worlds; and all these worlds were filled with angels and men, and all these angels and men should be employed in nothing else from the beginning of these worlds unto the end of them, but in conceiving numbers of years from the uttermost conception which they could have of numbers; to us what an inconceivable number of years would there be conceived by so many angels and men, in so many years, in so many worlds? Yet if all the vast number of years were joined to the end of the time, wherein all the number of the figures of so many before mentioned books, were subtracted by one in a thousand years, and these multiplied as many thousand times as numbers were conceived; such a vast number of years would reach a great way, but they would not be so much as a hair's breadth in the measure of eternity; and if you would suppose the space of all these years too, to be spent by the damned in torments, even then their torments would be as far from a conclusion as they were upon their first entrance into hell! Oh eternity! eternity! How infinite and immeasurable! How horrid will the thoughts of eternity be unto the damned, to be punished so extremely, and that without any intermission or hopes of conclusion, to fall into such a horrible pit and fiery lake, and there burn for ever without any possibility of ever getting forth! Oh dreadful! Oh blind world! Oh sottish sinners! that take no more care now to avoid, and get deliverance from such a punishment as this which they are exposed unto, and will be the certain consequent of sin, without repentance.—T. Vincent.