EXTRACTS | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 26, 1858

EXTRACTS.

Bro. Smith: The following extracts I found pasted in the back side of brother Ingram's Bible. And as we think them of worth to the readers of the REVIEW, especially to preachers, we send them to you.

NOTE.—The 200 texts for destruction, referred to in note on page first, are such as the following:

Die and death, 50 texts, see, as a sample, Eze. xviii, 20; Rom. vi, 23; Be destroyed, 40 texts; Ps. xcii, 7; 2 Pet. ii, 12; Perish, 30 texts, 2 Pet. ii, 12; Perdition, 8 texts, 2 Pet. iii, 7; Be consumed, 6 texts, Ps. xxxvii, 20; Be devoured, 2 texts, Heb. x, 27; Be slain, 8 texts, Luke xix, 27; Be blotted out, 4 texts, Ps. lxix, 28; Rev. iii, 5; Be hewn down, twice, Matt. iii, 10; Lose life, 8 texts, John xii, 25; iii, 36; Come to an end, 5 texts, Heb. vi, 8; Not be, 5 texts, Ps. xxxvii, 10; Obad. xvi; Be cut off, 5 texts, Ps. xxxvii, 9; Ground to powder, 2 texts, Luke xx, 18; Be torn in pieces, Ps. i, 22; Be as nothing, 3 texts, Isa. xli, 11, 12; Burned, and burned up, 9 texts, Mal. iv, 1; Matt. iii, 12. But it is a sad fact that our divines make death mean life in misery; life to mean happiness; to lose life is to have existence in woe; to burn up means to make a living salamander; to destroy is to preserve whole; to devour, perish, consume, &c., means to make indestructible, and immortal—not to be, to be without end!

All the two hundred texts are quoted in my work DEATH NOT LIFE; also, all for endless woe, which are all proved to be figurative, symbolic, or in parables; so no plain text for the doctrine exists. It came from the heathen, and is now making infidels and atheists, as well as Universalists, and is a horrible slander of our God.

The wicked are never said to be immortal in the Bible, but just the reverse. See Job. iv, 17; Rom. ii, 7; 1 Tim. vi, 16. The texts for destruction overwhelm both those for misery and for restoration. There is no immortality out of Christ. He is now the only "Tree of Life." The creeds, as to punishment, teach Satan's doctrine—"Thou shalt not surely die." Divines in the nineteenth century do not know the meaning of death; a false education has thrown a veil over their minds.

The doctrine of destruction has only been examined partially, except by a few in past ages, who found it true, and about one hundred ministers, and some thousands of members, who have of late adopted it in the United States and England. It must yet become the doctrine of the churches, or they go into Universalism, which the greater mass of the impenitent now believe, while multitudes are skeptical or infidel—eternal torment has driven them there, and they can only be reclaimed by teaching them a more reasonable, and yet a Bible penalty.