GERRITT SMITH ON HELL by Editor

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 8, 1859

GERRITT SMITH ON HELL.

By Editor

THIS celebrated man has recently given to the world in a "discourse of reason," his opinion concerning an eternal hell. He speaks of the legitimate influence of this doctrine when sincerely believed. It is enough to make any mind that feels intensely upon the point insane. And the reason why its professed believers are not driven to despair and insanity, is that they do not sincerely believe that their kindred and friends are being plunged into endless burnings. Mr. Smith speaks as follows upon this subject:

"When, too, we are told that God has prepared an eternal hell—a place of endless and inconceivably exquisite torture, for a large share of his children, we are sure that this shocking picture finds no counterpart and no warrant in creation and Providence. These tell us of a father and not of a fiend; of love and not of hatred; of forgiveness, and not of revenge. These tell us that in all ages God has made 'his sun to rise on the evil and on the good,' and has sent his 'rain on the just and on the unjust;' and these bid us hope that in other worlds as well as in this, he will still be the Father and friend of men.

Eternal hell! Then must sin be an eternally disturbing force in the universe. For manifestly when sin shall have ceased, punishment will also.

Eternal hell! Yes and it is to be suffered by men of the loveliest character, provided they were not able to subscribe in this life to certain ecclesiastical interpretations of a book.

Putting people into an eternal hell! Why the worst of men would not thus serve their worst enemies. How much less would God! Orthodoxy makes God infinitely more malignant and cruel than are the most malignant and cruel men.

Eternal hell! No man does, and no man can believe it. It is untrue if only because human nature is incapable of believing it. Moreover, were such a belief possible it would be fatal. Let the American people wake up with it to-morrow, and none of them would go to their fields, and none to their shops, and none would care for their homes. All interest in the things of earth would be dead. The whole nation would be struck with paralysis, and frozen with horror. Even beginnings of such a belief are too much for the safety of the brain; and every step in that direction is a step towards the mad-house. The orthodox preacher of eternal hell, would himself go crazy did he believe his own preaching. Did he see his wife, or children, or friends, or neighbors in danger of falling into it, he would be overpowered by the sight. He saves his sanity only through his insincerity. To be sincere in his preaching he must first be insane.

The little influence of their religion on its professors is often wondered at. But why should it be? They do not believe their religion, and they cannot so long as an eternal hell is a part of it. Since their belief of this part is at the most but a dreamy and fancied one, there can hardly be a real, earnest and deeply influential belief of any part. Their conscious or unconscious distrust of the truth of this part necessarily begets a similar distrust of the truth of every part. The enormous draught at this point upon their staggering faith, cannot fail to cast in their view an air of unreality over the whole of their religion. Herein is the explanation of the fact that while an ignorant church is little better than a mass of superstition, a more enlightened one is little better than a mass of infidelity and hypocrisy. The members of the latter, required to believe in more than their credulity can swallow, do truly and deeply believe in nothing; and thus they are infidels. Moreover they are very great hypocrites, since they stoutly profess to believe it all.

Doubtless, one of their motives for this boundless profession of faith is to supply their conscious lack of it. They are something like Mrs. Stowe's Candace, who, to atone for her past lack of faith in the celebrated Bible apple, was now ready to eat apple, tree and all."

The tendency of eternal torment is well represented in the above, but while we should avoid the one extreme of an eternal hell, we should be careful to avoid the other and equally fatal one of a universal and unconditional forgiveness. Sin will certainly reap its wages—death!—Ed.