WHAT HELPED ME OUT OF DEPRESSION

[Rodger Tutt]

#176 – LETTER OF RESOLUTION – clergyman George Rust

“To imagine that man, for his disposition, be kept in a never-to-be-ended doom of intolerable pain and anguish of body and mind, is to fix so harsh a note upon the mercy and equity of the Righteous Judge of all the world, that the same temper in a man we would execrate and abominate.”

[Rodger Tutt]

#177 – IN A LETTER FROM WILLIAM DUNCOMBE TO REV. SAMUEL SAY

“Vindictive justice, in the Deity, is, I own, no article in my creed. All punishment in the hands of an infinitely wise and good Being, I think, must be medicinal, and what we call chastisement.”

[Rodger Tutt]

#178 – POEM by Soame Jenyns (eighteenth century)

“Oh could mankind but make this truth their guide
And force the helm from prejudice and pride,
Were once these maxims fixed, that God’s our friend,
Virtue our good, and happiness our end.

How soon must reason o’er the world prevail,
And error, fraud and superstition fail!
None would hereafter, then, with groundless fear,
Describe the Almighty cruel and severe

Predestinating some without pretense
To Heav’n, and some to hell for no offense;
Inflicting endless pains for transient crimes,
And fav’ring sects, or nations, men or climbs.

None would fierce zeal for piety mistake,
Or malice for whatever tenets sake,
Or think salvation to a few confined
And heav’n too narrow to contain mankind!”

[Rodger Tutt]

#179 – DYER’S LIFE OF ROBINSON (eighteenth century)
In a letter to a friend, Robert Robinson wrote

“These believers in eternal torment are never shocked; they never blush; but affirm, ‘This is wise and just, and kind; and it will be more glorious to God to save me, and d**n them to endless and unavoidable woe, than it would be to share eternal life amongst us, and we few, though we hate one another here, shall be the happier for the d**nation of the rest.’

Barbarians! What arrogant madness inspires you?
Poor * honies! -- servants that know not what their Lord doth.
O my soul, to such be not thou united.
Cursed be their anger, for it is cruel.”

* (definition of “honies” – “the common man without proper revelation”)

[Rodger Tutt]

#180 – SERMONS by George Walker (eighteenth century)

“Some have thought that they could not clothe the future punishment of sin with sufficient terrors, and have given therefore, such exaggerated descriptions of them, both as to degree and duration, as in the opinion of many, can no way be reconciled with just sentiments of God.

The future punishment of the wicked does, in God’s nature, suppose a capacity to be relieved of it, of gradually acquiring that better state of mind, and returning inclination towards virtue, which is the first and most desirable end of all punishment.”

[Rodger Tutt]

#181 – From a letter by John Henderson to Dr. Joseph Priestly (eighteenth century)

“God hath declared that His will is that all should be saved; therefore, the doctrine which forges a contrary will, falsifies supreme unchangeable truth.

Unceasing torments can answer no possible good to anyone in the universe. I conclude them to be neither the will or work of God. Could I suppose them, I must believe them to be inflicted by a wantonness or cruelty which words cannot express, nor heart conceive.
But let this be the comfort of every humble soul, that it hath pleased God to reconcile all things to Himself.”

[Rodger Tutt]

#182 – LITERARY HOURS – Dr. Nathan Drake

“That sin and torture should be eternal can neither accord with the justice nor the goodness of Deity, and would appear to many devout Christians to convert the God they should adore and love, into a perfect demon. Fortunately, however, an opinion so repulsive is neither accordant with reason, nor the Scriptures.”

[Rodger Tutt]

#183 – MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND THOUGHTS – William Matthews

“In my childhood I found it impossible to fix my belief in the common notion of endless torments. I discovered there are plain arguments from reason and Scripture against that presumptuous doctrine of endless punishment, and I am now cheered with the rational, Scriptural, and as I think, glorious doctrine of the punishment of Divine justice being eventually subservient to a universal purification and fitness for heavenly habitations.”

[Rodger Tutt]

#184 – CHRIST GLORIFIED IN THE SALVATION AND RESTORATION OF ALL MANKIND – Francis Leicester

“But the Scripture which crowns all, and the last which I shall bring into proof, is Revelation 5:13. Here all creation is at Christ’s feet, and that not with tears in their eyes, or petitions in their hands, not with crying or supplications or weeping because things were hidden and kept secret; but with joy in their hearts, and praises in their mouths; with melody on their lips, and hallelujahs on their tongues; with looks and countenances full of satisfaction and delight; and their faces, instead of gathering blackness, turning into paleness, or being covered with shame and confusion (as once was the case with some of them) they all now shine as the sun, replete with light, life and love, full of ecstasy and rapture. And that because the book written within and on the backside, and sealed with seven seals, is now opened and unsealed, and all things revealed and explained: their own cases particularly unfolded to their view, with all the ways and means their loving Saviour took to bring them to the situation they are now in, with other miracles of grace and love.

Where then there is universal praise and thanksgiving, universal harmony and love, and both heaven and earth sounding and resounding acclamations of joy and peace, there must be universal salvation.”

[Rodger Tutt]

#185 – Anna Letitia Barbuald, widow of Rev. Rochemont Barbuald wrote
“Rochemont’s favorite doctrine was the final salvation of all the human race. He preached many sermons on this doctrine, which he defended both in the pulpit and in conversation with zeal and enthusiasm, which his congregation and his friends cannot but well remember.”

Anna further commented, “I think it would be desirable to separate from religion that idea of gloom, which in this country (England) has but too generally accompanied it.
No one who embraces the common idea of future endless torments, that sins committed against an infinite Being do therefore deserve infinite punishment, no one, I will venture to assert, can believe such tenants, and have them often in his thoughts, and yet be cheerful.

Surely this age (the eighteenth century) which has demolished dungeons, rejected torture, and given so fair a prospect of abolishing the iniquity of the slave trade, cannot long retain among its articles of belief, the gloomy perplexities of Calvinism, and the heart-withering perspective of cruel and never-ending punishments.”

[Rodger Tutt]

#186 – AN ESSAY ON UNIVERSAL REDEMPTION; TENDING TO PROVE THAT THE GENERAL SENSE OF SCRIPTURE FAVORS THE OPINION OF THE FINAL SALVATION OF ALL MANKIND. – Rev. John Brown (eighteenth century)

In UNIVERSALIST MISCELLANY, commenting on that work, William Vidler wrote,
“He considers the genuine import of the words and phrases which are thought to prove the endless duration of punishment, which he contends do not necessarily bear that sense, and he touches upon the usual topics of argument by which universalism has been defended.”

[Rodger Tutt]

#187 – CONVERSATIONS ON THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT – Theophilus Lindsey

“The doctrine of eternal torments is a millstone that Christians hang around the neck of the Gospel. The words translated ‘eternal,’ ‘everlasting,’ ‘forever,’ and the like, generally signify limited periods of duration.

Everything is from God, and for the good of all. All things, good as well as what we call evil, are appointed by Infinite Wisdom and Benevolence, for the wisest and most gracious purposes for everyone.”

[Rodger Tutt]

#188 – About Dr. Joseph Priestly, Thomas Whittimore writes in THE MODERN HISTORY OF UNIVERSALISM

“He believed that God’s punishment will not be administered with the slightest tincture of revenge, but as a necessary means of qualifying the sinner for a better state of existence, which his present propensities disqualify him from enjoying. It is not the effect of anger in an irritated and avenging tyrant as the abominable tenets of orthodoxy would induce us to think of the Deity, but it is the medicine administered for our good by the Physician of our souls. Nor have we any reason to believe that it is greater in degree, or longer in duration than is necessary to produce the beneficial effect for which it is inflicted.

It was a constant source of great consolation to him that all things exist and move on harmoniously to produce universal good by Divine appointment and direction.”

[Rodger Tutt]

#189 – In an introduction to his translation of the New Testament, Nathaniel Scarlett wrote

“It has been a means of propagating the doctrine of endless d**nation, which states that God will kindle a fire, and so constantly supply it with combustible matter, brimstone, by His all creating power, as to endure as long as He Himself shall exist; and that the subjects of future punishment, being raised incorruptible and indissoluble, shall for the same period endure burning in the lake of fire, God having no end in view but the endless misery of His creatures.

The editor hopes the translation he has given will help to remove so degrading an idea of God, Who is love; and although He will afflict the wicked in the lake of fire and brimstone; yet He has a great and grand design in so doing – punishment being a means to accomplish an end, and not the end itself.”

EDITOR’S NOTE:
Fourteen other literally (not interpretively) translated Bibles that reveal what God will do with the sinners in Matthew 25:46
Concordant Literal, Young’s literal, Wilson’s Emphatic Diaglott, Rotherham’s Emphasized, Nathaniel Scarlett’s, J.W. Hanson’s New Covenant, Twentieth Century, Ferrar Fenton, The Western New Testament, Weymouth’s (unedited), Clementson’s, The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Anointed, The Restoration of Original Sacred Name Bible, Bullinger’s Companion Bible margins, Jonathan Mitchell’s translation (2010).

[Rodger Tutt]

#190 – In a letter to a friend, James Edmands (nineteenth century) wrote

“The death of Christ ensured the restoration of all as a result. Men are now in the hands of a Mediator, Who deals with them as rational and accountable beings, and afflicts, whether here or hereafter, only in order to bring them to a deep sense of their own folly, and then restores them to His favor. Those who love and believe in Him in this life, are the first fruits, and those who do not will be the harvest or ingathering.”