The advocates of endless misery pretend to very seriously object to the Bible doctrine of the destruction of the wicked because as they say it is licentious in its tendency? It is no uncommon thing to hear the most pious of them say, “Well, if I believed that, I would drink, play cards, steal, and do just as I please.” Such persons do not realize what they say when their blind prejudice leads them to make such remarks. If this objection is true, we will find upon examination, that all the villains, liars, thieves, burglars, counterfeiters, murderers, &c., are destructionists in faith; and that all holy, upright, and good men are the believers in endless misery. Are these the facts in the case? Far from it. A majority of all the leading criminals of the day are of the endless-misery school. Inspect the penitentiaries; and you will find that a nine-tenth's majority, are firm believers in the endless-misery school, and not a few of them have been preachers. The author of the History of Windsor Prison, Vt., says, “I have known as many as five hundred while they were in confinement, and I have always made it a practice to learn the religious opinions of all with whom I have conversed, and what I am going to write may be depended on as the actual result of my personal inquiries. Those whom I have known have been educated in the doctrines of the endless-punishment school, and but few have departed from these doctrines. I have known only two Atheists, not one Deist, and but one Universalist. The doctrine of endless punishment is, strongly and broadly speaking, the orthodoxy of State prisoners. I am confident of the truth of this statement; and I make it not by way of slur or insinuation, against any sect of Christians, but as a fact which all denominations may use as they may have occasion. Very many of the convicts have been members of churches, and a few of them have been preachers.”
The above is a faithful record of facts which shows that the licentiousness is on the side of endless misery. If this awfully horrid doctrine be so sanctifying in its effects upon the human heart, why should not its believers be more holy and less conformed to the world? If its tendency is to restrain men from sin, why should the Catholics who believe it so firmly, have butchered, burned, and persecuted to death, nearly one hundred millions of God's dear saints? Why did it not restrain John Calvin, another faithful believer of it, and the father of the Presbyterian church, from the awful, the black, deed which he committed in burning to death, poor Michael Servetus, an honest child of God, who was fleeing from papal persecution when he was caught by Calvin. Why did not this holy and sanctifying doctrine, restrain the Puritan fathers, the boasted sons of religious liberty, (who fled to America from persecution in England) from persecuting their Protestant brethren? From hanging Quakers, and whipping Baptists, merely for a difference of opinion? Facts show very clearly that wickedness, intolerance, sectarian bigotry, and persecution, have ever been on the side of endless misery.
Our conclusion is, therefore, that a belief of this unmerciful doctrine is not at all necessary to salvation, nor necessary to good morality. It is shown that it is degrading in its tendency and calculated in its effects upon the heart to blight and wither those kindlier feelings of humanity which God commands us to cultivate.
The man who serves God merely because he is afraid of endless misery yields a servile obedience which is not acceptable to him. He demands the heart, the affections: “My son give me thine heart.” “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,” &c. “The goodness of God [not endless misery] leadeth thee to repentance.” Endless misery has no place in the Christian system, nothing to do toward leading men to repentance. It belonged originally to the Pagans, and passed from them to the Popes and thence to the Protestants. It owes its origin not to God, but to the same source from which sprung the immortality of the soul, purgatory, Sunday, for the Sabbath, infant baptism, sprinkling, and pouring, good Friday, holy Thursday, and many other extravagant errors that have been imposed upon an illiterate people.
If the believer of this theory would but look at home and see the corruption of those of his own faith, he would not so hastily cry out, “Licentiousness,” to the believers of the Bible. And I am very sure that when the piety of the believers in destruction is compared with that of their opposers, the comparison will not be unfavorable to the former. B. F. SNOOK.