 CHAPTER 20 THE GREAT SEPARATION, PART II Let me show, in the third place, the portion which Christ's people shall receive when he comes to purge his floor. The text at the beginning of this paper tells us that, in good and comfortable words, it tells us that Christ shall gather his sweet into the garner. When the Lord Jesus comes the second time, he shall collect his believing people into a place of safety. He will send his angels and gather them from every quarter. The sea shall give up the dead that are in it, and the graves the dead that are in them, and the living shall be changed. Not one poor sinner of mankind who has ever laid hold on Christ by faith shall be wanting in that company. Not one single grain of wheat shall be missing and left outside when judgments fall upon a wicked world. There shall be a garner for the wheat of the earth, and into that garner all the wheat shall be brought. It is a sweet and comfortable thought that the Lord takeeth pleasure in his people and careth for the righteous. Psalm 149, 4, 1 Peter 5, 7. But how much the Lord cares for them, I fear, is little known and dimly seen. Believers have their trials beyond question, and these both many and great. The flesh is weak, the world is full of snares, the cross is heavy, the way is narrow, the companions are few, but still they have strong consolations if their eyes were but open to see them. Like Hagar they have a well of water near them, even in the wilderness, though they often do not find it out. Like Mary they have Jesus standing by their side, though often they are not aware of it for very tears. Genesis 21, 19, John 20, 14. Bear with me while I try to tell you something about Christ's care for poor sinners that believe in him. Alas indeed that it should be needful, but we live in a day of weak and feeble statements. The danger of the state of nature is feebly exposed. The privileges of the state of grace are feebly set forth. Hesitating souls are not encouraged. Disciples are not established and confirmed. The man out of Christ is not rightly alarmed. The man in Christ is not rightly built up. The one sleeps on and seldom has his conscience pricked. The other creeps and crawls all his days and never thoroughly understands the riches of his inheritance. Truly this is a sore disease and one that I would gladly help to cure. Truly it is a melancholy thing that the people of God should never go up to Mount Pisgah, and never know the length and breadth of their possessions. To be brethren of Christ and sons of God by adoption, to have full and perfect forgiveness and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, to have a place in the Book of Life and a name on the breastplate of the great High Priest in Heaven. All these are glorious things indeed, but still they are not the whole of a believer's portion. They are upper springs indeed, but still there are nether springs beside. A. The Lord takes pleasure in his believing people. Though black in their own eyes, they are comely and honorable in his. They are all fair. He sees no spot in them. Canticles 4.7. Their weaknesses and shortcomings do not break off the union between him and them. He chose them knowing all their hearts. He took them for his own with a perfect understanding of all their debts, liabilities, and infirmities, and he will never break his covenant and cast them off. When they fall he will raise them again. When they wander he will bring them back. The prayers are pleasant to him. As a father loves the first stammering efforts of his child to speak, so the Lord loves the poor feeble petitions of his people. He endorses them with his own mighty intercession and gives them power on high. Their services are pleasant to him. As a father delights in the first daisy that his child picks up and brings him, even so the Lord is pleased with the weak attempts of his people to serve him. Not a cup of cold water shall lose its reward. Not a word spoken in love shall ever be forgotten. Holy Ghost inspired Saint Paul to tell the Hebrews of Noah's faith, but not of his drunkenness, of Rahab's faith, but not of her lie. It is a blessed thing to be God's wheat. B. The Lord cares for his believing people in their lives. Their dwelling place is well known. The street called straight where Judas dwelt and Paul lodged. The house by the seaside where Peter prayed were all familiar to their Lord. None have such attendance as they have. Angels rejoice when they are born again. Angels minister to them and angels encamp around them. None have such food. Their bread is given them and their water is sure and they have meat to eat of which the world knows nothing. None have such company as they have. The Spirit dwelleth with them. The Father and the Son come to them and make their abode with them. John 14, 23 Their steps are all ordered from grace to glory. They that persecute them persecute Christ himself. And they that hurt them hurt the apple of the Lord's eye. Their trials and temptations are all measured out by a wise physician. Not a grain of bitterness is ever mingled in their cup that is not good for the health of their souls. Their temptations, like Job's, are all under God's control. Satan cannot touch a hair of their head without their Lord's permission nor even tempt them above that which they shall be able to bear. As a Father pityeth his own children, so does the Lord pity them that fear him. He never afflicts them willingly. Psalm 103, 13 Lamentations 3, 33 He leads them by the right way. He withholds nothing that is really for their good. Come what will there is always a needs be. When they are placed in the furnace it is that they may be purified. When they are chastened it is that they may become more holy. When they are pruned it is to make them more fruitful. When they are transplanted from place to place it is that they may bloom more brightly. All things are continually working together for their good. Like the bee they extract sweetness even out of the bitterest flowers. C. The Lord cares for his believing people in their deaths. Their times are all in the Lord's hand. The hairs of their heads are all numbered and not one can ever fall to the ground without their Father. They are kept on earth till they are ripe and ready for glory and not one moment longer. When they have had sun and rain enough, wind and storm enough, cold and heat enough, when the ear is perfected, then and not till then the sickle is put in. They are all immortal till their work is done. There is not a disease that can loosen the pins of their tabernacle until the Lord gives the word. A thousand may fall at their right hand, but there is not a plague that can touch them till the Lord sees good. There is not a physician that can keep them alive when the Lord gives the word. When they come to their deathbed the everlasting arms are round about them and make all their bed in their sickness. When they die they die like Moses according to the word of the Lord at the right time and in the right way, Deuteronomy 34.5. And when they breathe their last they fall asleep in Christ and are at once carried like Lazarus into Abraham's bosom. Yes, it is a blessed thing to be Christ's wheat. When the son of other man is setting the son of the believer is rising. When other men are laying aside their honors he is putting his on. Death locks the door on the unbeliever and shuts him out from hope. But death opens the door to the believer and lets him into paradise. And the Lord will care for his believing people in the dreadful day of his appearing. The flaming fire shall not come nigh them. The voice of the archangel and the trump of God shall proclaim no terrors to their ears. Sleeping or waking, quick or dead, moldering in the coffin or standing at the post of daily duty, believers shall be secure and unmoved. They shall lift up their heads with joy when they see redemption drawing nigh. They shall be changed and put on their beautiful garments in the twinkling of an eye. They shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. 1 Thessalonians 4.17. Jesus will do nothing to a sin-laden world till all his people are safe. There was an ark for Noah when the flood began. There was a Zohar for Lot when the fire fell on Sodom. There was a Pella for early Christians when Jerusalem was besieged. There was a Zurich for English reformers when Popesh Mary came to the throne. And there will be a garner for all the wheat of the earth in the last day. Yes, it is a blessed thing to be Christ's wheat. I often wonder at the miserable faithlessness of those among us who are believers. Next to the hardness of the unconverted heart I call it one of the greatest wonders in the world. I wonder that with such mighty reasons for confidence we can still be so full of doubts. I marvel above all things how any can deny the doctrine that Christ's people persevere under the end and can fancy that he who loved them so as to die for them upon the cross will ever let them be cast away. I cannot think so. I do not believe the Lord Jesus will ever lose one of his flock. He will not let Satan pluck away from him so much as one sick lamb. He will not allow one bone of his mystical body to be broken. He will not suffer one jewel to fall from his crown. He and his bride have been once joined in an everlasting covenant and they shall never, never be put asunder. The trophies won by earthly conquerors have often been rested from them and carried off, but this shall never be said of the trophies of him who triumphed for us on the cross. My sheep, he says, shall never perish, John 10, 28. I take my stand on that text. I know not how it can be evaded. If words have any meaning, the perseverance of Christ's people is there. I do not believe when David had rescued the lamb from the paws of the lion that he left it weak and wounded to perish in the wilderness. I cannot believe when the Lord Jesus has delivered a soul from the snare of the devil that he will ever leave that soul to take his chance and wrestle on in his own feebleness against sin, the devil, and the world. I dare be sure if you were present at a shipwreck and seeing some helpless child tossing on the waves were to plunge into the sea and save him at the risk of your own life. I dare be sure you would not be content with merely bringing that child safe to shore. You would not lay him down when you had reached the land and say, I will do no more. He is weak, he is insensible, he is cold, it matters not. I have done enough, I have delivered him from the waters, he is not drowned. You would not do it. You would not say so. You would not treat that child in such a manner. You would lift him in your arms. You would carry him to the nearest house. You would try to bring back warmth and animation. You would use every means to restore health and vigor. You would never leave him till his recovery was a certain thing. And can you suppose the Lord Jesus Christ is less merciful and less compassionate? Can you think he would suffer on the cross and die and yet leave it uncertain whether believers in him would be saved? Can you think he would wrestle with death and hell and go down to the grave for our sakes and yet allow our eternal life to hang on such a thread as our poor, miserable endeavors? Oh no, he does not do so. He is a perfect and complete saviour. Those whom he loves, he loves unto the end. Those whom he washes in his blood, he never leaves nor forsakes. He puts his fear into their hearts so that they shall not depart from him. Where he begins a work there he also finishes. All whom he plants in his garden enclosed on earth, he transplants sooner or later into paradise. All whom he quickens by his spirit, he will also bring with him when he enters his kingdom. There is a garner for every grain of the wheat. All shall appear in Zion before God. From false grace man may fall, and that both finally and fowly. I never doubt this. I see proof of it continually. From true grace men never do fall totally. They never did, and they never will. If they commit sin, like Peter, they shall repent and rise again. If they err from the right way, like David, they shall be brought back. It is not any strength or power of their own that keeps them from apostasy. They are kept because the power and love and promises of the Trinity are all engaged on their side. The election of God the Father shall not be fruitless. The intercession of God the Son shall not be ineffectual. The love of God the Spirit shall not be labor in vain. The Lord shall keep the feet of his saints. 1 Samuel 2.9 They shall all be more than conquerors through him that loved them. They all shall conquer, and none die eternally. Blessed forever and ever be that mother's child whose faith hath made him the child of God. The earth may shake, the pillars of the world may tremble under us, the countenance of the heaven may be appalled, the sun may lose his light, the moon her beauty, the stars their glory, but concerning the man that trusteth in God, what is there in the world that shall change his heart, overthrow his faith, alter his affection towards God, or the affection of God to him? Richard Hooker 1585 End Footnote If you have not yet taken up the cross and become Christ's disciple, you little know what privileges you are missing. Peace with God now, and glory hereafter. The everlasting arms to keep you by the way, and the garner of safety in the end. All these are freely offered to you without money and without price. You may say that Christians have tribulations. You forget that they have also consolations. You may say they have peculiar sorrows. You forget they have also peculiar joys. You see but half the Christian life. You see not all. You see the warfare, but not the meat and the wages. You see the tossing and conflict of the outward part of Christianity. You see not the hidden treasures which lie deep within. Like Elisha's servant, you see the enemies of God's children. But you do not, like Elisha, see the chariots and horses of fire which protect them. Oh, judge not by outward appearances. Be sure that the least drop of the water of life is better than all the rivers of the world. Remember the garner and the crown. Be wise in time. If you feel that you are a weak disciple, think not that weakness shuts you out from any of the privileges of which I have been speaking. Weak faith is true faith, and weak grace is true grace, and both are the gift of him who never gives in vain. Fear not, neither be discouraged. Doubt not, neither despair. Jesus will never break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flags. Isaiah 42.3 The babes in a family are as much loved and thought of as the elder brothers and sisters. The tender seedlings in a garden are as diligently looked after as the old trees. The lambs in the flock are as carefully tended by the good shepherd as the old sheep. O rest assured it is just the same in Christ's family, in Christ's garden, in Christ's flock. All are loved, all are tenderly thought of, all are cared for, and all shall be found in his garner at last. 4. Let me show, in the last place, the portion which remains for all who are not Christ's people. The text at the beginning of this paper describes this in words which should make our ears tingle. Christ shall burn up the chaff with fire unquenchable. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes to purge his floor, he shall punish all who are not his disciples with a fearful punishment. All who are found impenitent and unbelieving, all who have held the truth in unrighteousness, all who have clung to sin, stuck to the world, and set their affections on things below, all who are without Christ, all such shall come to an awful end. Christ shall burn up the chaff. Their punishment shall be most severe. There is no pain like that of burning. Put your finger in the candle for a moment if you doubt this and try. Fire is the most destructive and devouring of all elements. Look into the mouth of a blast furnace and think what it would be to be there. Fire is, of all elements, most opposed to life. Creatures can live in air and earth and water, but nothing can live in fire. Yet fire is the portion to which the Christless and unbelieving will come. Christ will burn up the chaff with fire. Their punishment shall be eternal. Millions of ages shall pass away, and the fire into which the chaff is cast shall still burn on. That fire shall never burn low and become dim. The fuel of that fire shall never waste away and be consumed. It is unquenchable fire. Alas, these are sad and painful things to speak of. I have no pleasure in dwelling on them. I could rather say, with the Apostle Paul, as I write, I have great heaviness and continual sorrow. Romans 9, 2. But they are things written for our learning, and it is good to consider them. They are a part of that scripture which is all profitable, and they ought to be heard. Painful as the subject of hell is, it is one about which I dare not, cannot, must not be silent. Who would desire to speak of hellfire if God had not spoken of it? When God has spoken of it so plainly, who can safely hold his peace? I dare not shut my eyes to the fact that a deep-rooted infidelity lurks in men's minds on the subject of hell. I see it oozing out in the utter apathy of some. They eat and drink and sleep, as if there was no wrath to come. I see it creeping forth in the coldness of others about their neighbor's souls. They show little anxiety to pluck brands from the fire. I desire to denounce such infidelity with all my might, believing that there are terrors of the Lord, as well as the recompense of reward. I call on all who profess to believe the Bible to be on their guard. A. I know that some do not believe there is any hell at all. They think it impossible there can be such a place. They call it inconsistent with the mercy of God. They say it is too awful an idea to be really true. The devil, of course, rejoices in the views of such people. They help his kingdom mightily. They are preaching up his own favorite doctrine. Ye shall not surely die. Genesis 3.4. B. I know furthermore that some do not believe that hell is eternal. They tell us it is incredible that a compassionate God will punish men forever. He will surely open the prison doors at last. This also is a mighty help to the devil's cause. Take your ease, he whispers to sinners. If you do make a mistake, never mind, it is not forever. A wicked woman was overheard in the streets of London saying to a bad companion, Come along, who is afraid? Some persons say there is no hell. C. I know also that some believe there is a hell, but never allow that anybody is going there. All people with them are good as soon as they die. All were sincere, all meant well, and all they hope got to heaven. Alas, what a common delusion is this. I can well understand the feeling of the little girl who asked her mother where all the wicked people were buried, for she found no mansion on the gravestones of any except the good. D. And I know very well that some believe there is a hell and never like it to be spoken of. It is a subject that should always be kept back in their opinion. They see no profit in bringing it forward and are rather shocked when it is mentioned. This also is an immense help to the devil. Hush, hush, says Satan, say nothing about hell. The fowler wishes to hear no noise when he lays his snares. The wolf would like the shepherd to sleep while he prowls round the fold. The devil rejoices when Christians are silent about hell. All these notions are the opinions of man. But what is it to you and me what man thinks in religion? Man will not judge us at the last day. Man's fancies and traditions are not to be our guide in this life. There is but one point to be settled. What says the Word of God? A. Do you believe the Bible? B. Then depend upon it. Hell is real and true. It is true as heaven, as true as justification by faith, as true as the fact that Christ died upon the cross, as true as the Dead Sea. There is not a fact or doctrine which you may not lawfully doubt if you doubt hell. Disbelieve hell and you unscrew, unsettle, and unpin everything in Scripture. You may as well throw your Bible away at once. From no hell to no God there is but a series of steps. B. Do you believe the Bible? Then depend upon it. Hell will have inhabitants. The wicked shall certainly be turned into hell and all the people that forget God. These shall go away into everlasting punishment. Matthew 25, 46. The same blessed Savior, who now sits on a throne of grace, will one day sit on a throne of judgment. And men will see there is such a thing as the Wrath of the Lamb, Revelation 6, 16. The same lips which now say, Come, come unto me, will one day say, Depart ye cursed. Class how awful the thought of being condemned by Christ Himself, judged by the Savior, sentenced to misery by the Lamb. C. Do you believe the Bible? Then depend upon it. Hell will be intense and unutterable woe. It is vain to talk of all the expressions about it being only figures of speech. The pit, the prison, the worm, the fire, the thirst, the blackness, the darkness, the weeping, the gnashing of teeth, the second death. All these may be figures of speech, if you please. But Bible figures mean something beyond all question. And here they mean something which man's mind can never fully conceive. The miseries of mind and conscience are far worse than those of the body. The whole extent of hell, the present suffering, the bitter recollection of the past, the hopeless prospect of the future, will never be thoroughly known except by those who go there. D. Do you believe the Bible? Then depend upon it. Hell is eternal. It must be eternal, or words have no meaning at all. For ever and ever, everlasting, unquenchable, never dying, all these are expressions used about hell, and expressions that cannot be explained away. It must be eternal, or the very foundations of heaven are cast down. If hell has an end, heaven has an end too. They both stand or fall together. It must be eternal, or else every doctrine of the gospel is undermined. If a man may escape hell at length without faith in Christ or sanctification of the spirit, sin is no longer an infinite evil, and there was no such great need for Christ making an atonement. And where is there warrant for saying that hell can ever change a heart or make it fit for heaven? It must be eternal, or hell would cease to be hell altogether. Give a man hope, and he will bear anything. Grant a hope of deliverance, however distant, and hell is but a drop of water. Ah, these are solemn things. Well said, old Carol, forever is the most solemn saying in the Bible. Alas for that day which will have no tomorrow, that day when men shall seek death and not find it, and shall desire to die, but death shall flee from them. Who shall dwell with devouring fire? Who shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Revelations 9, 6, Isaiah 33, 14. E. Do you believe the Bible? Then depend upon it. Hell is a subject that ought not to be kept back. It is striking to observe the many texts about it in Scripture. It is striking to observe that none say so much about it as our Lord Jesus Christ, that gracious and merciful Savior, and the Apostle John whose heart seems full of love. Truly it may well be doubted whether we ministers speak of it as much as we ought. I cannot forget the words of a dying hearer of Mr. Newtons. Sir, you often told me of Christ and salvation. Why did you not often or remind me of hell and danger? Let others hold their peace about hell, if they will. I dare not do so. I see it plainly in Scripture, and I must speak of it. I fear that thousands are on that broad way that leads to it, and I would vain arouse them to a sense of the peril before them. What would you say of the man who saw his neighbor's house in danger of being burned down, and never raised the cry of fire? What ought to be said of us as ministers, if we call ourselves watchmen for souls, and yet see the fires of hell raging in the distance, and never give the alarm? Call it bad taste, if you like, to speak of hell. Call it charity to make things pleasant, and speak smoothly, and soothe man with a constant lullaby of peace. From such notions of taste and charity may I ever be delivered. My notion of charity is to warn men plainly of danger. My notion of taste in the ministerial office is to declare all the counsel of God. If I never spoke of hell, I should think I had kept back something that was profitable and should look on myself as an accomplice of the devil. I beseech every reader of this paper in all tender affection to beware of false views of the subject on which I have been dwelling. Beware of new and strange doctrines about hell and the eternity of punishment. Beware of manufacturing a God of your own. A God who is all mercy but not just. A God who is all love but not holy. A God who has a heaven for everybody but a hell for none. A God who can allow good and bad to be side by side in time but will make no distinction between good and bad in eternity. Such a God is an idol of your own, as really as Jupiter or Moloch, as true an idol as any snake or crocodile in an Egyptian temple, as true an idol as was ever molded out of brass or clay. The hands of your own fancy and sentimentality have made him. He is not the God of the Bible, and besides the God of the Bible there is no God at all. Your heaven would be no heaven at all. A heaven containing all sorts of characters indiscriminately would be miserable discord indeed, alas for the eternity of such a heaven. There would be little difference between it and hell. There is a hell. There is a fire for the chaff. Take heed lest you find it out to your cost too late. Beware of being wise above that which is written. Beware of forming fanciful theories of your own and then trying to make the Bible square in with them. Beware of making selections from your Bible to suit your taste, refusing like a spoiled child whatever you think bitter, seizing like a spoiled child whatever you think sweet. What is all this but taking Jehoiakim's penknife, Jeremiah 36, 23? What does it amount to but telling God that you, a poor short-lived worm, know what is good for you better than he? It will not do. It will not do. You must take the Bible as it is. You must read it all and believe it all. You must come to the reading of it in the spirit of a little child. Dare not to say, I believe this verse for I like it. I reject that for I do not like it. I receive this for I can understand it. I refuse that for I cannot reconcile it with my views. Nay, but O man, who art thou that replyest against God? Romans 9, 20. By what right do you talk in this way? Surely it were better to say over every chapter in the word, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. If men would do this, they would never deny hell, the chaff, and the fire. And now let me say four things in conclusion, and then I have done. I have shown the two great classes of mankind, the wheat and the chaff. I have shown the separation which will one day take place. I have shown the safety of the Lord's people. I have shown the fearful portion of the Christless and unbelieving. I commend these things to the conscience of every reader of this paper as in the sight of God. 1. First of all, settle it down in your mind that the things of which I have been speaking are all real and true. I do believe that many never see the great truths of religion in this light. I firmly believe that many never listen to the things they hear from ministers as realities. They regard it all like gallio, as a matter of names and words and nothing more. A huge shadow, a formal part-acting, a vast sham. The last novel, the latest news from France, India, Australia, Turkey or New York. All these are things they realize. They feel interested and excited about them. But as to the Bible and Heaven and the Kingdom of Christ and the Judgment Day, these are subjects that they hear unmoved. They do not really believe them. If layered had dug up at Nineveh anything damaging the truth and authority of the Old Testament scriptures, it would not have interfered with their peace for an hour. If you have unhappily got into this frame of mind, I charge you to cast it off forever. Whether you mean to hear or forbear, awaken to a thorough conviction that the things I have brought before you are real and true. The wheat, the chaff, the separation, the garner, the fire. All these are great realities, as real as the sun in Heaven, as real as the paper which your eyes behold. For my part I believe in Heaven and I believe in Hell. I believe in a coming judgment. I believe in a day of sifting. I am not ashamed to say so. I believe them all and therefore right as I do. O take a friend's advice. Live as if these things were true. 2. Settle it down in your mind, in the second place, that the things of which I write concern yourself. They are your business, your affair, and your concern. Many I am satisfied never look on religion as a matter that concerns themselves. They attend on its outward part as a decent and proper fashion. They hear sermons, they read religious books, they have their children christened, but all the time they never ask themselves, what is all this to me? They sit in our churches like spectators in a theater or court of law. They read our writings as if they were reading a report of an interesting trial or of some event far away, but they never say to themselves, I am the man. If you have this kind of feeling, depend upon it, it will never do. There must be an end of all this if ever you are to be saved. You are the man I write to, whoever you may be who reads this paper. I write not specially to the rich. I write not specially to the poor. I write to everybody who will read whatever his rank may be. It is on your soul's account that I am pleading and not another's. You are spoken of in the text that begins this paper. You are this very day either among the wheat or among the chaff. Your portion will one day either be the garner or the fire. O, that men were wise and would lay these things to heart. O, that they would not trifle daily, linger, live on, half and half Christians, meaning well, but never acting boldly, and at last awake when it is too late. Three, settle it down in your mind, in the third place, that if you are willing to be one of the wheat of the earth, the Lord Jesus Christ is willing to receive you. Does any man suppose that Jesus is not willing to see his garner filled? Do you think he does not desire to bring many sons to glory? O, but you little know the depth of his mercy and compassion if you can think such a thought. He wept over unbelieving Jerusalem. He mourns over the impenitent and the thoughtless in the present day. He sends you invitations by my mouth this hour. He invites you to hear and live, to forsake the way of the foolish and go in the paths of understanding. As I live, he says, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dyeth. Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die? Ezekiel 18.32 O, if you never came to Christ for life before, come to him this very day. Come to him with the penitence prayer for mercy and grace. Come to him without delay. Come to him while the subject of this paper is still fresh on your mind. Come to him before another sun rises on the earth and let the morning find you a new creature. If you are determined to have the world and the things of the world, its pleasures and its rewards, its follies and its sins, if you must have your own way and cannot give up anything for Christ and your soul, if this be your case, there is but one end before you. I fairly warn you. I plainly tell you. You will sooner or later come to the unquenchable fire. But if any man is willing to be saved, the Lord Jesus Christ stands ready to save him. Come unto me, he says, weary soul, and I will give you rest. Come, guilty and sinful soul, and I will give you free pardon. Come, lost and ruined soul, and I will give you eternal life. Matthew 11.28 Let that passage be a word in season. Arise and call upon the Lord. Let the angels of God rejoice over one more saved soul. Let the courts of heaven hear the good tidings that one more lost sheep is found. 4. Settle it down in your mind, last of all, that if you have committed your soul to Christ, Christ will never allow that soul to perish. The everlasting arms are round about you. Lean back in them and know your safety. The same hand that was nailed to the cross is holding you. The same wisdom that framed the heavens and the earth is engaged to maintain your cause. The same power that redeemed the twelve tribes from the house of bondage is on your side. The same love that bore with and carried Israel from Egypt to Canaan is pledged to keep you. Yes, they are well kept whom Christ keeps. Our faith may repose calmly on such a bed as Christ's omnipotence. Take comfort, doubting believer. Why are you cast down? The love of Jesus is no summer day fountain. No man ever yet saw its bottom. The compassion of Jesus is a fire that never yet burned low. The cold gray ashes of that fire have never yet been seen. Take comfort. In your own heart you may find little cause for rejoicing, but you may always rejoice in the Lord. You say your faith is so small, but where is it said that none shall be saved except their faith be great? And after all, who gave thee any faith at all? The very fact that you have any faith is a token for good. You say your sins are so many, but where is the sin or the heap of sins that the blood of Jesus cannot wash away? And after all, who told thee thou hadst any sins? That feeling never came from thyself. Blessed indeed is that mother's child who really knows and feels that he is a sinner. Take comfort, I say once more, if you have really come to Christ. Take comfort and know your privileges. Cast every care on Jesus. Tell every want to Jesus. Roll every burden on Jesus. Sins, unbelief, doubts, fears, anxieties. Lay them all on Christ. He loves to see you doing so. He loves to be employed as your high priest. He loves to be trusted. He loves to see his people ceasing from the vain effort to carry their burdens for themselves. I commend these things to the notice of every one into whose hands this volume may fall. Only be among Christ's wheat now and then in the great day of separation, as sure as the Bible is true, you shall be in Christ's garner hereafter. End of chapter 20 Chapter 21 The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4-18 A subject stands out on the face of this text, which is one of the most solemn and heart-searching in the Bible. That subject is eternity. The subject is one of which the wisest man can only take in a little. We have no eyes to see it fully, no line to fathom it, no mind to grasp it, and yet we must not refuse to consider it. There are star depths in the heavens above us which the most powerful telescope cannot pierce. Yet it is well to look into them and learn something if we cannot learn everything. There are heights and depths about the subject of eternity which mortal man can never comprehend, but God has spoken of it and we have no right to turn away from it altogether. The subject is one which we must never approach without the Bible in our hands. The moment we depart from God's Word written in considering eternity in the future state of man, we are likely to fall into error. In examining points like these we have nothing to do with preconceived notions as to what is God's character and what we think God ought to be, or ought to do with man after death. We have only to find out what is written. What sayeth the Scripture? What sayeth the Lord? It is wild work to tell us that we ought to have noble thoughts about God independent of and over and above Scripture. Natural religion soon comes to a standstill here. The noblest thoughts about God which we have a right to hold are the thoughts which he has been pleased to reveal to us in his written Word. 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. 1. 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 and all around I see. O thou that change us 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. Genesis 23.4 Strength of body is only temporal. David was once a mighty man of valor, 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 9-2 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 passes away. 1 Corinthians 7-31 The thought is one which ought to rouse everyone who is living only for this world. If his conscience is not utterly seared, it should stir in him great searchings of heart. Hold, take care, what you are doing. 1 Aweak to see things in their true light before it be too late. 2 The things you live for now are all temporal and passing away. The pleasures, the amusements, the recreations, merry-makings, the prophets, 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. 3 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. 4 Seek first the kingdom of God, and then everything else shall be added to you. 5 Set your affections on things above, not on the earth. 6 O you that love the world, be wise in time. 7 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. Colossians 3, 2, 1 John 2, 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 Corinthians 4, 17. Take them patiently, bear them quietly, look upward, forward, onward, and far beyond them. 2 Fight your daily fight under an abiding conviction that it is only for little time, and that rest is not far off. 3 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. 2 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 goodbye, 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, Psalms 26-11. Once landed in paradise, the saints of God should go out no more. The inheritance is incorruptible, undefiled, and fate is not away. They shall receive a crown of glory that fate is not away. 1 Peter 1 4 verse 4. Their warfare is accomplished, their fight is over, their work is done. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more. They are traveling 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 forever with the Lord. I do not wonder that the Apostle Paul adds, comfort one another with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4, 17, and 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 forever, the sorrow of the unbeliever is also forever. 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 sayeth the Scripture? Whoever 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 9.43-48 Matthew 25.46 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 Thessalonians 1.9 Who does not know the spirit of love which runs through all Saint 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 and 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. Revelation 26.7 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 worshipers 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 devils daring falsehood. Ye shall not surely die. Genesis 3.4 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. 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 a specialist 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 righteous 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? Finally, let us hold it fast for the sake of the common hopes of all God 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 ingenuous 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. It is a deep and true saying, with a sinner's fear our hope departs. I turn from this part of my subject with a deep sense of its painfulness. I feel strongly with Robert Machini 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 540. 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, our 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 Psalm clause which concludes the sentence and that will, by no means, clear the guilty. Exodus 34, 6, and 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 145 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 raises up all those that bow 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 preserves 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 145, 8 through 20. 3. 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 vapor, so soon passeth it away, and we are gone. Psalm 99, James 4, 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 Peter 3, 8. And that world-time shall be no more. But short is 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 countenance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life, but to them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath. Romans 2, 6, and 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 in bare 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. Matthew 12, 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. Galatians 6, 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. Life is the time to serve the Lord, the time to ensure 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 into 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. 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 said, it is now or never. Whatever we do in religion must be done now. Remember, this is 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 behavior on the Lord's Day, your manner of going through public worship, 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. Roman numeral 4 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 lifetimes subject to bondage. 2 Timothy 1.10 Hebrews 2.15 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 and 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 2.24 and 3.18 2 Corinthians 5.21 And all that our Lord Jesus Christ has purchased for us, he offers freely to everyone 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 labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. If any man thirsts, 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 8.12 Matthew 11.28 John 7.37 and 6.37 Acts 26.31 and John 3.16 He that has Christ has life. He can look round him on the things temporal and see change and decay on every side without dismay. He has got treasure in heaven, with neither rest 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 forever with his Lord. He can look down even into the grave, as the wisest Greeks and Romans could never do, and say, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? O eternity, where are thy terrors? 1 Corinthians 15.55 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. 1 Corinthians 2.20 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 Buford lay upon his deathbed, our mighty poet describes King Henry as saying, He dies, but gives no sign. When John Knox, the Scotcher farmer, was drawing to his end able to speak, a faithful servant asked him to give some proof that the gospel he had preached in life gave him comfort and 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 verse 40 I leave the subject of eternity here and pray that God may bless it to many souls. In conclusion, I offer to everyone who reads this volume some food for thought and matter for self-examination. One, 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 forever. 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? Two, secondly, where shall you be in eternity? It is coming, coming, coming very fast upon you. 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? O 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. Three, 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. Four, 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 11.26 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. II Corinthians 5.1 P.S. Since preaching the above sermon I have read Canon Farrar's volume Eternal Hope. With much that this book contains I can at all agree. Anything to come from the pen of such a well-known writer I 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 statement. 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 books 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 Horbury's inquiry into the scripture doctrine of the duration of future punishment, Gertelstom's Dias Eray, the Reverend C.F. Child's unsafe anchor, and the Reverend Flaville Cook's righteous judgment, Bishop Pearson on the Creed under the head Resurrection in Hodges Catholic Theology. Volume 3, page 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 mercilessness 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 compassion of God are unspeakable. He is not willing that any should perish. He would have all men to be saved. His love and 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 around. The infinite holiness and justice of an eternal God. His hatred of evil manifested in Noah's flood at Sodom and in the destruction of the seven nations of Canon. 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 forever in God's presence and the utter absence of any intimation in the Bible that this change can take place after death. All these are points which seem to be 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 failed to find in the book. The position that Canon Farrar has taken up was first formally advocated by origin a father who lived in the third century after Christ. He boldly broached the opinion that future punishment would be only contemporary. But his opinion was rejected by almost all his contemporaries. Bishop Wordsworth says, the fathers of the church and origins time and in the following centuries among whom or 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 origin and agreed for the most part in rejecting and condemning them. Irenias Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom Basil, Cyril of Alexandria and others of the Eastern Church and Tertullian Cyprian, Lactantius Augustine, Gregory the Great, Beaty 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 AD examined the tenets of origin 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 Sermons page 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 imminent and learned reformers. Search the works of the Puritans search the few literary remains of the men who revived English Christianity in the 18th 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 Canaan 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 cruelty oppression poverty and disease the loud 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, Hindustan 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 earth do right, Genesis 1825 it is a wise sentence of Bishop Butler all shadow of injustice and indeed all harsh appearances in the various economies 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 2 chapter 6 page 425 Wilson's edition this 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 3723 it may be perfectly true that many Romish divines and even some Protestants have made extravagant and offensive statements about 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 declined to be answerable 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 in which no revision or new translation of the English Bible will ever overthrow that there are degrees of misery as well as degrees of glory in the future state the cognition 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 which 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 Horbury if hell be such a state of purification that it should always be represented in scripture as a place of punishment volume 2 page 223 nothing, says Girdelstone, 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 Dias Ere, page 269 if we once begin to invent doctrines which we cannot prove by text or to refuse the evidence of texts in scripture because they land us in conclusion we do not like we may as well throw aside the Bible altogether and discard it as a judge of controversy the favorite 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 therefore eternal punishment cannot be true because the inward feeling of the multitude revolts against it this argument appears to me like most dangerous and unsound it is dangerous because it strikes the direct blow of the collective 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 that the spiritual man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God for their foolishness to him 1 Corinthians 2 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 in the 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 triumphally quote these words would do well to observe the sentence which immediately follows but it is not any degree of presumption against an interpretation of scripture that such an interpretation contains a doctrine which the light of nature cannot discover analogy part 1 chapter 2 in the late 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 to 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 sayeth 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 both more less 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 1 chapter 2 page 218 the strange and weird legends of Tantalus Sisyphus Ixion, Prometheus and the denades 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 Saint Paul's words about the resurrection of the unjust John 5 29 Mark 9 43-48 Acts 24 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 favorite 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 it is said to Adam concerning the forbidden fruit in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Genesis 2 17 but every well-taught Sunday School 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 Saint Peter says of the flood the world that then was being overflowed with water perished in 2 Peter 3 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 Gertelston's Old Testament Chapter 30 Page 495 and in the same Writers Dias Aerie Chapter 10 and 11 Page 128 End of Chapter 21 End of Practical Religion by J. C. Ryle