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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 8, 2013 9:01:10 GMT -5
FUNDAMENTALS OR BASIS OF BELIEF – Thomas Griffith
“We will get good out of evil. Our gracious Educator does evolve for us out of corruption, temptation and sin, new purposes, new skill, new triumphs.
Beyond the overruling of intermediate evil into subserviency to a higher good, what has been superinduced as a transition state of things is therefore seen to be necessary only for a time. It will pass away with the functions which it is made to fulfill. It will at last be superseded by the highest good for everyone.”
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 9, 2013 7:19:11 GMT -5
DOOMED TO BE SAVED – Frances Power Cobbe
“I think if we were not caught in the meshes of that wretched Augustinian scheme of theology which postulates eternal hell to compel us to accept it, -- I think, I say, if it were not for this theology, all Christendom must have long ago come to see, that, at the very least, God feels towards a sinner as a saint would do, and not as a man less good, or wise, or merciful.
We do not think man’s evil can, in the long run of the ages, finally outspeed God’s ever-pursuing mercy. He must overtake us sooner or later. We may temporarily choose evil rather than good, and vileness instead of nobleness, and be ungrateful and sinful. But God will get the better of us at last.”
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 10, 2013 8:36:43 GMT -5
This is a thrilling poem by Matthew Arnold, keeping in mind the following fact. Universalism was The Prevailing Doctrine Of The Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years www.tentmaker.org/books/Prevailing.htmlAs students of the history of Christian doctrine know, among believers in eternal torment, Tertullian was one of the most extreme. That is why I think this poem is so powerful. It sent a thrill up and down my spine. :-) “He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save!” So rang Tertullian’s sentence, on the side Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried, -- “Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave!” So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed, The infant church, of love she felt the tide Stream on her from her Lord’s yet recent grave, And then she smiled, and in the Catacombs, With eye suffused, but heart inspired true, On those walls subterranean, where she hid Her head in ignominy, death and tombs, She her Good Shepherd’s hasty image drew, And on His shoulders, not a lamb, a kid. 128
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 10, 2013 9:29:38 GMT -5
This is a thrilling poem by Matthew Arnold, keeping in mind the following fact. Universalism was The Prevailing Doctrine Of The Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years www.tentmaker.org/books/Prevailing.htmlAs students of the history of Christian doctrine know, among believers in eternal torment, Tertullian was one of the most extreme. That is why I think this poem is so powerful. It sent a thrill up and down my spine. :-) “He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save!” So rang Tertullian’s sentence, on the side Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried, -- “Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave!” So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed, The infant church, of love she felt the tide Stream on her from her Lord’s yet recent grave, And then she smiled, and in the Catacombs, With eye suffused, but heart inspired true, On those walls subterranean, where she hid Her head in ignominy, death and tombs, She her Good Shepherd’s hasty image drew, And on His shoulders, not a lamb, a kid. 128
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 12, 2013 9:21:03 GMT -5
A POEM BY A.G. CAMPBELL
I deem they greatly err, who hold That He Who made the human soul, Will not its destinies control For final good – but, wrathful, fold It in the shrouds of hopeless woe, Of deathless gloom, of quenchless fire, The creatures of His vengeful ire, Whence it can never ransom know.
So, in the world to come, His love Shall freely unto all abound; Even prisoners in the depths profound Shall see His kind face beam above Their dreary cells, and hear His voice, Unheeded once, in mercy call, -- “Turn, turn to Me and live!” and all Shall hear the summons and rejoice.
Lost men, lost angels, shall return, -- Satan himself be purified; Death shall be conquered in his pride, And hell’s fierce fires shall cease to burn. Then shall our God be All in all – His love bear universal sway; His love preserves all souls for aye, Nor shall the weakest fear a fall.
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 13, 2013 10:11:21 GMT -5
A SERMON ON UNIVERSALISM – Stopford A. Brooke
“That Christ should have descended to assume the nature of all men, only to cast them away as refuse to be burned, does so contradict His revelation that it is no wonder that the idea of everlasting d**nation should have destroyed men’s belief.
No, the earthly dead will move on, a mighty stream to mingle in the ocean of the righteousness of God, on that far off but certain day when God will be All in all.”
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 14, 2013 9:09:16 GMT -5
ENIGMAS OF LIFE, POSTSCRIPTUM – W.R. GREG
“Given a hell of torment and despair for millions of our friends and fellow men, can the good enjoy heaven except by becoming bad, -- miraculously changed and changed deplorably for the worst. In a word, putting on, along with the white garments of the redeemed, a coldness and hardness of heart? Does not this simple reflection suffice to disperse into thin air the current notions of a world of everlasting pain?”
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 17, 2013 8:37:09 GMT -5
THE SHAKING OF HEAVEN AND EARTH – Charles Kingsley
“We do not deny that the wages of sin is death. We do not deny the necessity and certainty of punishment. Only tell us not that it must be endless, and thereby destroy its whole purpose. We too believe in an eternal fire, but we believe its existence to be not a curse but a blessing. That fire is God Himself Who taketh away the sins of the world, and of Whom it is therefore written, ‘Our God is a consuming fire.”
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 18, 2013 7:53:51 GMT -5
POEM BY HELEN BRONTE
There lives within my heart, A hope long nursed by me; And should its cheering ray depart, How dark my soul would be.
That as in Adam all have died, In Christ shall all men live; And ever round His throne abide Eternal praise to give.
That even the wicked shall at last Be fitted for the skies; And when their dreadful doom is past To light and life arise.
I ask not how remote the day, Nor what the sinner’s woe, Before their dross is purged away; Enough for me to know,
That when the cup of wrath is drained, The metal purified, They’ll cling to what they once disdained And live by Him Who died.
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 19, 2013 7:58:01 GMT -5
DISPUTED POINTS – George Dawson
“Take the doctrine in which most of you were brought up – that every man who is not saved will go to hell, and that hell is a constant fire whereunto a man must be condemned forever.
I am told this is in the Scriptures. I can’t find it; but if it were there I would not believe it. I was told that it was so, and I have no doubt I said it was so. But now I disbelieve it. If this is backsliding, I will backslide.
Well, how came we ever to doubt this horrific doctrine? Not that any commentator with marvelous exegesis showed us that the text did not mean that; -- for I am but little interested in the quibble that the fire burns forever, but that the thing put into the fire burn only so long as it is capable of burning.
What has put hell fire out is a better understanding of God, and a fuller comprehension of the quality of God’s love. The love of God conquers the assertion of orthodoxy.”
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 20, 2013 8:28:51 GMT -5
YUSEF – J. Ross Browne
“Oh, ye who are wrapped in the selfishness of a single idea! – ye who bode eternal destruction to others! Look out upon the world and learn that there are millions of human hearts as sincere and devoted as yours, who perceive a divine power great and good and merciful enough to save all, even to the weakest and most benighted.”
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 21, 2013 8:26:55 GMT -5
BODY AND MIND – George Moore
“Every soul that is out of keeping with divine order must remain, in the license of a perverse will, forever vile, until restored to the dominion of truth by the attractiveness of light, and the miseries of darkness.”
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 23, 2013 7:46:01 GMT -5
CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE – J.S. Taylor
I cannot believe that any being will exist in any part of the universe, so steeped in guilt and anguish (no, not Satan himself), as to be beyond the redeeming love and healing power of the Creator.
Oh, no; on the contrary, I believe that in this mysterious, but divinely ordained conflict of good and evil, the powers of light are everywhere slowly but surely gaining the ascendancy over the powers of darkness, and that it will continue to be so, even unto the perfect day; yes, that perfect day, wherein all these blessed victories over sin and ignorance shall have been consummated, these transformations completed, and no solitary stain of folly, guilt, or grief, be left to mar the luster of the universe.”
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 24, 2013 7:34:12 GMT -5
CHILDHOOD OF THE WORLD – Edward Clodd
“You would think your father very hard and cruel if he loaded you with good things, and sent your brothers and sisters to some homeless spot to live uncared for and unloved. And yet that is exactly what some people say that God does. They have spoken of Him Who has given life to every man, woman and child as staying near only a few of His creatures, and leaving the rest to care for themselves.
Believe that He who is called our Father is better, more just, more loving, than the best fathers can be.”
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Post by rodgertutt on Oct 27, 2013 8:30:05 GMT -5
A BIBLE DICTIONARY – John R. Beard
“The word translated ‘everlasting’ or ‘eternal’ expresses time, and not eternity.
Punishment that does not end in reformation is vindictiveness, which cannot be ascribed to our Merciful Father.
How then has it come to pass that belief in eternal punishment took root in the Christian church?
Ancient doctors of the church, mislead by theoretical conclusions, declared that sin was an infinite transgression, to be atoned for only by an infinite expiation. The doctrine is the child of human reasoning.”
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