In fact we would become more
like God Himself, who is inflicting pain every day with a view to moral
perfection by and by.
Well do I remember spending an evening with a personal friend. He was a
man of sterling character. In his ordinary demeanor, however, he was a
very John Bull of a man; you would not think there was a particle of
sentiment in his whole composition. During our conversation, reference
was made to the case of departed friends whose spiritual condition was
doubtful; and before I knew, my friend utterly broke down and wept. No
doubt he was thinking of one in such a case. I could not at that time
offer him the consolation of the larger hope; and it is doubtful if with
his education he could have accepted such consolation. What a solace it
will be, when we can think of departed friends in whom the work of grace
was manifestly very incomplete--possibly not begun--as having gone, not
into a state of hopeless, everlasting torment--but as having passed into
a state where the work of grace will be completed.
But speaking of the reformatory process, there is one circumstance that
may seem to indicate that it may be very long. I refer to the fact that
Satan has been so long incorrigible. I take him of course to be a
conscious personality. In the Word of God I suppose there are a hundred
references to him as a person.
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