Famous Quotes

[Erikaaaa]

"Untold millions are still untold." (unknown)

Some wish to live within the sound of church and chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of Hell! (C.T. Studd)

"Love will find a way. Indifference will find an excuse." (unknown)

"Brethren, do something; do something, do something! While societies and unions make constitutions, let us win souls. I pray you, be men of action all of you. Get to work and quit yourselves like men. Old Suvarov's idea of war is mine: `Forward and strike! No theory! Attack! Form a column! Charge bayonets! Plunge into the center of the enemy! Our one aim is to win souls; and this we are not to talk about, but do in the power of God!'" (Charles Spurgeon)

"I look upon all the world as my parish" (John Wesley)

"God save us from living in comfort while sinners are sinking into hell!" (Charles Spurgeon)

"Oh my friends, we are loaded with countless church activities, while the real work of the church, that of evangelizing and winning the lost is almost entirely neglected." (Oswald J. Smith)

"Many churches report no new members on confession of faith. Why these meager results with this tremendous expenditure of energy and money? Why are so few people coming into the Kingdom? I will tell you—there is not a definite effort put forth to persuade a definite person to receive a definite Savior at a definite time, and that definite time is now." (Billy Sunday)

"God had an only Son and he made him a missionary." (David Livingstone)

"You have one business on earth-to save souls." (John Wesley)

"We are to bring Christ to the world, not the world to Christ" (unknown)

"It is not our strength we want. It is not our work to make them believe. That is the work of the Spirit. Our work is to give them the Word of God. I cannot convert men; I can only proclaim the Gospel." (D. L. Moody)

"The soul and eternity of one man depends upon the voice of another." (Horatius Bonar)

"I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so I could but gain souls to Christ." (David Brainerd)

"You have enjoyed yourself in Christianity long enough. You have had pleasant feelings, pleasant songs, pleasant meetings, pleasant prospects . There has been much of human happiness, much clapping of hands, and much shouting of praises – very much of heaven on earth. Now then, Go to God and tell Him you are prepared as much as necessary to turn your back upon it all, and that you are willing to spend the rest of your days struggling in the midst of perishing multitudes, whatever it may cost you." (Gen. William Booth)

"What marvel the devil does not love field preaching! Neither do I; I love a commodious room, a soft cushion, a handsome pulpit. But where is my zeal, if I do not trample all these underfoot in order to save one more soul?" (John Wesley)

"Preach abroad...It is the cooping yourselves up in rooms that has damped the work of God, which never was and never will be carried out to any purpose without going out into the highways and hedges and compelling them to come in" (John Wesley)

"I weigh no other rule, whether of faith or practise, than the Holy Scripture; but on Scriptural principles, I do not think it hard to justfy whastever I do. I look upon all the world as my parish; thus far I mean, that in whatever part of it I am I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation." (John Wesley)

"The church that does not evangelize will fossilize." (Oswald J. Smith)

"So long as there is a human being who does not know Jesus Christ, I am his debtor to serve him until he does." (Oswald Chambers)

"There is a dreadful Hell, and everlasting pains; where sinners must with devils dwell, in darkness, fire, and chains." (Isaac Watts)

"I love those that thunder out the Word, the christian world is in a deep sleep. Nothing but a loud voice can awaken them out of it" (George Whitefield)

"It is not the bigness of the words you utter, but the force with which you deliver them" (Charles Spurgeon)

"I set myself on FIRE, they come to watch me burn." (John Wesley)

"Screw the truth into mens minds." (Richard Baxter)

"In my preaching of the Word, I took special notice of this one thing, namely, that the Lord did lead me to begin where His Word begins with sinners; that is, to condemn all flesh, and to open and allege that the curse of God, by the Law, doth belong to and lay hold on all men as they come into the world, because of sin." (John Bunyan)

"Be cold, sober, wise, circumspect. Keep yourself low by the ground avoiding high questions. Expound the Law truly and open the veil of Moses to condemn all flesh and prove all men sinners, and set at broach the mercy of our Lord Jesus, and let wounded consciences drink of Him." (William Tyndale)

"The man who does not know the nature of the Law, cannot know the nature of sin." (John Bunyon)

"An hot iron, though blunt, will pierce sooner than a cold one, though sharper." (John Flavel)

"Rash preaching, disgusts; timid preaching, leaves poor souls fast asleep; bold preaching is the only preaching that is owned of God" (Rowland Hill)

"The first thing for a Christian to do is to look for means to do something for God." (Billy Sunday)

"If you're not meeting the Devil head on, then you're going in the same direction." (Billy Sunday)

"No pain, no gain; no cross, no crown." (William Penn)

"God will not use dead tools for working living miracles." (Charles Spurgeon)

"The saints are to bear a threefold testimony to, and for Christ and His truths: Breath-testimony, Life-testimony, and Blood-testimony." (Vavasor Powell)

"One eye-witness is better than ten ear-witnesses." (Thomas Adams)

"The way to heaven is blocked up with dead professors." (unknown)

"Saul, by casting an amorous eye upon Agag, lost his crown and kingdom; Samson by dallying with his Delilah, lost his strength, sight, light, liberty and life. But what are these losses to thy loss of spiritual strength, to thy loss of communion with God, to thy loss of the Spirit of light, liberty, and glory; to thy loss of joy unspeakable, and peace that passeth understanding?" (Thomas Brooks)

"Set a strong guard about thy outward senses; these are Satan's landing places, especially the eye and the ear." (William Gurnall)

"Satan like a fisher, baits his hook according to the appetite of the fish." (Thomas Adams)

"It is better to have divisions than an evil uniformity." (Walter Cradock)

"A man may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant." (Stephen Charnock)

"It is an undoubted truth that every doctrine that comes from God, leads to God; and that which doth not tend to promote holiness is not of God." (George Whitefield)

"After we are renewed, yet we are renewed but in part, indwelling sin continues in us, there is a mixture of corruption in every one of our duties; so that after we are converted, were Jesus Christ only to accept us according to our works, our works would darn us, for we cannot put up a prayer but it is far from that perfection which the moral Law requireth. I do not know what you may think, but I can say that I cannot pray but I sin--cannot preach to you or others but I sin--I can do nothing without sin; and, as one expresseth it, my repentance wants to be repented of, and my tears to be washed in the precious blood of my dear Redeemer." (George Whitefield)

"When God calls a man, He does not repent of it. God does not, as many friends do, love one day, and hate another; or as princes, who make their subjects favourites, and afterwards throw them into prison. This is the blessedness of a saint; his condition admits of no alteration. God's call is founded on His decree, and His decree is immutable. Acts of grace cannot be reversed. God blots out his people's sins, but not their names." (Thomas Watson)

"Nothing is more contrary to a heavenly hope than an earthly heart." (William Gurnall)

"The heart is like a viper, hissing and spitting poison at God." (Jonathan Edwards)

"Attempt great things for God, expect great things from God." (William Carey)

"If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him" (C. T. Studd)

"Now let me burn out for God." (Henry Martyn)

"If the Book be not infallible, where shall we find infallibility? We have given up the Pope, for he has blundered often and terribly; but we shall not set up instead of him a horde of popelings fresh from college. Are these correctors of Scriptures infallible? Is it certain that our Bibles are not right, but that the critics must be so? Now, Farmer Smith, when you have read your Bible, and have enjoyed its precious promises, you will have tomorrow morning, to go down the street to ask the scholarly man at the parsonage whether this portion of the Scripture belongs to the inspired part of the Word or whether it is of dubious authority....We shall gradually be so bedoubted and be criticized that only a few of the most profound will know what is Bible and what is not, and they will dictate to the rest of us. I have no more faith in their mercy than in their accuracy... and we are fully assured that our old English version of the Scriptures is sufficient for plain men for all purposes of life, salvation, and goodness." (Charles Spurgeon)

"Whenever you find a preacher who takes the Bible allegorically and figuratively...that preacher is preaching an allegorical gospel which is no gospel. I thank God for a literal Christ, for a literal salvation. There is literal sorrow, literal death, literal Hell, and, thank God, there is a literal Heaven." (J Frank Norris)

[Andy]

Peter Lombard, the Master of Sentences:
“Therefore the elect shall go forth…to see the torments of the impious, seeing which they will not be grieved, but will be satiated with joy at the sight of the unutterable calamity of the impious .” Sent. Iv 50, ad fin

Charles. Spurgeon:
"When thou diest, thy soul will be tormented alone; that will be a hell for it, but at the day of judgment they body will join they soul, and then thou wilt have twin hells, thy soul sweating drops of blood, and thy body suffused with agony. In fire exactly like that which we have on earth thy body will lie, asbestos-like, forever unconsumed, all they veins roads for the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the devil shall forever play his diabolical tune of 'Hell's Unutterable Lament.'" Sermon on the Resurrection of the Dead

John Calvin:
"There are babies a span long in hell."

John Wesley 1791:
“Is it not common to say to a child, ‘Put your finger in that candle, can you bear it even for one minute?' How then will you bear Hell-fire? Surely it would be torment enough to have the flesh burnt off from only one finger; what then will it be to have the whole body plunged into a lake of fire, burning with brimstone?” Sermon 73
“The wicked will gnaw their tongues for anguish and pain; they will curse God and look upwards. There the dogs of hell, pride, malice, revenge, rage, horror, despair, continually devout them.” Sermon 15,
“Consider that all these torments of body and soul are without intermission. Be their suffering ever so extreme, be their pain ever so intense, there is no possibility of their fainting away, no, not for one moment … They are all eye, all ear, all sense. Every instant of their duration it may be said of their whole frame that they are ‘Trembling alive all o'er, and smart and agonize at every pore.' And of this duration there is no end … Neither the pain of the body nor of soul is any nearer an end than it was millions of ages ago.” Sermon 73

Gerhard
“…the Blessed will see their friends and relations among the damned as often as they like but without the least of compassion.”

Jeremy Taylor of the Church of England
"The bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in hell, like grapes in a wine-press, which press one another till they burst; every distinct sense and organ shall be assailed with its own appropriate and most exquisite sufferings."
“Husbands shall see their wives, parents shall see their children tormented before their eyes…the bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in hell like grapes in a wine-press, which press on another till they burst…”
“This temporal fire is but a painted fire in respect of that penetrating and real fire in hell.”

Andrew Welwood
(the saints are) “overjoyed in beholding the vengeance of God ,” and their beholding of the smoke of the torment of the wicked as “a passing delectation.”
Samuel Hopkins
“This display of the divine character will be most entertaining to all who love God, will give them the highest and most ineffable pleasure. Should the fire of this eternal punishment cease, it would in a great measure obscure the light of heaven, and put an end to a great part of the happiness and glory of the blessed.”
Bishop Newcomb
“The door of mercy will be shut and all bowels of compassion denied, by God, who will laugh at their destruction; by angels and saints, who will rejoice when they see the vengeance' by their fellow-suffer the devil and the damned rejoicing over their misery.” Catechetical Sermons

Tertullian
“At that greatest of all spectacles, that last and eternal judgment how shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sages philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then ever before from applause."
“What a spectacle. . .when the world. . .and its many products, shall be consumed in one great flame! How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye! What there excites my admiration? What my derision? Which sight gives me joy? As I see. . .illustrious monarchs. . . groaning in the lowest darkness, Philosophers. . .as fire consumes them! Poets trembling before the judgment-seat of. . .Christ! I shall hear the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own calamity; view play-actors. . .in the dissolving flame; behold wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows. . .What inquisitor or priest in his munificence will bestow on you the favor of seeing and exulting in such things as these? Yet even now we in a measure have them by faith in the picturings of imagination.” [De Spectaculis, Chapter XXX]

Augustine
“They who shall enter into [the] joy [of the Lord] shall know what is going on outside in the outer darkness. . .The saints'. . . knowledge, which shall be great, shall keep them acquainted. . .with the eternal sufferings of the lost.” [The City of God, Book 20, Chapter 22, "What is Meant by the Good Going Out to See the Punishment of the Wicked" & Book 22, Chapter 30, "Of the Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and of the Perpetual Sabbath"]

Thomas Aquinas
In order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned. . .So that they may be urged the more to praise God. . .The saints in heaven know distinctly all that happens. . .to the damned. [Summa Theologica, Third Part, Supplement, Question XCIV, "Of the Relations of the Saints Towards the Damned," First Article, "Whether the Blessed in Heaven Will See the Sufferings of the Damned. . ."]
“The same fire” (which he decides to be material) “ torments the damned in hell and the just in purgatory…The least pain in purgatory exceeds the greatest in this life.” Summa Theo. Suppl. Qu. 100, acts. 2, n. 3.

Jonathan Edwards
“The view of the misery of the damned will double the ardour of the love and gratitude of the saints of heaven.”
The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever. . .Can the believing father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in Hell. . . I tell you, yea! Such will be his sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish his bliss.
["The Eternity of Hell Torments" (Sermon), April 1739 & Discourses on Various Important Subjects, 1738]

Thomas Boston, Scottish preacher, 1732
"God shall not pity them but laugh at their calamity. The righteous company in heaven shall rejoice in the execution of God's judgment, and shall sing while the smoke riseth up for ever."

Isaac Watts:
Hymn writer, Isaac Watts (1674-1748),
What bliss will fill the ransomed souls,

When they in glory dwell,

To see the sinner as he rolls,

In quenchless flames of hell.

St. Anthony Mary Claret
“Once [a soul] is condemned by God, then God's friends agree in God's judgment and condemnation. For all eternity they will not have a kind thought for this wretch. Rather they will be satisfied to see him in the flames as a victim of God's justice. ("The just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge . . ." Psalm 57:11) They will abhor him. A mother will look from paradise upon her own condemned son without being moved, as though she had never known him.”-- "The Pains of Hell," Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, consisting of thirty-five meditations from The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius as explained by St. Anthony Mary Claret. St. Claret's "explanations" were written in Spanish in the late 1800's.

Catholic Truth Society
What will it be like for a mother in heaven who sees her son burning in hell? She will glorify the justice of God. - Pamphlet from the late 1960s, part of a catechismal teaching [cited in an essay by the English poet, Stevie Smith, "Some Impediments to Christian Commitment"]

J.I. Packer
"...love and pity for hell's occupants will not enter our hearts." J.I. Packer in article "Hell's Final Enigma" in "Christianity Today Magazine, April 22,2002 ."

Christian Theology in Plain Language, p. 219.
"Non-Christians often ask the Christian, “But how can the God of love allow any of his creatures to suffer unending misery?” The question is, how can he not? The fact that God is love makes hell necessary. “Hell,” as E. L. Mascall once said, “is not compatible with God’s love; it is a direct consequence of it.” That was his way of stressing the fact that the very God who loves us is the one who respects our decisions. He loves us, but he does not force his love on us. To force love is to commit assault. He allows us to decide. He loves us, he encourages our response, he woos us, he pursues us, he urges us, but he does not force us, because he respects us."

Richard Baxter
It is not a terrible thing to a wretched soul, when it shall lie roaring perpetually in the flames of hell, and the God of mercy himself shall laugh at them; when…God shall mock them instead of relieving them; when none in heaven or earth can help them but God, and he shall rejoice over them in their calamity . –(“The Saint's Everlasting Rest” 1846)

Alban Butler 1773
“Do we think that God can find torments in nature sufficient to satisfy His provoked vengeance? No, no; He creates new instruments more violent, pains utterly inconceivable to us. A soul for one venial sin shall suffer more than all the pains of distemper, the most violent colics, gout, and stone joined in complication,--more than all the most cruel torments undergone by malefactors, or invented by the most barbarous tyrants,--more than all the tortures of the martyrs summed up together. This is the idea which the Fathers give us [even?] of Purgatory. And how long souls may have to suffer there we know not.” Lives of the Saints, November 2

Thomas Boston, Scottish preacher, 1732
“God will hold sinners with one hand over the pit of hell, while He torments them with the other.” Fourfold State.

Jonathan Edwards:
“Reprobate infants are vipers of vengeance, which Jehovah will hold over hell, in the tongs of his wrath, till they turn and spit venom in his face!”
“For ever harassed by a dreadful tempest, they shall fell themselves torn asunder by an angry God, and broken by the weight of His hand, and transfixed and penetrated by mortal stings, terrified by the thunderbolt of God. So that to sink into any gulf would be more tolerable than to stand for a moment in these terrors.”
1785 “Here all judges have a mixture of mercy, but the wrath of God will be poured out upon the wicked without mixture. Imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven…and imagine also that your body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour, full of fire, as full within and without as a bright coal fire, all the while full of quick sense; what horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace? Oh! Then how would your heart sink if you knew that after millions and millions of ages your torment would be no nearer to an end than ever it was. But your torment in hell will be immensely greater than this illustration represents.” Works, vol. Iii. 260
“The pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive the wicked: the flames do now rage and glow. The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much in the same way as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked…He will trample them beneath His feet with inexpressible fierceness; He will crush their blood out, and will make it fly, so that it will sprinkle His garment and stain all His raiment.” Works, vii. 499.
“You cannot stand before an infuriated tiger even; what then will you do when God rushes against you in all His wrath?” Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” (Do not suppose this kind of preaching no longer fills the pulpits of the world. This sermon is still continuously printed even to this day.)

Dr. Gardiner Spring
“When the omnipotent and angry God, who as access to all the avenues of distress in the corporeal frame, and all the inlets to agony in the intellectual constitution, undertakes to punish, He will convince the universe that He does not gird Himself for the work of retribution in vain.”

John Calvin (Who had some of his theological enemies burned to death in green slow-burning wood.):
"Forever harrassed with a dreadful tempest, they shall feel themselves torn asunder by an angry God, and transfixed and penetrated by mortal stings, terrified by the thunderbolts of God, and broken by the weight of his hand, so that to sink into any gulf would be more tolerable than to stand for a moment in these terrors.

Dean of Glouchester
“There is the cup of trembling and of wrath. Your hands must take it, your mouth must drink it. But you can never drain it. There is no last drop. Infinite vengeance ever fills it to the brim. Eternal wrath is ever bringing more. What is the curse? It is the endless accumulation of all the miseries which God's resources can command and God's power can inflict. It is the fiery torrent from the lake of fire. It is the pain which cannot be keener, despair which cannot be blacker, and anguish which cannot be more bitter. It is eternity in the oneness of all torment.” Christ in all.

Bishop Oxenden—Late Metropolitan of Canada
“It would be difficult to measure the waters of the sea; but it is impossible to reckon the ages of a boundless eternity. After millions of years it will only begun. God's wrath in hell will be always ‘wrath to come.' Few are so tossed in this world but they have some rest. There are few tempests without some lull between the storm. But there is no pause in that storm which falls upon the inhabitants of hell.” Great Truths

Thomas Goodwin
Sin in thee and the Injury of it to God is an eternal Stain, which Hell Fire cannot eat out, or satisfy God, but in an Eternity of time. –“A Discourse of the Punishment of Sin in Hell” 1680

Fray Luis De Granada 1588
“There will the condemned in cruel rage and despair turn their fury against God and themselves, gnawing their flesh with their mouth, breaking their teeth with gnashing, furiously tearing themselves with their nails, and everlastingly blaspheming against the judge…Oh wretched tongues that will speak no word save blasphemy! Oh miserable ears that will hear no sound but groans! Oh unhappy eyes that will see nothing but agonies! Oh tortured bodies that will have no refreshment but flames…We are terrified when we hear of executioners—scourging men, disjointing them, dismembering, tearing them in pieces, burning them with plates of red-hot metal. But these things are but a jest, a shadow compared with the torments of the next life.” Sermons 1. 72 (Translated by Rev. Orby Shipley.)

Richard Baxter
If it will be an intolerable thing to suffer the heat of fire for a year or a day, or an hour, what will it be to suffer ten thousand times more for ever? What if thou wert to suffer Lawrence 's death, to be roasted upon a gridiron; or to be scraped or pricked to death as other martyrs were; or if thou wert to feed upon toads for a year together? If thou couldst not endure such things as these, how wilt thou endure the eternal flames ? -- (“The Saint's Everlasting Rest” 1846)

John Shower
We have heard…of some who have endured breaking on the Wheel, ripping up of their Bowels, fleaing alive, racking of the joints, burning of Flesh, pounding in a mortar, tearing in pieces with Flesh-hooks, boyling in Oyl, roasting on hot fiery Gridirons, etc. And yet all these, tho' you should superad thereto all Diseases, such as the Plague, Stone, gout, Strangury, or whatever else you can name most torturing to the Body…they would all come short…of that Wrath, that Horror, that unconceivable Anguish, which the Damned must inevitably suffer every Moment, without any Intermission of their pains, in Hellish Flames . –(Heaven and Hell, 1700s)

John Bunyan
Set case you should take a man, and tie him to a stake, and with red hot Pincers pinch off his flesh by little pieces for two or three years together, and at last, when the poor man cryes out for ease and help, the tormenters answer, Nay but besides all this you must be handled worse. We will serve you thus these 20 years together, and after that we will fill your mangled body full of scalding lead, and run you through with a red hot spit, would this not be lamentable?...But he that goes to hell shall suffer ten thousand times worse torments then these, and yet shall never be quite dead under them . – “A Few Sighs From Hell” or “The Groans of a damned Soul…” 1658)

William Gearing
Your dainty delicate persons that now cannot brook the least savory smell, shall lie down in a stinking dungeon, in a loathsome lake, that burns with fire and brimstone for ever . – “A Prospect of Heaven” 1673

[Andy]

Reverend J. Furniss
"Little child, if you go to hell there will be a devil at your side to strike you. He will go on striking you every minute for ever and ever without stopping. The first stroke will make your body as bad as the body of Job, covered, from head to foot, with sores and ulcers. The second stroke will make your body twice as bad as the body of Job. The third stroke will make your body three times as bad as the body of Job. The fourth stroke will make your body four times as bad as the body of Job. How, then, will your body be after the devil has been striking it every moment for a hundred million of years without stopping? Perhaps at this moment, seven o'clock in he evening, a child is just going into hell. To morrow evening, at seven o'clock, go and knock at the gates of hell and ask what the child is doing. The devils will go and look. They will come back again and say, the child is burning. Go in week and ask what the child is doing; you will get the same answer, it is burning; Go in a year and asks the same answer comes it is burning. Go in a million of years and ask the same question, the answer is just the same--it is burning. So, if you go for ever and ever, you will always get the same answer--it is burning in the fire.” ---The Sight of Hell (A Catholic book for children….Quoted from Christ Triumphant by Thomas Allin)
"The fifth dungeon is the red hot oven. The little child is in the red hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out; see how it turns and twists itself about in the fire. It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor." (The Sight of Hell Quoted from Christ Triumphant by Thomas Allin)

Ignatius Loyola 1548
“Let us fancy we see hell, and imagine what is worst to behold—a horrible cavern full of black flames. Sulphur, devils, dragons, fire, swords, arrows, and innumerable damned who roar in despair. Imagine the worst you can, and then say, ‘All this is nothing compared to hell.' …In that voracious subterranean cavern all the filth of the world is collected and inclosed, without exhalation or air, which must produce a most foetid pestilence…The sight is tormented by frightful devils; a holy religious saw at death two so monstrous and ugly devils, that he cried out that rather than see them again he would walk till the day of judgment on fire of sulphur and melted metal.” Spiritual Exercises, Medit. 12 (This is one of the commonest books of Roman Catholic devotion.)
That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity with the Church herself, if she shall have defined anything to be black which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black. For we must undoubtedly believe, that the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of the Orthodox Church His Spouse, by which Spirit we are governed and directed to Salvation, is the same ... Rules for Thinking with the Church, Spiritual Exercises, II

Jonathan Edwards (Newspapers reported people leaving his sermons and committing suicide from the fear he instilled in them.)
"The world will probably be converted into a great lake or liquid globe of fire, in which the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, in which they shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest day and night, vast waves and billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, of which they shall forever be full of a quick sense within and without; their heads, their eyes, their tongues, their hands, their feet, their loins and their vitals, shall forever be full of a flowing, melting fire, fierce enough to melt the very rocks and elements; and also, they shall eternally be full of the most quick and lively sense to feel the torments; not for one minute, not for one day, not for one age, not for two ages, not for a hundred ages, nor for ten thousand millions of ages, one after another, but forever and ever, without any end at all, and never to be delivered."

Nieremberg 1658
“We are amazed at the inhumanity of Phalaris, who roasted men in his brazen bull; this was joy in respect of the fire of hell, which penetrates the very entrails without consuming them.” Pains of Hell

Francis De Sales 1622
“Represent to yourself a dark city all burning and stinking with fire and brimstone. The damned are in the depth of hell within this woful city, where they suffer unspeakable torments in all their senses and members. Consider above all the eternity of their pains, which above all things makes hell intolerable.” Garden of the Soul.

Barrow
“Our bodies will be afflicted continually by the sulphureous flame, piercing the inmost sinews.”

John Bunyan 1688
“Their bodies will be raised from the dead as vessels for the soul—vessels of wrath. The soul will breathe hell-fire, and smoke and coal will seem to hang upon its burning lips, yea the face, eyes, and ears will seem to be chimneys and vents for the flame, and the smoke of the burning , which God, by His breath, hath kindled therein, and upon, them, which will be held one in another, to the great torment and distress of each other.” Works, ii 136.

Baxter 1691
“Is it an intolerable thing to burn part of thy body by holding it in the fire? What then will it be to suffer ten thousand times more for ever in hell?” Saints Rest

South 1716
“Every lash which God then gives the sinner shall be with a scorpion, every pain which He inflicts shall be more eager than appetite, more cruel than revenge; every faculty both of soul and body shall have its distinct property, and peculiar torment applied to it, and be directly struck there where it has the quickest, the sharpest, and the tenderest sense of any painful impression…But I shall use no other argument to evince the greatness of their torment but only this, that the devil shall be the instrument of their execution. And surely a mortal enemy will be a dreadful executioner; and the punishment which an infinite justice inflicts by the hands of a implacable malice must needs be intolerable.” Sermons, vii. 143

John Whitaker 1783
“The bodies of the damned will all be salted with fire, so tempered and prepared as to burn the more fiercely, and yet never consume.” Sermon on Death, Judgment, and Eternity.

Sharrock
For if a man were to have all his sins laid to his charge, and communion with the devils , and as much wrath as the great God of Heaven can inflict upon them, I say, if it were but for a time, even ten thousand years, if then it might have an end, there would be ground for comfort, and hopes of deliverance; but here is thy misery, this is thy state for ever, here thou must be for ever…When thou hast been in hell for as many thousand years as there are stars in the firmament or drops in the sea, or sands on the sea shore, yet thou hast to lie there for ever. O this one word, ever, how will it torment thy soul! – (“The Miscellaneous Works”)

Bonhour
“These unhappy children of wrath not only suffer during eternity, but they suffer eternity during each moment of their existence. Eternity is engraven on the flames which torment them…O tormenting thought! O miserable condition! To burn for ever! To weep for ever! To rage for ever!” Meditations, translated for English Roman Catholics

John Foster 1843
“It is infinitely beyond the highest archangel's faculty to apprehend a thousandth part of the horror of the doom to eternal damnation.”

Reverend E.B. Pusey, D.D.:
"Gather in one, in your mind, an assembly of all those men and women, from whom, whether in history or in fiction, your memory most shrinks, gather in mind all that is loathsome, most revolting * * * conceive the fierce, fiery eyes of hate, spite, frenzied rage, ever fixed on thee, looking thee through and through with hate * * * hear those yells of blaspheming concentrated hate, as they echo along the lurid vault of hell; everyone hating everyone * * * Yet a fixedness in that state in which the hardened malignant sinner dies, involves, without any further retribution of God, this endless misery." (Quoted from Christ Triumphant by Thomas Allin)

John Gill
"Ver. 49. For every one shall be salted with fire, &c.] That is, every one of those that transgress the law of God, offend any that believe in Christ, retain their sins, and sinful companions; every one of them that are cast into hell, where the worm of conscience is always gnawing, and the fire of divine wrath is always burning, with that fire every one of them shall be salted: that fire shall be to them, what salt is to flesh; as that keeps flesh from putrefaction and corruption, so the fire of hell, as it will burn, torture, and distress rebellious sinners, it will preserve them in their beings; they shall not be consumed by it, but continued in it: so that these words are a reason of the former, showing and proving, that the soul in torment shall never die, or lose any of its powers and faculties; and particularly, not its gnawing, torturing conscience; and that the fire of hell is inextinguishable; for though sinners will be inexpressibly tormented in it, they will not be consumed by it; but the smoke of their torments shall ascend for ever and ever; and that they will be so far from being annihilated by the fire of hell, that they shall be preserved in their beings in it, as flesh is preserved by salt." Expositor

From the Catholic Encyclopedia
The poena damni, or pain of loss, consists in the loss of the beatific vision and in so complete a separation of all the powers of the soul from God that it cannot find in Him even the least peace and rest. It is accompanied by the loss of all supernatural gifts, e.g. the loss of faith. The characters impressed by the sacraments alone remain to the greater confusion of the bearer. The pain of loss is not the mere absence of superior bliss, but it is also a most intense positive pain. The utter void of the soul made for the enjoyment of infinite truth and infinite goodness causes the reprobate immeasurable anguish. Their consciousness that God, on Whom they entirely depend, is their enemy forever is overwhelming. Their consciousness of having by their own deliberate folly forfeited the highest blessings for transitory and delusive pleasures humiliates and depresses them beyond measure. The desire for happiness inherent in their very nature, wholly unsatisfied and no longer able to find any compensation for the loss of God in delusive pleasure, renders them utterly miserable. Moreover, they are well aware that God is infinitely happy, and hence their hatred and their impotent desire to injure Him fills them with extreme bitterness. And the same is true with regard to their hatred of all the friends of God who enjoy the bliss of heaven. The pain of loss is the very core of eternal punishment. If the damned beheld God face to face, hell itself, notwithstanding its fire, would be a kind of heaven. Had they but some union with God even if not precisely the union of the beatific vision, hell would no longer be hell, but a kind of purgatory. And yet the pain of loss is but the natural consequence of that aversion from God which lies in the nature of every mortal sin. V. POENA DAMNI

Caesarius of Arles 430
A person may say I am not much concerned how long I stay in purgatory, provided I may come to eternal life. Let no one reason thus. Purgatory fire will be more dreadful than whatever torments can be seen imagined, or endured in this world. He who is afraid now to put his finger into the fire, does he not fear lest he be then all buried in torments for a long time?” Hom. I. p. 5

Thomas More 1535 (Speaking only of Purgatory)
“If ye pity the blind, there is none so blind as we, which are here in the dark save for sights unpleasant and loathsome. If ye pity the lame, there is none so lame as we, that can neither creep one foot out of the fire, nor have one hand at liberty to defend our face from the flame. Finally, if ye pity any man in pain, never knew ye pain comparable to ours, whose fire as far passeth in heart all other fires that ever burned on earth as the hottest of all that passed a feigned fire painted on a wall. If ever ye lay sick, bethink you then what a long night we sely souls endure that lie sleepless, restless, burning and broiling in the dark fire one long night or many years together. You walk peradventure and totter in sickness; we lie bound to brands, and cannot lift up our heads…Your keepers do you great ease; our keeper are such as God keep you from—cruel, doomed spirites, odious, envious, and hateful, despiteous enemies and despiteful tormentors, and their company more terrible and grievious to be in than is the pain itself; and the intolerable torment that they do us, wherewith form the top to toe they cease not continually to tear us.” Supplication of Souls
Minucius Felix, fl. 230 AD
“Nor to these torments will there be any measure or termination. There the sentient fire burns limbs and renews them feeds on them and nourishes them.” –Octav. 35.
Cyprian 258 AD
“The wretched bodies of the condemned shall simmer and blaze in those living fires.”

Richard Baxter
“Fire is evidently the only word in human language which can suggest the anguish of perdition. It is the only word in the parable of the wheat and the tares which our Lord did not interpret (Matt. 13:36-43)...The only reasonable explanation is that fire is not a symbol. It perfectly describes the reality of the eternal burnings. As we paid nothing for God’s eternal love and nothing for the Son of His love, and nothing for His Spirit and our grace and faith, and nothing for our eternal rest...What an astonishing thought it will be to think of the unmeasurable difference between our deservings and our receivings. O, how free was all this love, and how free is this enjoyed glory...So then let “Deserved” be written on the floor of hell but on the door of heaven and life, 'The Free Gift.'"

[Andy]

The degree and duration of the torment of these degenerate and anti-Christian people, should be no other than would be approved of by those angels who had ever labored for their salvation, and that Lamb who had redeemed them with his most precious blood. –Sir Isaac Newton in his paraphrase of Rev 14:10-11, (1642-1727)

Seldom, I suppose, do we find ourselves brooding over the awesome doctrine of eternal punishment. Only on rarest occasions and then fleetingly is our mood that of Roden's famous statue, The Thinker, who sits in mute amazement watching lost souls enter hell. What William Gladstone wrote about eternal punishment in the late 19th century is equally true today: it 'seems to be relegated at present to the far off corners of the Christian mind, and there to sleep in deep shadow. --Dr. Vernon Grounds

The fear of hell is the basis for the Christian faith.--Madalyn Murray O'Hare

Few people, if they really had the authority, would condemn anyone anyone, even their worst enemy, to a burning, scorching, tormenting, eternal hell. Yet, they expect God to do it! --J. Preston Eby

An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?" --Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

I am not afraid of any god in the universe who would send me or any other man or woman to hell. If there were such a being, he would not be a god; he would be a devil. -- Clarence Darrow

Listening to her father preach a hellfire sermon, the pastor’s daughter said, “I wish Jesus was as loving as my father.”
"If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there." Psalm 139:8, The Bible

So revolting to my moral nature is the creed of eternal punishment that it, more than any other cause, produces the most widespread unbelief. Compared with this, all objections to Christianity fade to insignificance. --Loren Anderson

Regarding Michaelangelo’s “Last Judgment” painting: “…Look at the lower parts of the picture, where with pitchforks men are by devils being cast into cauldrons and into burning fires, where hateful fiends are gnawing at the skulls of suffering sinners, and where there is hellish cannibalism going on. Let a man look at that picture and the scenes which it depicts , and he sees what were the ideas which men once had of Hell and of divine justice. It was a nightmare a hideous as was ever begotten by the hellish brood itself; and it was an atrocious slander on God…I do not wonder that men have reacted from these horrors—I honor them for it. --Henry Ward Beecher.

I have lately taken to read the New Testament which I assure you is a very good book; but there is one article to which I cannot accede; it is that of the eternity of punishment. I cannot comprehend how this eternity is compatible with the goodness of God! –La Fontaine (1621-1695)

"Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven." Paradise Lost, John Milton, English poet (1608 - 1674)

I see the doctrine of hell as being probably the major stumbling block to the return of a de-Christianized world to Christ. The doctrine of eternal damnation, more than any other teaching of the church, produces atheism. If you examine closely all the big name atheists—like Feuerback and Nietzsche—it is this teaching more than any other that offended them and turned them away. Out of these famous atheists came all the movements that have caused so much hell here and now. If God is to practice what He preaches, then it makes it hard to believe in eternal damnation.—Unknown

Why were a few, or a single one, made at all, if only to exist in order to be made eternally miserable, which is infinitely worse than non-existence? –Immanuel Kant, “End of All Things”

God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race. - Robert G. Ingersoll

It serves no purpose to man if there is no room for repentance, and he who is tormented can never grow better…let this punishment be severe, let it be bitter, nay let it be lasting, but let it at length have an end… --Thomas Burnet, “A Treatise Concerning the State of Departed Souls"

Men have ascribed to God imperfections that they would deplore in themselves. --W. Somerset Maugham

When all has been considered, it seems to me to be the irresistible intuition that infinite punishment for finite sin would be unjust, and therefore wrong. We feel that even weak and erring Man would shrink from such an act. And we cannot conceive of God as acting on a lower standard of right and wrong.-- Lewis Carroll (author of Alice in Wonderland), "Eternal Punishment," Diversions and Digressions of Lewis Carrol

How anyone can believe in eternal punishment, or in any soul which God has made being “lost” and also believes in the love, nay, even in the justice of God is a mystery indeed. ---C.G. Montefiore

When I see what the old rocking continents are doing, and have been doing from the creation, from the days of the flood, through all the treacheries and pitfalls wherein the human race has been reeling and staggering down to modern times; when I look at Asia and Africa and Europe and America and both continents of it and see what the actual condition of the neglected, the stripped, the peeled, the despoiled, the downtrodden races of men has been; if I thought that in addition to all this there was a God that was clothed in thunder, and whose business it was to stand at the door where men go out of life and crush them downward into eternal hell—every instinct of charity, of sympathy and of love that is born in me by Christ, would stand crying, “Annihilate him! Annihilate him!” It would be the sorrow of the universe that would raise this cry. –Henry Ward Beecher

Who will say with confidence that sexual abuse is more permanently damaging to children than threatening them with the eternal and unquenchable fires of hell? --Richard Dawkins

Almost no one who has ever studied the near-death experience (NDE) comes away thinking that Hell is eternal.--Dr. Ken Vincent

A civilized society looks with horror upon the abuse and torture of children or adults. Even where capital punishment is practiced, the aim is to implement it as mercifully as possible. Are we to believe then that a holy God—our heavenly Father—is less just than the courts of men? -- Sidney Hatch
Salvation is universal because the love of God encompasses all. If God is God and if God is love, nothing is outside the love of God. A place like hell is thus inconceivable. --Jacques Ellul

Imagine such a doctrine, you may; but seriously believe in it you never can. The thought is too shocking even to human nature; how much more abhorrent, then, must it be from divine perfection. The Creator must have made all his creatures finally to be happy; and could never form any one whose end he foreknew would be misery everlasting. We can be sure of nothing if we are not sure of this. –Bishop Newton (1704-1782)

That any should suffer forever, lingering on in hopeless despair, and rolling amidst infinite torments without the possibility of alleviation and without end; that since God can save men and will save a part, he has not proposed to save all-these are real, not imaginary, difficulties. . . . My whole soul pants for light and relief on these questions. But I get neither; and in the distress and anguish of my own spirit, I confess that I see no light whatever. I see not one ray to disclose to me why sin came into the world; why the earth is strewn with the dying and the dead; and why man must suffer to all eternity. I have never seen a particle of light thrown on these subjects, that has given a moment's ease to my tortured min. . . . I confess, when I look on a world of sinners and sufferers-upon death-beds and grave-yards-upon the world of woe filled with hosts to suffer for ever: when I see my friends, my family, my people, my fellow citizens when I look upon a whole race, all involved in this sin and danger-and when I see the great mass of them wholly unconcerned, and when I feel that God only can save them, and yet he does not do so, I am stuck dumb. It is all dark, dark, dark to my soul, and I cannot disguise it.-- Albert Barnes

"Father of Mercies! why from silent earth Didst thou awake and curse me into birth, Tear me from quiet, banish me from night, And make a thankless present of Thy light, Push into being a reverse of Thee And animate a clod with misery?” --Young (Night Thoughts)

They say that when god was in Jerusalem he forgave his murderers, but now he will not forgive an honest man for differing with him on the subject of the Trinity. They say that God says to me, "Forgive your enemies." I say, "I do;" but he says, "I will damn mine." God should be consistent. If he wants me to forgive my enemies he should forgive his. I am asked to forgive enemies who can hurt me. God is only asked to forgive enemies who cannot hurt him. He certainly ought to be as generous as he asks us to be. - Robert Ingersoll

One of the things that most pains and torments these Japanese is that we teach them that the prison of hell is irrevocably shut. For they grieve over the fate of their departed children, of their parents and relatives; and they often show their grief by their tears. So they ask us if there is any hope….and I am obliged to answer that there is absolutely none. The grief at this affects and torments them wonderfully; they almost pine away with sorrow….I can hardly restrain my tears sometimes at seeing many so dear to my heart suffer such intense pain about a thing which is already done with and can never be undone.-- St. Francis Xavier, a Roman Catholic missionary to Japan, 1552

Again I ask whence it happened that the fall of Adam involved, without remedy, in eternal death so many nations, together with their infant children, except because it so seemed good to God? A decree horrible, I confess, and yet true. – John Calvin

The whole point of Christianity is that everyone in the world, from Charles Manson to Mother Teresa, deserves to go to hell. --Sean Ningen

Who would dare so much as to smile, if he really believed endless torments were certain to be the portion of some members of his household--it may be of himself? Marriage would be a crime; each birth the occasion of an awful dread. The shadow of a possible Hell would darken every home, sadden every family hearth. All this becomes evident when we reflect, that to perpetuate the race would be to help on the perpetuation of moral evil. For if this creed be true, out of all the yearly births a stady current is flowing on to help fill the abyss of hell, to make larger and vaster the total moral evil which is to endure forever. 'The world would be one vast madhouse' says the American scholar Hallsted, 'if realizing and continued pressure of such a doctrine was present.'" --Thomas Allin, Christ Triumphant, p. 57

I would not for my life destroy one star of human hope, but I want it so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle and sings a lullaby to the dimpled darling, she will not be compelled to believe that ninety-nine chances in a hundred she is raising kindling wood for hell. --Robert Ingersoll

Some conservative Christians argue in favor of hell by calling it "God's great compliment." "Compliment?" If hell is such a "compliment" then what does God do when he wants to "insult" somebody?--Ed Babinski
If the Lord of the Flies and the Bible are true, then all people are evil and all who are evil go to hell. Does anyone else think God WANTS to be alone? –Unknown

Speaking on the teaching of Hell, if there is anything consistent among orthodox and traditional teachers on the subject, it would be their inconsistencies and contradictions. --Gary Amirault

Given headaches, backaches, toothaches, strains, scrapes, breaks, cuts, rashes, burns, bruises, PMS, fatigue, hunger, odors, molds, colds, yeast, parasites, viruses, cancers, genetic defects, blindness, deafness, paralysis, mental illness, ugliness, ignorance, miscommunications, embarrassments, unrequited love, dashed hopes, boredom, hard labor, repetitious labor, accidents, old age, senility, fires, floods, earthquakes, typhoons, tornadoes, hurricanes and volcanoes, I can not see how anyone, after they are dead, deserves "eternal punishment" as well. --Ed Babinski

People have suffered and become insane for centuries by the thought of eternal punishment after death. Wouldn't it be better to depend on blind matter (...) than a god who puts out traps for people, invites them to sin, and allows them to sin and commit crimes he could prevent. Only to finally get the barbarian pleasure to punish them in an excessive way, of no use for himself, without them changing their ways and without their example preventing others from committing crimes.--Baron d'Holbach

(I find it difficult to believe) that God who is the father of Mercies, that doth in heaven and Earth all that hee will; that hath the hearts of all men in his disposing; that worketh in men both to doe, and to will; and without whose free gift a man hath neither inclination to good, nor repentance of evill, should punish mens transgressions without any end of time and with all the extremity of torture, that men can imagine and more. –Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Punishments of unreasonable severity, especially where indiscriminately afflicted, have less effect in preventing crimes, and amending the manners of a people, than such as are more merciful in general, yet properly intermixed with due distinctions of severity. –William Blackstone, on whether the doctrine of Hell was an effective deterrent to crime, 1769
Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. --Albert Einstein

Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! But He loves you! --George Carlin

Think of Jonathan Edwards who thundered the terrors of God and what Hell was like until men grasped their seats and hung on to them, fearing they were falling into Hell itself. Men were moved by fear to escape damnation. That was believed to be Christianity. Why any coward wanted to keep out of Hell. He might not have had one idea in his soul of what was the real true earmark of Christianity. –John G. Lake

As a tot I was given the usual terrifying mixed message: a) God is love; and b) If you don't believe how much he loves you, you will stand in the corner for eternity.- James Lileks

Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being. - Dan Barker

The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. --Albert Einstein

Made in the image of God, all humans have a moral sense, a judicial sentiment. Even the unredeemed cringe when the Holocaust is reviewed. Our moral intuition rejects the idea that anyone, human or divine, who endlessly inflicted pain on another could be called "good." --Randy Klassen, "What Does the Bible Really Say About Hell?"

(Those who) impute such actions to God, as make Him resemble the worst of beings, and so run into downright Demonism. –Matthew Tindal, on eternal punishment/torture “Christianity as Old as Creation” 1730

I cannot help thinking that the menace of Hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of inhuman humanity make villains. --Lord Byron
Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.—Thomas Paine

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. –Voltaire

For me it is inexplainable how a person who holds the orthodox view [of eternal torment] can at any time have a glad moment in this life. He is constantly mingling with people whose final destiny will be to be tormented eternally without end…To me it is even more inexplainable that such an ‘orthodox’ person can expect even a happy moment in eternity, when he knows that contemporaneously with his blessed estate continues the endless torment and agony of innumerable millions of the accursed. Can he, if he loves his neighbors as himself, yes, even if he has just a little bit of human love and is not solely a selfish wretch, have even a single happy moment? -- John Persone Swedish Lutheran Bishop

The only thing that makes life endurable in this world is human love, and yet, according to Christianity, that is the very thing that we are not to have in the other world. We are to be so taken up with Jesus and angels, that we shall care nothing about our brothers and sisters that have been damned. We shall be so carried away with the music of the harp that we shall not even hear the wail of father and mother. Such a religion is a disgrace to human nature. –Robert Ingersoll

And yet this same Deity says to me, "resist not evil; pray for those that despitefully use you; love your enemies, but I will eternally damn mine." It seems to me that even gods should practice what they preach. --Robert Ingersoll

Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God. While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie.-- Robert Ingersoll

An idea, which has terrified millions, claims that some of us will go to a place called Hell, where we will suffer eternal torture. This does not scare me because, when I try to imagine a Mind behind this universe, I cannot conceive that Mind, usually called "God," as totally mad. I mean, guys, compare that "God" with the worst monsters you can think of -- Adolph Hitler, Joe Stalin, that sort of guy. None of them ever inflicted more than finite pain on their victims. Even de Sade, in his sado-masochistic fantasy novels, never devised an unlimited torture. The idea that the Mind of Creation (if such exists) wants to torture some of its critters for endless infinities of infinities seems too absurd to take seriously. Such a deranged Mind could not create a mud hut, much less the exquisitely mathematical universe around us. - Robert Anton Wilson

God cannot send to eternal pain a man who has done something toward improving the condition of his fellow-man. If he can, I had rather go to hell than to heaven and keep company with such a god. –Robert Ingersoll

God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That's not free will. It's like a man telling his girlfriend, do what you wish, but if you choose to leave me, I will track you down and blow your brains out. When a man says this we call him a psychopath. When god says the same we call him "loving" and build churches in his honor.- William C. Easttom II

I care little in the existence of a heaven or hell; self respect does not allow me to guide my acts with an eye toward heavenly salvation or hellish punishment. I pursue the good in life because it is beautiful and attracts me; and shun the bad because it is ugly and repulsive. All our acts should originate from the spring of unselfish love, whether there be a continuation after death or not. --Heinrich Hein

(The difficulty over the question of eternal torments lies in) how it is irreconcilable with the Goodness of God, to put any Persons at all upon a necessity of making such an Option, wherein if they choose amiss, the Misery they incur must be irrevocable. –Samuel Clarke, A Letter

According to Christianity, eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God's infinite love. That's the message we're brought up with, believe or die. "Thank you, forgiving Lord, for all those options." --Bill Hicks

There were days when the Church could club men into obedience by preaching Hell to them, but that day has long passed. The world has outgrown it. –John G. Lake

I cannot believe in an eternity of hell. I hope God will forgive me if I err; but in this matter I cannot say, "Lord help my unbelief." --Robert Southey, 1826

Your heart will not accept what your mind rejects. –Unknown