The Doctrine of Annihilation
James Baldwin Brown, Minister of Brixton Independent Church, looks at the doctrine of annihilation in the light of the Gospel of Love. Printed in 1875.
“Think, too, of the unutterable tenderness with which God pleads with and yearns over men; yea, even the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them. ‘Is Ephraim my dear son, is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore my bowels are troubled for him, I will surely have mercy on him, saith the Lord.’ And this is the keynote of all God's pleadings with the sinful, sensual race He yearned to redeem. Do you ask me to believe that that unutterable wealth of Divine tenderness was poured forth around a creature whom a brickbat could extinguish in a moment? Ask me to believe at the same time that the Bible is a book of maudlin effusion; and that the God who inspired it, and who wrote His name on Calvary, lives in a world of sentimental dreams.”