Eternal Torment by Uriah Smith

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 12, 1862

Eternal Torment.

By Uriah Smith

So revolting is the doctrine of everlasting torment to every sentiment of humanity, as well as to an enlightened reason, that it is no wonder that eminent men have been constrained at times to bear such testimony as the following against the unscriptural and unnatural theory. Apart from the Bible testimony on the subject, the quotation from J. C. Calhoun furnishes an objection to the doctrine from which it will be utterly and forever unable to free itself. The following are a few of the utterances alike creditable to the heads and hearts of those who made them. U. S.

JEREMY BENTHAM.

"The dreadful dogma is not to be found in Christianity. It is the most vain, most pernicious, most groundless conceit."

HON. J. C. CALHOUN.

"It is a sufficient refutation of the doctrine of endless punishment that it is incomprehensible. For a righteous law-giver would never ordain a penalty which his people could not understand."

REV. JOHN FOSTER.

"Hopeless misery—I acknowledge my inability to admit this belief, together with a belief in the divine goodness."

REV. P. W. CLAYDEN.

"The dogma was always repulsive to my matured reason. Against that miserable dogma every Christian heart feels some revolt, and where theological notions will not let it be confessed, there is often in reserve a kind of secret hope that in some way God's infinite mercy and wisdom will find a way of escape from the terrible anomaly of a scene of eternal torment existing in the empire of the God of love."

DR. DWIGHT.

"This subject (endless misery) is immeasurably awful, and beyond all others affecting. Few persons can behold it in clear vision with a steady eye."

SAURIN.

"I sink under the awful weight of my subject. It renders society tiresome, pleasure disgustful, nourishment insipid, and life itself a cruel bitter!"

THOMAS DICK, LL. D.

"When I consider the boundless nature of eternity, when I consider the limited duration of man, I can scarcely bring myself to believe that the sins of a few brief years are to be punished throughout a duration that has no end."