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Quotes by William Shedd

1

The strongest support of the doctrine of Endless Punishment is the teaching of Christ, the Redeemer of man… The Apostles enter far less into detailed description, and are far less emphatic upon this solemn theme, than their divine Lord and Master. And well they might be. For as none but God has the right, and would dare, to sentence a soul to eternal misery, for sin; and as none but God has the right, and would dare, to execute the sentence; so none but God has the right, and should presume, to delineate the nature and consequences of the sentence.

2

The new life is not implanted because man perceives the truth, but he perceives the truth because the new life is implanted. A man is not regenerated because he has first believed in Christ, but he believes in Christ because he has been regenerated. He is not regenerated because he first repents, but he repents because he has been regenerated.

3

It appears singular to the reader of St. Paul’s Epistles that the apostle in one passage speaks of Christians as perfect, and in another as imperfect. At one time, he describes them in terms that would lead us to infer that they are holy as God is holy; and at another, he speaks of them as full of sin and corruption. In the text, he denominates them “the elect of God, holy and beloved,” and yet immediately proceeds to exhort them to the possession and practice of the most common Christian graces – such as humility and forgiveness. In a preceding paragraph, he tells the Colossians that they “are dead to sin, and their life is hid with Christ in God,” and then goes on to urge them to overcome some of the most gross sins in the whole catalogue – “mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Col. 3:3-5).