the reality and eternity of hell

                                                                                                                                                                        Vol. XXII, No. 4, April 2009 

          I feel constrained to speak freely to my readers on the subject of hell. Suffer me to use the opportunity, which the end of Lot's wife affords. I believe the time is come when it is a positive duty to speak plainly about the reality, and eternity of hell. A flood of false doctrine has lately broken in upon us. Men are beginning to tell us that God is too merciful to punish souls forever, that there is a love of God lower even than hell, and that all mankind, however wicked and ungodly some of them may be, will sooner or later be saved. We are invited to leave the old paths of apostolic Christianity. We are told that the views of our_.fathers about hell, and the devil, and punishment, are obsolete and old fashioned. We are to embrace what is called a “kinder theology" and treat hell as a pagan fable or a bugbear to frighten children and fools. Against such false teaching I desire, for one, to protest. Painful, sorrowful, distressing as the controversy may be, we must not blink it or refuse to look the subject in the face. I, for one, am resolved to maintain the old position, and to assert the realitv and eternity of hell.

          Anglican evangelical Bishop J. C. Ryle (1816-1900) from the essay "A Woman to be Remembered" in his book Holiness.