that he calls in witnesses and pretends to examine them, makes a
declaration that however, let them say what they will, the cause is
so absurd, is so unjust, that no evidence will be sufficient to
prove it?"--_Horbery_, vol. ii. p. 137.
I ask the attention of all into whose hands this paper may fall, while I
offer a few suggestive thoughts about eternity. As a mortal man I feel
deeply my own insufficiency to handle this subject. But I pray that God
the Holy Ghost, whose strength is made perfect in weakness, may bless
the words I speak, and make them seeds of eternal life in many minds.
I. The first thought which I commend to the attention of my readers is
this:--_We live in a world where all things are temporal and passing
away_.
That man must be blind indeed who cannot realize this. Everything around
us is decaying, dying, and coming to an end. There is a sense no doubt
in which "matter" is eternal. Once created, it will never entirely
perish. But in a popular practical sense, there is nothing undying about
us except our souls. No wonder the poet says:--
"Change and decay in all around I see:
O Thou that changest not, abide with me!"
We are all going, going, going, whether high or low, gentle or simple,
rich or poor, old or young. We are all going, and shall soon be gone.
Beauty is only temporal. Sarah was once the fairest of women, and
the admiration of the Court of Egypt; yet a day came when even
Abraham, her husband, said, "Let me bury my dead out of my sight."
(Gen. xxiii. 4.)--Strength of body is only temporal. David was once
a mighty man of valour, the slayer of the lion and the bear, and the
champion of Israel against Goliath; yet a day came when even David
had to be nursed and ministered to in his old age like a
child.--Wisdom and power of brain are only temporal. Solomon was
once a prodigy of knowledge, and all the kings of the earth came to
hear his wisdom; yet even Solomon in his latter days played the fool
exceedingly, and allowed his wives to "turn away his heart."
(1 Kings xi. 2.)
Humbling and painful as these truths may sound, it is good for us all to
realize them and lay them to heart. The houses we live in, the homes we
love, the riches we accumulate, the professions we follow, the plans we
form, the relations we enter into,--they are only for a time. "The
things seen are temporal." "The fashion of this world passeth away."
(1 Cor. vii. 31.)
The thought is one which ought to rouse every one who is living only for
this world. If his conscience is not utterly seared, it should stir in
him great searchings of heart. Oh, take care what you are doing! Awake
to see things in their true light before it be too late. The things you
live for now are all temporal and passing away. The pleasures, the
amusements, the recreations, merry-makings, the profits, the earthly
callings, which now absorb all your heart and drink up all your mind,
will soon be over. They are poor ephemeral things which cannot last. Oh,
love them not too well; grasp them not too tightly; make them not your
idols! You cannot keep them, and you must leave them. Seek first the
kingdom of God, and then everything else shall be added to you. "Set
your affections on things above, not on things on the earth." Oh, you
that love the world, be wise in time! Never, never forget that it is
written, "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that
doeth the will of God abideth for ever." (Col. iii. 2; 1 John ii. 17.)
The same thought ought to cheer and comfort every true Christian. Your
trials, crosses, and conflicts, are all temporal. They will soon have an
end; and even now they are working for you "a far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory." (2 Cor. iv. 17.) Take them patiently: bear
them quietly: look upward, forward, onward, and far beyond them. Fight
your daily fight under an abiding conviction that it is only for a
little time, and that rest is not far off. Carry your daily cross with
an abiding recollection that it is one of the "things seen" which are
temporal. The cross shall soon be exchanged for a crown, and you shall
sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God.
II. The second thought which I commend to the attention of my readers is
this:--_We are all going towards a world where everything is eternal_.
That great unseen state of existence which lies behind the grave, is for
ever. Whether it be happy or miserable, whether it be a condition of joy
or sorrow, in one respect it is utterly unlike this world,--it is for
ever. _There_ at any rate will be no change and decay, no end, no
good-bye, no mornings and evenings, no alteration, no annihilation.
Whatever there is beyond the tomb, when the last trumpet has sounded,
and the dead are raised, will be endless, everlasting, and eternal. "The
things unseen are eternal."
We cannot fully realize this condition. The contrast between now and
then, between this world and the next, is so enormously great that our
feeble minds will not take it in. The consequences it entails are so
tremendous, that they almost take away our breath, and we shrink from
looking at them. But when the Bible speaks plainly we have no right to
turn away from a subject, and with the Bible in our hands we shall do
well to look at the "things which are eternal."
Let us settle it then in our minds, for one thing, that the _future
happiness_ of those who are saved is eternal. However little we may
understand it, it is something which will have no end: it will never
cease, never grow old, never decay, never die. At God's "right hand are
pleasures for evermore." (Ps. xvi. 11.) Once landed in paradise, the
saints of God shall go out no more. The inheritance is "incorruptible,
undefiled, and fadeth not away." They shall "receive a crown of glory
that fadeth not away." (1 Pet. i. 4; v. 4.) Their warfare is
accomplished; their fight is over; their work is done. They shall hunger
no more, neither thirst any more. They are travelling on towards an
"eternal weight of glory," towards a home which shall never be broken
up, a meeting without a parting, a family gathering without a
separation, a day without night. Faith shall be swallowed up in sight,
and hope in certainty. They shall see as they have been seen, and know
as they have been known, and "be for ever with the Lord." I do not
wonder that the apostle Paul adds, "Comfort one another with these
words." (1 Thess. iv. 17, 18.)
Let us settle it, for another thing, in our minds, that the _future
misery_ of those who are finally lost is eternal. This is an awful
truth, I am aware, and flesh and blood naturally shrink from the
contemplation of it. But I am one of those who believe it to be plainly
revealed in Scripture, and I dare not keep it back in the pulpit. To my
eyes eternal future happiness and eternal future misery appear to stand
side by side. I fail to see how you can distinguish the duration of one
from the duration of the other. If the joy of the believer is for ever,
the sorrow of the unbeliever is also for ever. If heaven is eternal, so
likewise is hell. It may be my ignorance, but I know not how the
conclusion can be avoided.
I cannot reconcile the non-eternity of punishment with the _language of
the Bible_. Its advocates talk loudly about love and charity, and say
that it does not harmonize with the merciful and compassionate character
of God. But what saith the Scripture? Who ever spoke such loving and
merciful words as our Lord Jesus Christ? Yet His are the lips which
three times over describe the consequence of impenitence and sin, as
"the worm that never dies and the fire that is not quenched." He is the
Person who speaks in one sentence of the wicked going away into
"everlasting punishment" and the righteous into "life eternal." (Mark
ix. 43--48; Matt. xxv. 46.)[18]--Who does not remember the Apostle
Paul's words about charity? Yet he is the very Apostle who says, the
wicked "shall be punished with everlasting destruction." (2 Thess. i.
9.)--Who does not know the spirit of love which runs through all St.
John's Gospel and Epistles? Yet the beloved Apostle is the very writer
in the New Testament who dwells most strongly, in the book of
Revelation, on the reality and eternity of future woe. What shall we say
to these things? Shall we be wise above that which is written? Shall we
admit the dangerous principle that words in Scripture do not mean what
they appear to mean? Is it not far better to lay our hands on our mouths
and say, "Whatever God has written must be true." "Even so, Lord God
Almighty, true and righteous are Thy judgments." (Rev. xvi. 7.)
18: "If God had intended to have told us that the punishment of
wicked man shall have no end, the languages wherein the Scriptures
are written do hardly afford fuller and more certain words than
those that are used in this case, whereby to express a duration
without end; and likewise, which is almost a peremptory decision of
the thing, the duration of the punishment of wicked men is in the
very same sentence expressed by the very same word which is used for
the duration of happiness of the righteous."--_Archbishop Tillotson
on Hell Torments._ See _Horbery_, vol. ii. p. 42.
I cannot reconcile the non-eternity of punishment with the _language of
our Prayer-book_. The very first petition in our matchless Litany
contains this sentence, "From everlasting damnation, good Lord, deliver
us."--The Catechism teaches every child who learns it, that whenever we
repeat the Lord's Prayer we desire our Heavenly Father to "keep us from
our ghostly enemy and from everlasting death."--Even in our Burial
Service we pray at the grave side, "Deliver us not into the bitter pains
of eternal death."--Once more I ask, "What shall we say to these
things?" Shall our congregations be taught that even when people live
and die in sin we may hope for their happiness in a remote future?
Surely the common sense of many of our worshippers would reply, that if
this is the case Prayer-book words mean nothing at all.
I lay no claim to any peculiar knowledge of Scripture. I feel daily that
I am no more infallible than the Bishop of Rome. But I must speak
according to the light which God has given to me; and I do not think I
should do my duty if I did not raise a warning voice on this subject,
and try to put Christians on their guard. Six thousand years ago sin
entered into the world by the devil's daring falsehood,--"Ye shall not
surely die." (Gen. iii. 4.) At the end of six thousand years the great
enemy of mankind is still using his old weapon, and trying to persuade
men that they may live and die in sin, and yet at some distant period
may be finally saved. Let us not be ignorant of his devices. Let us walk
steadily in the old paths. Let us hold fast the old truth, and believe
that as the happiness of the saved is eternal, so also is the misery of
the lost.[19]
19: "There is nothing that Satan more desires than that we should
believe that he does not exist, and that there is no such a place as
hell, and no such things as eternal torments. He whispers all this
into our ears, and he exults when he hears a layman, and much more
when he hears a clergyman, deny these things, for then he hopes to
make them and others his victims."--_Bishop Wordsworth's Sermons on
Future Rewards and Punishments_, p. 36.
(_a_) Let us hold it fast _in the interest of the whole system of
revealed religion_. What was the use of God's Son becoming incarnate,
agonizing in Gethsemane, and dying on the cross to make atonement, if
men can be finally saved without believing on Him? Where is the
slightest proof that saving faith in Christ's blood can ever begin after
death? Where is the need of the Holy Ghost, if sinners are at last to
enter heaven without conversion and renewal of heart? Where can we find
the smallest evidence that any one can be born again, and have a new
heart, if he dies in an unregenerate state? If a man may escape eternal
punishment at last, without faith in Christ or sanctification of the
Spirit, sin is no longer an infinite evil, and there was no need for
Christ making an atonement.
(_b_) Let us hold it fast _for the sake of holiness and morality_. I can
imagine nothing so pleasant to flesh and blood as the specious theory
that we may live in sin, and yet escape eternal perdition; and that
although we "serve divers lusts and pleasures" while we are here, we
shall somehow or other all get to heaven hereafter! Only tell the young
man who is "wasting his substance in riotous living" that there is
heaven at last even for those who live and die in sin, and he is never
likely to turn from evil. Why should he repent and take up the cross, if
he can get to heaven at last without trouble?
(_c_) Finally, let us hold it fast, _for the sake of the common hopes of
all God's saints_. Let us distinctly understand that every blow struck
at the eternity of punishment is an equally heavy blow at the eternity
of reward. It is impossible to separate the two things. No ingenious
theological definition can divide them. They stand or fall together. The
same language is used, the same figures of speech are employed, when the
Bible speaks about either condition. Every attack on the duration of
hell is also an attack on the duration of heaven.[20] It is a deep and
true saying, "With the sinner's fear our hope departs."
20: "If the punishment of the wicked is only temporary, such will
also be the happiness of the righteous, which is repugnant to the
whole teaching of Scripture; but if the happiness of the righteous
will be everlasting (who will be equal to the angels, and their
bodies will be like the body of Christ), such also will be the
punishment of the wicked."--_Bishop Wordsworth's Sermon on Future
Rewards and Punishments, p. 31._
I turn from this part of my subject with a deep sense of its
painfulness. I feel strongly with Robert M'Cheyne, that "it is a hard
subject to handle lovingly." But I turn from it with an equally deep
conviction that if we believe the Bible we must never give up anything
which it contains. From hard, austere, and unmerciful theology, good
Lord, deliver us! If men are not saved it is because they "will not come
to Christ." (John v. 40.) But we must not be wise above that which is
written. No morbid love of liberality, so called, must induce us to
reject anything which God has revealed about eternity. Men sometimes
talk exclusively about God's mercy and love and compassion, as if He had
no other attributes, and leave out of sight entirely His holiness and
His purity, His justice and His unchangeableness, and His hatred of sin.
Let us beware of falling into this delusion. It is a growing evil in
these latter days. Low and inadequate views of the unutterable vileness
and filthiness of sin, and of the unutterable purity of the eternal God,
are fertile sources of error about man's future state. Let us think of
the mighty Being with whom we have to do, as he Himself declared His
character to Moses, saying, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and
gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression and sin." But
let us not forget the solemn clause which concludes the sentence: "And
_that will by no means clear the guilty_." (Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7.)
Unrepented sin is an eternal evil, and can never cease to be sin; and He
with whom we have to do is an eternal God.
The words of Psalm cxlv. are strikingly beautiful: "The Lord is
gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The
Lord is good to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works.--The
Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed
down.--The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works.
The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon
Him in truth.--The Lord preserveth all them that love Him." Nothing can
exceed the mercifulness of this language! But what a striking fact it is
that the passage goes on to add the following solemn conclusion, "_All
the wicked will He destroy_." (Psalm cxlv. 8-20.)
III. The third thought which I commend to the attention of my readers is
this:--_Our state in the unseen world of eternity depends entirely on
what we are in time_.
The life that we live upon earth is short at the very best, and soon
gone. "We spend our days as a tale that is told."--"What is our life? It
is a vapour: so soon passeth it away, and we are gone." (Psalm xc. 9;
James iv. 14.) The life that is before us when we leave this world is an
endless eternity, a sea without a bottom, and an ocean without a shore.
"One day in Thy sight," eternal God, "is as a thousand years, and a
thousand years as one day." (2 Pet. iii. 8.) In that world time shall be
no more.--But short as our life is here, and endless as it will be
hereafter, it is a tremendous thought that eternity hinges upon time.
Our lot after death depends, humanly speaking, on what we are while we
are alive. It is written, God "will render to every man according to his
deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory
and honour and immortality, eternal life: but to them that are
contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness,
indignation and wrath." (Rom. ii. 6, 7.)
We ought never to forget, that we are all, while we live, in a state of
probation. We are constantly sowing seeds which will spring up and bear
fruit, every day and hour in our lives. There are eternal consequences
resulting from all our thoughts and words and actions, of which we take
far too little account. "For every idle word that men speak they shall
give account in the day of judgment." (Matt. xii. 36.) Our thoughts are
all numbered, our actions are weighed. No wonder that St. Paul says, "He
that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that
soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." (Gal.
vi. 8.) In a word, what we sow in life we shall reap after death, and
reap to all eternity.
There is no greater delusion than the common idea that it is possible to
live wickedly, and yet rise again gloriously; to be without religion in
this world, and yet to be a saint in the next. When the famous
Whitefield revived the doctrine of conversion last century, it is
reported that one of his hearers came to him after a sermon and
said,--"It is all quite true, sir. I hope I shall be converted and born
again one day, but not till after I am dead." I fear there are many like
him. I fear the false doctrine of the Romish _purgatory_ has many secret
friends even within the pale of the Church of England! However
carelessly men may go on while they live, they secretly cling to the
hope that they shall be found among the saints when they die. They seem
to hug the idea that there is some cleansing, purifying effect produced
by death, and that, whatever they may be in this life, they shall be
found "meet for the inheritance of the saints" in the life to come. But
it is all a delusion.[21]
21: "The Scripture never represents the state of future misery, as a
state of purgation and purification, or anything like analogous to a
state of trial, where men may fit and qualify themselves for some
better state of existence: but always as a state of retribution,
punishment, and righteous vengeance, in which God's justice (a
perfection of which some men seem to render no account) vindicates
the power of His majesty, His government, and His love, by punishing
those who have despised them."--_Horbery_, vol. ii. p. 183.
"Life is the time to serve the Lord,
The time to insure the great reward."
The Bible teaches plainly, that as we die, whether converted or
unconverted, whether believers or unbelievers, whether godly or ungodly,
so shall we rise again when the last trumpet sounds. There is no
repentance in the grave: there is no conversion after the last breath is
drawn. Now is the time to believe in Christ, and to lay hold on eternal
life. Now is the time to turn from darkness unto light, and to make our
calling and election sure. The night cometh when no man can work. As the
tree falls, there it will lie. If we leave this world impenitent and
unbelieving, we shall rise the same in the resurrection morning, and
find it had been "good for us if we had never been born."[22]
22: "This life is the time of our preparation for our future state.
Our souls will continue for ever what we make them in this world.
Such a taste and disposition of mind as a man carries with him out
of this life, he shall retain in the next. It is true, indeed,
heaven perfects those holy and virtuous dispositions which are begun
here; but the other world alters no man as to his main state. He
that is filthy will be filthy still; and he that is unrighteous will
be unrighteous still."--_Archbishop Tillotson's Sermon on Phil. iii.
20._ (See _Horbrey_, vol. ii. p. 133.)
I charge every reader of this paper to remember this, and to make a good
use of time. Regard it as the stuff of which life is made, and never
waste it or throw it away. Your hours and days and weeks and months and
years have all something to say to an eternal condition beyond the
grave. What you sow in life you are sure to reap in a life to come. As
holy Baxter says, it is "now or never." Whatever we do in religion must
be done now.
Remember this in your use of all the means of grace, from the least to
the greatest. Never be careless about them. They are given to be your
helps toward an eternal world, and not one of them ought to be
thoughtlessly treated or lightly and irreverently handled. Your daily
prayers and Bible-reading, your weekly behaviour on the Lord's day, your
manner of going through public worship,--all, all these things are
important. Use them all as one who remembers eternity.
Remember it, not least, whenever you are tempted to do evil. When
sinners entice you, and say, "It is only a little one,"--when Satan
whispers in your heart, "Never mind: where is the mighty harm? Everybody
does so,"--then look beyond time to a world unseen, and place in the
face of the temptation the thought of eternity. There is a grand saying
recorded of the martyred Reformer, Bishop Hooper, when one urged him to
recant before he was burned, saying, "Life is sweet and death is
bitter." "True," said the good Bishop, "quite true! But eternal life is
more sweet, and eternal death is more bitter."
IV. The last thought which I commend to the attention of my readers is
this:--_The Lord Jesus Christ is the great Friend to whom we must all
look for help, both for time and eternity_.
The purpose for which the eternal Son of God came into the world can
never be declared too fully, or proclaimed too loudly. He came to give
us hope and peace while we live among the "things seen, which are
temporal," and glory and blessedness when we go into the "things unseen,
which are eternal." He came to "bring life and immortality to light,"
and to "deliver those who, through fear of death, were all their
life-time subject to bondage." (2 Tim. i. 10; Heb. ii. 15.) He saw our
lost and bankrupt condition, and had compassion on us. And now, blessed
be His name, a mortal man may pass through "things temporal" with
comfort, and look forward to "things eternal" without fear.
These mighty privileges our Lord Jesus Christ has purchased for us at
the cost of His own precious blood. He became our Substitute, and bore
our sins in His own body on the cross, and then rose again for our
justification. "He suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He
might bring us unto God." He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that
we poor sinful creatures might have pardon and justification while we
live, and glory and blessedness when we die. (1 Peter ii. 24; iii. 18; 2
Cor. v. 21.)
And all that our Lord Jesus Christ has purchased for us He offers freely
to every one who will turn from his sins, come to Him, and believe. "I
am the light of the world," He says: "he that followeth Me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."--"Come unto Me, all
ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."--"If any
man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink."--"Him that cometh unto Me
I will in no wise cast out."--And the terms are as simple as the offer
is free: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
saved."--"Whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish but have eternal
life." (John viii. 12; Matt. xi. 28; John vii. 37; vi. 37; Acts xvi. 31;
John iii. 16.)