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The Fundamentals worm and the unquenchable fire. Besides, if the Divine chas tisements are ineffectual here in the case of any individual, when there is so much to restrain men and women from wrong-doing, how can they be expected to prove effectual in the next world, with all these restraints removed, and only the society of devils ? It is certainly somewhat illogical for those who make so much of the love of God to argue that punish ment will prove remedial hereafter in the case of those whom Divine Love has failed to influence here. Not only is there not the slightest hint in the teaching of our Lord that future punishment will prove remedial or corrective, but His words concerning Judas in Matt. 26:24 are inexplicable on that sup position. Surely His existence would still have been a bles sing if his punishment was to be followed by ultimate restora tion, and Christ would therefore never have uttered the sadly solemn words: “It had been good for that man if he had not been born.” Similarly there is a striking and significant con trast between our Lord’s words to the unbelieving Jews recorded in John 8 :21: “Whither I go ye cannot come,” and those to Peter in chapter 13:36: “Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt follow Me afterwards.” As character tends to permanence, heaven is a place of perfect holiness and hell must be of the opposite; and this throws light upon the words of Rev. 22:11, which were ap parently uttered by our ascended, glorified, and returning Lord: ( “He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still; anavjie that is filthy, let him be made filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him do righteousness still; and he that is holy, let him be made holy still ’J The doctrine of universal restoration springs from a natural desire to wish the history of mankind to have a happy ending, as in most story books; but it ignores the fact that, by granting man free will, God has (as it were) set a boundary to His own omnipotence, for it is a moral impossibility to save a man
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