God and keep His commandments. The book of Ecclesiastes is inspired, but has to be understood from its proper standpoint. It is not proper to quote it in any other way.

The principles here referred to are but some of those that are often either not thought of or ignored, but which are absolutely necessary to a true understanding of God's Word.

IV

SOME INSURMOUNTABLE DIFFICULTIES

THERE are insurmountable difficulties that stand in the way of faith in the doctrine of endless punishment. Is is a fact that, altho its acceptance is accounted by many one of the tests of orthodoxy, it is emphasized at the present day by only a very few. If it really is true, it should be proclaimed by every one; in fact, there should never be any sermon preached without making this doctrine a part of it. Its advocates will admit that there are even whole books in the Bible that contain no mention of it. When we remember

that many of these books were issued separately at first, and that a community might have only one or two of them, and in them there would be no clear statement of the utter and forever hopelessness of any one dying out of Christ,—this certainly seems surpassingly strange.

If this doctrine were really true, as it is profest, every believer ought to give up all the ordinary pursuits of life, even the necessary ones, and spend his whole time in warning the impenitent; that is what would be done if a fire that threatened every one were to break out in our city or country; but this alarm is rarely, if ever, shown

by believers who are in their right minds. The fact is that, altho it is profest by most Christians, it is not believed by them with any conviction or they would act differently. Edwards and Finney did not think that eternal punishment was rightly proclaimed in a community unless some went insane. Indeed, if it were realized in all its horrors and suffering it would make of our religion a hideous nightmare. Most Christians would be victims of melancholia, and the whole world would become either demented or atheistic.

We fear any doctrine that does not commend itself "to every man's conscience in the sight of God," for such a conscience quickened and illumined by the Holy Spirit is the highest light that man has; and if any so-called truth of God does not commend itself to this kind of conscience, something is the matter with it. Most preachers and teachers who proclaim the doctrine of eternal punishment say again and again, "We wish this were not so," or, "We would change this, if wę could." They are by such remarks witnessing to the fact that they do not have the full backing of their own conscience, and unconsciously they are criticizing God's government and character. (See Chapter on Conscience Must Be Satisfied.)

Dr. Albert Barnes, the noted preacher and commentator, thus expresses himself:

"That the immortal mind should be allowed to jeopardize its infinite welfare; and that trifles should be allowed to draw it

away from God and virtue and heaven; that any should suffer forever, lingering on in hopeless despair, and rolling amidst infinite torments without the possibility of alleviation and without end; that since God can save men, and will save a part He has not purposed to save all; that on the supposition that the atonement is ample, and that the blood of Christ can cleanse from all and every sin, it is not in fact applied to all. That, in a word, a God who claims to be worthy of the confidence of the universe, and to be a Being of infinite benevolence, should make such a world as this, full of sinners and sufferers; and that when an atonement had been made, He did not save all the race, and put an end to sin and woe forever.

“These and kindred difficulties meet the mind when we think on this great subject; and they meet us when we endeavor to urge our fellow sinners to be reconciled to God, and to put confidence in Him. On this ground they hesitate. These are real, not imaginary difficulties. They are probably felt by every mind that ever reflected on the subject; and they are unexplained, unmitigated, unremoved. I confess, for one, that I feel them, and feel them more sensibly and powerfully the more I look at them and the longer I live. I do not understand these facts; and I make no advance toward understanding them. I do not know that I have a ray of light on this subject which I had not when the subject first flashed across my soul. I have read, to some extent, what wise and good men have written. I have looked at their theories and explanations. I have endeavored to weigh their arguments, for my whole soul pants for light and relief on these questions. But I get neither; and in the distress and anguish of my own spirit I confess that I see no light whatever. I see not one ray to disclose to me the reason why sin came into the world, why the earth is strewed with the dying and the dead, and why a man must suffer to all eternity.

“I have never seen a particle of light thrown on these subjects that has given a moment's ease to my tortured mind; nor have I an explanation to offer, or a thought to suggest which would be of relief to you. I trust other men-as they profess to do-understand this better than I do; and that they have not the anguish of spirit which I have: but I confess when I

look on a world of sinners and of sufferers; upon death-beds and graveyards; upon the world of woe, filled with hosts to suffer for ever; when I see my friends, my parents, my family, my people, my fellow citizens; when I look upon a whole race, all involved in this sin and danger; and when I see the great mass of them wholly unconcerned; and when I feel that God only can save them, and yet He does not do it, I am struck dumb. It is all dark, dark, dark, to my soul, and I can not disguise it." (Barnes' Practical Sermons, pp. 123-125).

We could multiply examples, but this will suffice to witness to the recoil of even those who are spiritual from the so-called orthodox doctrine of eternal punishment.

The doctrine of the eternal torments of the wicked blots. out a God of love from His world. One preached upon the theme: "The End of the Wicked Contemplated by the Righteous; or The Torments of the Wicked in Hell, no Occasion of Grief to the Saints in Heaven." Only a pitiless logic that, practically blotted out a God of love, and effaced the love of God from the hearts of believers, could establish such a theme. In fact, we find this one of the points of that noted sermon by this great preacher. We quote from this sermon:

"The sufferings of the damned will be no occasion of grief to the heavenly inhabitants and they will have no love nor pity to the damned as such. It will be no argument of want of a spirit of love in them, that they do not love the damned; for the heavenly inhabitants will know that it is not fit that they should love them, because they will know then that God has no love to them, nor pity for them; but that they are the objects of God's eternal hatred However the saints in heaven may have loved the damned while here, especially those