The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

IV. Elias Smith—Emphatically Rejects Popular Concept of Hell

White was quite different from ELIAS SMITH (1769-1846), of Connecticut, schoolteacher, then Baptist minister, and one of the founders of the Christian Connection (or Connexion). ¹¹ He was also editor of The Herald of Gospel Liberty, which he started in 1808, and continued until 1815. Smith strongly defended the view that immortality is God’s free gift, bestowed on the righteous only, through Christ at His second coming—the wicked utterly perishing at the time of the second death. Thousands of Smith’s followers in the Christian Connection likewise held to Conditional Immortality. This development is to be particularly noted, because it was no longer the belief of a single individual but of thousands in an entire communion. That was new in Conditionalist history. CFF2 291.3

1. REJECTS POPULAR CONCEPT OF ENDLESS HELL

Smith stressed the eschatological prophecies, the Second Advent, and the two resurrections—the second resurrection leading to the complete destruction of the wicked in the lake of fire at the end of the millennium. Then the new earth and the eternal kingdom of God are to be established. ¹² Smith emphatically rejected the popular Hell of “everlasting torment” professed by the majority of Christians. He contended, from many passages of Scripture, that the wicked will be completely destroyed, will perish, be devoured, burned up like chaff, and pass out of being. The wicked, both soul and body, will die, and live no more. This second death, Smith averred, is in contrast with, and in opposition to, eternal life. ¹³ CFF2 292.1

2. FIVE “HELLS” OF POPULAR BELIEF

Smith’s first book was The Doctrine of the Prince of Peace and His Servants, concerning the End of the Wicked ... proving that the Doctrines of the Universalists [Restoration] and Calvinists [Eternal Torment] are not the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and His Apostles (1805). A second book of Sermons concerned the “Prophecies to be accomplished from the Present time, until the New Heavens and Earth are created” (1808). In this latter work Smith enumerates the five “hells” of popular belief as: “1. The Pagan’s hell. 2. The Mahometan’s hell. 3. The Papist’s hell. 4. The Protestant’s hell. 5. The Scripture hell, or that which is mentioned in the Bible.” Under the latter head (Revelation 20:14, 15) Smith interestingly says:
“Hell is described as a place where the souls and bodies of the wicked will be destroyed .... How different is this description of hell from the other four which have been mentioned. The heathen’s hell is wholly a fiction. The Mahometan’s is taken from theirs and coloured with Scripture; but is evidently of the same nature. The Roman Catholics’ hell is the Pagan’s, revived and named from the Scripture. CFF2 292.2

“All these mention a place of purgation by fire. This, some of the Universalists hold to, proving it from the Scriptures as the Papists do, from places which say nothing about it. The fourth [or Protestant’s] hell described, which people in general believe in, is contrary to all the Word of God. It is the same in nature with the other three, as to the punishment being eternal existence.” ¹⁴ CFF2 293.1

3. PROTESTANT HELL FROM PAGAN MYTHOLOGY

Smith then addresses himself to the “fourth,” or Protestant, Hell with this elaboration:
“And it [the Protestant Hell] is taken from the Pagan mythology, not from the Word of God. If the wicked exist for ever in misery, they must have both life and immortality; for they cannot exist without this in heaven, much more in hell. Life and immortality are blessings brought to light in the gospel, which none but believers will ever have. If the wicked die in their sins, they die without any part in Christ: dying thus, they will never see life nor immortality, and will die the SECOND DEATH, being burnt up like the chaff, like the stubble, like the tares, like the tree twice dead.” ¹⁵ CFF2 293.2

4. THREE ALTERNATIVES AS TO FATE OF WICKED

In sermon sixteen, Smith puts forth the three alternatives held by Christians pertaining to the death the disobedient will experience. They are listed as follows:
“i. A state of miserable existence without end; or ii. A state of misery for a while and then to be made happy for ever; or iii. An end of their existence after they are raised out of their graves at the last day, and judged according to their works.” ¹⁶ CFF2 293.3

He then says:
“The last of these three, I believe, is the truth which Christ and the Apostles preached, and to which the testimony of the prophets agree. This I shall prove from the New Testament; viz., That at the day of judgment, all who are found enemies of Christ, will be destroyed both soul and body, and be no more.” ¹⁷ CFF2 293.4

5. INDEFEASIBLE IMMORTALITY DERIVED FROM PLATONISM

After enumerating a dozen familiar New Testament terms used to describe the fate of the wicked—death, second death, destroy, destruction, perish, perdition, damnation, condemnation, vengeance, wrath, consume, devour, burn up, ground to powder—Smith categorically states:
“There is not one place in the Bible which says the soul is immortal.” “This notion that there is life in the soul of the wicked, or a principle that cannot die, was taken from the Platonic Philosophers, and was introduced as Scripture doctrine in the third century, and is exactly contrary to what Christ preached. 1 John 5:11. 12.” ¹⁸ CFF2 294.1

Such were Smith’s positions in 1808, and those of the Christian Connection. CFF2 294.2

6. ALERTED BY BOOK ON “DESTRUCTIONISM.”

It may be of interest to know how Smith was alerted to the error of everlasting torment. This he states in his Autobiography:
“This year my attention was called to think of the real state of the wicked after the last judgment. Before this time, I had taken for truth the old pagan doctrine of eternal misery for the wicked. In June, 1804, being in Mr. Holmes’ book store, in Boston, I asked him if he had any new publications. He handed me Evan’s Sketch. ¹⁹ On opening the book my eyes first fixed on the word, ‘destructionists.’ I read one page, and concluded people who held that the wicked should be destroyed were in a strange error, as no such thing ever before entered my mind. CFF2 294.3

“I bought the book. Often after that the destruction of the wicked would pass through my mind, though I supposed eternal misery was recorded in the Bible. In April, 1805, I concluded one day to take my Bible and Concordance, and find eternal misery, and not have my mind any longer troubled about destruction. CFF2 294.4

“I examined the words, misery, miserable, miserably; and found that there was not one place in the Bible where the word was used to describe the state of man beyond death .... I then looked at the words destroy, destruction, death, second death, perish, consumed, perdition, burnt up, etc., I examined the similitudes used to describe the end of the wicked, such as chaff and stubble burnt up; dry trees cast into the fire, and tares burnt; the fat of lambs consumed, whirlwinds, a dream, and a noise. All these things proved to me that at the last judgment, the wicked would be punished with everlasting destruction, which would be their end.” ²⁰ CFF2 294.5

That started Smith on his Conditionalist way—in 1804. CFF2 295.1

It is therefore evident that Smith received his Conditionalist seed thought from England, not from any antecedent Americans. The three British writers mentioned in Evans’ book all held to “everlasting destruction” as indicating “eternal death,” for no infliction of death is for a “limited period.” ²¹ It will be remembered, of course, that Joseph Priestley had been in this country, and held that the soul slept until the resurrection, though he was not strictly a Conditionalist. And he held to the destruction of many of the wicked. But apparently he made no open converts to his view in America. CFF2 295.2