The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1878-01-17
are founded on interpretations demon
strably. groundless and, in the third

pldCC> tuap AOk of0ly vOu0 6O 2uOeCu bWN
can be adduced on the other side. Ther'
] was an old, sensible, admitted rule O.
theology that phrases which belong Il
4 metaphor, to imagery, to poetry, to emo
4 ton are not to be formulated into neces
sary dogmas or crystalized into rigid
! creeds: If this rule be used to test them
,knine-tenths of the phrases on which these
views are built fall utterly, to, the ground
4 But even were it otherwise, once more
in the name of Christian light and Chris.
| tian liberty; once more, in the name o1
ChTist's- promised Spirit, he protested
against the ignorant tyranny of isolated
texts. which had ever been the, curse ol
Christian truth, the glory of narrow in.
tellccts, and the cause of the worst errors
of.the worst days of the most corrupted
church. Ignorance had engraved texts
upon her sword, oppression had carved
them upon her pillars, cruelty had tied
texts upon her faggots, and ignorance,
again, had set knowledge at defiance with
texts: woven on. her flag. ),
tIf this awful doctrine. had to be de-
cided by texts, then the original Ian
kguage must be appealed to, and inter-
Epreted in its proper and historicalsignif-
cance.a; They would have to- be interpre-
ted not in that sense which makes them
convey thousand different notions
which did not originally belong to them.
Nov, / ask you" continued the preacher,
Iyvery .solemnly; "where, would beythe
popular teachings about hell five calm
| ly and deliberately erased from our Eng
lish Bibles the three words, 'Damnation,'
hell, and everlasting 2 Yet I say un-
hesitatingly-I say, claiming the fullest
right to speak with the authority of
knowledge 4 say, with the calmest and
most unfinching sense of responsibility
II say standing here in the sight of God
and ofmy Saviour, .and, it may be, of the
angels and the spirits of the !: dead-that
not one. of those words ought to stand
any longer in our English Bibles and
that being, in our present acceptation of
them, simply mistranslation they most
iunquestionably will not stand in the re-
5vised version of the Bible if the revisers
have understood their duty. 8 i'z'.'
|; After explaining the original meaning:
ofs The. words. he closed By saying that
finding, neither in Scripture nor any.
where, anything to prove that the fate Of
every man is at death irrevocably deter
mined, he shook off the hideous incubus
of atrocious conceptions attached:b by false
theology to the doctrine of final retribu-
,tion. But neither could he. speak dog
matically on the other side. He could
not preach the certainty of what was
called Uniyersalism-thatsa all will finally;
be sayed-though that doctrine did, in.
deed, derive much support from many
passages of Scripture, and had been held
by some Of the early Fathers. Neither
could he accept the spreading belief in
conditional Immortality. His belief was
fixed upon the living God, and his an
swer to the question, w hat is the fate of
dead sinners2i was, with: Thomas 5Ers-
kline, that we are. lost here as much as,
there, and that Christ came to seek and
to save the lost. His hope was that the
vast majority of the lost would at length
!, be found. 4Jiy.a ei.s., - 4. 24s =
If any hardened sinner, shamefnlly,
loving his sin and despising the long suf-,
fering Of his Saviour, triHed with that
doctrine, it was at his own deep and
awful peril; but to those longing and
anxious. souls who were, striving to creep
nearer to the light, he would say: Have
faith in God. There is hope for you
hope for You, even if death overtake you
before the final victory is won. aSayiyel
to the righteous that it shall be well with
him, for they shal1ieat the fruit of their
doings. Woe unto, the wicked; it shall
be i'll with him, for the reward of his
hand shall be given him." But say, also,
as Christ's own apostles said, that there
shall be q restitution of all things--that
God willeth not that any should perish
that Christ both died, and rose, and re-
yiged, that He might be the Lord both
of the dead and of the living-that as in
Adam. all die, even so in Christ shall all
be made alive; aud that the day shall
come when all things shall ba snbdued
unto! Him, that God may be all in all.
+ i. IL. - 4. .s, Z .