He asked what those symbols meant. She
answered, 'My purpose is with fire to burn Paradise, and with my water
to quench the flames of hell, that men may serve God without the
incentives of hope and fear, and purely for the love of God.'" "The
woman," adds Jeremy Taylor, "began at the wrong end." Is that so clear?
The attempts of priests to make use of the keys of heaven and hell
brought about the moral revolt of the Reformation; and, at the present
day, the disgust excited by the doctrine of everlasting damnation is
amongst the strongest motives to popular infidelity; all able apologists
feel the strain. Some reasoners quibble about everlasting and eternal;
and the great Catholic logician "submits the whole subject to the
theological school," a process which I do not quite understand, though I
assume it to be consolatory. The doctrine, in short, can hardly be made
tangible without shocking men's consciences and understandings. It
ought, it may be, to be attractive, but when firmly grasped, it becomes
incredible and revolting.
The difficulty is evaded in two ways.
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