First Great Deception
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obedience, and not to be literally fulfilled. Thus the sinner can live in
selfish pleasure, disregarding the requirements of God, and yet expect
to be finally received into His favor. Such a doctrine, presuming upon
God’s mercy, but ignoring His justice, pleases the carnal heart and
emboldens the wicked in their iniquity.
To show how believers in universal salvation wrest the Scriptures
to sustain their soul-destroying dogmas, it is needful only to cite their
own utterances. At the funeral of an irreligious young man, who had
been killed instantly by an accident, a Universalist minister selected as
his text the Scripture statement concerning David: “He was comforted
concerning Amnon, seeing he was dead.”
2 Samuel 13:39
.
“I am frequently asked,” said the speaker, “what will be the fate of
those who leave the world in sin, die, perhaps, in a state of inebriation,
die with the scarlet stains of crime unwashed from their robes, or die
as this young man died, having never made a profession or enjoyed
an experience of religion. We are content with the Scriptures; their
answer shall solve the awful problem. Amnon was exceedingly sinful;
he was unrepentant, he was made drunk, and while drunk was killed.
David was a prophet of God; he must have known whether it would be
ill or well for Amnon in the world to come. What were the expressions
of his heart? ‘The soul of King David longed to go forth unto Absalom:
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for he was comforted concerning Amnon, seeing he was dead.’
Verse
39
.
“And what is the inference to be deduced from this language? Is it
not that endless suffering formed no part of his religious belief? So
we conceive; and here we discover a triumphant argument in support
of the more pleasing, more enlightened, more benevolent hypothesis
of ultimate universal purity and peace. He was comforted, seeing
his son was dead. And why so? Because by the eye of prophecy
he could look forward into the glorious future and see that son far
removed from all temptations, released from the bondage and purified
from the corruptions of sin, and after being made sufficiently holy
and enlightened, admitted to the assembly of ascended and rejoicing
spirits. His only comfort was that, in being removed from the present
state of sin and suffering, his beloved son had gone where the loftiest
breathings of the Holy Spirit would be shed upon his darkened soul,
where his mind would be unfolded to the wisdom of heaven and the