The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

V. Sellon—Impelled to Declare Conditionalist Convictions

JOHN SELLON (d. 1830), scholarly minister of St. John’s Protestant Episcopal Church, Canandaigua, New York, preached an important “Series of Sermons, on the Doctrine of Everlasting Punishment,” soon published in seventy-five-page book form, with preface dated “June 23, 1828.” Refreshingly clear, logical, and Biblical, they were quite comprehensive, and evidently created a deep impression. Their repercussions extended far beyond the confines of the local community, as they were widely noted. Their early date, near the beginning of the century, calls for a survey of the high lights. CFF2 295.3

1. PUNISHMENT WOULD NOT EXCEED SENTENCE

Sermon I dealt with the original sentence imposed by the Creator for Adam’s disobedience—“to return to the state from whence he was taken.” ²² Sellon then declares that God “would surely not extend the punishment beyond the penalty which he had declared should accompany the transgression of his laws”—namely, death. ²³ Then he observes that there is not “one word in the law, the penalty, or the sentence” that could “possibly be construed” to mean endless punishing. ²⁴ CFF2 295.4

2. GEHENNA DENOTES “TOTAL AND UTTER DESTRUCTION.”

Declaring that there is no probation beyond this life, and that man was made “a free and accountable agent,” ²⁵ Sellon next turns, in Sermon II, to the intent of hades, as the “state of the dead, or a state of death, without reference to endless duration.” ²⁶ Gehenna, on the contrary, conveys the “idea of total and utter destruction after death; where all that remained of the dead carcase was totally and entirely destroyed and consumed.” This he repeats for emphasis—“utter and entire consumption, and as it were annihilation,” “total and endless destruction,” ²⁸ destruction of “both body and soul in Gehenna.” That, Sellon says, is the “everlasting destruction of both body and soul, after death.” This is “at the final judgment.” And this he supports from both Old and New Testament texts. CFF2 296.1

3. SOULS OF UNBELIEVERS ARE NOT IMMORTAL

Then comes a crucial question and an explicit answer on the immortality of the soul:
“But it may be said, if the soul is immortal, how then can it die? What evidence have we, my brethren, that the soul of the unbeliever is immortal? I know indeed, that God hath given unto us eternal life, and I know likewise, that that life is in his Son; and I have therefore yet to learn, that the soul which is not in Christ, is immortal; for we are assured, that to be carnally minded is death, and that God is able to destroy both body and soul in Hell; and that life and immortality were brought to light through the Gospel. That soul only is immortal then, which lives in Christ; and every soul which does not live in Christ, shall die forever.” ³⁰ CFF2 296.2

This is really the key paragraph of the treatise. CFF2 296.3

4. SINNER FREE TO CHOOSE DESTRUCTION RATHER THAN LIFE

In Sermon III Sellon recognizes that such preaching will be “new” to some and in “opposition perhaps to commonly received opinions.” But he feels impelled to declare his convictions as in the “immediate presence of my Maker.” This statement is made because he conscientiously believed his position “to be the truth of God,” not the “opinions of men, which have no foundation” in “Divine Revelation.” Otherwise he would be “unworthy of your confidence, as a minister of the Gospel of our Saviour.” ³¹ CFF2 297.1

He warns against the “dictates and opinions of mere human authority” as the “most dangerous to all the arts of priestcraft.” Wicked man, he holds, as a free moral agent may “choose annihilation, in preference to all the joys of heaven.” The sinner may make his “own wilful and determined choice,” and “choose everlasting destruction, in preference to eternal life.” ³² CFF2 297.2

5. ETERNAL TORTURE INCONSISTENT WITH GODS CHARACTER

Eternal “living torture,” Sellon maintains, is inconsistent with the character of God—His “omnipotence,’ omniscience, omnipresence, justice, mercy, love, truth, and sacred word.” The popular concept of the “tortures of the damned” is a “human invention.” Then he prays: “O heavenly Father, cleanse the hearts of all thy faithful children, from such polluting thoughts.” Such a word as “torture, or any derivative from it, or any word synonymous with it, never once occurs in the whole of the sacred writings.” Thus he bases his “arguments” on the “nature of man and the attributes of God.” ³³ CFF2 297.3

6. ETERNAL TORMENT NOT SCRIPTURAL, THEREFORE FALSE

Sermon VII (Matthew 25:46—“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.”) opens with the truism: “If any doctrine is taught of man, and not to be found clearly revealed in the holy Scriptures, that doctrine is false.” ³⁴ Then he declares: “Now, I say, that the doctrine of eternal torture, is not to be found in the Scriptures, and therefore it is false. But, that the doctrine of the everlasting destruction of the wicked, is clearly and distinctly, and expressly revealed in the Scriptures, and therefore it is true.” ³⁵ CFF2 297.4

He then proceeds to examine “every important passage which occurs in the sacred writings, having reference to the eternal punishment, of the wicked.” And he comments “none of which can possibly be construed to imply those eternal tortures.” Speaking of Revelation 14:8—torment “in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb”—he asserts that such a Hell would have to be “in heaven.” And in Revelation 20:13, on the “lake of fire,” which is the “second death,” Sellon comments, “We cannot imagine that Death and Hell are cast there, to be tortured.” Rather the “passage implies the uter destruction of them all.” ³⁶ CFF2 298.1

7. GEHENNA TOTAL DESTRUCTION AFTER DEATH

All other passages may be divided into “three separate classes”(1) punishment by “being cast into hell, or everlasting fire”; (2) the “effect of fire,” without reference to “Hell”; and (3) those involving the words “death, destruction, or everlasting destruction.” As to the first, Gehenna (Hell) was the valley near Jerusalem “where the dead carcases were brought out from Jerusalem to be consumed in this fire.” It can therefore “convey to their minds no other idea, than that of total destruction after death,” and “never as a place of torture.” ³⁷ CFF2 298.2

8. FIRE INDICATES TOTAL CONSUMPTION, NOT ETERNAL TORTURE

The second category deals with the “effect of fire”—as with the “tares” of Matthew 13, “burned” in the “end of the world.” Then he asks “whether the tares were cast into the fire to be tortured, or to be destroyed?” And as to the bad fish cast away—cast into “a furnace of fire”—did the casting away of the bad fish imply “torture or destruction”? Likewise with the chaff of Matthew 3—to be burned with “unquenchable fire”—he again asks “whether the idea of chaff burnt up, can possibly imply eternal torture.” Was it to be “tortured, or to be consumed”? Similarly with the “branches” of John 15, “cast into the fire” to be “burned.” Here he asserts, “It cannot imply any other idea than destruction.” ³⁸ CFF2 298.3

9. ETERNAL TORTURE IS “INVENTION OF MAN.”

As to the expression “Our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12), Sellon inquires, “Does this expression imply a fire which does not consume?” The “instrument” is the means of “entire destruction.” Then as to the words “death,” “die,” “destroy,” “destruction,” “consume,” “perish,” “utterly perish,” “the doctrine of eternal torture, is not to be found there.” ³⁹ Finally he says: “I conclude, then, that the doctrine of eternal torture is not to be found in the holy Scriptures, and therefore it is false; it is the invention of man.” ⁴⁰ CFF2 299.1

10. FOUR FALSEHOODS INVOLVED IN ETERNAL TORMENT

Appealing to men to “search the Scripture” for truth, Sellon concludes with this summarizing statement:
“There are four contradictions which must be got over before we can even form an idea of eternal torture. First: everlasting fire which does not consume. Second: continued pain without destruction. Third: continued life, although utterly cut off from the only source and cause of all life. And fourth: present existence, though driven from the presence of the omnipresent God.—Let the mind endeavor to realize any one of these ideas, and it will find that each implies a palpable contradiction; yet they must all combine, to form the idea of eternal torture.” ⁴¹ CFF2 299.2

He again appeals to men to “search the Scripture for themselves,” for they vindicate the justice, mercy, and love of God, and “his truth and his consistency.” ⁴² This was an Episcopalian rector in 1828. CFF2 299.3

As far south as Fayetteville, North Carolina, a tractate appeared in 1844, written by JOHN H. PEARCE, titled An Attempt to answer the Question, Has Man a Conscious State of Existence after Death, and previous to the Resurrection? ⁴³ maintaining the “sleep of the soul” position. So there were little stirrings in various sections, as well as major contributions. CFF2 299.4