A 08 Correspondance
CORRESPONDENCE.
12 Burroughs Place.
Rev. Dr. Adams.
Dear Sir: It was my privilege to be one of your auditors last Sunday evening, when you delivered the discourse, listened to with great interest by a large assembly, on the *'Reasonableness of Eternal Punishment.''
I take the liberty to address you, with the request that you will repeat the discourse in the Hollis Street Church next Sunday evening. Members of the committee of my society, and many others of the parishioners^ express to me the hope that you may find it consistent with your engagements and in accordance with your sense of duty to accept this invitation. Our church is very spacious; on such an occasion I doubt not that it would be crowded with an audience of “ Liberal Christians.” I am sure that they would eagerly embrace an opportunity to hear so able an advocate of ^* Orthodoxy” upon a theme so important as the eternal punishment, by the Infinite Father, of all who fail to comply with the terms of grace which He has established for His children during this brief life.
Let me assure you that, if you accept this offer, the pulpit shall be entirely at your disposal, precisely as if it were your own. And let me say that I expect no such offer in return.
If you consent, I shall simply urge my people to attend your service, and listen, as I shall listen a second time, with the respect your abilities deserve, and with the earnestness which the momentous question, you discuss -- about which vre differ so widely -- should inspire in us all. In the hope of an early reply, I am respectfully yours, T. S. KING.
Rev. T. S. King. 4 Boylston Place. My Dear Sir: Your note of the 21st inst. reached me this morning, and I need not say that it has greatly surprised and deeply interested me. The sermon was written in 1852, and was then preached to my own people on a Sabbath morning, in the ordinary course of ministerial labor. The subject has weighed much on my own mind during the present religious interest, and this alone induced me to present it at my lecture last Sabbath evening. That it did not strike you and others as an unfeeling exhibition of mere theological opinion upon an infinitely important and very trying subject, is truly gratifying to me. Your invitation to repeat the sermon in your church, next Sabbath evening, is conveyed in such terms that I feel impelled to accept it, and I will therefore comply with your request. It is due to you as well as to myself to say, that parts of the discourse, as originally written, were omitted last Sabbath evening, and their place was supplied from brief notes, and by a few extemporaneous remarks. All this I will endeavor to repeat; and I infer from the tenor of your note that should I further explain and re-cnforce some of my statements, it will but accord with your wishes. I ought, moreover, to add that none but myself can properly be held responsible for my sentiments and expressions on this subject, however much I may suppose my views to agree with theirs. With sincere regard, I am, dear sir, very truly yours, N. ADAMS.
REASONABLENESS OF FUTURE, ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. For the wages of sin is death. -- Romans 6:23.
LET US endeavor to think how- it would be with us, should it come to pass, as the fool in his heart wishes it to be, that there is no God; that God is dethroned. Some disaster has happened in the universe, and rival spirits, we will suppose, have triumphed. Malignity has supplanted benevolence; wickedness is enthroned over virtue; chance does not rule, but the government of all worlds is in the hands of the enemies of God. Prayer now is useless; public worship may as well cease. Bibles are like old books of history, and nothing more, for the promises of the Bible are now like irredeemable bills. Repentance and faith are useless. The deity to whom this world has fallen by lot is Mammon, or Moloch; or it may be that Satan himself, out of spite for all which he has suffered here, takes it under his charge. Everything now is perverted; darkness is put for light, evil for good, bitter for sweet. The strongest must rule; to get all he can, by all means, is the governing principle of every man; no rights are respected; Virtue is driven out of the world; her defences and her great reward have perished. Everywhere we are assailed with the sight of these words, and with this cry, No God! No God! Whether the devils have power to control the elements and rule the heavenly bodies, or whether all things will rush to ruin, is a fearful question, which every day and hour appalls the stoutest heart. For, instead of One, Almighty, Supreme Being, who can say, as formerly, ''I am God, and there is none else,” and instead of that unity of purpose, and independent will, and unrivalled might, which governed the universe safely and happily, a band of devils, we suppose, is at the head of affairs, the superior demon holding his sway by force over the rest, or by their assent; but no unity of purpose, or permanence, can be expected in things controlled by hateful and hating creatures. We look up to the heavens; they no longer “ declare the glory of God,” but telegraph his discomfiture. As one says, *'What were the universe without a God? A mob of worlds, careering round the sky.”
Law everywhere would be likely to be mob law.
If we could, by armies and any sacrifice of treasure and blood, reinstate Jehovah in his throne, our own self-interest, and sense of justice, and oiitraged feelings, would impel us to any and every effort to drive Satan and his hosts from heaven, and shut them up in hell as long as they should continue rebellious; and the return of the day when God Almighty should resume his peaceful reign in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, would be a jubilee. But, alas! if the almighty arm, so called, could not prevail against his enemies, how could mortals help him? Let it once be that usurpers have the throne of God, and annihilation would be coveted by every one of us 116 KEASOKABLENESS OF more eagerly than any despairing suicide ever yet longed to prove or to find it true.
Every one of us has done his part to bring about this state of things. Should the natural feelings and conduct of each of us be extended indefinitely, all this would virtually happen.
There might be more refinement in wickedness in some places than in others, to suit the tastes and habits of different people; but Greece and Rome, the models of ancient cultivation and refinement, are, with “the whole world lying in wickedness,” described by an unerring pen in the first chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and in terms which make every reader blush with shame at human nature. Its degeneracy and corruption, from Cain to the days of the Canaanites, and ever since, when unrestrained by the grace of God, have been such that nation after nation made it necessary for God to wipe them out of existence, “ as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.”* Volney surveys the “ ruins of empires,” and mourns, saying, '' To what purpose is this waste? “ and he impeaches the wisdom of his God. He will * 2 Kings 21:13. not consider that sin is the procuring cause of national, as it is of individual ruin, and that God has but fulfilled the threatening, “ The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.”* “Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.'“ Sin is the antagonist of God. If sin prevails, there is “ no God.” For wherever, even upon a small scale, sin prevails, God is banished. Let its power be supreme, and practically there is no God. Where is sin? Who ever saw it? Where is its habitation? Sin exists nowhere but in free, intelligent creatures. There i^ no sin separate from a sinner. Whoever, therefore, is a sinner, is sin impersonated. In the greatest measure, we suppose, sin exists in Satan; then in his companions; then in lost men; then in living men.
“The carnal mind is enmity against God.” If we say. The Asiatic cholera is in Boston, we mean that there are those here who have the cholera. There is no sin but in the hearts of fallen spirits and men.
* Is. 9:12. t Psalms 2:9.
There is not one of us who, when placed in circumstances where God and his requirements or prohibitions came in conflict with our wishes, has not fought against God. This is no more than the powers of hell would do on a larger scale, if they had the opportunity. The difference is this: There is a plague, we will say, in London, -which is cutting down a thousand in a day. Men think and speak of it as an awful scourge. But you are at Bath, or Carlisle, sick with the plague, alone, and you are ready to die. There is no difference between j^our plague and the plague in London. All the symptoms which the thousand victims in London have, you exhibit; but you are not in a community where the disease is triumphant. But it is killing you; it does no more in London, only that it has gained the upper hand, and puts the inhabitants, to flight. In like manner, sin, disobedience to God, and the dislike of him from which it springs, is the same in substance everywhere. If we dislike God, his attributes, his requirements, his prohibitions, and if infinite mischief is not the consequence, it is because our influence is
hemmed in and overruled; just as we might have a contagious disorder, and yet such preventives be employed as would keep it from doing much harm.
Though sin has not extended in the universe so far as to dethrone God, we have most perfect illustrations of its awful power.
There was a time when all the sin which was in the world was enclosed in one sinful wish in the breast of one woman. She had permission to eat of every tree but one, and that one God prohibited, saying, “' In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” A transient thought, immediately repressed or disapproved, would not have been sin; for, as Milton says, *' Evil into the mind of God or man May come and go, so unapproved, and leave No spot or blame behind; “ * but she indulged that wish, and hankered after that fruit; and in that sinful wish all the sin of earth once lay. That wish became an act; and now let him who would write the sins and woes of earth first count for us the snow-flakes of five * Paradise Lost, B. 5:1:117. thousand winters, and tell us the number of drops in all the rivers and oceans. “ By one man's disobedience many were made sinners; “and their history is the history of wars, lust, intemperance, violence. O sin! what hast thou done? What canst thou not do?
There is-another illustration still more affecting. We see a company of evil spirits whom Christ is casting out of two men. They hold a conversation with the Saviour. If they are mere diseases, and not intelligent creatures capable of reasoning, but are only personified maladies, who are making a truce with Christ, and if he countenances the delusion that this scene is not even so real a thing as a masquerade, but a fiction throughout, while questions are put and answers given, requests made and permission granted, there is an end to all confidence in language, and indeed the reality of everything may be questioned. '' And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep.”* They did not mean the sea, for thither they soon went of their own choice. The same word, in Revelation 20:8, is translated '^bottomless
Luke 8:31. pit.” They are called '' evil spirits.” But if they were intelligent creatures, they were fallen creatures; for we suppose that God would not create a demon; and allowing even that they were the souls of lost men, or an order of beings who came into existence, as we did, with a fallen nature, probation must have been allotted to them -- a chance to be saved; for we shall agree that no infant, nor any other being, can be lost merely for having a fallen nature. These fallen spirits, then, were once su];:rounded by virtuous influences; they may have been angels; and if they were, nay, even if they sang together with other morning stars, and shouted for joy with all the sons of God, at the birth of the world, they fell no further, comparatively, than the sons or daughters of men have fallen here, from homes of purity and circles of refinement, from pulpits and the table of Christ. “So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.” * O sin, what hast thou done? This whole legion of devils, moreover, had taken possession of two poor creatures, and made them maniacs “ exceed
* Matthew 8:31. ing fierce.” Why should more than one malignant spirit wish to possess one human body?
What mysteries there are in sin, and “ depths of Satan”! The difference between sin as it existed in these demons and as it exists in our breasts, is the same as between the loathsome victim of the plague, and the man who is just taken sick with it. There was a time when angels in heaven, who, the Bible tells us, were '' cast down to hell, and delivered into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment,” * were but just infected with this malady of sin. There was a time when Eve was but just attacked with it.
We are in the early stage of the disorder; but we have it, and if no remedy be applied, time only is wanted to make us desperate. If placed in circumstances where we could communicate the infection to unfallen creatures, like Eve to Adam, and thus to a race, God only can measure the consequences. Many a human spirit, if not redeemed from its sins, the child now sleeping in its cradle, is capable, in the progress of its being, of going forth to tempt and ruin some
* 2 Peter 2:4. fair world, and to become the “ prince of the power of the air “ to that fallen province of God's empire, and to rival the arch apostate angel in his direful history. Is this tremendous thing in us -- this antagonism to God? this enemy to the universe? If so, what is it?
“ Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.” * The sum of all which God requires of man, and prohibits, is comprehended in the ten commandments, every one of which, in thought, word, or deed, we have broken. The Saviour gives us a still more simple summary of our duty: '' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; “ and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” We have failed to do this; we love and serve the creature more than the Creator. Do we avoid that which God disapproves? Do we study to do that which he loves? If we have a family, do we call them together morning and night, and read to them out of God's word, * Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism, 14.
Mark 12:30-31. and before them bow the knee to God? Is it natural to do this? If not, do we give evidence that we love God? His blessings we highlyprize; his natural attributes we are ready to adore; but God, with the moral attributes which the Bible ascribes to him, we do not I8ve. On the contrary, we have feelings and thoughts, and we do things, which are “ enmity against God,” and, carried out into other situations, and exasperated by opposition to our wills, and their influence being sufficiently extended, they would supplant his throne.
If we were in the place of. God, we may imagine how we would regard sin. He comprehends the interests of all intelligent beings, and sees that sin is fatal to his government over them, so that, wherever sin reigns, there, and in that proportion, there is no God. It would be better that the universe should perish than that harm should come to the infinite God; but sin would not only destroy the universe; for, if it could prevail, it would dethrone God. Let us place ourselves where we could see and feel what sin would do if it were aimed against us,
Romans 8:7. and our authority, and the happiness of a universe for whose welfare we were responsible.
How would we legislate about that which would inevitably ruin other worlds and races, as it has ours? What would we do to prevent it, and to reform and save the rebellious? Should we do anything? We will take it for granted that we would. But human wisdom and earthly love could not do more than God has done to save sinners. In the threefold distinction of the divine nature, we hold there is that which is called “ the Word,” which - “was in the beginning with God,” and which “ was God.” * Then, seemingly guarding against the Sabellian theory of “ manifestation,”
it is said again, “ The same was in the beginning with God;” not therefore God filling a human body and soul with influence, and so making a mere demonstration of divinity, but it was the Word, who was not only God, but (“great is the mystery”) ''with God,” indicating both union and distinctness. He became flesh, and dwelt among us. His great object was to take the sinner's place
* John 1:1. as a sacrifice for sins. He did not interpose between a wrathful being and his victims. For the sake, perhaps, of keeping up in the human mind the idea of Deity unmixed with our nature, the Father is familiarly called “ God,” and yet as often “ God the Father,” which word ''Father” would be, in numerous instances, an unwarrantable pleonasm, if “ our heavenly Father,” and not a person in the Trinity, were intended.
“ The Word,” by union with human nature, it is supposed, was constituted “ Son,” and so acted in a subordinate capacity; and so we are told, without farther explanation of the mystery in the^ Godhead, that “ God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” That he died, we know; that he did not die for his own sins, we know; * that “in due time Christ died for the ungodly,” we know. “ He was wounded for our transgressions, he w^as bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.” J It is said of him, “ Whom God hath set forth to be a * Daniel 9:26. f 'Romans 5:6. J Isaiah 53:5. propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.' ' * The terms of salvation for every penitent sinner are, “ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” f “ He that believeth on him is not condemned.”
''Being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours- only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” § All are invited to accept pardon and salvation by pleading the sufferings and death of this Redeemer; and it is then said, '' There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” || To enforce these offers of mercy, and to supply all needful help in being saved, there is One, equal in his nature with the Father and the
* Romans 3:25. f Acts 16:31.:j: Romans 5:9.
1 John 2:1-2. || Romans 8:1.
Son, to whom is committed the work of carrying redemption into effect in the hearts of men. The Holy Ghost, by the plan of salvation, succeeds Christ, and strives with men.* The Bible is put into their hands; an order of men is appointed for the special purpose of being *' ambassadors for Christ,” “ as though God did beseech them,'^ and they pray them “in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.” * One day in seven is set apart by divine authority for special attention to this subject. A most touching ordinance is divinely appointed, which every month or two appeals to their senses, and most powerfully to their hearts. It is no less than a simple representation, by two appropriate symbols, of the body and blood of the Redeemer pleading with man, “ This do in remembrance of me.” f Frequently one and another is converted from his sins, and accepts this offered mercy; others confess the reality and beauty of the change, but they continue in their own chosen ways. Members of their families experience this change, and God thus draws them “ by the cords of a man, with bands of love;” '' but,”
¦ 2 Corinthians 5:20. t Luke 22:19. he is compelled to add, “ they knew not that I healed them.” * And now the angel of death comes into their dwellings: all the softening influences of sickness, and the benign influences of sorrow, persuade them to.be reconciled to God, and all in vain. From lips soon to close in death, appeals are made to them with all the love of a wife, or child, or pastor; or, it may be, a partner in business sends word from his dying pillow, and asks them, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? “ f
God in his word has told them that he will confine his efforts for their salvation within the limits of their natural life, and with urgent love he says, “ Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest.” J
Among the closing words of the Bible these accents fall on their ears like the last notes of a bell that calls to the house of prayer: “ He that is unjust let him be unjust still, and he that is * Hosea 11:4; Hosea 11:3. f Matthew 16:26, J Ecclesiastes 9:10. filthy let him be filthy still, and he that is righteous let him be righteous still, and he that is holy let him be holy still.” * The vast majority of all who receive the Bible as the word of God unite and testify “ how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; “ f that there is pardon through his blood; that he “ delivered us from the wrath to come; “ J and that no probation after death is intimated in the Bible. But notwithstanding all this, men refuse to repent of their sins, and they persist in their repugnance to God. They go into the next world from amidst these influences of mercy, in total disregard of all which has been done to save them. The question is, What is it reasonable for them to expect? Only two things can take place: Further measures will be used to reclaim them, or. They must be forever given up to sin and its consequences.
It is not for man to say what shall now take place. Will he insist that the sinner shall have no further trial? He must not prescribe limits to the mercy of God. “ For my thoughts are Revelation 22:11. f 1 Corinthians 15:3. | 1 Thessalonians 1:10. not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” * Will man insist that the sinner ought to have another period of probation? He is equally at fault if he dictates to the justice of God. Revelation is the only source of knowledge upon this subject. Those of our race who have received the word of God implicit and have interpreted that book, as they do all writings, according to its most obvious import, have, with inconsiderable exceptions, believed that eternal punishment is revealed. But it is with the reasonableness of the doctrine that we are now concerned. There is not a doctrine of revelation -- God forbid! -- which is against reason. It may be above reason in many things, but it never contradicts either the known and established principles of the human conscience and understanding, nor the palpable truths of human experience and observation.
Now, upon this ground we plant ourselves, and say, that, so far as we can judge, endless future punishment is reasonable. He who disbelieves the evangelical system cannot prove the doctrine to be reasonable. Finding future eternal pun
* Is. 4:8. ishment disclosed in the Bible, it commends itself to our understanding and conscience as a reasonable truth.
One objection to it is this. It is said, -- ^''Eternal punishment is too long as a penalty/
for the sins of a short life.'“ None but God can judge here. The important question is, Was the transgressor duly notified?
He is in a foreign land, and is made fully acquainted with a law and its penalty, which he thinks is exceedingly severe. The government, however, have special reasons for the enactment; but he prefers the risk of the penalty to the loss of a certain benefit, and is without excuse, for he transgressed with his eyes open. Is it just for one to lose so much in consequence of so brief a period of transgression? This depends on the information possessed beforehand. A passenger by the steamer does not expect that, if notice of the hour of departure is communicated to him, the bell will toll a whole day, or even an hour for his dilatoriness. He may by losing the voyage, change the prospect of life, and one half minute can decide whether it shall be so.
Forgery, arson, manslaughter, conceived and executed in the briefest space of time, have no valid defence in the shortness of the time occupied by the deed. A day is not too short in which to commit a crime which will be punished by imprisonment for life. We take away a man's whole life, and he a young man, for an act committed within one hour.
If a note has matured, bankruptcy is not arrested because the promisor received only one notice.
We probably never heard it objected to eternal salvation^ that it is too long to be the consequence and reward of this brief life. That heaven is promised to the righteous, and that it will be without end, no one doubts. But what if we should say, as we might with as good reason as in objecting to endless punishment, ''Life is too short in which to merit heaven; we ought to be subjected after death to a longer probation, be placed in new circumstances of trial for a period that should bear some proportion to the greatness of the reward “? What period of trial would be thought an equivalent for measureless felicity, it would be hard indeed to say; and we are therefore led to the principle that the length of time in which good or evil actions take place is no proper measure of their desert. We act upon this principle in everything.
Much use is made of this objection to endless punishment as urged by the late Rev. John Foster, an evangelical Baptist, of England. He writes a letter to a young ministerial friend who had asked his views on the subject of endless punishment. Mr. Foster saj's that he has made much less research into this subject than his young friend had probably done, and that he had been “ too content, perhaps, to let an opinion or impression admitted in early life dispense with protracted inquiry and various reading.” lie then says: ''The general, not very far short of universal, judgment of divines in affirmation of the doctrine of eternal punishment, must be acknowledged a weighty consideration. It is a fair question, Is it likely that so many thousands of able, learned, benevolent, and pious men should all have been in error? And the language of Scripture is formidably strong; so strong that it must be an argument
of extreme cogency that would authorize a limited interpretation.” But his answer to all this is, in his own words, -- “the stupendous idea of eternity,'' --
upon which he proceeds to dwell with great power. To this, one reply may be, that the great and good men of all evangelical denominations, as capable as Mr. Foster of appreciating the awful idea of eternity, “have generally,” and, as he himself says, “ not very far short of universally,”
received this doctrine. Almost every believer in it has, at some time, had some relation or friend whose condition at death excited fearful thoughts, and clothed the grave with more than midnight darkness. The very strongest temptations have thus been presented to believers in the doctrine to find or create insuperable objections to it; yet the vast majority of Christian believers who have lost friends concerning whose condition they entertain but little hope, remain persuaded that the doctrine is revealed. Mr. Foster had no knowledge or penetration which they did not possess; he also “was formed out of the clay; “he could substantiate no claim to have his feelings of repugnance regarded as paramount to the feelings of submission and faith with which his Christian brethren, in the hour of their sorrow, have deliberately declared their belief in this doctrine. But we are furnished with another reply, in a letter of Mr. Foster himself to Rev. Dr. Harris, oo another subject and at a different time, in which he describes this world as he thinks it would strike the inhabitants of another planet. These few words will show the tenor of his remarks: “ To me it appears a most mysteriously awful economy, overspread by a lurid shade. I pray for the piety to maintain a humble submission to the wise and righteous Disposer of all existence. But to see a nature, created in purity, ruined at the very origin, &c, the grand remedial visitation^ Christianity, laboring in a difficult progress -- soon perverted -- at the present hour known and even nominally acknowledged by very greatly the. minority of the race -- its progress distanced by the increase of the population -- thousands every day passing out of the world in no state of fitness for a pure and happy state elsewhere, -- O, it is a most confounding and appalling contemplation.” So he describes this world in very much the same way in which he has depicted future endless retributions; and we may say that had he been told of such a world as ours, under the government of a good God, he would have had misgivings and objections not unlike those which he has expressed on the subject of future punishment. He excites distrust and fear in our minds with regard to the government of the world. We should not feel happy in the thought that God reigns, nor could we see how the multitude of the isles should be glad thereof, should we live under the influence of such views as those of this truly able and excellent man.
It is objected again that “ a mere mortal cannot by any sins which he can commit^ merit endless punishment
Whether he actually does incur it, we say again, must be ascertained from revelation. In reply to this objection, we are to remember that it is not one single transgression which God is called upon to punish -- a sudden, unpremeditated, or even one deliberate act, for which act the sinner is sorry; but it is continued disobedience, in opposition to all the methods of divine love and wisdom employed to turn us from our sins. Conscience has faithfully done her work until she was seared; warnings and threatenings have exhausted their strength; the cross of Christ and the influences of the Holy Spirit have proved of no avail.
There may be little sins against some of the gods of heathenism, but there can be no little sin against Jehovah. But how is man '' little “?
He has competent knowledge of the character of God; he is only ''a little lower than the angels,”* and has dominion over all the works of God. He can comprehend the starry heavens; he is godlike in liis original nature, for ''in the imao^e of God made he him.” The sublime truths which God has revealed to man show what estimate God has of man's capacity and responsibility. A finite creature can insult the majesty of heaven as deliberately and intelligently as the archangel; he can annihilate the authority of God in his own soul, and wherever he has influence; if all finite creatures should do this, -- and there are no creatures who are not finite, -- there would be no moral universe, no divine government.
It is said, “this a libel on the character of God to believe that he can bear to punish his children forever.'' Had Ave known beforehand that God was to create offspring whom he would teach to call him by the endearing name of Father, and then should see four hundred of these his children in such a scene of indescribable agony and destruction as was recently witnessed on board the, we should say the analogy between divine and human parentage surely is imperfect. God is something besides a “Father; “he is King and Judge. Men never discipline their children by drowning them, and burning them, and tearing them in pieces. The destruction of the Canaanites for their iniquity is so terrible, that, some, for that reason, reject the Old Testament, which approves it. God's judgments are a great deep. True, '' he made birds and flowers; “ all the exquisite sensibilities of the human system are his gift; the natural and moral world are, by his love and skill, most beautifully adapted to each other; and will he hide his face forever from a single child? No, not unless that child persists to hide his face and withhold his heart from God. 'For he will not lay on man more than is right, that he should enter into judgment with God.” * He is seeking continually to make his children love him. The Sabbath day perpetually reminds every one of them of God. Church spires everywhere point to heaven. Church-going bells call men to prayer, and to hear the gospel. Friends, by their words and example, persuade men to love and serve God. How many people are there, probably, in this city, for example, who have not had, and do not have, not only opportunity, but persuasion of some kind, within and without, to fear God? There are few, if any, who see the lightning or hear the thunder, without having the thought of their accountableness flash through their minds. If but a hearse appears in the streets, all who see it are left without excuse should they die in their sins. '' By the things which are made” God is so ''clearly seen,” that even idolaters are “ without excuse; “ much
* Job 34:23. more they who, to say no more, live where the Christian Sabbath, like the quiet moon, at short and regular intervals, arrests and turns the mighty tide of human affairs, so that even the prisoner in his cell feels it lifting and bearing him heavenward, and the Sabbath-breaker himself, by the very increase of his gains on that day, or by the opportunity for sloth, or by the feeling which leads him to hasten or delay his drive, to avoid the church-going people, has conviction of sin and admonition of duty sufficient to bar excuses and to make him speechless in the day when God rises up to judgment. But at last the day of life is over -- the period within which God told us that his efforts for our conversion would be limited, and after which, he warned us, would be the judgment, and endless retribution. Some said that this was impossible in the nature of things. They were told that the Bible literally declared it. They said that it was figurative, or a parable. They were reminded of the words of Jesus, the final Judge, relating the very words of the last sentence upon the wicked. They said that the God who made spring, and birds, and flowers, and human affections, and who is himself a Father, could not see men suffer without end. But the love of God, they are told, is not seen in spring, and birds, and flowers, and human happiness, so much as in this, that “ God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “ Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” * But all this proves of no avail; they go to “ the judgment-seat of Christ,” “ every one,” to “ receive the things done in the body, whether it be good or bad.” Shall God now violate the fundamental characteristic of their constitution, that is, free agency, and instead of governing them by motives, treat them like moulded clay, which, when it does not suit him, the potter presses together again on the wheel, and makes of it another vessel? That is not such a government as God chooses to administer, but a government of motives, addressed to free and accountable creatures.
* John 4:10. t 2 Corinthians 5:10.
What shall now be done with those whom God has faileth in his efforts to turn and save? Some reply, “ He ought to punish them till they do repent.” And yet they who say this, many of them, tell us, as one great argument against future endless punishment, that “ we have misery enough in this world, without being punished in the next.”
Therefore, by their own acknowledgment, God has already used dreadful methods of chastisement with them; so great that they say there cannot be any future punishment of sin. Yet these mortal agonies of body and mind, these life-long trials and sorrows, have failed to make them love and serve God. Will it be useful that he should proceed and punish them further? Can God heap upon them sorrows more bitter than they have felt at the graves of their loved ones, and at their return from those graves to their desolated dwellings? Are there other strokes of his lightnings better fitted to rive and consume their spirits than those with which they have already been struck? It is not reasonable. The wrath of God is not “ the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation.''* We have a different opinion respecting our Maker from that which leads one to believe that anger, fury, vengeance are the perfection of his governmental influences; as they surely are, if they are more eflicacious than the love which he has manifested in the Son of his love.
God himself says, “ What more could be done to my vineyard that I have not done in it? “
We suppose, therefore, -- and we think it is reasonable, -- that if we do not repent of our sins, and are not willing to accept Christ, and all the efforts of mercy to save us, God will suffer us to sin against him forever. He will not hinder us from having our own chosen way. Shall we rebel against this? Will we say, “ This is cruel; it is tyrannical, unworthy of God, our heavenly Father, to let us have our own choice? That choice, we know, is not good; but he ought to make us good. What! suffer us to sin against him forever! “ We chose to sin against him as long as we could; and now it is not unreasonable to give us the desire of our hearts. But God may say. This I will do. I will * Romans 1:16:1 Corinthians 1:18; 1 Corinthians 1:24. place all of you who sin, in a world by yourselves, from which I and my friends will forever withdraw. Perhaps we secretly say, “If this be all, we do not so much object. This is not hell.” But suppose that when God withdraws from us, he takes everything away with him. This present world cannot be a pattern of a world where all is sin. For this world was made for an upright race, and when they fell, nature itself, in most things, survived the fall. We are not to suppose that the wicked will find themselves in a world of beauty, where they may reconstruct society after the model of the present life, and where they shall enjoy liberty and all the blessings of God's providence. But if God departs from them, it is reasonable to suppose that he will leave no proofs of his love to them whatever; for he says, “ Woe also unto them when I depart from them.” * He would take away, we must suppose, all their domestic relations, friendships, social pleasures, books, every pursuit of knowledge, music, travels, quiet sleep, morning and evening salutations of loved ones^
and change the whole face of nature; for God
* Hosea 9:12. would not have made so many things just to give pleasure, had he made this world for the permanent abode of rebels; and when we leave this world, if we have shut God out of it be our sins, we cannot expect to find a beautiful world like this prepared for our abode. It is of great use to us to see good people here; we feel safer to think that there are churches and meetings for prayer, and the Lord's supper, though we decline any part in them. These things are for our profit; and the good and the bad share alike, because this is a state of probation, not of reward. But if we refuse to be won by these things, then it may be as though a certain vision of Jeremiah were, in some sense, fulfilled in our future abode. He describes Jerusalem wasted, and all her people gone into captivity. “ I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and lo, there was no man, and all the birds of heaven were fled.” * When God tells us what heaven is, f he describes the population * Jeremiah 4:23-25. f Revelation 22:14. of them that arc ''without -- dogs, sorcerers,” and others; as though he said, “ I will gather sinners together in one place, bring together all the obscene, liars, murderers, pirates, idolaters, into one community with you whose tastes have been cultivated; for why should I discriminate between those who have together rebelled against me, and rejected my Son? '^ If to any, by reason of 'their great accomplishments of mind and manners, this will be specially intolerable, they must remember that in those endowments they have special motives and helps towards being saved, and to save others. “ Thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things; “ but '' thou mayest be no longer steward.” Would there be anything unreasonable in this? In view of all which God has done to save the soul, in view of the full notice which we have received that this life is our only period of probation, and the opportunities which we have had to secure eternal life, we cannot accuse the Almighty of injustice if we find that there is no opportunity after death to repent and believe the gospel. Above all, we cannot reasonably expect; from what we already know of God, that having expended upon us all which the gospel of his grace includes, he will, upon the failure of that which is “ the brightness of his glory,” put us into a prison, and wear out our spirits with suffering, and thus reduce us, like refractory culprits, to a state of mind in which we cannot refuse to love him. Such is not the Being whom many of us delight to call our heavenly Father. If any worship such a God as this, they have their liberty to do so; but let them not complain to us of unreasonableness in our views of God.
It seems reasonable, therefore, to believe, in common with the vast majority in all ages of those who receive the Bible as the word of God, that all who fail to repent and accept the pardon of their sins through Jesus Christ in this life, will at death find those words to be literally true, which seem to be placed among the last words of the Bible by divine arrangement, for the solemn effect which they always have upon the human heart: '' He that is unjust let him be unjust still, and he that is filthy let him be filthy still, and he that is righteous let him be righteous still, and he that is holy let him be holy still. And behold I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” As to the heathen, we are not their judge. The first and second chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, however, are very explicit with regard to them. ^'The invisible things of God,” that is, '' his eternal power and Godhead,” '' are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; so that they are without excuse.” We are told that “ they hold the truth,” but ' in unrighteousness;” therefore it is said, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against “them.$ We sometimes hear a passage, in this connection, quoted thus: “For as many as have sinned without law shall also be judged without law.” Not so. It reads, “ For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law.” § It is a common remark, but it will bear repetition, “ We shall either find the heathen in heaven, if we ourselves are there, or see good and satisfactory reasons for their not being there.”
*Revelation 22:11-12. Romans 1:20. Romans 1:18. Romans 2:12.
Far too much is made of the question, and great injury has been done bj it, whether or not there will be literal fire in the future punishment of the wicked. It is well to discourage such a discussion. We shall have bodies after the resurrection, for “ all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.” Our bodies will, of course, be of a less spiritual nature than the soul, otherwise two souls will be conjoined in one person. We naturally suppose that the object of the body will be to relate the soul to an external world; as glass, in the telescope, though a grosser object than the eye, helps vision, so the body will aid the soul hereafter, as here. This we all admit. Now, in what element, if any, the righteous or the wicked will live hereafter, is of no possible importance to us, seeing that the primary source of happiness or misery with intelligent creatures must be mental, and if there be external sources of pleasure or suffering, they are mere circumstances in their condition; they ire not the substantive occasion of their joy or sorrow. To represent the Most High as inflicting tortures on the bodies of the wicked strikes us as unworthy of the conceptions concerning God with which the Bible inspires us. A world of sinners, unmitigated by the presence of a single good being, God himself and all his restraining influences forever withdrawn, needs no penal fires to increase our sense of its horror; indeed, they rather detract from our ideas of the most intense misery. If all that is personified by “death,” and all the mental, moral, and social elements of what is called “ hell,” are to be “ cast into a lake of fire,” every intelligent person would suppose that the element containing them would be of little importance. They would be no more to the inhabitants than the element of water could be to Pontius Pilate, whom a great poet represents as in a flood, his hands above it, and he washing them, *' Which still unwashen strove,” in memory of his taking water to wash those hands of a certain prisoner's blood. No one would suppose that living in the element of water could be a principal source of misery in
such a punishment. But we read, “ Then shall the King say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Figurative language, it may justly be said, is out of place in a judicial sentence, for, of all utterances, this should be as strictly literal as justice itself.
If, now, Ave should believe, on this single passage, or for any other reason, that the element in which future retribution will be administered is declared to be fire, instead of air, or water, or earth, we should do vast injustice to the subject of divine retributions to intrude the idea. I refer to it, therefore, for a purpose, which seems to me important, of vindicating our belief in future endless retributions from imputations of grossness and physical barbarity. We use the language of the Saviour and of his apostles without hesitation, and there we stop. Any details of the curse, and of the punishment, and of what is ''prepared,” would add nothing to our conceptions of the dread sentence from the lips of Him whose “left hand” was once nailed to the atoning cross, for those whom he bids, “Depart.”
If the language of Christ in that last sentence, and in other places, relating to future punishment, be figurative, we remember that, by the laws of the human mind, figurative language is generally resorted to in consequence of insufficiency in literal terms. We do not cavil at the use of figurative speech, nor subtract from its intention, when we know that the speaker is serious and earnest. If a master-in-chancery informs a man that his property has proved “ to be zero,” the man will not remind his friends, nor insist with his creditors, that the expression is only metaphorical.
We believe that the threatening of future endless punishment has been one great means of what little fear of God there has hitherto been in this world; and that it has been a powerful element in the causes which have led to the salvation of the ''multitude which no man can number,” who “fled for refuge to lay hold upon the Hope set before them.” We are not ashamed to say that we believe in, and we fear, the everlasting wrath of God, and that this has been a means of leading us to believe in “his Son from heaven, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.” * Nor is our doctrine one that narrows and enfeebles the mind. It is connected with a stupendous system of truths. It leads us to believe that this world, small as it is, is made use of by the Creator to illustrate principles in his government, “ to the intent that now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.” That this world is the smallest but two in the planetary system, is no more a valid objection to its being used for infinite purposes of wisdom, than it would be to object to the size of the slate on which La Place wrought out his logarithms for his 3Iecanique Celeste. God is solving problems in this world with sin; the results may enter into the practical knowledge of unnumbered worlds, as the answers to problems are transferred to books of navigation, and are the confidence of them that are afar off upon the sea. Our own Lexington and Bunker Hill were not too small for transactions which brought this * 1 Thessalonians 1:10. f Ephesians 3:10. nation into being; nor did one field in Waterloo prove too small to have the destiny of half of Europe decided there. The cross of a Redeemer has stood here; things are associated with it which we are told “ angels desire to look into.”* “All things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”! “We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man.” So we believe in a sacrifice for sin, which is made infinitely efficacious by the presence in the person of Jesus of the Word, who was “ with God,” and “ was God.” In such a Redeemer and in such a redemption we see our infinite ruin. We believe that God will show, by means of those who reject this redemption, what sin is capable of doing, and then, by letting sinners eat of the fruit of their own ways, and filling them with their own devices, perhaps he will, by the help of it, so instruct and govern the universe of free, accountable beings, that it shall forever be said, “ Dominion and fear are with him; he * 1 Peter 1:12. f Colossians 1:16-17. maketh peace in his high places.”* An endless heaven is prepared, in which the righteous will have bodies “ fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” Thus being associated most wonderfully with the incarnate Word, they will be the objects of love with all who worship at the throne of God and of the Lamb, and not only so, but with Him who will say of us, with more joy than that with which he regards the ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance, “I have found the sheep that was lost.”
But, in the meantime, we read that “ the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; “ -- such is the crime and the accusation; -- “ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all
* Job 25:2. them that believe (for our testimony among you was believed) in that day.”* The penalty annexed to, a law is all that makes it a law; without a penalty, it is no more a law. than an extract from a sermon. The penalty is the expression of the lawgiver's opinion of the crime. There is something in weak and insufficient penalties, and in bail far below the offence, which makes the heart faint and sick. It must inspirer holy beings with confidence, who know what sin is, and what it deserves, and what it would do to them if it could triumph, to see and feel that there is a Supreme Being, who, with all his love, has no doting fondness, nor any weakness, but can bear to see the wicked suffer, if necessary and right.
They consider his word, “ The soul that sinneth, it shall die/' and they see in it the foundation of their confidence in God. How much evil is there in sin? It is itself evil; anti-governmental, subverting every form of happiness; its tendency, as we have seen, is to dethrone God.
If God affixes less than an infinite punishment to sin, it shows that he considers it less than an * 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10. infinite evil. If the penalty threatened against such a sin be- less than infinite, the natural inference would be, To sin against God is not an infinite evil, for it has no infinite punishment.
Men could say, and all races on probation could say. If we sin against God, our punishment will come to an end; and after that, there will be an eternity in heaven, in comparison with which our immense duration of punishment will become as a drop to the sea.* Men, they would say, escaped at last, and are now universally and forever happy in heaven; and so world after world might become rebellious, and their histories be like those of earth. We think it reasonable to say. Far better that the comparatively few from earth should bear the consequences of their sin forever, than that, by ah insufficient punishment of sin, disaster should come upon realms we know not how many and great. I say this to meet the objection that the everlasting punishment of any, whether comparatively a few, or even of many, is to be a blot on the government of God. For the whole question may resolve itself into this: Is it best that God should have a moral government? If that involves the possibility of sin, some would say, No; others would say, Yes, provided the sinners might be as free in their sin as the righteous are in their righteousness; then, for the sake of the inconceivable bliss in a universe of intelligent creatures, let there be this government, by motives, and let “ the righteousness of the righteous be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked be upon him.” Angels, it appears, were placed on probation in heaven, and under the most favorable circumstances; man was placed in probation in paradise, with slight inducement to sin; man had a Redeemer in the person of his Creator; angels may have had an equivalent motive to obedience in the immediate presence of their Creator, and in full knowledge of what a forfeiture they would incur by sin. Angels sinned, notwithstanding all that Heaven had done to keep them upright; men perish, notwithstanding the redemption made by their God and Saviour. The illustrations which their eternal punishment will afford of the nature of sin, of the love of God, of divine justice, of free agency, of holiness and its infinite rewards, we say it is not unreasonable to believe, will out weigh the personal sufferings of those who voluntarily sin and perish. We say, voluntarily perish; for. God will give to each one according to his deeds. Though there were an inconceivable multitude who should perish, yet in the immense variety of their individual cases, discriminating justice will be weighed out to them with a care and exactness unapproached by the exquisite balances in the mint, or with the apothecary. Could holy beings get the impression that there is one soul from Christian, pagan, or heathen lands, with whom its Maker had dealt harshly, or laid upon him one stripe more than was his due, there would be sudden silence among them; they would look one upon another; and the seraphim who, in their worship, spread more of their six wings to cover themselves with than to fly, would spread them all to fly, -- whither they might not say, but only where they might no longer be constrained to cry. Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts! No such occasion ever will be given for such loss of confidence; but they will say, “Alleluia! salvation, and glory, and honor, and power unto the Lord our God; for true and righteous are his judgments.” * As those who desire to be of good repute with you as men of understanding, and of humane, generous sentiments and feelings, we do not hesitate to say, that the “reasonableness of future endless punishment “ is as plain to us as its scriptural proofs.
If, when we read that it would have been good for Judas Iscariot that he had never been born, and therefore that there is no eternity of happiness for him, to follow any vast period of expiatory suffering, -- if we are expressly told that blasphemy against the Holy'
Ghost hath never forgiveness, neither in this world nor in that which is to come, -- if it be true that Satan and his angels are reserved in chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day, and if then a part of our race are to be consigned to the same abode with them for retribution, -- whose eternity is expressed by the selfsame, word which is employed to designate the duration of happiness for the righteous; and * Revelation 19:1. for these and other equally powerful representations of the Bible, we have unwavering faith in the doctrine, as a revealed truth; the confidence with which we believe it may be judged of when we say, that it commends itself to our reason as truly as it does to our faith. How it commends itself to our faith, may be learned by knowing that the doctrine does not stand as an isolated thing in our belief. The laws of comparative anatomy, so to speak, may be applied to it, and we say. If certain things are true, which in our earliest discoveries of practical truth we are confident are essential to salvation, then this doctrine is as really required, as immense vertebrae of an unknown animal require that the undiscovered ribs should also be immense. An astronomer notices the slower or quicker rate of motion in a planet at one part of its orbit, and he tells you that there must be a world beyond it, not yet seen; he tells you its size, its gravity, its orbit, its rate of motion; and when at last Neptune is discovered, it proves to be precisely that which Uranus dictated by his perturbations. So that the doctrine of endless retribution is not, with us, a mere dogma; it belongs to a great scheme of revealed truth which we call the “plan of redemption,” all of which stands or falls together. The key to this great scheme -- “ which,” we are warranted to say, ''in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto the holy apostles and prophets” -- is the Supreme Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Believe that, and logically you are led to receive the whole. Reject that, and you cannot consistently believe the doctrine now under discussion.
“*What think ye of Christ?' is the test To try both your state and your scheme.” The Creator, the Second Person in the Godhead, takes our nature; that mysterious, complex Being goes to the cross, and dies. Then the atonement follows, as a matter of course; and if an atonement is made for sin, then the wages of sin is death. If man can atone for sin by ages of suffering, and then reach heaven, it is unreasonable, we say, to believe that this stupendous sacrifice would have been made. So that Christ is “the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation.” There are words of mighty import in that passage: “Who hath made him to he sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in -him.”*
“ The wages of sin is death.” Some say, The wages of sin is conscience; some. The wages of sin is discipline; some. The wages of sin is imprisonment for a great indefinite period, for the purpose of punishment and restoration.
Let us adhere to the Bible: “ The wages of sin is death.” If you call it figurative, the laws of rhetoric teach us that a meaning totally opposite to the nature of a figure cannot be true. The ruling idea conveyed by the word death is termination. If you search the Bible for instances in which death means a limited infliction, and so reduce one side of the equation in the passage from which the text is taken, you must by necessity reduce the other side; and thus, so much as you diminish deaths you must diminish life; for if death be not death, neither is life eternal life.' * 2 Corinthians 5:21.
Notice also the two contrasted words in the verse from which the text is taken: “ The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Death for sin is “ wages “ -- something earned or merited.
Eternal life is not ''wages” to us; it is to angels. The law is the angels' gospel. They stand by obedience. But to us eternal life, if we have it, is without works -- a gift, unmerited, free. Having forfeited heaven by sin, God stands ready to give it to us on certain terms, the terms and method themselves being no less wonderful than the gift.
Need I remind you that this is a subject which, for each of us, is of unparalleled interest? Each of us may. without presumption, say with his Maker, “ I live forever.” If God says, '' Of my years there is no end,” the words may be responded to by us: Of my years there is no end. But each of us is also a sinner, ruined and lost. We believe that sin can be forgiven only by faith in Jesus Christ, who, by his sufferings and death, is a substitute for the sinner, and constitutes for him a righteousness which takes away his condemnation, and prepares for his sanctification and salvation. We are told that there is salvation in no other way, and, moreover, that unbelief of it, where there has been sufficient opportunity to understand it, proceeds from a wrong state of feeling, and is therefore morally wrong, and that such unbelief is declared by Christ a-nd his apostles to be the greatest of all pardonable sins. Christ says, “ He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Do we who preach tell the people this? Surely it is not possible for the Son of God to suffer and die in our stead, and we be innocent if we do not believe in him; but we shall add to the guilt of sin the heavier guilt of rejecting the offered remedy, procured at such infinite expense. The sight of Christ will close our lips if we are not saved. He portrayed the scenes of the last judgment; the separation, the welcome of the righteous, and the sinner's doom. And having done this, he went to “ a place which is called Calvary,” and died to save us from the condemnation which he had so faithfully and affectingly portrayed. If we fail to believe in him, and he therefore fails to redeem us from our sin, we must experience the truth of our text. And when the judgment is passed by, and the wicked have gone to their own place, and angels stand in silence, weeping, and thinking of their end, methinks I hear one of them break the silence and say. After the Saviour had suffered for them, it is an infinite pity that they should perish. And may many (may it be all!) of you, who now are unbelievers, but then redeemed sinners, continue the strain and say, “ For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Salvation! Salvation! Every one of us can be saved. “ For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation."