The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

IV. Physician Scott—Complete Destruction Awaits the Wicked

Periodically physicians entered the contest of pens and convictions. Another of these was JOSEPH NICOLL SCOTT, M.D. (1703?-1769), dissenting minister and theological writer of Norwich, England, where he ministered to large audiences at St. Mary-the-Lees, also attracting many members of the Church of England. But because of changing theological views, he turned to the study of medicine at Edinburgh, graduating in 1744, and becoming a practicing physician back in Norwich. ¹⁷ However, he never lost his interest in theology and was ever a strenuous opponent of the predominant doctrine of eternal torment. CFF2 230.3

In 1743, while still in the ministry, he published a series of sermons under the title Sermons, Preached in Defence of All Religions. These affirm his undeviating conviction on the “ultimate annihilation of the wicked,” thus anticipating by a few years the position of Samuel Bourn, likewise of Norwich. In volume two, in sermons seventeen and eighteen, he maintains that eternal life is for the righteous only, with complete, ultimate destruction for the wicked. Number seventeen is titled “The Vulgar-Opinion concerning the duration of Future Misery Examined.” ¹⁸ Here are typical extracts in the characteristically involved phrasing of the day: CFF2 230.4

1. DESTRUCTION, NOT “NEVER-CEASING MISERY,” FOR WICKED

“Had the Scriptures ever directly denied, that the reprobate shall die, or be burnt, as it is affirmed in Scripture they shall; had it said in our modern style, that they shall be ever dying, and yet never die, or could one single passage be produced, in which the ideas of immortality, incorruptibility, indissolubility, were applied to them; or had it ever compared them to such substances (if there be any such) that will, without diminution, bear the force of an unquenchable fire, and not compared them to so much chaff, which must, without a continued miracle, be burnt up and destroyed by it, there might have been some colour of argument, and it might have been inferred, that, though a never-ceasing misery is not expressed in so many words, it is still, from the Scripture phraseology, necessarily implied.” ¹⁹ CFF2 231.1

2. PERPETUAL TORMENT DOGMA CONFLICTS WITH SCRIPTURE

“But when the contrary of all this is true, when it is affirmed, that they shall die, they shall reap corruption, they shall be burnt up, and our God is declared, with reference to this very affair, to be not a perpetually-tormenting, but a consuming fire; and when the ideas of life, immortality, incorruptibility, indissolubility, are constantly restrained to the good and virtuous part of mankind, as their peculiar prerogative, will it not follow from hence, that to affirm the wicked to be continued for ever alive, though in a state of miserable sensation, is not only to affirm that which is not affirmed in Scripture, but which, in reality, contradicts it, and renders the Scripture-account of things inconsistent with itself?” ²⁰ CFF2 231.2

So men in the professions likewise testified publicly to the growing convictions of many in public life. The witness to Conditionalism was constantly augmented. CFF2 231.3