temporal," and see change and decay on every side without dismay. He has
got treasure in heaven, which neither rust nor moth can corrupt, nor
thieves break through and steal. He can look forward to the "things
eternal," and feel calm and composed. His Saviour has risen, and gone to
prepare a place for him. When he leaves this world he shall have a crown
of glory, and be for ever with his Lord. He can look down even into the
grave, as the wisest Greeks and Romans could never do, and say, "Oh,
death, where is thy sting? oh, grave, where is thy victory? oh,
eternity, where are thy terrors?" (1 Cor. xv. 55.)
Let us all settle it firmly in our minds that the only way to pass
through "things seen" with comfort, and look forward to "things unseen"
without fear, is to have Christ for our Saviour and Friend, to lay hold
on Christ by faith, to become one with Christ and Christ in us, and
while we live in the flesh to live the life of faith in the Son of God.
(Gal. ii. 20.) How vast is the difference between the state of him who
has faith in Christ, and the state of him who has none! Blessed indeed
is that man or woman who can say, with truth, "I trust in Jesus: I
believe." When Cardinal Beaufort lay upon his death-bed, our mighty poet
describes King Henry as saying, "He dies, but gives no sign." When John
Knox, the Scotch Reformer, was drawing to his end, and unable to speak,
a faithful servant asked him to give some proof that the Gospel he had
preached in life gave him comfort in death, by raising his hand. He
heard; and raised his hand toward heaven three times, and then
departed. Blessed, I say again, is he that believes! He alone is rich,
independent, and beyond the reach of harm. If you and I have no comfort
amidst things temporal, and no hope for the things eternal, the fault is
all our own. It is because we "will not come to Christ, that we may have
life." (John v. 40.)
I leave the subject of eternity here, and pray that God may bless it to
many souls. In conclusion, I offer to every one who reads this volume
some food for thought, and matter for self-examination.
(1) First of all, how are you _using your time_? Life is short and very
uncertain. You never know what a day may bring forth. Business and
pleasure, money-getting and money-spending, eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage,--all, all will soon be over and done
with for ever. And you, what are you doing for your immortal soul? Are
you wasting time, or turning it to good account? Are you preparing to
meet God?
(2) Secondly, where _shall you be in eternity_? It is coming, coming,
coming very fast upon us. You are going, going, going very fast into it.
But where will you be? On the right hand or on the left, in the day of
judgment? Among the lost or among the saved? Oh, rest not, rest not till
your soul is insured! Make sure work: leave nothing uncertain. It is a
fearful thing to die unprepared, and fall into the hands of the living
God.
(3) Thirdly, would you be _safe for time and eternity_? Then seek
Christ, and believe in Him. Come to Him just as you are. Seek Him while
He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. There is still a throne
of grace. It is not too late. Christ waits to be gracious: He invites
you to come to Him. Before the door is shut and the judgment begins,
repent, believe, and be saved.
(4) Lastly, _would you be happy_? Cling to Christ, and live the life of
faith in Him. Abide in Him, and live near to Him. Follow Him with heart
and soul and mind and strength, and seek to know Him better every day.
So doing you shall have great peace while you pass through "things
temporal," and in the midst of a dying world shall "never die." (John
xi. 26.) So doing, you shall be able to look forward to "things eternal"
with unfailing confidence, and to feel and "know that if our earthly
house of this tabernacle be dissolved we have a building of God, a house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." (2 Cor. v. 1.)
* * * * *
P. S.
Since preaching the above Sermon I have read Canon Farrar's volume,
"Eternal Hope." With much that this book contains I cannot at all agree.
Anything that comes from the pen of such a well-known writer of course
deserves respectful consideration. But I must honestly confess, after
reading "Eternal Hope," that I see no reason to withdraw anything I have
said in my Sermon on "Eternity," and that I laid down the volume with
regret and dissatisfaction, unconvinced and unshaken in my opinions.
I can find nothing new in Canon Farrar's statements. He says hardly
anything that has not been said before, and refuted before. To all who
wish to examine fully the subject of the reality and eternity of future
punishment, I venture to recommend some works which are far less known
than they ought to be, and which appear to me far sounder, and more
Scriptural, than "Eternal Hope." These are "_Horbery's Enquiry into the
Scripture Doctrine of the Duration of Future Punishment_,"
"_Girdlestone's Dies Irae_," the Rev. C. F. Childe's "_Unsafe Anchor_"
and the Rev. Flavel Cook's "_Righteous Judgment_." "_Bishop Pearson on
the Creed_," under the head "Resurrection," and "_Hodge's Systematic
Theology_," vol. iii. p. 868. will also repay a careful perusal.
The plain truth is, that there are vast difficulties bound up with the
subject of the future state of the wicked, which Canon Farrar seems to
me to leave untouched. The amazing mercifulness of God, and the
awfulness of supposing that many around us will be lost eternally, he
has handled fully and with characteristic rhetoric. No doubt the
compassions of God are unspeakable. He is "not willing that any should
perish." He "would have all men to be saved." His love in sending Christ
into the world to die for sinners is an inexhaustible subject.--But this
is only one side of God's character, as we have it revealed in
Scripture. His character and attributes need to be looked at all round.
The infinite holiness and justice of an eternal God,--His hatred of
evil, manifested in Noah's flood and at Sodom, and in the destruction of
the seven nations of Canaan,--the unspeakable vileness and guilt of sin
in God's sight,--the wide gulf between natural man and his perfect
Maker,--the enormous spiritual change which every child of Adam must go
through, if he is to dwell for ever in God's presence,--and the utter
absence of any intimation in the Bible that this change can take place
after death,--all, all these are points which seem to me comparatively
put on one aside, or left alone, in Canon Farrar's volume. My mind
demands satisfaction on these points before I can accept the views
advocated in "Eternal Hope," and that satisfaction I fail to find in the
book.
The position that Canon Farrar has taken up was first formally advocated
by Origen, a Father who lived in the third century after Christ. He
boldly broached the opinion that future punishment would be only
temporary; but his opinion was rejected by almost all his
contemporaries. Bishop Wordsworth says,--"The Fathers of the Church in
Origen's time and in the following centuries, among whom were many to
whom the original language of the New Testament was their mother tongue,
and who _could not be misled by translations_, examined minutely the
opinion and statements of Origen, and agreed for the most part in
rejecting and condemning them. Irenaeus, Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom,
Basil, Cyril of Alexandria, and others of the Eastern Church, and
Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Bede, and
many more of the Western Church, were unanimous in teaching that the
joys of the righteous and the punishments of the wicked will not be
temporary, but everlasting."
"Nor was this all. The Fifth General Council, held at Constantinople
under the Emperor Justinian, in 553, A.D. examined the tenets of Origen,
and passed a synodical decree condemnatory of them. And for a thousand
years after that time there was an unanimous consent in Christendom in
this sense." (Bishop Wordsworth's "Sermons," p. 34.)
Let me add to this statement the fact that the eternity of future
punishment has been held by almost all the greatest theologians from the
time of the Reformation down to the present day. It is a point on which
Lutherans, Calvinists, and Arminians, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and
Independents have always, with a few exceptions, been of one mind.
Search the writings of the most eminent and learned Reformers, search
the works of the Puritans, search the few literary remains of the men
who revived English Christianity in the eighteenth century, and, as a
rule, you will always get one harmonious answer. Within the last few
years, no doubt, the "non-eternity of future punishment" has found
several zealous advocates. But up to a comparatively modern date, I
unhesitatingly assert, the supporters of Canon Farrar's views have
always been an extremely small minority among orthodox Christians. That
fact is, at any rate, worth remembering.
As to the _difficulties_ besetting the old or common view of future
punishment, I admit their existence, and I do not pretend to explain
them. But I always expect to find many mysteries in revealed religion,
and I am not stumbled by them. I see other difficulties in the world
which I cannot solve, and I am content to wait for their solution. What
a mighty divine has called, "The mystery of God, the great mystery of
His suffering vice and confusion to prevail,"--the origin of evil,--the
permission of cruelty, oppression, poverty, and disease,--the allowed
sickness and death of infants before they know good from evil,--the
future prospects of the heathen who never heard the Gospel,--the times
of ignorance which God has winked at,--the condition of China,
Hindostan, and Central Africa, for the last 1800 years,--all these
things are to my mind great knots which I am unable to untie, and depths
which I have no line to fathom. But I wait for light, and I have no
doubt all will be made plain. I rest in the thought that I am a poor
ignorant mortal, and that God is a Being of infinite wisdom, and is
doing all things well. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right."
(Gen. xviii. 25.) It is a wise sentence of Bishop Butler: "All shadow of
injustice, and indeed all harsh appearances in the various economy of
God, would be lost, if we would keep in mind that every merciful
allowance shall be made, and no more shall be required of any one, than
what might have been equitably expected of him from the circumstances in
which he was placed, and not what might have been expected from him had
he been placed in other circumstances." ("Analogy," part ii. ch. vi. p.
425. Wilson's edition.) It is a grand saying of Elihu, in Job, "Touching
the Almighty, we cannot find Him out: He is excellent in power, and in
judgment, and in plenty of justice: He will not afflict." (Job xxxvii.
23.)
It may be perfectly true that many Romish divines, and even some
Protestants, have made extravagant and offensive statements about the
bodily sufferings of the lost in another world. It may be true that
those who believe in eternal punishment have occasionally misunderstood
or mistranslated texts, and have pressed figurative language too far.
But it is hardly fair to make Christianity responsible for the mistakes
of its advocates. It is an old saying that "Christian errors are infidel
arguments." Thomas Aquinas, and Dante, and Milton, and Boston, and
Jonathan Edwards were not inspired and infallible, and I decline to be
answerable for all they may have written about the physical torments of
the lost. But after every allowance, admission, and deduction, there
remains, in my humble opinion, a mass of Scripture evidence in support
of the doctrine of eternal punishment, which can never be explained
away, and which no revision or new translation of the English Bible will
ever overthrow.[23] That there are degrees of misery as well as degrees
of glory in the future state, that the condition of some who are lost
will be far worse than that of others, all this is undeniable. But that
the punishment of the wicked will ever have an end, or that length of
time alone can ever change a heart, or that the Holy Spirit ever works
on the dead, or that there is any purging, purifying process beyond the
grave, by which the wicked will be finally fitted for heaven, these are
positions which I maintain it is utterly impossible to prove by texts of
Scripture. Nay, rather, there are texts of Scripture which teach an
utterly different doctrine. "It is surprising," says Horbery, "if hell
be such a state of purification, that it should always be represented in
Scripture as a place of punishment." (Vol. ii. p. 223.) "Nothing," says
Girdlestone, "but clear statements of Scripture could justify us in
holding, or preaching to ungodly men, the doctrine of repentance after
death; and not one clear statement on this subject is to be found."
("Dies Irae," p. 269.) If we once begin to invent doctrines which we
cannot prove by texts, or to refuse the evidence of texts in Scripture
because they land us in conclusions we do not like, we may as well throw
aside the Bible altogether, and discard it as the judge of controversy.
23: Horbery alone alleges and examines no less than one hundred and
three texts, on his side, in his reply to Whiston.
The favourite argument of some, that no religious doctrine can be
true which is rejected by the "common opinion" and popular feeling
of mankind,--that any texts which contradict this common popular
feeling must be wrongly interpreted,--and that therefore eternal
punishment cannot be true, because the inward feeling of the
multitude revolts against it,--this argument appears to me alike
most dangerous and unsound. It is _dangerous_, because it strikes a
direct blow at the authority of Scripture as the only rule of faith.
Where is the use of the Bible, if the "common opinion" of mortal man
is to be regarded as of more weight than the declarations of God's
Word?--It is _unsound_, because it ignores the great fundamental
principle of Christianity,--that man is a fallen creature, with a
corrupt heart and understanding, and that in spiritual things his
judgment is worthless. There is a veil over our hearts. "The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness to him." (1 Cor. ii. 14.) To say, in the face of such a
text, that any doctrine which the majority of men dislike, such as
eternal punishment, _must_ therefore be untrue, is simply absurd!
The "common opinion" is more likely to be wrong than right! No doubt
Bishop Butler has said, "If in revelation there be found any passage
the seeming meaning of which is contrary to natural religion, we may
most certainly conclude such seeming meaning not to be the real
one." But those who triumphantly quote these words would do well to
observe the sentence which immediately follows: "But it is not any
degree of a presumption against an interpretation of Scripture, that
such an interpretation contains a doctrine which the light of nature
cannot discover." ("Analogy," part i. chap. ii. p. 358. Wilson's
edition.)
After all, what the "common feeling" or opinion of the majority of
mankind is about the duration of future punishment, is a question which
admits of much doubt. Of course we have no means of ascertaining: and it
signifies little either way. In such a matter the only point is, What
saith the Scripture? But I have a strong suspicion, if the world could
be polled, that we should find the greater part of mankind believed in
eternal punishment! About the opinion of the Greeks and Romans at any
rate there can be little dispute. If anything is clearly taught in the
stories of their mythology it is the endless nature of the sufferings of
the wicked. Bishop Butler says, "Gentile writers, both moralist and
poetic, speak of the future punishment of the wicked, both as to
duration and degree, in a like manner of expression and description as
the Scripture does." ("Analogy," part i. chap. ii. p. 218.) The strange
and weird legends of Tantalus, Sisyphus, Ixion, Prometheus, and the
Danaides, have all one common feature about them. In each case the
punishment is eternal! This is a fact worth noticing. It is worth what
it is worth. But it shows, at all events, that the opponents of eternal
punishment should not talk too confidently about the "common opinion of
mankind."
As to the doctrine of the _Annihilation of the Wicked_, to which many
adhere, it appears to me so utterly irreconcilable with our Lord Jesus
Christ's words about "the resurrection of damnation," and "the worm that
never dies, and the fire that is not quenched," and St. Paul's words
about "the resurrection of the unjust" (John v. 29; Mark ix. 43-48; Acts
xxiv. 15), that until those words can be proved to form no part of
inspired Scripture it seems to me mere waste of time to argue about it.
The favourite argument of the advocates of this doctrine, that "death,
dying, perishing, destruction," and the like, are phrases which can only
mean "cessation of existence," is so ridiculously weak that it is
scarcely worth noticing. Every Bible reader knows that God said to Adam,
concerning the forbidden fruit, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely _die_." (Gen. ii. 17.) But every well-taught Sunday scholar
knows that Adam did not "cease to exist," when he broke the commandment.
He died spiritually, but he did not cease to be!--So also St. Peter says
of the flood: "The world that then was, being overflowed with water,
_perished_." (2 Peter iii. 6.) Yet, though temporarily drowned, it
certainly did not cease to be; and when the water was dried up Noah
lived on it again.
It only remains for me now to add one more last word, by way of
information. Those who care to investigate the meaning of the words
"eternal" and "everlasting," as used in Scripture, will find the subject
fully and exhaustively considered in _Girdlestone's "Old Testament
Synonyms_," ch. 30, p. 495; and in the same writer's "_Dies Irae_," ch.
10 and 11, p. 128.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
p.8 thing changed to think
p.38 the burden o changed to the burden of
p.77 beecome changed to become
p.148 still remain to be changed to still remains to be
p.241 Aphorisims changed to Aphorisms
p.320 all lasses changed to all classes
p.335 thorougly changed to thoroughly
p.469 still fresh on you mind changed to still fresh on your mind
Hyphenation of words is inconsistent and has been left as in the
original.