FUTURE PUNISHMENT

PART FIRST.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

INTRODUCTORY. Solemnity of the Subject-Reasons for discussing it-Cautionary suggestions-Course to be pursued.

IN undertaking to discuss the Doctrine of Future Punishment, we are manifestly entering on a most solemn and awful subject: one indeed that is overpoweringly so. Neither are we unconcerned, uninterested observers. We all belong to the system of which punishment, when necessary, forms a part; and it is quite possible for ourselves individually to experience what is meant by it; possible for those whom we have known and loved to be the unhappy objects on whom the punishment threatened in scripture may necessarily alight. And even if we were infallibly secure, and if none whose hands we have pressed in friendship or whom we have gazed on with the eye of affection were at all in danger, yet could we not selfishly dissociate ourselves from our fellows, nor turn away in cold unconcern because we and ours were by some means happily exempt.

There is much suffering in the present state; but wherever we see it here it is considerably mitigated; we nowhere see pure unmixed suffering, without anything to alleviate. There are indeed scenes of wretchedness over which humanity sheds many a bitter tear; but still something may be found as a relief to the gloom, some rainbow that derives its beauty even from the storm itself. But the scriptures speak in terms of terrible significance of a state after death, awful beyond all comparison with the present:

a state of suffering on account of sin, in which there will be no alleviation. In order to impress this upon our minds, and by the terrors of the Lord' persuade us to seek refuge where alone it is to be found, they set forth the awfulness of this state in a great variety of ways. The most terribly expressive terms that language can supply, the most painfully striking imagery that nature can present, are anxiously appropriated in order to affect us with suitable and salutary dread. Thus we find them speaking of 'the wrath of God abiding upon the sinner,'-everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord,'-'flames that never can be quenched,' and a 'worm' that never dies,' weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth,'-'outer darkness,'—and 'the second death.'

Now without entering into the meaning of these terrible expressions at present, how obvious is it that to all who have not 'fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before them in the gospel,' the next stage of existence, the state after death, will be dismal beyond conception. It becomes us, then, to enter on such a topic in a most serious and reverent frame of mind. Far be it from us to address ourselves to such a theme as a mere speculation, or as a mere intellectual exercise,―a matter to call forth our powers of debate. The scriptures, which we know from various and abundant evidence to be the word of God, assert that the doom referred to will assuredly overtake the impenitent: multitudes therefore who are 'bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh,' many even whom we have known, and some perhaps whom we have loved, will be involved in this awful woe! How then can we approach such a subject except with feelings of deepest solemnity?

The questions that are before us will demand our closest attention; and we should bring to the examination minds, if possible, calm and free from prejudice. We shall have to enquire into the Nature of the punishment spoken of in scripture; and how we are to understand those terrible expressions which abound in the sacred volume, whether literally or metaphorically. We shall ask what may be the Design of it; whether it is intended as punishment, strictly speaking, inflicted because deserved, and as a standing memorial of God's determination to maintain law and order throughout the universe; or whether it is designed to be disciplinary, partaking of the character of

chastening at the hand of a Father, rather than of punishment awarded by a Judge. We shall also want to know how we are to understand those terms of Duration which are employed; and whether they fairly and necessarily denote an absolute eternity of woe. Nor can we fail to be solicitous to see how this fact of punishment (for fact it is, stubborn, incontrovertible fact, so that nothing is gained by shutting our eyes to it) bears on the character of God, whom we are called on to love and in whose hands we find ourselves.

Thus we may well feel that as the theme is no trivial one, it demands on our part the most chastened temper of mind that by self discipline and prayer we can attain. We shall need to advance under the guidance of sound principles, looking well to each step we take, bidding imagination stand aside, while speculation must be resolutely and sternly frowned away from our path. May the spirit of truth dwell in us, and may God bless to our edification and increased usefulness, and thus to his own glory, the meditations into which we shall be led.

§ Many reasons have induced me to enter on the present discussion, some of which may be mentioned. One has been a wish to correct, if possible, some of the misapprehensions which exist upon this subject. On no topic has there been more florid declamation, nor has any been more thoroughly misrepresented by various classes. There has often been unintentional exaggeration on the part of the pious and well meaning. I think they have not unfrequently, though with the best intentions, treated it in an injudicious and unscriptural manner: for piety is no guarantee for a sound judgment, or for accurate ideas; neither do good intentions necessarily preserve from error.

Future punishment has sometimes been so disproportionately presented, by christians anxious to warn the sinner, that the world of woe has been made more prominent than the heaven which men are invited to secure; and the groans of the wilfully miserable have been made to drown the songs of the everlastingly blessed. This surely is to be regretted; for though God does not shrink from inflicting necessary punishment, yet punishment is only the inevitable alternative for those who will not accept his gracious plans of happiness; just as starvation is the inevitable consequence of persisting in a refusal to eat. And, again, an

andisciplined imagination has not unfrequently been urged to put forth all its power to call up the wildest images of terror. Figurative expressions employed by the sacred writers have been taken in a literal sense, and then illustrated and exaggerated till the heart has sickened at the view, and feelings the reverse of beneficial have been necessarily excited. Some speakers and writers have seemed to take a most strange and unnatural pleasure in expatiating with rapid fluency on such coarsely colored themes, and inventing I know not what of horror; as though it were not enough for them to make the Governor of the world a Lawgiver and a Judge, calmly just in the sentence he pronounces; or as though they would remind us rather of the dungeons of the Inquisition, than of the court where unimpassioned Justice sits, whose brow is never clouded by anger, and whose heart is never agitated by feelings of personal resentment. The wonder has been that men, after expending their undisciplined energy in this way for a time, could so readily recover their own calm and even cheerfulness of mind, and appear so soon to be so thoroughly unaffected by their own declamation. Is the explanation this, one is ready to ask, that they do not really believe what they have deemed it incumbent to affirm?

Again, the punishment of the wicked has too frequently been exhibited by itself, as though it stood alone; and God has thus been (unintentionally it may be) represented in a most untrue light, as though he were an austere master, or an arbitrary monarch. Or, punishment has been spoken of as necessary to his glory; and so the sufferings of men have been represented as unhesitatingly inflicted because the glory of God demanded it! From all which and similar misrepresentations, put forth by the ill-informed and unreflecting, what but harm can accrue? For the religion, of which these statements have assumed to form a part, has thereby increased the dislike of the very persons whom it was desired to reclaim; while many have been only too willing to accept these exaggerations as a fair exposition of the statements of the bible, in order that they might the more easily feel at liberty to reject revelation altogether; under the plea that the true God, whose character is manifested in his works, and who must be kind and indulgent, is very different from the one set forth in the bible, and that therfore the bible is not deserving of their belief,

Very unwise, very illogical, it is true; still these are some of the effects, and not unnatural ones, of exaggeration on the part of christians, which always overshoots the mark at which it aims, and which on our present subject, instead of promoting religion, has promoted infidelity, or a christianity so pared and cut down, so altered and abridged, as to be little more than natural religion, and not very distant from infidelity itself. Would we do good, we must keep the straight line of truth, nor allow ourselves to be drawn from it to one side or the other.

Another reason has respect to those who have not hitherto yielded up their minds to the truth of scripture. Is it not a fact, painful to contemplate, that though the mighty God, even the Lord hath spoken, and called the earth, from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof,'-spoken in tones of the most solemn warning, as well as tones of tenderest love, (his threatenings even being but the hoarser voice of his love, saying 'Do thyself no harm,') yet multitudes, who do not doubt the bible to be his word, nevertheless live on, heedless and unconcerned, as though it were an idle word that God has spoken concerning the future state of the ungodly? How is this? Are such persons indifferent as to whether they shall be happy hereafter, or the reverse? Not so; but they do not really believe God will execute his threatenings; they seem to think that it is all very well to threaten, but not well to execute threatenings; so they scarcely believe God will keep his word!

I would be devoutly thankful if I could show them, and any who can venture to scoff at the expressions used in scripture concerning future punishment, that the doctrine. affirmed perfectly harmonizes with the stubborn facts of which the earth is full, and is as truly reasonable in itself as anything we believe. Scripture rightly understood, and nature rightly read, and reason rightly used, will all beautifully agree. And if any one who is in the habit of scoffing at the notion of sin being visited with suffering should take up this volume, I would ask him to suspend his mirth at the idea of future suffering growing out of present disobedience, till he has laughed himself out of the belief that fire burns, or that any harm can result from neglecting the existing laws of nature. If he can set at nought, with impunity, physical laws, and organic laws, and social laws, then, but not till then, may he expect to violate moral laws