19 — Destruction of His Enemies

Chapter 19 CHRIST GLORIOUS IN THE DESTRUCTION OF HIS ENEMIES

We would not willingly stand convicted either of the want of fidelity, or the want of tenderness, in speaking of the glory of Christ in the destruction of the wicked. The subject is one fitted to awaken both terror and compassion. It does, as it were, survey the great battle-field of the universe after the battle is over; where the Omnipotent One is the Conqueror, and those who have met him on terms of mortal defiance, are agonizing in the last struggle.

Those there have been who have denied all distinction between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, virtue and vice; and who therefore deny that there is any essential difference of character between the righteous and the wicked. What they deny is the great fact which the Sacred Writers assume in maintaining the authoritative and penal character of the divine government. If there be no such thing as good and evil, sin and holiness in the universe; then is there no difference of character in angels and devils, and in good men and bad. We cannot proceed a step in vindicating the Redeemer’s glory in the destruction of his enemies, without recognizing the radical difference of character between his enemies and his friends. This great truth lies at the foundation both of his moral and mediatorial government; nor is there one which the Scriptures more abundantly recognize, or on which they more strongly insist. They recognize it in the different appellations they give to these two great classes of men, in the intelligible descriptions they give of their characters, by every truth they reveal, and every promise and threatening they utter. It is only by denying, or keeping this essential distinction out of sight, that subtle heretics have been able to deny the final separation between the righteous and the wicked in the future world. There is no one point of Christian doctrine on which the minds of men are more exposed to be corrupted by those who lie in wait to deceive, than this. Let a man once be persuaded that, after all, there is no great difference between good men and bad, and certainly no essential difference of character between them; and his conscience may sleep. There is no anodyne more effective, no poison more delicate and insinuating. This difference of character is the reason why the Supreme Judge treats them so differently in the eternal world. All men are by nature his enemies; but there are those whose enmity to him is subdued, and superseded by love and loyalty. These are his friends; they are the friends of truth and holiness, the friends of law and order, the friends of God and man, and will be found on his right hand when he comes to judge the world in righteousness. Those whose enmity remains unsubdued, and who prove fierce and intractable in their hostility are radically different from these, and are assigned to a very different destiny. They will be found on the left hand of the Judge, and to them he will say, " Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels!" We have seen some of the glories of his character; but is he glorious in the execution of this fearful sentence? This is the single question we propose to discuss in the present chapter. In doing this, it is necessary, in the first place, to direct our thoughts to the destruction itself which will be inflicted. For reasons unknown to us, but unquestionably wise, God has seen fit to shroud that world of darkness in a veil of impenetrable mystery. It would be in harmony with the emblematical representations of the heavenly world, if similar representations were adopted in relation to the fearful allotment which awaits the ungodly. This is probably the case. The lake of fire — the worm that never dies — the bottomless pit — the ascending smoke of torment — the wine of God’s wrath — the chains — the brimstone — the consuming of the flesh — the gnashing of teeth — the parched tongue and the unslaked thirst may be regarded as emblems fearfully descriptive of that state of mental and corporeal suffering which are reserved for the wicked. The very fact that the sacred writers, under the guidance of God’s Spirit, have chosen such emblems is of fearful import. They do not seem to be capable of a literal construction because they are confused and contradictory; while they teach us that it must be a dreadful recompense which requires to be set forth by such fearful and energetic imagery. Our knowledge of the sufferings of the damned is a very imperfect knowledge. What God has revealed concerning it offers little gratification to restless curiosity. When his own hand lifts the veil from that unknown world and ushers the ungodly into their unalterable destiny, it will be time enough for them to know in full measure in what the woes of that place of torment consist. Some things we know concerning it, and they may be expressed in the following particulars.

We know, in the first instance, that there is such a place as hell. There is as much evidence that there is a hell, as that there is a heaven, and that it has a distinct existence and a local identity. We know not where it is, nor of what its deep foundations are composed, nor how its adamantine walls are built; nor, in many particulars, do we know in what its suffering consists. But we know that there is such a world. Infidels may sneer at it; Universalists may scoff at the very name; carelessness and stupidity may not allow themselves to think of it; yet there it stands, supported by the pillars of eternal truth and justice, and neither skepticism nor obduracy can strike it out of existence. The Scriptures speak of it in scores of places both in the Old Testament and the New. They teach us that "the wicked shall be turned into hell;" that ’’hell hath enlarged herself;" that there are those who cannot "escape the damnation of hell;" that God is able "to destroy both body and soul in hell;" that God "spared not the angels, but cast them down to hell;" and that the punishment "prepared for the devil and his angels" will be the punishment of ungodly men. In some part of God’s widely-extended dominions God has prepared this world of suffering, this place of residence for the lost. There are the souls of all who have died and will die in their sins, and there their bodies will be after the resurrection. There are all the elements of suffering which, after the final judgment, will be found in the universe; and there are all those means and instruments which the justice of the great God has prepared to express his everlasting abhorrence of sin, and to inflict deserved punishment on the sinner. This is that outer darkness and that lake of fire. Every token of divine anger distinguishes these regions of eternal doom. When Judas "went to his own place," this is the place where he went. When "Capernaum was brought down to hell," this is the place to which she was brought down. When licentious Sodom was wrapped in flames, this is the place to which she descended, "suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Over that dismal territory the enemies of God shall wander, unforgiving and unforgiven, outcasts from the New Jerusalem. This is the place of their punishment, their gloomy prison, deep and large, where omnipotence consigns them; the proper place of their punishment, their joyless and gloomy eternity. The next fact we know concerning that melancholy world is, that it is a world of actual, living, conscious existences. The Scriptures speak of the destruction of the wicked; but by this they never mean their annihilation. Annihilation is no punishment; when once these creatures of God are annihilated, there is nothing to punish. The penalty of sin is suffering, and therefore there is a sufferer. The redundant descriptions of the misery of the lost which are found in the Bible, necessarily imply a state of conscious existence. The soul will not lose any of its intellectual or moral powers, or any of its capacities for suffering, because it is banished to hell. Its perceptions will be clear and vivid, its thoughts vigorous, its volitions strong, its memory retentive, its imagination brilliant, and all its sensitiveness quickened by its dismission from this sluggish and material habitation of flesh and blood. Hell is no drowsy, slumbering world; " they rest not day nor night," There are no waters of forgetfulness there in which the mind can bathe and forget its sorrows; and no Lethean opiates whose draught can lull it to repose. Wicked men may trifle away their day of grace; they may sleep away their Sabbaths, and lock up their thoughts in profound stupidity, amid scenes which make devils tremble and angels weep; but there will be no stupidity and no trifling when once they awake in hell. It is no world of dreams; nor are there found there any fond conceits of unconscious being. Men who enter it, will know that they are; and when they suffer, they will know that it is the wrath of God they suffer, and for what they suffer it. Multiplied sins will rise up to their remembrance; lost Sabbaths, perverted means of grace, abused bounties of providence, a wasted life, and a death of impenitence and unbelief will all be recalled. Not one active principle of their nature will be eradicated or paralyzed. They will think, and be always thinking; and O what thoughts! they will feel and more keenly than they ever felt; they will live and still live if it were only to perpetuate the threatened, executed death of God’s holy law. A third fact distinctly revealed concerning their destruction is, that they shall all he united with the most degrading and debasing society in the ’universe. It is a fearful allotment to be cut off from all intercourse with holy beings, and suffer an eternal separation of the soul from God, and from the presence of his glory; but the anguish is inconceivable to be shut up in hell with all the ungodly of every age of time, every nation and language, and of every degree of wickedness, and with the devil and his angels. The society of heaven is too pure and holy for them; they have no sympathies with that blessed world; it is a different companionship only for which they are fitted. However the less debased may shrink from such fellowship, this is the world and this the society in which they must dwell. The last sentence consigns all them who work iniquity in the universe to the society of the damned. Who can speak of the sources of wretchedness in a society where there is everything to debase and infuriate; where there is nothing but reciprocated malice and treachery, elimination and bitterness; and where their only fellowship is the fellowship of wicked passions, and where the storm of passion never passes away: visions of loveliness have vanished, and only these visions of deformity remain. Enmity takes the place of love; discord, of harmony; curses, of reverence; and the proud vindictive spirit of hell, embittered to madness, renders that cruel world like a furnace of fire.

We remark again, there will be sources of misery in hell arising from the state of mind of the guilty sufferers themselves. These mental ingredients are of various kinds.

One of them is their own wickedness. We know something of the desperate wickedness of the human heart in the present world. We have felt it in our own bosoms, have tasted the wormwood and the gall, and know too well how they embitter the fountains of our joy. We have seen it in in others; in the discontent of the envious, in grasping ambition, in infuriated anger, in bitter malignity, in desponding gloom, and in the frenzied maniac. We have read of it in the triumphs of power and cruelty, until we have sickened at the recital, and turned with horror from the record of pollution and blood. But we know little of those sources of wretchedness which are found in the bosom of every ungodly man in that wretched world, where iniquity is unchecked by the kindly influences of social life, unrestrained even by self-respect, and where the vilest and most malignant passions rage in all their ungoverned fury. The thought is not always present to our minds, that, when men are at last abandoned of God, not only are all the restraints upon their wickedness taken off, but exciting causes are there brought into action by which it is fearfully provoked and irritated. We read of those who "blaspheme the God of heaven, and gnaw their tongues for their pains." When the inhabitants of hell, after all their efforts and combinations, find themselves unable to resist or endure their sufferings; how will they foam out their blasphemies against the God of heaven and the friend of the saints! What flames of livid enmity will then be lighted up, and how will they burn and rage! Many a man has seen enough of himself to confess that he feared no worse hell than that which exists within his own bosom. But what a hell is that where rancorous enmity and infuriate malevolence break out in such frenzied violence that none shall quench them!

Another of these ingredients will be the mournful disappointment of the sufferers. They must now realize what perhaps they did not once believe; they must now suffer that which they secretly hoped to escape; they now find that intolerable which they once trifled with and made up their minds to endure. Instead of being too good to perish, as they once thought, they now find they are vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. This is one of the bitter ingredients in their cup. What defeat, what overwhelming reverse of expectation, when they see all their hopes shipwrecked, and they themselves launched out on the burning lake!

There will also be that deep sense of shame which will make the proud and aspiring spirit of incorrigible rebellion stoop. Men can suffer, if they may suffer alone, and no eye looks in upon them to detect the cause and expose the shame of their sufferings. Many a man has taken refuge in the wilderness and even in the grave, in order to shield himself from reproach. It is not improbable that wicked men will suffer quite as much from the shame, as from the pain of their punishment. They will " awake to shame and everlasting contempt." Their earthly honors were laid aside at the grave. Their true character will then be known, and all their wickedness exposed; and what wonder if they are despised, and become the objects of universal derision and contempt? God himself says " he will laugh at their calamity, and mock when their fear cometh." The Scriptures instruct us that " the righteous also shall see and laugh at them." Their associates in wickedness, and devils shall scoff and exult over them, and the universe unite in turning their glory into shame. Nor is there any doubt that their suffering will be greatly aggravated by fear. Fear is a terrific passion when once it takes deep hold of the human mind. In that dreadful world " terror will take hold on them as waters, and fear will come upon them as desolation." They were afraid when they came to the bed of death, and grew pale and trembled. They quaked with fear when they heard the archangel’s voice, and stood before the Son of Man in judgment. And now, when the gulf of perdition yawns, and every object that meets their eye, and every sound that falls upon their ear fills them with dismay; how do all faces gather paleness because the day of wrath is come, and with what fearful forebodings do they leap into the bottomless pit!

There will also be bitter remorse of conscience and with nothing to assuage the agony of its accusations. There will be a deep sense of black and damning guilt on the soul. Remorse with all its vipers stings the guilty sufferer, and hangs upon his bleeding heart like the never-dying worm. The guilty sinner is his own tormentor, while his restless conscience hurries him, ’alternately distracted by terror and remorse. ’ Deeds long since done rise up before him in new and irresistible horrors. The darkness of hell cannot hide them, nor its flames burn them out of his memory. He lies down in his shame, and his confusion covers him.

Those poignant regrets also, that the day of mercy is past, and that they are shut up in hell; how will these aggravate their woes! There shall be mourning then. There " shall be weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth," when they see what they have lost, and what they must endure. Most truly will that be a world of tears. And besides these, they will be overwhelmed with ceaseless despair. Hope that casts a smile even upon the brow of sorrow; that sweet lenitive, that bright star in the darkest night, rises not on their dark eternity. Hopes have perished which can never return. That single sentence, uttered at the final consummation, " Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire," seals their doom, and leaves them " There to converse with everlasting groans, Unrespited, unpitied, unrelieved, Ages of hopeless end."

Myriads and myriads of ages will have come and gone, and " he who made them will not have mercy on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor." The last thought we suggest on this part of our subject therefore is, that it is the great God himself ’who is the punisher. We know not how he punishes, except as we know something of his nature, and see how he sometimes punishes in the present world, and what engines of wrath he often employs to execute his displeasure. Famine, fire, plague, sword, earthquake, flood, volcano, and every instrument of destruction have already been summoned to the work of fulfilling his purposes of justice. " It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God." His wrath is infinite and eternal as his love, and omnipotent as his power. They are terrific descriptions of it which we find in the Bible. It is called his fierce anger, " the fierceness of his anger," the ’’power of his anger," and the " burning of his anger." Wicked men had better array against themselves all the principalities and powers in the universe, than throw themselves into the hands of such a punisher. When the omnipotent and angry God undertakes to ’punish; he will convince the universe that he does not gird himself for the work of retribution in vain. He has access to all the avenues of distress in the corporeal frame, and all the inlets to agony in the intellectual constitution, and he will cast " both body and soul into hell." He himself has told us that he " will show his wrath, and make his power known in the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction." Terrible will be that wrath and power which he thus sets himself to show and make ’known! O who shall tell what it is to be lost and damned forever!

" What harp of boundless, deep, exhaustless woe, Shall utter forth the groanings of the damned, And sing the obsequies of wicked souls, And wail their plunge in the eternal fire!"

Such is the destruction inflicted on all impenitent men. Such is the dreadful recompense of sin, and such the everlasting triumphs of law and justice. We feel that this is an awful subject, and that these are fearful thoughts. We ask ourselves, Is it right that any of God’s creatures should thus perish? Can such a sentence ever be inflicted by a Being of infinite wisdom and goodness; and is he glorious in executing it to the uttermost? On this grave question the following thoughts deserve’ consideration.

1. In the first place, we are free to confess that it puts in requisition all our confidence in God in order to justify and approve this procedure of his government. It becomes us to be cautious and slow in questioning the equity and goodness of anything which God performs. That he does execute this sentence, we have just as much reason to believe, as to believe that the Bible is his word. We must fall back upon blank infidelity unless we believe this truth; and then where do we fall, and what catastrophe do we meet with? Yet we may not affirm there is no perplexity in contemplating this stern feature of the divine government. It is not to be wondered at that smatterers in theology have treated it lightly; nor that declamatory zeal exhausts itself in these affecting denunciations without weighing its words, or sitting in judgment upon its own spirit; nor that fair and candid minds have regarded it with embarrassment. It must be more than a superficial view, or a traditional belief, or an instantaneous decision that satisfies on such a question. Nothing is more obvious than that Jesus Christ can do no wrong. The whole universe bears testimony to the excellence of his character. If such a being as the ever-blessed and glorious Saviour has formed the purpose thus to punish his incorrigible enemies; he has not formed it without calm forethought, and cool dispassionate deliberation. It is too important a measure to be the result of a wild and visionary mind, or to be hastily adopted; nor has the Son of God hastily adopted it. And we may well be satisfied with this single thought. Had I any embarrassment in contemplating it, this one thought would dissipate the last shade of mistrust. God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. The darkness is in our own minds. There must be the best reasons for this judicial sentence, else would it never go forth from the lips of the God-Man Mediator. We cannot weigh this grave subject as his infinite mind weighs it. We cannot comprehend the claims of his punitive justice; nor measure the ill-desert of sin; nor appreciate the great and everlasting interests, which present themselves to his thoughts, when he thus determines the punishment of the wicked. Our minds have also a wrong bias, from the fact that we ourselves are sinners. The condemned prisoner at the bar is not the man to determine the punishment his crime deserves; that belongs to the majesty and rectitude of the law. I look up to the throne of Judgment, and see who that great and glorious Being is that occupies it, and feel the force of the demand, " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Take away the infinite perfection of the Judge, and I confess I look down upon that world of darkness with horror. I shudder over it as I shudder over some deep and dark abyss which is a perfect anomaly in nature. But when I think of Him there is a bright side to this dark cloud; there are divine glories reflected even from those walls of fire. They compose parts of a great and glorious design which has God for its Author, and which must therefore be wise and harmonious. To the cavils of the complaining, and the embarrassments of every honest mind, the voice of Wisdom utters the words, "Be still, and know that I am God!"

2. Tn the next place, from what we know of Christ, we have the perfect assurance that he takes no delight in sin and misery. We have seen who he is, and have traced a faint outline of his character and history, from the glory he had with the Father before the world was, to his incarnation; and from his incarnation to the cross, and to his ascension and return to his native heavens. There is no being in the universe whose heart is so fall of tenderness as his. He "hears the ravens when they cry," and the " young lions when they wander for lack of meat." He would not inflict one needless pang, even upon a worm. His tears over Jerusalem and his prayer on the cross assure us that he would not needlessly wound his bitterest enemy; much more that he would not, from sheer delight in misery, consign him to everlasting burning. The principles on which he punishes the wicked are not always appreciated. If proud and overbearing man, so self-complacent in his little brief authority, did not so often punish from impulse, caprice, and malignity; he would have a better opinion of the great Judge of the universe than to admit the thought that he punishes from want of tenderness. Happiness is not the greatest good, nor is misery the greatest evil. If they had been, such lessons would never have been read to us, as have not been washed out by the waters of the deluge, nor burnt out by the flames of Sodom, nor obliterated from the cross of Christ. There would have been no gain to the universe from the agonies of that mighty Sufferer, if the woes of Calvary were thrown into the scale simply to hold an even balance between the claims of human happiness and misery.

We ourselves often have strong convictions of the worth of principle. Men suffer for the sake of principle; torrents of blood have flowed for principle; and where the principles of truth and righteousness have prevailed, they are worth the sacrifice. There is no nobler spectacle than where a good man consents to make every sacrifice for principle. The happiness that is sacrificed and the suffering that it costs, are of minor account. Daniel was tempted to lie to the God of heaven; or, in the event of his refusal, to be cast into the burning fiery furnace. And who does not see that his unbending adherence to the principles of truth and rectitude was worth all the suffering which Babylon’s furnace, seven times heated, could inflict? When once it is considered how much suffering has been endured in the world for righteousness sake; and how much is still endured for the sake of invigorating the strength of moral principle in good men; and how often they themselves have gratefully confessed that to have gained the victory over a single besetting sin, and to have made some sensible advance in the divine life, is worth all their suffering, twice told; the conviction must be strong on our minds that there are higher interests to be consulted by the divine government than the mere happiness or misery of its subjects. In the final issue, there must be no connivance at wickedness, be the sacrifice what it may.

It is because this truth is so important that the divine government is penal. Nor does it follow, because the penalty is executed; the great Lawgiver and Judge is not kind. Compassion that is superior to rectitude is weakness, is effeminacy, is sin. If the question of sending the incorrigible to hell were left to his compassion and tenderness only, they would relent; never could he inflict that exterminating sentence. But his rectitude never changes. He cannot do " evil that good may come." His tenderness and compassion are not lawless, but under the guidance of his rectitude. He cannot do wrong, even to save immortal beings from everlasting perdition. And who does not perceive that he is not the less amiable and glorious, because his love and tenderness are governed by his rectitude? Is not the sentence that banishes the wicked to hell just what it should be; a respecter of principles, rather than of the persons of men; an attachment to law rather than to the transgressor? Does it not deserve our confidence? and does not he deserve it who sits upon the throne? The suffering is fearful, but the rectitude is glorious.

3. There is another view of the subject in which a class of minds may perhaps take a deeper interest. We affirm that it is an expression of the Saviour’s goodness thus to punish all his incorrigible creatures. When opposers of future punishment make their appeal to the Saviour’s goodness they practice deception upon their own minds. Has goodness no tenderness for the obedient? Does law exhaust all its tenderness for the guilty, and has it none left for the virtuous? Must not the divine goodness aim at the highest and most comprehensive good; and can it be shown that this is consulted by allowing the lawless and obdurate to go unpunished? Would not this be an impeachment of goodness; and does not mercy revolt from this inconsiderate and reckless connivance at sin? When God caused "all his goodness to pass before Moses," one expression of it was in the words, " He will by no means clear the guilty." In that memorable song of the Psalmist, which celebrates the divine mercy are found such thoughts as these: "To him who smote Egypt;" to him who "overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea;" to him who "smote great kings and slew famous kings;" for his "mercy endureth forever!" His mercy was illustrated by these acts of his justice; it was a sacrifice of the less to the greater; it was the deliverance of Israel that was one inducement to cut off her enemies. Just as it is mercy to the living that the murderer should not live, it is mercy to the righteous that, in the final arrangements of God’s government, the wicked should perish. There are other sources of happiness infinitely dear to Christ, beside those which might flow from unrestrained and unpunished wickedness.

We may not place so much confidence in this view of the subject as in some others; yet is it one which no benevolent mind can disregard. Even if the law of expediency were the great law of the divine government, it would demand the destruction of the ungodly. It would not be wise to jeopard and destroy the peace and safety of all virtuous minds, through interminable ages, for the sake of impunity to crime. The wicked must go to their own place; they are in league with the devil and his angels, and may not have their dwelling within the heavenly city. They are not fitted fur it, but for their own chosen associates, and chosen hell. The Son of Man must "send his angels and gather out of his kingdom all things that offend." And the universe will stand in awe. It will be an awful and majestic deed, when he who hung on Calvary shall cast those who have trodden his blood under their feet into the "furnace of fire, where there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth;" but it will be a glorious deed, and the only and last resort by which his own throne and the tranquility of his obedient subjects can be secured.

4. The fourth and last thought by which the glory of Christ in this destruction is illustrated, is that it is required his justice. This is the true ground on which the Scriptures place this great subject. The government of the world belongs to God; it is a government of law; and is a perfect government. The precepts and prohibitions of it are equitable and right; and the penalty is commensurate with the ill-desert of transgression.

Justice gives man his due. It is essential to punitive justice that the penalty of transgression be proportioned to the magnitude of the offense. Justice, pure, equal justice inflicts penalty which neither goes beyond, nor falls short of the offender’s ill-desert.

Such justice as this is one of the essential and immutable properties of the divine nature. God not only may be just, but must be just; he not only may punish, but must punish. He sits on the throne of eternal justice. He must forever hate sin, and forever be disposed to punish it, and actually punish it according to its desert; else is he no longer just. The consciences of men respond to this representation. They are conscious of having violated God’s law, and are equally conscious that this renders them deserving of punishment. No arguments are necessary to establish the connecting bond between sin and punishment. No excuses, no reasoning, no theory, no hopes, no refuge can relieve the transgressors mind from this secret apprehension. His great Maker has so constituted him, that he is looking out for the ministers of vengeance — " a fire not blown consumes him;" the "shaking of a leaf " fills his mind with ominous forebodings, because he " knows the just judgment of God, and that they who do such things are worthy of death." When therefore God announces himself in his ’word to be a just God he makes his appeal to the sinner’s conscience. When the sinner reads the curses that are written in his book, he cannot set aside this condemning power and sentence. And when we come before him to vindicate this sentence, and to show him, that the righteous Judge is glorious in executing it to the uttermost; our appeal is to his own sense of justice nor do we go beyond the resistless convictions of his own conscience, when we affirm that he deserves punishment. He deserves it wherever it exists and as long as it exists. We only ask that God may not be disrobed of the honors of his justice. We dishonor him if, on the one hand, we suppose him to be indifferent to the destiny of wicked men; or, if on the other, we suppose him to be under the influence of those turbulent, ungoverned, furious passions which cannot be gratified by anything short of making them as miserable as it is possible to make them. But is it any dishonor to him that " he cannot look on sin;" that " to him belongeth vengeance and recompense;" and that he is clothed with righteousness as a garment? The true and impartial exercise of his justice is founded on the highest reason, and supported by the strongest virtue. Wicked men have done evil and nothing but evil; and therefore they are ill-deserving. The time will never come when these sufferers will cease to be conscious of their ill-desert. While therefore the divine justice leaves them without hope, it is Justice; and because it is justice, we may not fault it. It would not be justice, if they did not deserve it; and because they deserve it, the justice is glorious. It would not be justice if they were punished beyond their ill-desert; this would be injustice and there is no fear of this. They will suffer because they deserve it; they will always suffer because they will always deserve it; and because they forever deserve it, the justice that inflicts it will be forever glorious. The only reason why their punishment will be everlasting, is that their ill-desert is everlasting.

Such is the destruction of the ungodly, and such the considerations which show that Christ is glorious in inflicting it. We are sensible that it is no easy matter to persuade men of these truths. They often wonder at the adoring approbation with which holy beings are represented in the Scriptures as expressing toward these acts of God’s judicial power. When Pharaoh and his host were cast into the Red Sea, Moses gave Israel the song, " Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power. Who is like unto thee among the gods? Who is like unto thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?" When the Psalmist sets forth the wickedness and the perdition of the ungodly, his language is, "The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance." " Zion heard and was glad, and the daughters of Jerusalem rejoiced, because of thy judgments, O Lord!" When the seven angels appear with the seven last plagues, the saints are represented with harps in their hands, and singing, " Great and marvellous are thy works. Lord, God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints!" When mystical Babylon fell, the high command was issued, " Rejoice over her thou heaven, and ye holy Apostles and Martyrs, for God hath avenged you on her!" It was when the Apostle John was carried away in the Spirit into the wilderness, and there saw "a woman upon a scarlet-colored beast;" and he saw her " drunk with the blood of the saints," and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, that he also " saw an angel come down from heaven, having great power, and the earth was lightened with his glory; and he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen!" And then he heard " a great voice of much people in heaven saying, Alleluia! Salvation, and glory, and honor, and power unto the Lord our God; for true and righteous are his judgments! And again they said Alleluia! and her smoke rose up forever and ever!" Nothing is more obvious, than that if we have emotions diverse from these, we are either in great darkness, or our habitual state of mind is not heavenly. The character of Christ, as the rewarder deserves our admiration and praise as well as theirs. If we are dissatisfied with this essential attribute of his nature, it is because we have a state of mind that is dissatisfied with him. To look upon his justice as odious, is to look on sin with indifference; to regard his justice as hard and cruel, is to take the part of his enemies. Beware of this state of moral feeling. No man can sit down with the saints in the kingdom of God, who cannot sing the song of Moses., as well as the song of the Lamb. There is a wide difference between the enemies of God and his friends. His enemies hate his justice, with implacable hatred; his friends approve and adore it. In the view of his enemies, it is a blemish in his character; in the view of his friends, it is one of its’ glories. Sterling virtue is not the enemy of justice. No man can from the heart accept God’s pardoning mercy, until he approves his condemning justice. It is not possible to perceive and appreciate the grace of God in saving, if you neither perceive, nor appreciate his justice in punishing.

Most men live as though there were no such state of misery in the universe as that which we have described. Great multitudes, and among them some professing godliness, do not feel satisfied when they read or hear anything of the gospel but its glad tidings. Christ incarnate, Christ sinless, Christ commiserating and healing, Christ dying, Christ rising, ascending, reigning, — these are topics which interest them. And well they may; would to God that they interested them more intensely! But Christ on the throne of Judgment, Christ the Redeemer, Christ uttering and executing the sentence, " Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels!" This is a manifestation of his glory which they would rather have concealed. It is too overwhelming to be real; they wish it were not true, and wish it suppressed even if it be. I cannot but think this is one of the devices of Satan to destroy the souls of men. It is not more " a faithful saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," than that he is glorious in the everlasting destruction of those who neglect this salvation. Never would he have died on Calvary if he did not mean to vindicate his high claims as the righteous Judge. His death would have answered no valuable purpose if incorrigible offenders go unpunished, and if it only served to proclaim impunity to crime.

O ye who are in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity, who are the prisoners of his justice, and for a few short hours the possessors of hope, will you not be persuaded to "flee to the stronghold?" We know we have uttered fearful truths; perhaps he who utters them may be accused as a stern prophet, and a prophet of wrath because he utters them. We have uttered them because, " knowing the terrors of the Lord, we would persuade men." The world of lost spirits is no idle figment, no melancholy conceit or invention of men. And there is but one method of escape from it. O how it exalts that wondrous redemption to think upon the woes from which it delivers, and that it shows the way of escape from bitter groans and endless burning! You are to exist eternal ages, and if it be a miserable existence, when it comes upon you there will be no escape. There is escape now, but before another sun shall rise, you may drop from your thoughtlessness into the pit of despair. O thou creature of guilt and misery! wilt thou not escape from this coming wrath? A few more Sabbaths of thoughtlessness and sin, and the storm will burst. The proffered salvation of him who is "a just God and Saviour," is in your hands; and we demand of you, by his authority and in his name, whether you will ascend with the redeemed to heaven, or whether, with the devil and his angels, you will make your bed in the lake of fire.