The record-union., 1894-01-29
ETERNAL PUNISHMENT.
Rev. Mr.. Horner Has More to Say
on the Subject.
He Would Rather Sleep in He'll Than
Believe That Everlasting Means
Forever and Ever.

exercising reason as Gods highest gift to
man. says it ''is indeed the only faculty
we have wherewith to judge anything,
even revelation ITSELF"
Reason can and ought to judge, not
only Of the meaning. but also OF the
morality and the evidence OF revelation.
If, therefore, revelation, or the Bible, is
to have any appeal to reason, it must con-
form to the laws of reason. If any single
text or passage in it contradicts reason,
reason must have the preference.
The orthodox position, as held by my
critic last week, is that any doctrine up
held by the word of God is reasonable,
because the Word of God" must of
necessity be reasonable.
He did not say this in so many words,
but l must infer it from the statement:
''There is nothing horrible in the doc
trine which is upheld by the word Of
God to the Christian believer. Others
may fear it, and consider it horrible
but never the Christian" In other
words, a Christian, by virtue OF his
Christianity, becomes so hard-hearted that
the eternal punishment ofthe wicked, i. e.,
those who are not protesting Christians,
is dot only not horrible but perfectly
Calvin was not Christian, for he says,
it is a horrible decree, L confess: deere
tum Quiden horrible tatear''; and DR..
Shedd says it is dark and awful"
That the decree was reasonable these
men would not deny, because they
claimed that they found it in the Bible,
which is a confession that it must be
reasonable, because the Bible is Gods in
fallible word. But if the Bible is thus
reasonable it is reasonable to believe any
doctrine that can be supported by any
combination OF Scrlptural passages. 1t is
just as reasonable to believe that lever
lasting" means short time as unlimited
time, because the same word does un-
doubleday mean in many cases a short
period only. Citations are not necessary
here, as / gave them last Sunday. When
contradictions are thus found in the
Bible, does reason compel the most dark
and awful' Interpretation? If becoming
a Christian compels s1ch an interpreta-
ton, pray God l may never again claim
TO be Christian. Ii reason outside of
the Christian pale would not blaspheme
God by making Him the author of eternal
woe to the great majority OF the children
of men, and inside that pale does make
1t both reasonable and just Infinite pun
ishment for a finite decd, then God de-
liver me from Christianity. l would
rather make my bed III hell and curse
what is called infinite goodness" for
ever and ever, than lend my reason to
such system of thought for moment.
If Christianity thus transforms the
laws OF reason and separates the Bible
from the application of these laws, then
the doctrine of plenary inspiration be-
comes true, and one passage is as reason
able as another, and any combination of
texts is reasonable. Under the influence
of such doctrine who could say word
cnah jncanitU this. bI11HaG
went and hanged himself" $50 thou
and do likewisen'
Now l am going to say that my critic
of last week said nothing unreasonable
Judging by this standard, which is purely
orthodox, and l will say further that
Christianity cannot escape the insanity OF
such a position until it acknowledges
reason as higher revelation than the
Bible. There can be no compromise.
Either we must have reason for our au-
thority or something less reliable.
Luther was no slave to the system that
his followers have adopted. He went at
the Bible with rough hands. Esther, he
thought, had no right to place in it.
The Apocalypse he considered neither
apostolic nor prophetic, but classed it
with the Fourth Book of Esdras, which
he spoke of tossing into the Elbe. The
Epistle of James he called an ''epistle of
straw" Jude and Hebrews he regarded
with as little favor.
If Luther could be so free in his judg
ment of whole books, have not we a right
TO be equally free in using our reason in
regard TO single texts, especially when
they would seem to make the ''meek and
lowly" Jesus the author of such a damn
able doctrine as eternal punishment?
Now whether Jesus ever taught the
doctrine of eternal punishment or not is a
question that depends entirely upon in
depreciation. Christian scholars differ. l
believe that the spirit of Jesus, always
loving and forgiving, is against it. But
the laws of thought are more valuable to
me here than even the words of Jesus.
The basis Of theology, acknowledged
alike by both orthodox and heterodoX
thinkers, rests upon the three funda-
mental propositions OF the reason, namely,
that the unlimited, the absolute is good,
true, beautiful. Without goodness at the
heart of it the universe would be a fail
ure,, What is true of goodness is also true
of beauty. The universe is perfect, and
Derfection is but another name Tor beauty.
Goodness and truth are identical. The
moral element here comes into our
thought of the Infinite One. Truth, good
ness. beauty, as applied to God alone, are
absolute.
We may try to deny these propositions
and believe their contradictions but the
mind returns to them whenever it re-
turns to sanity.
The only fallacy that can disturb ones
faith here is when the part is taken to
represent the whole. Thus l was made
to say that vice and crime were not vice
because l affirm all TO be good; but the
part can never equal the whole, and may
nv itself be wholly bad. The universal
goodness displays itself in neutraliZing
the bad and driving the good out of 1t. A
picture may be perfectly beautiful as a
whole. but that beauty disappears in the
ANALYSIS of the parts. Because we believe
that eternal goodness rules that does not
saw we may recognize it at every step.
But it does say that infinite evil is a di-
rect contradiction of infinite goodness,
and hence is not possible to thought.
Finite evil admits of being transformed
by goodness, but infinite evil never. If
sin and suffering are infinite then our
fundamental proposition breaks down
and reason is but mockery.
In the presence of this thought of eter-
nal goodness sin and suffering have no
existence except as temporalitles, the
false logic of the creeds to the contrary
Notwithstanding.
The stability of life rests upon an in
st;nctive faith in these propositions of the
reason and always will. Any religion
whose teachings would destroy this
primitive faith of man is based upon a
limited and partial thought of God, and
r,ust mass away as surely as the mind OF
nan Is capable OF rejecting the perfect
thouoht of God. Ii Jesus believed in
eternal punishment he was not that per-
fact reflection of God that have believed
him to be.
Royal Milliner.
The Duchess of Bedford recently told a
nj.1s, NeedlewOrk Society in Mile End,