p. 64 | A Painful Revelation

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 19, 1864

A Painful Revelation.

THE unscriptural doctrine of the eternal conscious suffering of the wicked has been a source of trouble and perplexity to many minds. We gather from an exchange the following respecting Dr. Cumming:

"IN his excellent work, 'The last of the Patriarchs,' Dr. Cumming gives vent to his feelings in relation to the sufferings of the lost. The second chapter, page 41, relates to the laws of God, and the obedience of Joseph to the law under temptation. He then speaks of the holiness of the law and its terrible penalty to the transgressor, and adds: 'The only part of the Bible that ever perplexes me—about which, however, we may rest satisfied that what we know not now, we shall know hereafter—is that which tells us that there is one nook in this grand universe where there shall be the wail of ceaseless sufferings, and the poison of irremediable sin. That is the most painful revelation in all God's word. One could wish, in our present unenlightened state, that it were not so.'

How much better to have a theory which by taking God as he says, and the Bible as it reads, avoids all these painful features, and gives us a consistent ground of faith to stand upon now, and a clean universe in the future.