Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Adam Clarke
XXXIII.—HELL.
HELL was made only for the devil and his angels, not for man: man is
an intruder into it; no human spirit shall ever be found there, but through
its own fault. He who refuses the only means of salvation is lost. God
willeth not his death.
Every sinner earns everlasting perdition by long, sore, and painful
service. O what pains do men take to get to hell! Early and late they toil
at sin; and would not divine justice be in their debt, if it did not pay them
their due wages?
Men may quibble and trifle here, but their desperate criticisms will not
be urged there. There is no injustice in hell, more than there is in heaven.
He who does not deserve it shall never fall into the bitter pains of eternal
death.
The utmost power of human nature could not, for a moment, endure
the wrath of God, the deathless worm, and the unquenchable fire. The
body must die, be decomposed, and be built upon indestructible
principles, before this punishment can be borne.
Could it be even supposed that moral purgation could be effected by
penal sufferings, which is already proved to be absurd, we have no
evidence of any such place as purgatory, in which this purgation can be
effected: it is a mere fable, either collected from spurious and apocryphal
writings, canonized by superstition and ignorance; or it is the offspring
of the deliriums of pious visionaries, early converts from heathenism,
from which they imported this part of their creed. There is not one text of
Scripture, legitimately interpreted, that gives the least countenance to a
doctrine, as dangerous to the souls of men as it has been gainful to its
inventors: so that, if such purgation were possible, the place where it is