655 / 674
DISC.
XIII.)
THE
PUNISHMENTS
IN
HELL.
635
surrection should
bring
them to heaven
:
And
the most
wicked
among mankind went
also
to Hades,
or
this
state
of
the dead,
under
a long and fearful
expectation
of
the
final
punishments
of
hell
:
But
that great multitudes
who were
of
an
indifferent character, and
who
were
not
so
bad
but
they might
be
reclaimed,
had
another sort
of
trial
in Hades, whither, they
say,
our Lord Jesùs
Christ at
his
death
descended and preached the gospel
to
them,
and
many
of
them were recovered, and shall be
hereafter
raised
to
eternal
life.
The
chief
scripture
whence they borrow
this,
is
1
Pet.
iii.
19,
20:
of
which
we have
spoken before
;.
and
that at
the
great
day
of
judgment
the incorrigible sinners should
be
sent
with
the
devils into the
punishment
of
fire, which,
though
it
may
last
for
a
shorter or longer
time,
yet should destroy
both their
bodies and
their
souls
for
ever.
To
this
I an-
swer,
Answer
1.
If
this
had been
the
doctrine
of
many
an-
cient
christians, yet unless- they
could
bring
plainer
proofs
of
it
from the word
of
God, than
one difficult
and obscure
text
of
St.
Peter, there
is
no
great reason
for
us
to receive from them such traditions.
The
word
of
God
is
our
only
test
of truth,
and
our instructor
in
matters of
the
invisible world.
Ans.
2.
Though
there might
be
a
few
of
the early
writers
who
seemed to incline
to some
of
these
opinions; yet this
sense
is
drawn
out
from most of them
by
learned
men with
much
difficulty,
uncertainty, and conjecture
:
And
there
are
many
others
of
them
who
make the punishments
of
hell
as
durable
as
the writers
of later
ages
:
Nor
do they
mention or
allow
of
any
such sort
of
purgatory
for souls
of
an indifferent
character,
as
this objection
pretends.
Those
who will
look
into their
writings
will find
abundant
evidence,
that
most
of
them talk
of
eternal punishment
by
fire,
in the very words
and language
of
the
New
Testament, and
in
direct
opposition
to this
doctrine
of
temporal punishments
in hell.
I
shall cite
but
two
wri-
ters, one
of
which
is
the very
earliest
of
the fathers, an
acquaintance
of
St.
Paul,
and
that
is
Clemens the
Ro-
man, who in the eighth section
of
his
second epistle,
says
thus
:
"
Let
us
therefore
repent
whilst
we
are yet upon
the
earthfor
we
are
as clay
in the hand
of
the artificer.