But after the Fall , Satan bade his angels make a special effort to inculcate the belief in man ' s natural immortality ; and having induced the people to receive this error , they were to lead them on to conclude that the sinner would live in eternal misery . Now the prince of darkness , working through his agents , represents God as a revengeful tyrant , declaring that He plunges into hell all those who do not please Him , and causes them ever to feel His wrath ; and that while they suffer unutterable anguish and writhe in the eternal flames , their Creator looks down upon them with satisfaction .
Thus the archfiend clothes with his own attributes the Creator and Benefactor of mankind . Cruelty is satanic . God is love ; and all that He created was pure , holy , and lovely , until sin was brought in by the first great rebel . Satan himself is the enemy who tempts man to sin , and then destroys him if he can ; and when he has made sure of his victim , then he exults in the ruin he has wrought . If permitted , he would sweep the entire race into his net . Were it not for the interposition of divine power , not one son or daughter of Adam would escape .
Satan is seeking to overcome men today , as he overcame our first parents , by shaking their confidence in their Creator and leading them to doubt the wisdom of His government and the justice of His laws . Satan and his emissaries represent God as even worse than themselves , in order to justify their own malignity and rebellion . The great deceiver endeavors to shift his own horrible cruelty of character upon our heavenly Father , that he may cause himself to appear as one greatly wronged by his expulsion from heaven because he would not submit to so unjust a governor . He presents before the world the liberty which they may enjoy under his mild sway , in contrast with the bondage imposed by the stern decrees of Jehovah . Thus he succeeds in luring souls away from their allegiance to God .
How repugnant to every emotion of love and mercy , and even to our sense of justice , is the doctrine that the wicked dead are tormented with fire and brimstone in an eternally burning hell ; that for the sins of a brief earthly life they are to suffer torture as long as God shall live . Yet this doctrine has been widely taught and is still embodied in many of the creeds of Christendom . Said a learned doctor of divinity : " The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever . When they see others who are of the same nature and born under the same circumstances , plunged in such misery , and they so distinguished , it will make them sensible of how happy they are ." Another used these words : " While the decree of reprobation is eternally executing on the vessels of wrath , the smoke of their torment will be eternally ascending in view of the vessels of mercy , who , instead of taking the part of these miserable objects , will say , Amen , Alleluia ! praise ye the Lord !"
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