Download Free Proof Texts Of Endless Punishment Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Proof Texts Of Endless Punishment and write the review.

FROM THE PREFACE. THE object of this work is to assist the reader to a correct understanding of those controverted passages which are supposed to teach the doctrine of endless punishment. We have given the Bible a thorough examination, and are convinced that this doctrine finds no support in the sacred pages. It is of human origin. The best heathen writers admit that this doctrine was INVENTED to frighten those who could not be restrained from vice by the punishments of this life! It was regarded by the heathen, as it now is by some professing Christians, as the most efficient motive to deter men from sin. Cicero, in his seventh oration, p. 207, says that "It was on this account that the ancients INVENTED those infernal punishments of the dead, to keep the wicked under some awe in this life, who without them, would have no dread of death itself." Polybius, who was a celebrated Greek historian, speaking upon this subject, says: "Since the multitude is ever fickle and capricious, full of lawless passions and irrational and violent resentments, there no way left to keep them in order, but by the terrors of future punishment, and all the pompous circumstances that attend such kind of FICTION! On which account the ancients acted, in my opinion, with great judgment and penetration, when they CONTRIVED to bring those notions of the gods and a future state, into the popular belief." Strabo, who was a Greek geographer and eminent philosopher, says: "It is impossible to govern women and the gross body of the people, and to keep them pious, holy and virtuous, by the precepts of philosophy. This can only be done by the fear of the gods, which is raised and supported by ancient fictions and modern prodigies." And again, he says, that "The apparatus of the ancient mythologies was an engine which the legislators employed as bugbears to strike a terror into the childish imagination of the multitude." Seneca says: "Those things which make the infernal regions terrible, the darkness, the prison, the river of flaming fire, the judgment seat, etc., are alia FABLE, with which the poets amuse themselves, and by them agitate us with VAIN TERRORS! It is here admitted that the doctrine of endless punishment was an "invention" of the heathen, a "fiction" and a "bugbear" contrived to deter those people from sin, who could not be influenced by the rewards and punishments of this life. The doctrine of endless punishment, then, being of purely heathen origin, has no claims upon our regard, any more than idolatry, and the belief of the ancient Jews in the transmigration of souls! It forms no part of divine revelation, and we reject it, because it is a pure fiction of the imagination.
Excerpt from Proof-Texts of Endless Punishment: Examined and Explained The object of this work is to assist the reader to a correct understanding of those controverted pas sages which are supposed to teach the doctrine of endless punishment. We have given the Bible a thorough examination, and are convinced that this doctrine finds no support in the sacred pages. It is of human origin. The best heathen writers admit that this doctrine was invented to frighten those who could not be restrained from vice by the punishments of this life! It was regarded by the heathen, as it now is by some professing Christians, as the most efficient motive to deter men from sin. Cicero, in his seventh oration, p. 207, says that It was on this account that the ancients invented those infernal punishments of the dead, to keep the wicked under some awe in this life, who without them, would have no dread of death itself. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Most evangelical Christians believe that those people who are not saved before they die will be punished in hell forever. But is this what the Bible truly teaches? Do Christians need to rethink their understanding of hell? In the late twentieth century, a growing number of evangelical theologians, biblical scholars, and philosophers began to reject the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment in hell in favor of a minority theological perspective called conditional immortality. This view contends that the unsaved are resurrected to face divine judgment, just as Christians have always believed, but due to the fact that immortality is only given to those who are in Christ, the unsaved do not exist forever in hell. Instead, they face the punishment of the "second death"--an end to their conscious existence. This volume brings together excerpts from a variety of well-respected evangelical thinkers, including John Stott, John Wenham, and E. Earl Ellis, as they articulate the biblical, theological, and philosophical arguments for conditionalism. These readings will give thoughtful Christians strong evidence that there are indeed compelling reasons for rethinking hell.
Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.