The Renewal of the Evangelical Spirit

always good, and never evil: although Scripture says: e Lamentations 3:38. that evil and good come from God, it does not mean that God does evil, but rather man alone does evil by using f 4 Esdras 8:57. 4 Esdras is an apocalyptic book found in many ancient Latin Bibles, though often placed in the apocrypha in modern editions. his freedom to do wrong. And one can truly say that this Freedom comes from God, but not the wicked use of it. Just as a good craftsman making a sharp and well-tempered knife for a person's convenience and proper use, that person may abuse it for an evil end and kill his brother with this knife, without it being possible to say with truth that this homicide was committed by the knife-maker, even though the instrument with which the homicide was committed comes from the knife-maker. In the same way, one cannot say without blasphemy that God has done any evil, since he has given man full freedom to do good and to LOVE HIM g Proverbs 23:26. VOLUNTARILY, seeing that his God created him for this SOLE PURPOSE.

XII. Hell shall be Eternal as well as Paradise.

But if man abuses the Eternity and the Freedom that God has given him, h Ecclesiastes 3:14. he cannot prevent himself from being eternal and always free, because God willed him to have this nature, and not to be a kind of creature constrained or limited to time, as several ill-advised people The author is likely refuting "Universalism" or "Apocatastasis," the belief that all souls, including the damned, will eventually be saved. like to imagine that Hell will not be eternal, but rather that damned souls will return again into the grace of God after having suffered for some time in Hell. This is invented to flatter the wicked person who did not wish to remain in THE LOVE of his God, and yet wishes