THE
I-er n f  th Wogrth  a -- amt:
AND
THE CHURCH'S STEWARDSHIP,
AS INVESTED WITH THEXM.
BY
CHIEEVER, D.D.
NEW YORK:
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,
No. 285 BROADWAY.
1853.
I I
GEORGE B. 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of
New York.
......  ~'~Ne   York.....
. le 
.  e t
STEREOTYPED BY
THOMAS  B. SMITH,
216 William St., N.Y.
PRINTED BY
JOHN A. GRAY,
97 Cliff Street. 
w                 I
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PRE F ACE.
THE present work has its origin in a course of lectures
on that mighty phrase adopted as its title, in the solemn
passage of God's word in HIebrews, 6: 4, 5, 6-and have
tasted the good Word of God, and the POWERS  OF THE
WORLD TO COME.  It is, in fact, a practical survey of what
is termed in some quarters the Eschatology of the Scriptures; the realities which according to Divine Revelation
we are to meet beyond the grave. We are wholly dependent on Divine Revelation for the least knowledge of
them; and yet that Revelation has so long rendered them
familiar, that they seem possessions of our intuitive experience, or gifts of our Natural Theology. Thousands
walk beneath their light without thinking of them, and act
by their light, without any acknowledgment of the source
from whence it flows, as men walk beneath the stars with
out lifting up their faces to the heavens, and pursue their
f& 
PREFACE.
avocations by the conclusions of astronomy, without any
study of the heavenly bodies.
To know Divine Truth, the object of the soul's pursuit
and affections must be the Divine Author of it. This is
distinctly declared in that striking passage in Hosea,
"Then shall we KNOW,-if we follow on TO KNOW THE
LORD." Correspondent with this is that grand passage in
the thirty-sixth Psalm, "With thee is the fountain of life;
IN THY LIGHT SHALL WE SEE LIGHT." And correspondent
with both these passages, and illustrative of them, is the
great declaration of Christ, " He that followeth ME, shall
not walk in darkness, but shall have THE LIGHT OF LIFE."
All true, all living knowledge, derives its life, its power
from this personal, experimental, heart-knowledge of God
in Christ Jesus.  In proportion as communion with God
increases, so will increase the knowledge of his Word;
while without that communion, though the world were
filled with Lexicons, Grammars, and learned expository
helps of every kind, and philosophical and theological
speculations ever so acute and erudite, the Word would
remain a sealed Book, a dead letter. The Word is written for believing hearts as in sympathetic ink; communion
with God by the Spirit is that hidden sympathetic fire
that makes the letter burn, and reveals its meaning.
Therefore, according to Cowper's sweet picture,
iv 
PREFACE.
Yon cottager that weaves at her own door,
Pillow and bobbins all her little store,
shall have, by the humble prayerful study of God's Word
by the Spirit, a knowledge of heights and depths in the
Divine intelligence, that the most learned minds have
never reached, and cannot appreciate.  "I thank thee O
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid
those things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed
them unto babes. Even so Father, for so it seemed good
in thy sight."
The truths of the Divine Word are like the revelations
of the starry heavens in coming to us, and in their more
and more perfect gradual discovery. By the construction,
in later years, of telescopic instruments with vastly-increased skill and power, many a spot of cloudy indefinite
light in the heavens, once thought to be an incomplete
nebulous mass in process of development, has been resolved into clusters of bright shining worlds, clear and
unmistakable. So do the truths of God, when rightly examined, break upon the soul.  The nebula  of the Divine
Word, or what were once thought to be such, shall continually be resolved into perfect and clear-shining stars.
But O the depths! Infinite on infinite, beyond the possible
reach of our vision, regions of truth roll off, filled as with
suns and stars, region upon region, deep beyond deep,
v 
PREFACE.
riches unfathomable of boundless wisdom and love, that
as yet no man hath seen, nor forever, perhaps, can any
created understanding fully comprehend!
And let us remember that for our knowledge of the
Word, in the nearness and the life thereof, we are depen dent more upon the Spirit of God, than on any external
advantages; dependent entirely, indeed, upon the Spirit
of God.  Without that, the veil is on the heart, whatever
be the external facilities of knowledge; but when it shall
turn to the Lord, that veil shall be taken away.
We are said to be, known to be, nearer to the sun in
Winter than in Summer. But the increased swiftness of the
earth's motion in its orbit, together with the inclination of
the axis in the same, prevents the increase of heat, that
otherwise would be inevitable. The surface of the earth
on this account is so much less time exposed to the sun's
rays, and so obliquely that the heat is diminished by the
nearness.  Just so,e World may be nearer to God in
position, by providential avatages, opportunities, and in
speculative divine knowledge nearer, and yet, farther from
God's love, less affected by his mercy, less warmed and
qumckened by his light. So it may be with an individual
heart. One man may really be farther from God in position than another, and yet have a Summer season in his
soul, while the other, though nearer in point of every ad
vi 
PREFACE.
vantage and opportunity, may remain in the dead of
Winter.  The climate of the soul does not depend so much
upon the nearness and abundance of the rays, if it is flying
swiftly through them, and obliquely turned from them, but
upon the steadiness and constancy with which they are received by a heart turned directly towards them. Looking
steadily to Christ is the condition of light and life.  Looking steadily to Christ, and thus only, can we see and
know the PowERns OF TITE WORLD TO COME.
vii  
CONTENTS.
GOD-THE REALITY-THE IDEA....
THE DENIAL OF GOD
THE SEARCH AFTER GOD.....
ETERNITY..........
PROBATION.............
ONCE TO DIE.........
THE JUDGMENT.......
AFFIRMATIONS OF CONSCIENCE IN REFERENCE TO THE JUDGMENT
DISCLOSURES OF THE JUDGMENT......
THE PERSON OF THE JUDGE, AND THE EVIDENCE.
THE THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BooRS.......
TIHE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH......
AWVAKENING IN GOD'S LIKENESS.......
THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION.., 
THE WORK OF THE ANGEL REAPERS....
TIHE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE......
MANY MANSIONS...........
THE BUILDING OF GOD, FOR GOD.....
THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN...........
THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS DEATH....
P.&GE
11
27
40
53
66
so
92
108
116
134
149
163
174
183
195
207
221
233
244
257 
CONTENTS.
CONTINUED WICKEDNESS, AN ENDLESS DEATH
DEAD AND LOST......
THE ARGUMENT OF RUIN FROM SALVATION
THE ARGUMENT OF RUIN, FROM THE JOY OF HEAVEN
CHARACTER AND CONSEQUENCES....
FOREWARNED, FOREARMED..
THE ULTIMATE WARNING..
THE CHURCH's STEWARDSHIP.....
X
PAGE
.  271
283
.   295
~ 308
.   323
" 336
.   349
365
4* 
POWERS OF THE WORLD TO COME.
GO  D.
THE REALITY.-THE IDEA.
THE Powers of the world to come! These words
constitute a phrase, which, wherever it might have
been met with, though in the pages of Plato or of
Cicero, would have powerfully arrested the attention of a thoughtful mind.  And the more such a
mind should dwell upon them, the more would they
grow upon the soul, and rouse the imagination.
Sometimes they seem presenting themselves as a
wild rising bank of cloud in the midnight horizon,
behind which and out of which the Northern lights
are sending up a strange and flickering brightness,
and through which the stars seem to struggle as on
the verge of chaos. the sense of sin in ourselves,
and the combination of certainty and uncertainty,
definiteness and indefiniteness, clearness and mystery, locality and infinitude, in what is before us,
adds immeasurably to the grandeur and gloom of
the sway of the future. The conviction, universal
and unescapable, that the guiltiness of our own char
-0                 - 
GOD.
acter and conduct exposes us to whatever elements
of terror and of retribution there may lie embosomed
and awaiting us in that undisclosed world, invests
even the most indistinct revelation of it with an
overpowering solemnity and majesty.
What, then, are the powers of the world to come?
What precise forms of revelation, of thought, of
conception, answer to the term? Some things Na ture herself teaches us, though we do not see what
we might see, nor so far, nor so clearly, as we ought.
We are as children in a dark room, waiting for the
curtain to be lifted before some grand transparency
or solemn show. It is dark here, because we have
made it so by our sins; most men make this vesti bule of their eternal being a dungeon; having the
understanding darkened, being alienated from the
life of God through the ignorance that is in them
because of the blindness of their hearts.
So they know not What is before them; whether,
when the curtain rises, they shall behold a world of
blessedness and glory, or of terror and despair;
whether the scenes that meet the amazed gaze shall
be scenes welcoming the soul with songs to joy
eternal, or overwhelming it with weepings and wailings, and the gnashing of teeth; whether the holy
light and the ravishing forms and employments of
a celestial world are to surround them, or the dreadful realities of the blackness of darkness forever.
Even the quickened vision of faith sees as through
a glass darkly, and to those who have the very
witness of the Spirit within them that they are the
sons of God, it doth not now  appear what they
12 
THE REALITY.-TIE  IDEA.
shall be; only they know that when He who is their
life shall appear, they shall appear with Him and
like itim in glory.
If, now, any one of the realities in that eternal
spiritual state to which we are advancing, were suddenly struck forth into visibility and brought home
upon the soul, it would be experienced as a POWER,
in comparison with which, nothing else could gain
the least attention or influence. There are principalities and powers in heavenly places, and the
smallest appreciation of their glory, the slightest
vision of the array of such creatures on their
thrones of light, would be a disclosure and an experience before which all earthly glories and distinctions would vanish as insignificant and worthless.  If they were seen and known; but they are not;
they may be imagined, but such things as these do
not constitute men's native forms and furniture of
thought-neither are they so revealed as to brood
upon the soul and hold it captive. They are not
the dynanics, but the circumstances of an eternal
state.
Neither is it of the creature that men think, when
they think of the world to come; neither is it of
thrones, dominions, princedoms, or tracts of space
inhabited by worlds; but they think of God. The
thought that broods upon the mind, more or less
distinctly, in every conception of the world to come,
is that of meeting God. That is the conviction, the
sense, the feeling, —amn to mneet God; and that meeting is the decision of an eternal destiny. Everything marches towards that, everything is drawn
13 
GOD.
in and absorbed as a bare attendant upon that; and
therefore we are forced, first of all, to individualize
and define this phrase, the powers of the world to come,
as including whatever manifestations of the Deity
we have reason to believe or to know must then be
encountered, and the various overwhelming disclosures of God's attributes that shall open on the
soul.
The world to come presents itself to the mind as
the more immediate dwelling-place of God, where
He is to be seen, in a sense, in which He cannot be
seen in this world. He fills, indeed, immensity with
His presence; He is here as well as there, in Divine
power and glory, but in essence invisible.  So that
here, if men choose, they may forget God; may
live, according to the indictment against them in the
Scriptures, without God in the world; may keep
the soul as empty, dark, and desolate of God, as the
supposed vacuity and malignity of Atheism. But
nit so in the eternal world, where every eye shall
see Him, every intelligent creature know IHis existence by feeling it, and find the nature of Hiis attributes by experience as well as observation of their
power. There shall be neither darkness, nor ignorance, nor insensibility. Even the blackness of
darkness forever, will be no veil to hide the soul
from the scrutiny and the sense of the all-seeing eye
of an infinitely holy God.
There is a foreboding of all this, even in the present world. Men expect to meet God. Even the
Atheist, struggling against the belief, cannot overmaster and annihilate the fear of meeting God;
14 
THE REALITY.-THE IDEA.
cannot so abnegate the conditions of his being as
not to tremble, lest what he denies may prove to be
a reality; cannot pluck from his soul the twining
roots of the primary law of its intelligence acknowl edging a Creator. All men expect to meet God.
Before all men the future world rises, as the province
or scene of an introduction to the more immediate,
inevitable, irresistible sight, sense, and knowledge
of God.
Now in this world, even in the idea of God as a
belief or as a constitutional intuition and knowledge,
which is the ground of such belief, there resides
something of that power which fills the eternal
world by the presence and manifestations of the personal reality. Over this fallen world the IDEA of
God reigns, perverted indeed, in many cases, and
deformed with monstrous superstitions and horrid
miscreations of ignorance, depravity and fear, according to the process described in Romans, i. 2125, but still a presence and a power, greater than all
other powers; and both in heathendom and Christendom, it is the idea that leads on and governs all
progress, all responsibility, all moral life. It is the
idea that quickens and enlightens the conscience;
and just in proportion as it is brought near, and the
soul is made acquainted and familiar with it, it
rouses the whole being. Nothing is so overwhelming to the sinful soul as a sense of God's presence;
nothing is so abasing and annihilating to it as a clear
sight and sense of God. The bare hieroglyphics of
His power and glory in the creation are overwhelming, just in proportion as through them the soul
15 
GOD).
dimly sees Him, and becomes penetrated with some
faint conception of the inaccessible light, majesty,
and infinitude of His attributes.  All things that
speak of God, and bring Him near, are full of power
and glory.
But the manner in which this idea affects the soul
here in this world is infinitely different, according to
the character which the soul wears in the sight of
God as holy or unholy, and the relation in which it
stands to Him as forgiven and at peace, or at enmity
against Him. The idea of God attracts and penetrates a holy soul, and absorbs it more and more, till
every other thought is lost in God: being the power,
by eminence, of the world to come, so likewise here
in this world it draws and holds the soul accordingly.
As a flame darts upward, so the soul of the creature,
restored to its right tendency, with its sensibility
purified from sin, soars upward towards God, pants
to view His glorious face, longs to behold Him and
to know Him.
"I beseech thee, " cried Moses unto God, "show me
thy glory."  The great prophet had been forty days
and forty nights in God's more immediate presence,
and he began to have but one feeling, one desirethe longing desire to see and know more of God.
The nearer he came to God, the swifter was the
course of his soul, and the more burning its ardor
towards Him.   All thoughts and things for Moses
began to be absorbed in the one thought of seeing
God. HIe could, like Peter after him, have pitcheed
his tent forever there, and forgotten all earthly
beings and objects, all creation, all the universe in
16 
THE REALITY.-THE IDEA.
deed, in gazing upon God. Thus it is, and ever
must be, that the idea of God, just in proportion as
it opens on the soul, absorbs the whole being, entrances all the faculties, and fills and satisfies the
holy mind  and heart with  bliss ineffable, inconceivable.  And  thus are the desires of holy souls
described in God's own word, as drawn out after
Him, and only after IHim, everything else passing
into forgetfulness and nothingness in the comparison: "Whom  have I in heaven but thee?  and
there is none upon the earth that I desire besides
thee.  My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the
strength of my heart, and my  portion forever!"
And again: "As the hart panteth after the waterbrook, so panteth my soul after thee, 0 God!  My
soul thirsteth for God; my heart and my flesh crieth
out for the living God."  These are expressions of
holy and absorbing emotion in the vision of God
begun on earth, in the heart that is drawing near to
Him, and finds and feels the all-absorbing nature of
Hlis glory. God is the soul's all-sufficient goodGod is the soul's entrancing happiness.   Nothing is
needed to make a holy soul perfectly, infinitely
happy, but just for God to exist, and continue to
disclose His glory, and permit that soul to gaze
upon His attributes.
And so the great fact of regeneration, and of
translation from the kingdom of darkness into the
kingdom of God's dear son, is jus  the shining of
God into the heart, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in  the face of Jesus
Christ.  Nothing of evil or temptation can stand
17 
GOD.
against that; all things of glory and of good are
comprehended in that.
And infinitely favored and happy are they to
whom God thus unveils his glory, they whom God
chooses and brings near to himself, revealing his
Son in them, and himself in his Son, and answering
for them the prayer of Christ on earth; a prayer
explained only by this truth; that God is essential
to the soul, and that all bliss consists in the
knowledge of God, and the sight of his glory.
This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast
sent. Glorify thou me with the glory which I had
with thee before the world was. I will that they
whom thou hast given me be with me, where I am,
that they may behold my glory." It is the beholding of this Divine glory that constitutes the very
bliss of heaven. The ioly City has no need of the
sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory
of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light
thereof. And the central supreme feature of the
blessedness and glory of his servants is, that they
shall see his face, and his name shall be in their
foreheads. And thus it is that the very idea of
God, whose existence is the happiness of heaven,
whose glory is the light of heaven, draws all holy
intelligences throughout the universe, absorbs and
governs all minds, and is a Power in the world of
faith, as a Power in the world of reality.
But this same idea of God, so full of glory and
blessedness to all holy beings, and attractive with
an all-absorbing irresistible power of gravitation,
18 
THIE REALITY.-THIE IDEA.
is the subject of infinite terror and aversion to every
unholy soul. That which constitutes the law and
power of beatific attraction to the good, is the antagonistic principle and law of abhorrence and repulsion to the evil.   The very essence of repugnancy being bound up in it towards all wickedness,
and in all wickedness towards it, it is the transcending terror among the powers of the world to come,
producing an intractable, spontaneous aversion in
the sinful soul, or rather rousing up its native, indwelling, inevitable hatred into activity. The sinful
soul experiences in itself an elastic coil of repercussion against God, and springs back with a force
intuitive and unconquerable, from the presentation
of the true idea of God. The intensity of dread is
concentrated in the thought of meeting a holy God in
judgment, nay, of meeting him at all. The thought
of God, brought home, distresses the soul, even
now; it is a gloomy, dreadful thought; for in a
sinful mind there lies beneath it, there advances
along with it, the irresistible conviction of justice,
holiness, power, arrayed against the soul, nay, infinite goodness, infinite love, compelled by sin to
play the part of a devouring fire. God's intellectual
attributes may be endured, may be admired, may
be rev rented afar off, even by a sinful being; but
it is impossible that his moral attributes, when their
operation in regard to sin is clearly seen and known,
should be regarded by the wicked with any other
emotions than those of hostility and dread. And
God's infinite holiness, which constitutes the eternal
glory and loveliness of his character, in the sight of
19 
GOD.
all good beings, is the very attribute against which
the guilty soul feels itself arrayed, and that against
itself, is entire and eternal opposition.
And so in the whole array. of the powers of the
world to come, there is the same difference to a holy
and unholy soul.  All the passages of Scripture,
through which the light is poured down the most
directly and intensely, are touchstones of the opposites
of character. Take that grand and glorious passage
in the Epistle to the IHebrews, "Ye are come  unto
Mount  Zion, and to the city of  the living God,
the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
company of angels, to the general assembly and
chlurch of  the first born, which  are written in
heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the
spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the
Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of
sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of
Abel."  It will be admitted that this is a glorious
and radiant passage, like the flinging wide of one of
the gates of Hieaven, where you may stand and look
in, seeing and hearing celestial sights and employ
ments. But with what eyes, and with what heart,
do you read and behold these records? Is there a
counterpart of these heavenly images in your own
soul, by the Divine Spirit drawing you towards
them? Is that the blessed power which they have
over you?  Are they distinct and animating, or indistinct, unattractive, and by reason of the central
presence, the idea of God the Judge of all, is there
present likewise, with all this climacterical array of
beatific scenes and persons, an element of gloom
20 
THE REALITY.-THE IDEA.
and repellency?  Gloom and repellency! Is it possible to connect such impressions with the idea of
God, the very centre and source of all the brightness, loveliness, and bliss of heaven? Alas! have
we not seen that except there be an entire change
from sin to holiness in the human heart, God, a
holy God and a just God, is the transcending terror
among all tihe powers of the world to come?
Take, then, the experience of two different men
with this passage, the believer and the unbeliever,
the man of God and the man of the world, the
Christian and the unconverted. Take John Bunlyan,
and put him with David Hume, or Francis Spira,
or any hardened, heedless, but dying and awakened
sinner, and bring this heavenly transparency before
them; turn upon them the same shafts of celestial
radiance. What is Heaven to the one is Hiell to the
other, the character and vision of the inward individual soul being the determining rule. The powers
of the world to come are there, all thronging in that
wondrous figured gateway; but in one case it is the
powers of a celestial world, in the other of a world
of woe; in the one case it is the power of Paradise,
in the other of Hell.  In the one case it is all that
is dearest to a renewed soul, all that a holy being
loves, brought near to the heart yearning after God,
Christ, holiness and heaven; in the other it is conviction of guilt, and a fearful looking for of judgmnent and of wrath eternal.
We see, then, that the loss and ruin of the sinner are
an inevitable necessity in the nature of things, and
not in any way a mere determination of the arbitrary
')j 
GOD.
will, but an evil which, in spite of that will, the
sinner brings down on himself, by a necessity
growing out of what God and holiness are, and
what the sin and sinner are.  Htere, then, is a great
touchstone of nature and of character.  This first,
dominant, supreme power among the powers of the
world to come, the idea of God now, and the presence
of God hereafter, is the preeminent and decisive test
for the discovery of the habitual disposition and
appropriate retributions of the soul. " I the Lord
search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to
every man according to his ways, and according to
the fruit of his doings."  For all this, it only needs
the application of the attributes of a holy God.
True it is, that God's own will goes with His attributes, and cannot but be, not only in harmony, but
in hearty and infinite cooperation with them all.
God could neither be perfect nor happy were it
otherwise.  But really and truly, to decide the fate
of every probationer for eternity, every moral agent
in the universe, it only needs that each should be
made acquainted with God's attributes, and that those
attributes should just play according to their nature.
No other judgment, decision or sentence would be
necessary.  If the very inhabitants of the world of
woe loved God, if the crowd of the lost angels
delighted in Him, and in the operation and glory
of His attributes, they would be happy in Him,
even in their world of woe.  But there could be no
such thing as a world of woe, if there were no such
thing as hatred of God and rebellion against Him.
When the will is submissive to His, that change
22 
THE REALITY.-THE IDEA.
alone is enough to change hell into heaven.  WVhen
the will is opposed to Hiis, that alone would be
enough to change heaven into hell.
And, therefore, this elective affinity will have its
full sweep in eternity, and the elements and inhab itants of antagonistic characters and worlds will
draw off by themselves, in infinite purity and sepa ration from one another, pure unmingled holiness,
and pure unmingled sin; pure and supreme love to
God, absorbing all the being and entrancing it -in
God's own blessedness, or pure and supreme hatred
against God, equally entire and predominant, and
whirling the lost soul into the depths of an irremedi able, unfathomable ruin.  It is, therefore, plain,
that for the decision of the question, to what world
the soul belongs, there would nothing else be needed
in the trial of all creatures, but just to stand at the
gates of heaven, and see, in the turning of God's
character, God's attributes, upon each  soul, as it
comes up into that light, what colour of answering
character the soul itself assumes.  If it shine with
the reflection of God's holiness, if it be in sweet and
blissful sympathy with that, then will it spring
towards God, as flame darts upward through  the
firmament, to rest in his likeness and blessedness
forever.  If it be the darkening of sinful character
that is made manifest in God's light, then will that
soul draw back, and pass, silently if possible, but
in gloomy abhorrence and despair, into thiat world
of darkness, where the rule of the feeling of the
inhabitants in regard to God is just this,-Farthest
from Thee is best!
23 
GOD.
So then we see clearly that it is not God's will,
but the sinner's, that makes hell what it is.  And tihat
world of darkness and of sin must necessarily
be, in all its characteristics, the very extreme
opposite of thie heavenly world.   This, where God
is the glory, and the Lamb  the light thereof, a
world of light; that, of the blackness of darkness
forever;-this, a world of holiness,  that, of sin
and wickedness;  this, a world of love,  that, of
hatred;-this, of serenity and peace, that, of rage,
confusion, terror, remorse and despair. All things,
indeed, according as God himself is the happiness
or terror of the soul, will put on the same aspect,
will wear the same character.   "Whoso is wise,
and he shall understand these tilings? prudent, and
he shall know them?   For the ways of the Lord
are right, and the just shall walk in them, but the
transgressors shall fall tilerein." The same attributes,
the same ways, the same principles, will be happi
ness and glory to the righteous, terror and misery
to the wicked.  It cannot be otherwise.  It would
be so now, in present, instant demonstration, were
it not for Christ's death.  That suspends the rule,
keeps in abeyance the very nature of things, and so
surrounds even the soul of the sinner with  an
atmosphere of long-suffering and forbearance in the
offer of mercy, that God is not yet felt as a consuming
fire, even by the wicked; and therefore, on account
of God's mercy, still waiting to be gracious for
Christ's sake, men may for the present hate and
disobey God, and yet not find, not in this world,
from thie laws of God, such a retaliation of their
24 
TIE REALITY. —TIIE IDEA.
guilt and defiance of the Creator, such an avengement of their contempt towards Him, as would make
any world in God's universe a world of retribution
But by-and-bye, God will let things go. HIe will
cast off the muzzle by which the forces of a just
retribution have been restrained, to see whether the
sinner would in the interval flee to Christ for mercy,
and he will let those forces have their own just way;
he will let the fire of sin, which the sinner would
not have Him quench in this world, take its own
course, and burn on unto perdition.
Away, then, with all complaints against the tremendous truth of an everlasting retribution, according to character, and comaaiof God, if you complain of Him at alause He does, in such amazing
mercy, for s   g a time, restrain HiIs own attributes,
andj-e natural and just operation of things;  a
restraint which makes this world such a paradox to
the universe, and calls forth sometimes, even out of
the anguish of His own people, tortured into temporary doubt and darkness, such strains as in the
73d Psalm; and from scoffers, walking after their
own lusts, such sarcasms of infidelity and contempt
as those recorded by Peter, saying, Where is the
vaunted promise of the coming of your Lord to
judgment?
0 perishing and delaying men! 0 presuming and
abusive trespassers on God's mercy! remember ye
that the Lord is not slack concerning His promise,
as some men count slackness, but is long suffering
to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but
that all should come to repentance. Remember
2
25
49, 
GOD.
what God hath distinctly declared, that it is a
righteous thing with Him to recompense tribulation
to the wicked, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed
from heaven, with His mighty angels, in flaming
fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God,
and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from
the glory of His power, when He shall come to be
glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them
that believe. And remember yet once more that
you have your own choice of the attributes of God,
which of therm you will experience; and that if you
draw down His- justice, instead of receiving His
mercy and love in Christ Jesse you do it against
His warning, against His will, against His incessant
importunity and efforts. He must be forever the
same righteous God, but He would infinitely rather
you would experience His righteousness in heaven,
and rejoice in it, than draw down His justice in hell,
and suffer under it.  But as to Himself, He cannot
change-He cannot abdicate His attributes; and if
you do not change, if you do not flee to Jesus from
the wrath to come, to be in Him made partaker of
God's own holiness, then that wrath abideth on you
forever.
26 
BUT, notwithstanding all this, "The FOOL hath
said (wishing, but not believing) in his heart, There
is no God." He hath said it in his heart; but no
man's reason ever said it, or could say it. There is
no one word in our language capable of translating
this Hebrew word, fool. The moral meaning is
deeper than the intellectual; and how intense it is,
may be gathered from the consideration, that the
grander a man becomes in intellect and acquirements, and the more he has of the respect, honor,
and even admiration of mankind, the more truly
does this word describe his character, if the fool's
heart depicted in the tenth and fourteenth Psalms
be his.  Those portions of God's word contain a
description of the practical atheists; and there are
no other atheists in the world, nor ever will be, but
practical, although they sometimes endeavor to hide
the inveterate and radical vileness of the thing
beneath a veil of subtle philosophic speculation. The
spring and reality of the evil is always in the heart.
The fool hath said it, and none but a fool would say
it, though some have said it who have thought themselves, and have been thought by others, among the
wisest of mankind.
(TL t' t it ia a   of  6'-  s 
THE DENIAL OF GOD.
Three very striking paragraphs, descriptive of this
atheistical juggling, by which the mind is subdued
and blinded in the toils of a sinful heart, are presented in the tenth Psalm. First. The wicked, through
the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God:
God is not in all his thoughts, or in all his thoughts
there is no God.  Consequently, he hath said in his
heart, I shall never be moved, never in adversity.
Second. Hie hath said in his heart, If there be a
God, yet not a God caring for our affairs. He hath
said in his heart, God hath forgotten; He hideth his
face; he will never see it. Insensibility to God's
attributes of omnipresence, omniscience, and present just providence, and thence a denial of the
same.
Third. Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God?
IHe hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.
Insensibility to God's retributive providence, and a
denial of the same; and thence a denial of the truth
of a future judgment; and thence a contempt of all
human restraints and penalties, if by any act of
power or lying they may be evaded. The whole of
this Psalm is, in fact, an argument that not mere
atheism, but a disbelief in future punishment, would
break up all the foundations of social morality, and
set men in a wild and savage freedom of "cursing
and deceit and fraud." Take away the idea of a
God, whose providence is personal, superintending
and retributive, and you leave nothing for restraint
but a present low expediency-nothing but selfinterest in the present life, which, if there were no
God, would be impossible to be demonstrated as on
28 
TiHE -) TRIAL OF GOD.
the side of virtue; for without a God, and his eternal
holiness and justice, self-interest would as often lie
in vice as virtue, and oftener in all forms of sustained
and popular depravity.
The most aspiring form of attempted intellectual
atheism is Pantheism, which is but a sublimated
materialism, maintaining that all the shapes of animated nature, and man himself among them, are but
organic harps diversely framed, that tremble into
thought as the one intellectual breeze sweeps over
them, constituting the soul of each and the God of
all. All things are parts of God, and all being is
to be absorbed in iHim. The two things, no God
and all God, might seem to be the extreme opposites
and antagonisms of one another, but the truth of
the existence and attributes of God is equally distant from both.  The atheism and the Pantheism
lead to the same fool's paradise; for as to religion,
it is all one, as Howe, in his Living Temple, long
ago demonstrated, whether we make nothing to be
God, or everything; whether we allow of no God
to worship, or leave none to worship Him. And
although the attempt may be made by Pantheistic
abstractions of philosophy, and delusions of poetry
to cheat the world with names and with a show of
piety, the system of Pantheism has been proved as
directly levelled against all religion as the most
avowed atheism. Indeed, inasmuch as atheism is
more openly blasphemous, it is less reputable, and
therefore less dangerous; while Pantheism, being too
subtle and refined for a vulgar religion, and caplable of assuming an appearance of most devout rev
29 
THE DENIAL OF GOD.
erence and transcendental sentimentalism, may be
really alluring, under an intellectual and poetic garb.
It wears sometimes an aspect of mystic piety and
wrapt devotion. It is a mist-piety, shrouding you
with a kind of wet that penetrates to the very
bones, if long enough continued, while a strong,
drenching rain of open undisguised atheism, would
have done its work only on the skin and clothes,
and left a possibility of drying in the next sunshine.
But this subtle system displays the semblance of
absorption in God, self-renunciation, self-annihilation, union with the Infinite, and other things having some appearance of the self-denial and self-crucifixion for Christ, commanded in the Scriptures.
But it is entirely inconsistent with a personal discipline of the soul under Divine grace. To lay
one's being at the foot of the cross, to mortify and
subject the self-will to God in Christ, is widely different from the vague, mystical absorption of the
soul in a universal influence of nature. It is very
quieting to the conscience, a charming anodyne for
all fears of a future retribution, to believe in a vast
system of necessity in which all things are parts of
God, so that wicked souls themselves are but accomplishing a mission from Hiim, and will in the
end return into Himself, as waves of His own being.
Even this the fool hathi said in his heart, nor indeed
is there any form of madness and absurdity to which
men have not resorted, in the vain endeavor  to
throw off a conviction of personal responsibility to
a personal God of holiness and justice; a God who
hates sin, and will bring men into judgment accord
30 
THE DENIAL OF GOD.
ing to their character and doings, for every secret
thing, good or evil.
But all this is the delusion or the speculations of
a few. The great mass of mankind will ever go on
believing in God speculatively, but wholly regardless of the relation of their own moral being to Htis
attributes, and insensible as to their personal responsibility to God. Without Christ, without prayer, without hope, without God;-these are the negatives that describe the existence of most men, the
habit of heart and life with ordinary sinners. A
sinful man-the subject of all these negatives, may
yet be, as regards society, a very moral man, so
called, so considered. Hie may be a very moral man
towards men, and a very immoral man towards
God; in friendship with his fellow-men, but at enmity against God. He may be so insesible in regard to God, and voluntarily and habitually so ignorant of God's claims upon him, that he shall never
have the state of his heart towards God come into
notice; so that the accusation against him of being
an enemy to God shall be as unmeaning, or seem as
incredible, as an indictment of personal enmity towards the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid.
And yet, in all the breathings and outgoings of
his being, he is opposing and violating the law of
God, and the less he thinks of it, the more thoroughly and habitually is such opposition becoming the
law of his nature. There is no care for God in his
existence; into none of his plans does the consideration of God enter.   Over none of his affections
does the affectionate regard of God shed its hallow
31 
THE DENIAL OF GOD.
ing heavenly radiance. In no province of his motives is the will of God supreme or even consulted.
None of his desires are towards God; none of his
meditations, if he ever meditates, dwell upon God's
attributes, and not only is God never in his
thoughts, but even the idea of God is never presented, or if it comes, it rises as an unwelcome intruder; it comes only to be expelled by the cares,
the business, and the pleasures of life; an expulsion
in many cases so absolute and successful, that the
distinct impression of the Deity, or even of any one
of His attributes, has no more entered the soul, or
been admitted there, than the wind that breathes
over the senses enters the brain, or draws a picture
on the visual organs. The heart, mind, soul, whole
being, have gone on for years in all their processes,
with no more impressions from the nature or the
providence of God to bring him definitely to the consciousness, than if the existence of God were a fable.
When we consider what a being God is, and that
we are His intelligent creatures, the success and
power of this insensibility in excluding God, seem
astounding and incredible. For one would think
that we ourselves and every other created thing in
the universe would be perpetually bringing to the
mind irresistible notices of God, that we never could,
by any possibility, get rid of Him, that no art of
blindness in the memory would enable us to forget
Him, nor any veil of insensibility to exclude Him.
And yet there are those who, dependent from moment to moment on the omnipresent God, have
lived all their lifetime, up to the present hour, in
32 
THE DENIAL OF GOD,
such utter alienation from Him, that, from day to
day, and from week to week, as it passed by, it may
have been said at each successive interval, God is
not in all their thoughts. And if one should ask
you how this has been brought about, how it could
have been accomplished, how such a power of ex pulsion in regard to the Deity could have existed
in you, as might look to a being who knew nothing
about sin like a stupendous miracle, what answer
could be made that would explain the mystery?
How has it been possible for you, the creature of
God's power, so fearfully and wonderfully made by
His wisdom, surrounded by His agency, pressed by
the manifestations of His being, dependent every instant on His bounty; how has itbeen possible for you,
addressed by God's word, the subject of God's ware
ings, invited and entreated by His own dear Soil,
breathing every breath you draw by God's permission; how has it been possible for you to evade the
idea of God, and to keep His existence and attributes
from your positive notice?  By what process have
you contrived to keep God out of your soul, and
while surrounded and upheld by Himrn, to live without
God in the world?  What frightful power is it that
you possess, what spell of destruction and darkness,
what diabolical energy, that you could walk all this
while in God's opened hand of mercy, and yet net
see God's eye upon you, not feel His all-seeing scrutiny, not admit God to your consciousness, not have
God in all your thoughts?  Who  has helped youd
to remain ignorant of your omnipresent Maker?
What league are you in with the spirits of darkness,
9~~~~~~,
I'll
,o 
THE DENIAL OF GOD.
that you can shield your soul from the sense of Hlis
holiness and glory?  Or who gave you this cloud
of spiritual death, this garment of perdition, woven,
one would think, in the deepest darkness of the
bottomless pit, that you can so wrap it round your
soul, that the all-pervading God himself ceases to
be the object of your attention? Who helped you
to get rid of God? Who tempted you to cast off
the fear of God? Who supplied you with expedients, whereby you might forget God, and what
could induce you to shut the eye of your own soul
upon God, and plunge so deep and mad into the
death of trespasses and sins?  What amazement is
is this in reference to God's attributes, that this
body, the shell of the soul, can keep them off, as a
casement of iron might keep off the flames of a conflagration!  And what amazement in reference to
your own indifference, that this infatuation, which
must be voluntary, can be yours, and yet that such
amazing guilt as it involves should make no impression on your sensibility, no alarm in your conscience.
Yes! it is an alliance with the powers of darkness, it is the mysterious permitted and tremendous agency of evil spirits, by which, in conljunction with your own will, this anomaly of guilt is
preserved in the universe. There is no conceal.
ment of this fact in God's word, but a most explicit
announcement of it, that in thus remaining insensible to God and his glory, and to your own interest
in the propitiatory death of his Son, you are under
the admitted power of Satan, you are in covenant
34 
THiE DENIAL OF GOD.
with him, among the ranks of the lost, in whom
the god of this world hath blinded the minds of
those who believe not, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine within them.
But while by this mysterious agency, in conjunction with your own will, this involution of darkness can be going on here, can be maintained now
in this world, it is impossible in the world of
spirits; and we have reason to believe that the
devils, who cannot thus remain blind and insensible, envy the condition of souls that for a eason
can. The time of this possibility is rapidly passing,
and you are passing from a world o-faith into a
world of light and experience. According to the
relation in which you stand'-4od's attributes now,
will be the operation of r,ose attributes upon you,
when you come to W'and feel them. One reason
why it is permitd to be possible to live in such a
world as thi -without seeing God, is that there
might be 6he possibility of a discipline of faith, by
which we might become like God.   The proof and
maifestation of God "could not be intellectually
more evident, without becoming morally less effective; without counteracting its own end by sacrificing
the life of faith, to the cold mechanism of a worthless, because compulsory assent." God will have
no believers on compulsion; he will leave men to
their own choice; and the choice, if that of unbelief and insensibility, is that of the heart. Having
the understanding darkened, being alienated from
the life of God, through the ignorance that is
36 
THE DENIALI OF GOD.
in them because of the blindness of their heart.
But the time of this ignorance is passing, and
though the enmity of the heart will remain, the
blindness will be gone forever, when the veiled
frame of a fleshly organization and a material world
shall have dropped asunder.
And what then will be the effect of a meeting of
the soul with  God?   When  face to face we shall
behold him, when character shall be developed in
the blaze of character; when the attributes of the
creature shall appear in manifest conflict with the
attrimites of the Creator, when the moral aspect of
the creat-re's sin shall be revealed in the lightning
flame of the Creator's holiness, the hideousness of
guilt in contrast vith the glory of the righteousness
of God and angels, -rill there then any longer be
the anomaly of an atheistic insensibility to God, the
infernal miracle of a soul incrierent to his existence
and attributes? Every eye shall ee him, and then,
as the process here has been that kF insensibility
and the heedless accumulation of guilt,'Je process
there will be that of the soul becoming all eye, all
sense, all vivid sensibility to God, a quickened very
conscience in regard to sin, a sense at once of the
holiness of God and the sinfulness of man, of the
glory of heaven and the terror of hell, of the
brightness of light and the blackness of darkness;
a sight and sense of all things as they are, and not
as when the delusions of the carnal mind concealed
and belied them, not as when the dust and ashes of
a sensual existence were laid upon them. Is there
any guilty soul that can endure the terrors of that
36 
THE DENIAL OF GOD.
day? Is there any soul that can pass from an insensibility in this world, maintained amidst such
radiant light from the works and the revealed word
of God, without change, into God's presence, without the certainty, from the very nature of things, of
misery there? For without holiness no man shall
see God, no guilty creature could endure the sight,
for our God is a consuming fire.
If now, these paragraphs are speaking to a single soul that has hitherto lived without God and
without hope in the world, let the question be
asked, have you made any preparation to meet God
in that condition?  Are you ready to stand in his
presence? Perhaps these questions may fall upon
the sense of some, in regard to whom this very insensibility to God is a source and subject of astonishment, fear, and almost indignation to themselves
and to others. There are those who are ready to
say, O that I might see God! O that he would come
out of his place of invisibility, and compel my insensible spirit to feel him, to behold his holiness
and glory, and my own guilt! O that this solid
world that closes me around, and hides everything
but material existence from my view, might as it
were open, and disclose the splendor of Jehovah
in such overpowering light that I might never forget the vision! O that this curtain of creation, instead of separating between me and God, might
light up indeed as a bright transparency revealing
his presence in power and glory, and compelling me
to fall prostrate and adore! O that I might see him
as Job saw him, and be compelled to cry out, "I have
37 
THE DENIAL OF GOD.
heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now
my eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and
repent in dust and ashes!"
And if this wish be sincere, then there is nothing
which you would not be willing to do, to gain that
purity and contrition of heart, through which alone,
by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you can behold
God in peace. Sometimes the first beginning of
life in the soul towards God may be the commencing sense of this very insensibility, and the conviction of it as in itself a mighty sin, but a mightier
proof and consequence of that death in trespasses
and sins in which the soul has remained wholly at
ease and quiet, not having God in all its thoughts.
And if out of this insensibility there is an outcry
after God and an effort to return to him and to find
him, God will bless it.  Yet there may be a great
struggle and conflict. For it is a great mistake to
suppose that this insensibility will be always removed the moment the soul enters on the process of return to God. In the nature of things it cannot be
expected that the soul at one bound will recover
from the effect of the habits of a life of sin.  If a
devotee of Hiindostan, after holding his arm motionless in an upright position for years, finds that it
has grown there unalterably, is it a strange result
from the process with his physical nature? Can he
expect by an act of volition to recover the use of
that limb?   Must it not be by a long and very
gradual process, by multitudes of volitions and of
efforts, each making the muscles yield perhaps a
very little, and all necessary in constant repetition?
38 
THE DENIAL OF GOD.
Analogous to this may be the case of religious insensibility, although God himself is the Healer, and
the heart, when changed by grace, is, as to principle, wholly changed, and radically. Still, put the
case in regard to your own dispositions and practices, long inured and inveterate, and it stands thus:
You have, by long habit, disregarded God; your
business, studies, amusements, pleasures, farms and
merchandise, have absorbed you.   Is the insensibility of death a strange consequence of this suffocation of spiritual life? And can you think to recover from that insensibility, except by voluntary,
patient, persevering efforts? You will say, it is impossible! And yet, in another view, and the right
view, it is not impossible, for it is of grace. And
so we show you a better way, or rather the way to
enter on such efforts and maintain them, with an absolute certainty of success. You are to come to
Christ. Your insensibility can be moved in no
other way. And besides this, besides Hiis being the
only Physician that knows your case and can heal
your soul, it is only in Christ that you can see and
know God. In Christ, those divine attributes, by
themselves destructive of the sinful soul, and of consuming, fiery light and power, shall, with regenerating grace, subdue the soul, and renew it in their
own nature, preparing it for God's holiness, by making it partaker of the same.
39 
i   Sarl1       afte   go
OH that I knew where I might find Him!  The
anxious heart of humanity speaks out in this sen tence. Amidst all our darkness and insensibility
as a fallen race, there is still a constitutional attraction in our being towards God, as well as a constitutional  necessity of finding  IHim.   Our grand
attribute of intelligence and immortality is just this
capacity of knowing God, and this necessity of
loving Ijim.  Our reason is a gift divine, because it
enables us to see God, because the idea of God is
one of its intuitions, and the heart is under a law
of the reason to love God.  It is only in loving
Him that we can find Him and know him.  "Love
is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God,
and knoweth God.  HIe that loveth not, knowetli
not God, for God is love."
HlE -,HAT LOVETH NOT, KNOWETHI NOT.  ILet us
set up that pillar of the beginning of all science, for
if it be true in regard to God, it is true also in
regard to all God's works.  And a being constituted
with the capacity of knowing God, could never be
satisfied with any thing less than God. An imperious
necessity of knowing and of loving is here.  The 
TIIE SEACII AFTEn GOD.
whole circle of knowledge and of thought in the
universe might be exhausted, and it would leave the
soul empty and restless without God.  There might
come a time when, to be shut up to the whole
universe without God, would be as tedious to an
immortal soul, as it would now to a man with the
comprehensive intellectual power of Newton, to be
restricted all his lifetime to the study of the primer
of his childhood.  There might come a time when
the universe itself would be a prison without God,
and the condemnation of existence in it a burden
of wearisomeness and sameness, intolerable. For
the more the mind grasps, the less it can be satisfied
without God; the more the soul knows, the stronger
are the constitutional and eternal necessities of its
being to know God; the vaster the reach of its
travel in the created demonstrations of God, which
are the consequences of God's existence, the more
pressing and irresistible become the cravings of its
immortal nature for the sight of God. For, wherever
you go, whatsoever you do, whatsoever you know,
rest is never in all creation, but in God; happiness
is never in created things, but in God; and the
universe would be but as a wheel revolving with
you transfixed upon it, and maddened by its revolutions, if you know not God. Everywhere, from
thie depths of immortality, the unsatisfied, restless yearning rises after God. The sound of the
ocean of our being, as it breaks upon the shores of
eternity, is the boom and roar of a desolate tempestuous sea, if it knows not God.  The depths of
an infinite despair, to a being endued with intell;
41 
THE SEARCH AFTER GOD.
gence and immortality, are in the condition of not
finding, seeing, knowing God.
Ever, at the end of all knowledge, rises the question where is God, and the necessity of knowing
Hlim.  The more you see and know of the laws
and glories of creation, the more heavily this question and necessity press upon the mind. It is the
final end of all thought to think upon God; it is
the ultimate object of all steps, enquiries, researches,
to find God. And the more you grasp of this
material universe, in your studies, your investigations, your comprehension, without God, you are
but led to an open door, through which you pass
into the blackness of darkness forever, if you have
not found God. A created being might take the
universe orb by orb, might travel from star to star,
from sun to sun, from system to system, but nothing
could give him rest; and everywhere, after all
things were comprehended that - God has made,
there would only arise, with a more overwhelming
pressure, the question, Where is God? The nearer
you seem to get to Him, as you pass from world to
world, through the trains of material glory in His
infinite temple, through the folds of the veil of
created systems round about Him,  the stronger
becomes the attraction that presses you to him, the
swifter this power of gravitation, as capacity expands, and worlds are unfolded, and yet, if you
see Him not, whither are you hurrying, and what
can be the rest of your soul? You might meet,
amidst the range of worlds, trains of angels and
archangels, beings more glorious in themselves than
42 
THE SEARCH AFTER GOD.
all worlds; but the greater their magnificence and
grandeur, the less the possibility of resting or remaining among them, and the greater the pressure
of the question, Where is He who made them?
The more you could, by any possibility, behold
and know of all things but God, the more you could
find out of being and of matter, in the roll of ages,
if ages were allotted for the experiment, before
finding God, the more universal, absorbing, irresistible and uncontrollable, would be the nece&,,,ity
that carries you towards God, the necessity of seeing
and of knowing Him. Amidst all these unbounded
and innumerable forms and glories of being and of
matter, orbs of splendor, fires of intelligence and
light, but one feeling would at length absorb the
soul, but one necessity would weigh upon it, the
craving and necessity of knowing God. The more
infinite the variety of those glories, and the more
unbounded their expanse, the greater the pressure
upon an immortal being, towards Him who made
them all.  Where, 0 where is God?  And what in
God's universe can the soul rest upon without
God?
Such is what may be called the constitutional
necessity of finding and of knowing God. But
now there is, in addition, a still more pressing and
inexorable moral necessity, a necessity of finding in
Him a friend, the strength of our heart, and our
portion forever.   There is the absolute certainty
of meeting God; but how do we know what will
be the effect of that meeting?  Rather, how can we
hope, if we do not know Him now by loving Him,
43 
TIIE SEARCH AFTER GOD.
if we do not know Him as His dear children, how
can we hope that the meeting of our souls with Him
can be an event of joy? May it not prove, must it
not prove, the most dreadful event of all our exist ence, and deplorably decisive for eternity?
What if, amidst all these demonstrations of God,
all these manifestations of His power and glory, all
these avenues of worlds leading onward to the
introduction, with all this constitutional necessity
of knowing God, and this absolute impossibility of
rest apart from Him; what if the soul, the veil
being lifted, and God's attributes seen, finds in
Him an enemy! What if the state of mind and
heart that has prevented God from being seen in,
through, and by His works everywhere, is a state
of such  mposition to His holiness, His sovereign
will, that,vhen He comes to be seen and known as
He is, when the veil of the universe is withdrawn,
and the soul is in His immediate presence, it shall
be found that He is a consuming fire! What will
be the state of a mind that has groped through this
present world of light in regard to God without
finding God?  What will be the condition of our
men of assumed science and intelligence, who have
read nature backwards, and the more they have
seen and known of God's works, the less they have
seen of Him who made them?  What will he, who
is now estranged from God, experience, when the
attributes which he now denies, or hates, blaze upon
him, no longer through the vista of a telescope of
worlds, where he at present conceives himself to be
at one end, and God infinitely distant at the other;
44 
rHE SEARCH Al itER GOD.
but in a revelation that brings him face to face with
Jehovah, creation all behind, and none but God
before him and around him? What will become
of him, a sinful creature, in the presence of a God
of infinite holiness, gone, against all warning, into
that presence, in the midst of sin?
We do suppose that the revelation of God once
made, the sight of God once seen, "ill command all
notice, absorb all thought, leave no possibility for
any created thing any longer to interpose before the
soul, to gain from it a moment's attention, in ditracting it from God'. If the Divine attributes are
the object of the soul's affectionate and confiding
love, they will absorb the soul in an ecstasy of
being, in adoration and praise, to us inconceivable.
But if the habits and affections of the soul be
opposed to the Divi"e attributes, then the nearer it
is brought to the contemplation and sense of them,
the more intolerable the condition of that soul must
be. For even in this world, the thought of God to
such a soul is full of terror. A sinful being can
never endure the attributes of God. And yet, those
attributes once revealed, nothing in the universe
will be able to distract even a sinful soul from the
contemplation of them; nothing will be worthy of
notice in comparison with them; and indeed, both
with holy and sinful beings in the spiritual world,
it must be the case that nothing will, by itself, any
longer confine the notice of the mind, but everythiing will be seen as the Divine attributes play upon
it, and are illustrated in it. It is God, who will be
all in all to the righteous soul, and God who will be
415 
THE SEARCH AFTER GOD.
all in all to the wicked soul. Now, God's works
may be seen, and not himself; God's works may be
examined with scientific pride and pretension, and
yet the Author of them never be noticed; nay, His
presence, His agency, if not His  being,  may be
denied. Men may analyze the light of the sun, and
boast themselves in the power of rational research
and discovery, and yet never behold the light of
the Sun of Righteousness. Men may examine the
organization of plants and animals, and the structure
of a world, and receive the worship of their fellowmen for their acuteness and sagacity, and yet, amidst
all this, neither see, nor know, nor acknow)ledge
their Creator, but live and die Atheists, in a I orld
sustained by God's presence and filled with God's
light.
But there, God himself will be seen. The veil
that hides Him will be taken away; or rather, the
soul being carried behind the veil, God and His
attributes will fill the vision. Creatures will no
more speculate about His agency, but feel it; and
according as they themselves are consentaneous
with it, prefigured for it, in harmony with it, or
opposed to it, unfitted for it, and habituated against
it, it will be the source of unmingled happiness or
misery. According as they are the friends or the
enemies of God, God will be to them either a fountain of love and blessedness, or a consuming fire,
either the light of life, or a light revealing sin and
darkness. There must come a time, when we shall
meet God face to face, and that will be the revelation and the knowledge of our destiny; that will
46 
THE SEARCH AFTER -GOD.
be the experience of heaven or hell. The light of
these senses shall no longer hide from us the light
of God; the occupations of a world shall no longer
distract our absorbed sight and being from Hiim.
Oh, then, what shall we do to find Ilim?  What
shall we do to meet IHim, not as strangers and enemies, but children and friends? And how shall we
be prepared to find in Hiim, when we see Hiim
behind the veil, when sense and shadows drop away
from around us, and leave us in uncreated light
before the splendors of Hiis infinite holiness, to find
in IHim, not the terror of our souls in His avenging
justice, but a reconciled friend and Father-a forgiving, loving, and beloved God? Oh the greatness,
the majesty, the glory and the gloom of this mighty
problem! Hiow can men be so heedless of the
meeting of their souls with God! How can immortal
beings be so thoughtless of the question, What shall
I be to God, and what will God be to me, when I
meet Him, when I see Him, when I stand in the
blaze of His attributes, in the light of His countenance-when that light, angry or glorious, destructive or life-giving, according to what I am, falls upon
me?  What shall I find myself to all eternity, when
character is all revealed and fixed forever-when
holiness discloses sin-when delusions and distractions are withdrawn-when mine inmost soul, and
heart and being, penetrated with God's light, reveal
their every process, habit, thought, feeling, sealed,
by a contrast or similarity with God, for mine eternal
destiny?
Surely this is the one absorbing question of our
47 
THE SEARCH AFTER GOD.
being-What shall we do to find God? or, to change
the question in a manner expressive of the fear,
What shall we do to find in ourselves such a likeness to God, such a participation in His holiness, that
we may be prepared for that meeting with Him, so
soon to take place, when this fleshly tabernacle drops
from around us?  "Blessed are the pure in heart,"
says our Lord Jesus Christ,'-'-for they shall see
God."  "But, oh!" the sinner answers, "my heart
is all impure, and I dare not, cannot meet Him;"
and so, from the depths of the condemned soul, in
the anguish of a troubled conscience, the question
resounds, Where shall I gain that purity? for my
heart is all defiled with sin. Clouds and darkness
are round about me, and in my sins I cannot see
God. If I look to God through aught that I aml in
myself, I see him only as the righteous and revenging
God of that holy law which I have violated. If I
see His glorious attributes, it is but to see- and feel
their tremendous condemnation of my guilt. If God
looks upon me, if He reveals Himself unto me, in
my sin, my corruption, my ruin, I am undone; for
one glance of His countenance, one ray of His infinite holiness, discloses mny darkness, mine impurity
of heart, my possession of all the qualities that must
banish me from His holy presence, and shut me up
in hell. If God stand before me, and I see Him, I
must cry out with Peter, "Depart from me, for I am
a sinful man, O Lord!" Till I am changed, I cannot see God; and who and what shall change me?
Till I am purified, I cannot see God, for my heart is
full of sin.   I cannot, dare not see Him; for the
48 
THE SEARCH AFTER GOD.
very thought of His intolerable holiness, when He
comes near to my soul, is more than I can bear;
and my will is strong against Him, and my soul is
dark to every attribute but that of His condemning
and avenging righteousness. And yet I must see
God. I am directed to His presence; I am hastening to His judgment-bar; His mandate is upon me;
His indictment is against me; His writ is after me.
I must meet the King of terrors; and after that, I
must meet God. Oh, where shall I find Him? What
shall I do to find Him?  And where is that purity
of heart, without which no man shall see God?
Who has it?  With whom is the fountain of it?
Where shall I find it?
Oh Son of God most merciful, who didst speak
those gracious words, "Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God," have mercy upon me, for I
am a miserable sinner! Oh Lamb of God, who
takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon
me! Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew
a right spirit within me. Oh thou compassionate
and forbearing Lord God, whom I would fain see,
but cannot, have mercy upon me! Oh divine Redeemer, who didst bear our sins, have mercy upon
me! I look to Thee-I throw myself on Thee.  To 
whom shall I go but unto Thee, who only hast the
words of life eternal?
Yes, O yes, to Thee, O Lamb of God! It is to
Jesus Christ, and to Him alone, that this sense of
guilt, this fear of meeting God, this conviction of
sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment to come,
this sense of Oil in the soul, and this outcry of the
3
49 
THE SEARCH AFTER GOD.
conscience after purity of heart, points the sinner,
yea presses him, burdened, anguished, dying, to the
cross of Christ. The first step to the character and
blessing of the pure in heart is to see our own im purity; and when we see that, and feel it-when
our conscience accuses us to God-when we feel
that as we are, we cannot meet God, cannot endure
His presence, cannot see Him and live, then, as we
look about in anguish for deliverance, for some
power to help, to heal, and save us, all the voices
of revelation point us to Christ-to that very Being
who declares to us, that the pure in heart are blessed,
because they shall see God; for He it is, and He
alone, that can give us that purity-that can, by the
power of His own blood, wash away our sinful
stains-that can, by the grace of His spirit, subdue
and soften our hearts in contrition, in repentance, in
faith, and prepare us to see God. He it is, who has
been exalted as a Prince and a Saviour, to give re pentance and the remission of sins; He it is, who
can take away the hardness of our hearts, our insen sibility, our indifference, our love of sinning, our
pride, our self-will; He it is, who can make us meek
and lowly in heart, can lead us to the mercy-seat,
can teach us to plead His name and merits with the
Father. Will we come to Him for this blessedness?
Will we believe in His power and love? Will we
make our appeal for His mercy?
Ah! perhaps we need to have God in some way
come near to us in wrath, before we can be made to
feel how near and how infinitely precious CHRIST is
in His redeeming love, and GOD IN  CHRIST!  It is
50 
THE SEARCH AFTER GOD.
the sight of God that possibly we need now, in con trast with our guilt, in order that we may see and
feel the greatness of that guilt.  It is the light of the
Divine Hioliness that we need, to reveal the darkness
and sinfulness of our own hearts, and the everlasting
ruin that awaits us, if, with such hearts unchanged,
we go into eternity. Oh that careless souls might
see God in His holiness now, and feel IHim in some thing of the terror of His wrath and justice, in order
that they might be roused up from their insensibility,
and driven from their indifference, and compelled
by the anguish of a wounded conscience to cry out
for the Divine mercy. Then might they arrive at
that purity of heart without which no man shall see
God-then might they be prepared by the Redeemer
for their introduction to God in the eternal world.
Would to God that the corruptions of this sinful
and rebellious heart might be unveiled before the
sinner, that he might be taken down into the depths
of them, and made to see how he is filled with them
-how they expose him to the wrath of God-how
they prepare him, if he enters the eternal world with
such a heart unchanged, to feel the attributes of God
as a consuming fire. Would to God that the hell
of the sinner's own passions might beforehand be let
loose upon him, that, by the experience of the conflict, the strife, the war, in deep conviction now, he
might be terrified from himself to Christ, might be
driven to the Saviour for refuge.
For, indeed, anything is better than the insensibility of this death of trespasses and sins. Better
that men feel the burning fire of God now, in a world
51 
THE SEARCH AFTER GOD.
of probation, than feel it forever in the world of
wo;-better that men see and feel the enmity of their
hearts against God, and bear the stings of an angry
conscience now, and hear the accusation against
them in God's word as His enemies, than go on in
stupid indifference, in the dream that they are His
friends, only to hear His voice in an eternal judgment, "Depart from me; I never knew you I"better that men learn their own character in season,
while God gives them the opportunity of becoming
new creatures in Christ Jesus, than to hear it first
announced, and have it first admitted and understood, in the thunder of that dreadful sentence,
"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels!"
52 
NEXT after the Idea of God, comes that of Eternity. The Reality is one of the Powers of the
world to come. It may be said, perhaps, that Eternity itself is the world to come, but it is more proper
to say that the world to come is in Eternity, while
this world, and we upon it, are in Time; and the
passage from Time to Eternity is by us conceived as
something more than a mere going from one world
into another world.  Eternity! Eternity! We have
indeed the Idea here; we meet the POWER there!
The moment a soul emerges from Time, we think
of it as passing from a point into an infinitude; we
think of a boundlessness of which it must be conscious, an everlastingness of duration, which it
knows now only in Idea, but must know then, not
in imagination merely, but in self-consciousness, as
a Power. The change from Time into Eternity is a
change in the whole position and relations of our
being, all that is partial being left behind, and a total assumed or entered on, within us and around us.
Here we know in part, but there shall we know as
we are known; here we see in part, but there we
shall see as we are seen.  The language which Paul
I'-t t r   it itg 
ETERNITY.
uses in regard to eternal blessedness, will be here
reversed in regard to the condition of eternal misery. In either case, the entrance on Eternity will
be the experience of Eternity, a knowledge of Eternity, absolute, and not in expectation merely; the
experience of an ETERNAL NOW which nevertheless
will not prevent the forecasting of a still greater
experience either of glory on the one hand, or of
terror on the other.  Our whole being is so constituted as to be perpetually now forecasting that fixedness of doom, that reality of Eternity; constitutionally we are expecting it; we are anticipating it,
whether preparing and planning for it, or not.  It is
the great cloud before us, into which we know  we
are to enter; it is the great thought brooding over
us, as the firmament overhangs our bodies, and we
work beneath it without looking up, without thinking of it. Nevertheless, immortality in ourselves,
and Eternity to be experienced by us, at the great
goal of our being, when we come to the end of the
present (which is but the beginning of the endless),
constitute the overruling consciousness of the soul.
Whether a man be wicked or good, careless or anxious, this element of his nature he can neither deny
nor abdicate. He may live as a sea-monster, down
in the depths of a moral medium  as thick as the
ocean, but  yet  this all-surrounding air  of  his
accountability and immortality is above him, with
its universal pressure.  The change firom Time into
Eternity will be the fulfilment of all this mighty
anticipation of our mental and moral constitution.
Then, Time shall be no longer; for in this view, it
54 
ETERNITY.
is a thing only for beings on probation, and when
that ends, Time ends, and Eternity begins. Time
is the clock that strikes the hours of our probationary trial, and every moment is precious; but when
that is passed through, we must have a clock that
strikes Eternity or none at all; and doubtless,
when that is passed through, our very consciousness
will strike Eternity, as nowit strikes Time. Time
is nothing there, since there is no more anything
depending upon it, nor any use for it, but Eternity
is all in all, according as God is all in all. What is
Time, to one who has entered on Eternity, whose
state is fixed for Eternity? A fixedness, which
makes such a change, as to leave no longer any
room for either fear or hope, the eternal goal of each
of these passions being reached, and an unchangable experience begun, which is indeed to be progressive in degree, but absolute in quality, forever.
Our motion on our axis may be what we please, but
our orbit is in Eternity, and once launched upon it,
we can do nothing but pursue it, wherever it may
sweep us. Here, we have something to look forward to, of a nature that we never have experienced, but there, all is decided. Here we seem to
hold our choices in our own power, as long as Time
lasts; but there we lay aside our very free agency
for a supreme eternal good, or a supreme eternal
evil, that can never more be changed, nor our
choice altered, whatever it may be. Over neither
the evil nor the good shall we be any longer master,
but it will be master over us, forever and ever.
This mighty responsibility of an eternal destiny
55 
ETERNITY.
is on us all-a destiny soon to be known and sealed
unchangeable, in heaven or hell. One would think
this amazing truth would be supremely impressive,
once announced, even if it were only probable; but
being certain, we should think the pressure would
be felt, as of a great mountain, upon men's hearts
and consciences.  How can it be otherwise?  Nevertheless, how little emotion-how mighty an insensibility! And though the Judge standeth at the door,
yet, because judgment against an evil work is not
executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of
men is fully set in them to do evil. Absorbed in
the trifles of time, men give themselves no leisure to
look beyond the present moment, and accustom
themselves to anxieties only about the present life.
The power of habit in this consequent insensibility
is tremendous, and most disastrously successful.
The merest, maddest vanities and dreams of time
shall thus outweigh the interests of eternity. The
miserable pursuits of the present moment are held
so close to the eye of the soul, and its affections are
so fixed upon them, that nothing else can be seen
or thought of. We may hold a shilling before the
eye so near, that it shall shut out heaven from the
vision; we may, with a mote between the glasses
of the telescope, cover the orb of day. So men shut
out the things of God, Christ, eternity, heaven, hell,
wholly from their view, even by the barest consideration what they shall eat, drink, and with what
their bodies shall be clothed; and so the god of this
world, even by things of this world, blinds the
minds of those who believe not, keeping off the
~-)6 
ETERNITY.
thoughts of eternity, and absorbing the heart with
other things, instead of the interests of an immortal
soul. This power of the world to come, in such a
case, is veiled, is hidden; it is as if it did not exist,
or only as an unmeaning abstraction. But yet it
does exist; and whenever and in whatever way the
idea of eternity gets hold upon the soul, and gains
the mastery there, it turns out every other idea; it
shows its power by its despotism; it blasts the fairest
visionary castles of the mind; it turns the pleasures
of the world into ashes. And God can, any time,
bring this idea sweeping on the soul, like an army
with banners.
We have heard of such things-heard of men
seized, as by an invisible power, at the sight and
hearing of the ticking of a clock in a crowded courtroom, and carried forth into the open world, and
pursued through all the lanes of life and din of
business, unable to escape, till pressed to God's footstool in secret, and compelled to pour out, as a dying
sinner, the prayer for God's salvation, wrung from
the soul by the pressure of sin and the thoughts of
eternity, and the question, In what world shall I
dwell, when this world passes away, and I pass from
it forever? You have heard of the flood-gates of
such thought, thrown open by the bare utterance of
that one word, eternity, and, as if the fountains of
the great deep were broken up, a cataract and storm
of angry, gloomy, prophetic wailing and despair
rushing through the soul. Under such a sense of
guilt and eternity, no man can bear up; but if retribution unchangeable have not already commenced,
3*
57 
ETERNITY.
or a judicial desolation and petrifaction of the soul,
must cry out, God save me! I am a lost creature!
God have mercy upon me, a sinner! Lamb of God,
who takest away the sin of the world, have mercy
upon me!
Now, as it is in the power of the Spirit of God at
any time to bring in this idea of eternity upon the
soul with an exceeding and eternal weight, whether
of glory or of gloom, we need not wonder at the
instances on record of persons awakened by the
mere hearing of the word eternity, or merely seeing
it printed on a page.  I think it is Hannah More, to
whom we owe the authentic account of a lady of
social distinction and gaiety in England, who returned one night from a party or a ball of great
splendor, and found her maid waiting for her, employed in reading a religious book. As she glanced
at it, she exclaimed, "IHow can you contrive to amuse
yourself with poring over the pages of such a
melancholy work!"  But her own eye had been an
unsuspected inlet to the mind for one of the powers
of the world to come, that it might enter, sweeping
with all its solemn train the visions of her worldliness quite away. She retired to rest, but lay tossing
in anxious thought, and when her maid the next
day inquired the cause of her pale and gloomy mood
and appearance, she confessed that it was wholly
that one word Eternity, beheld in the pages of that
book, which had startled a world of convictions,
anxieties, fears, remorse, forebodings, that at length
completely overwhelmed her, and no peace could
be found till it was gained in Christ Jesus, till in
58 
ETERNITY.
Him she had gained that preparation for eternity,
of which the word had roused her to feel her need
as an immortal being. And at any time that one
word eternity may be the power of the Holy Spirit
in the sou], to break up the fountains of the great
deep of thought in regard to our everlasting responsibility and destiny.
And truly, a right impression of eternity is sufficient to make everything here, everything transitory, however splendid, however coveted, seem insignificant and worthless. A constant impression of
eternity would make a man superior to all life's
changes, shows, temptations and delusions. It has
much the same effect with that of severe and overwhelming affliction, though in a different way; for
whereas overwhelming sorrow may bury a man as
in a sepulchre, making him dead to the world,
because he cannot enjoy anything,-the deep and
vast impression of eternity raises him quite above
it, to a place of serene and commanding observation,
where he sees its vanity and madness.  "I greatly
deceive myself," said the great Edmund Burke,
when prostrated by the death of a son, as an oak by
a hurricane, "I greatly deceive myself, if in this
hard season of life I would give a peck of refuse
wheat for all that is called fame and honor in the
world." But the deep sense of eternity will make
a man feel that all the riches and honors of the
material universe are are not worth a peck of refuse
wheat, even with the greatest zest and spirit for
their enjoyment, except the soul is prepared to meet
God, prepared for its abode in eternity. A strong
~ I
59 
ETERNITY.
sense of eternity, in its power of reducing the
bubbles and shows of this world to their intrinsic
vanity, and paralysing its grasp upon us, is like the
near approach of death, and for the same reason.
Indeed, death itself borrows nearly all its power
over us from eternity, all its power to move us. The
brutes have no fear of death, because they have no
life after death, nor the possibility of conceiving
of it.
In like manner, the mighty idea of probation
borrows all its solemnity from the idea of eternity.
We are on trial in this world, not for any limited
duration of destiny in the next, but for an existence
that shall never end, an existence determined by
causes which here in this world we set in operation,
and habits which here in this world we form or
begin. Everything bears upon eternity, and takes
its dignity and importance thence, nor can we live,
in whatever way, without living for eternity. All
moral influences and causes run into eternity, and in
human action and thought they are so innumerable
and incalculable, that the whole of what is sown
here not only determines the whole of what is reaped
there, but it may take immeasurable ages to develop
particular fruits from particular seeds here deposited.
In that respect the mind of man may be like the
universe of God, in which there are worlds whose
light may have been travelling towards us ever
since the dawn of the creation, and never yet have
reached us. But it must come, it never can perish;
it may be millions and millions of years upon its
way, but still it wings its wondrous flight, and will
60 
ETERNITY.
produce, somewhere, if there remain an eye to meet
it, the image of its object.  So it is with  men's
actions, characters,  lives.   As  the  planets  are
coming up ill space, so may things transacted here
come up in their reality, in their power, in their
knowledge, millions of ages in the bosom of eternity.
And therefore the idea and reality of time, which
as to its moral character is very much the same with
the idea of probation, borrows, in like manner, all
its solemnity from the reality of eternity, the reality
of an endless existence, the character of which time
determines; determines it indeed, not by itself, but
by our use of it. What we make of time, time
makes of our eternity.  Time is the weaver of the
garment of our existence there, and unrolls in an
everlasting web, whatever elements of character,
whatever threads of action, we put into his loom,
we fasten to his shuttle, here.  Time is the season
of sowing, eternity of reaping, and the rule is,
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
This being the case, as time governs eternity, eternity gives to every moment of time an infinite preciousness and solemnity.  To-day has all the importance of eternity attached to it, concentrated upon it.
Oh Eternity, Eternity! By what way can careless
men be waked, be roused, to a sense of eternity?
How shall that idea be stirred within them?  The
moment its power is felt, how do  all the vastest
interests of time dwindle and fade into insignificance!  What are the proudest reputations, what
the highest degrees of honor, what the most successful gains of ambition, or of boundless wealth,
61 
ETERNITY.
or of personal gratification, whether sensual or
intellectual? Extended to the largest measures of
time, what are they, when the end comes, and eter nity is before the soul? Oh for a permanent im pression of Eternity! Oh to have the mind and
heart kept under that mighty guardianship, beneath
the full weight and pressure of that power of the
world to come!  How shall this be accomplished?
It cannot be done without prayer. It cannot be done
without coming to Christ. It cannot be done
without a living faith in him, as the way, the truth,
the life. Apart from him, all truth is frozen, desolate, ineffectual. The idea of eternity must be
inspired with the life of love, or it has no power as
an abstraction. It may waken the soul, but Christ
only can make it a permanent element of living,
loving duty. But earnest prayer, by a soul coming
to Christ, can do everything.   In prayer, eternity
is brought near, is realized.
In prayer the soul is baptized by the Holy Spirit
with power, and is transported from time into eternity, from shadows to realities, from dreams to the
energies of life.  When the soul wrestles in prayer,
God causes the powers of the world to come to
wrestle with the soul, and they enter into it and
possess it mightily. The very insensibility of the
soul is a thing which must be brought to God in
prayer, and men must groan and agonize before God
to have it taken away, and it will be conquered.
It cannot be done without God's word; but prayer
causes the word of God to live within the soul, to
burn in it as a fire, and to carry it away as on the
62 
ETERNITY.
wings of a whirlwind. Habitual intimacy with God's
word draws all the realities of the eternal world
around the soul, and touches its forms of interminable and dreadful glory into life and power within
it:-the clouds of heaven, the great white throne,
the thronging angels, the books of judgment, the
lake of fire, the holy city, the jasper walls, the
golden streets, the crystal river; principalities and
powers of thought endowed as regal fixtures, as
burning mountains in a vast horizon, as an atmosphere or firmament brilliant with sparkling stars.
When the soul is much  conversant with  the word
of God in prayer, then the Spirit of God brings out
its infinite treasures, kindles its fires, lights up its
propositions, till they shine as suns, and carries the
soul down into the abyss, or up into the third heaven,
till all the powers of the world to come pass into
a foretasted experience. For the Divine Spirit acts
by the word, and reveals it within the soul as an
irresistible agency, so that it is quick and powerful
and sharper than any two-edged sword.
Then there are other forms of truth  which the
same Divine Spirit makes efficacious, if a man will
wait upon them. Let a man, for example, take
Baxter's Call to the Unconverted, or Doddridge's
Rise and Progress, with John Foster's Essay prefixed, and set himself to its prayerful perusal, and it
will be strange indeed if the Powers of the World to
come do not reveal themselves, and take hold upon
his inmost being.  Then, too, let a man watch the
providences of God. Oftentimes they are greatly
effectual in unsealing the prisons of the soul, and
e
63 
ETERNITY.
calling dead entombed convictions into life, and removing the grave-clothes of custom, insensibility,
unbelief that swathe divine truth itself from the
sight and feeling of the conscience. It is astonishing to see how suddenly a whole embattled squadron of thought and argument, that had been dead
and buried out of sight beneath the insensibility and
blindness of the heart, shall be roused into action.
A patriarchal preacher in the northern part of our
country, after a vain attempt to convince a couple
of deniers of the truth of an eternal retribution,
passed away in almost hopeless sorrow. But the
word only waited the providence which was ready
to give it pungency and power. One of those men,
not long after, was cutting down a tree in the forest,
and when it fell, and lay motionless where it fell,
the text in God's word, As the tree falleth, so it lieth,
came to the mind of the wood-cutter with a force
that carried away all his unbelief, let in the flood of
the Divine Argument upon the soul, and brought
him at length, in humble repentance and faith, at
the feet of the Redeemer. Sometimes God's Word,
Providence and Grace are thus united in so remarkable a manner, in subduing the heart of the sinner,
that every step in the process can be distinctly
traced, nor is there anything more interesting and
instructive than the record of such cases.
But let us remember that no impression of eternal things can be lasting, unless it brings the soul
to Christ, unless, coming to Hiim, we secure Hiis
presence, power, life and guidance.   There  are
no means of grace, however promising in their
a
I
64 
ETERNITY.
first efficacy, but will become lifeless, will wear out,
and leave the soul more insensible than ever, unless
it truly comes to Christ. All the awakening books
and providences in the world will fail to reach its
state, will fail at length to move it, unless it obeys
their voice, and does that for which they are granted, for which all the interpositions of God are
thrown in, unless it is brought to Christ, unless it
gives up all to Christ.
65 
WE have seen that from the Idea of Eternity that
of Probation derives all its infinite solemnity. A
trial for Eternity! What a weight of importance,
immeasurable, indescribable, in that phrase! Yet,
Probation is not so much the trial of character, as it
is of the truths of God's word upon character.
Character is already a setttled thing; the problem
presented in a world of probation respects the possibility of change for the world to come. For this
purpose, through interposition of the Son of God,
keeping in abeyance the operation of retributive
justice, the powers of the world to come are revealed as truths and ideas, and are not known as yet
experimentally as powers. For in order that a
knowledge of the powers of the world to come may
prove effectual in producing a preparation for that
world, our state in this must be an arrangement by
which experience is deferred, while information, instruction, warning and persuasion are employed
upon us. Such is God's arrangement for us by the
power of the Cross; God's goodness vouchsafes to
us in that cross, a wondrous demonstration previous
to our experience.
gr e  ati oai., 
PROBATION.
The great difference between this world and that
which is to come, or the thing which necessarily
makes the two worlds so different, is that this is a
world of preparation for that. But in order that it
may be such, we must be forewarned here of what
we are to meet there; we must know here in idea,
what we are to meet there in reality. When we
meet the powers of the world to come, our manner
of meeting them, and the character in which we
meet them, will determine our destiny. We cannot
change that destiny, after so meeting them. We
may wish, too late, that we could. We may have
disbelieved in those powers here, or taken up wrong
ideas in regard to them, and we may find that on
being translated among them, they destroy us; a
thing which perhaps the Apostle himself refers to in
the expression, if so be that being clothed we shall not
befound naked; but it will then be too late to make
another choice, or to undertake to meet them in a
different manner. We must prepare for such a
meeting now. This is God's very argument; because I will do thus and thus unto thee, therefore
prepare to meet thy God, O Israel!
Now, as God's attributes are veiled, even when
revealed, and some of them veiled, even in order
that they may be revealed, we must, of necessity,
exercise faith in regard to them. If we will not
believe, and act accordingly, they will destroy us.
There are some of them, which to know in this
world any other way than in idea, would be our
perdition. If a man will not believe this, and will
not prepare to meet God, he must take the conse
67 
PROBATION.
quences.  If you should travel to the brink of a
volcano with a man who had never seen volcanic
fire, nor known anything about it, and if he should
not believe you on your telling him that it would
burn like any other fire, but should throw himself
into it, he would be destroyed instantly. Now, in
regard to sin, and the unbelieving unrepenting sinner, we are distinctly told that our God is a consuming fire. If a man will not believe that, but
marches on as he is, to meet God in his sinfulness,
then the fire of God's holiness and justice must consume him.   In this world,  God's justice is an
attribute quite hidden from us by His mercy; we
know His mercy in reality, know it in ten thousand
ways; but we know His justice only in His word.
His long-suffering we experience; His justice we
do not experience; and therefore He seems to be
slack concerning Hiis promise, just because we are
permitted to experience His long suffering, in the
hope that we may be induced to escape the infliction
of His justice before the time comes, when the blow
can no longer be suspended.
It is the wonder of the universe that it can be
suspended at all; for God's justice is just as dear to
HIim as His love; indeed, it is but part of His lovean essential element of love. There could be no
such thing as love without justice, and no such thing
as justice without love.  But as ours is a world in
rebellion against God, it would be unjust in Him
not to execute His justice, unless there were some
plain reason for such forbearance; for He has given
a demonstration of His justice in all that He hid 
PROBATION.
done upon the angels that kept not their first estate;
and what justification can there be why the same
measure of justice should not be meted out to us as
to them? Do not the same compulsions of justice
and reasons of state call for our punishment as
theirs? What is the reason for this apparent capriciousness? How can God be just, and not punish
sin now, if He could not be just, and not punish sin
then?   Just this, and this only, is the reasonbecause of the interposition of His beloved Son, who
did interpose, not for the fallen angels, but for lost
man.
Now, to secure the benefits of this interposition,
our world must be the scene of a second probation.
It was at first a world of probation for the good, to
see if they would sustain their trial, and persevere
in holiness against temptation to sin. That experiment failed, and now, and ever since, our world is a
world of probation, to see if the wicked will become
good-to see if they will accept God's offered mercy
in Christ. And to this end, as a matter of necessity,
the penalty of God's law is warded of, is kept at a
distance, in abeyance; the avenging fires of justice
are kept down; the mouth of the bottomless pit is
covered; the energies of retributive justice are
muzzled; God's hand is twisted in the mane of the
lion, and his bridle and bit are in the jaws of Leviathan.   And thus the world stands,'twixt upper,
nether, and surrounding fires, which yet do not
burn upon us, because a form like unto the Son of
God is seen walking with us.  He, by the power of
HIis cross, His sufferings, His death, keeps off these
69 
PROBATION.
flames; He stands beneath this firmament, and holds
it closed, that else would spout cataracts of fire upon
us; He gathers the thunderbolts of Divine justice
into His own bosom, yea, His own soul, (for Thou,
oh God, didst make IIis soul an offering for sin);
and so, as to us, they fall harmless, while the longsuffering of God, thus enabled righteously to wait
upon us, spares us, and works with us, to bring us
to repentance. He holds back these impending
mountains of retribution that quake over us on
every side, and the arrows of those angry eyes of
Nemesis that glare upon us, and would blast us, and
the fierce flames that would consume us in eternal
despair; and, instead of letting them execute their
mission of justice, He turns them into mercy.  He
makes the very law that destroys us our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ; He sheathes the lightning, and lets it play for our warning merely. We
hear the roar of the thunder; but it is God's voice,
calling us to repentance, and to a quick, sure flight
from the wrath to come.  We see the angry eyes;
but there is a mournful tenderness in the light they
shoot upon us.  God's lightnings and judgments
flash and play across this world, just enough  to
waken the conscience, and convince the soul of sin,
of righteousness, and of judgment to come, but not
enough to blast with angry fire unto perdition irremediable. God makes this a disciplinary world; HIe
is enabled to do it, because Christ has died;-a
disciplinary world in so wondrous a degree, that He
will make men's very sins to chastise them, and save
them from perpetuity in sin. God afflicts, overturns,
70 
PROBATION.
disappoints, casts down, uses all the whips and thorns
in the storehouse of His providence, for the discip line of a probationary state. Sometimes He shuts
up a sinful mind in such terror and anguish, that it
seems as if the world of God's inflicted justice could
have no greater horrors, but in the addition of
despair; and yet He does all this that the soul may
be taught wisdom-may be brought to a timely repentance-may be kept back from madly pressing
on to the experience of eternal justice, in the
endurance of the penalty of God's violated law.
Often, indeed, God's representations and providences alike fail; and sometimes both men and
nations come so near to these walls of restraint, with
such savage madness of sin, as almost to break
through them, even in this world-break through
into hell violently out of a world of probation. This
was the case with Sodom and Gomorrah; this is the
case sometimes with individuals, who, instead of
walking humbly, or enduring God's restraint, dash
themselves, as it were, with headlong sins, against
the thick bosses of Jehovah's buckler, and impale
themselves upon the flaming spikes of justice. You
may often see men thus grasping God's sword by
the blade, and indefatigably gathering the lightningrods of retribution into their own hearts; you may
see men rushing into the mouths of lions, that otherwise would merely have roared afar off against them,
for their warning and repentance. But in general
the scene runs on, as a scene of wondrous forbearance on the part of God, perfectly unaccountable,
whether to good men or angels, except on the
71 
PROBATION.
ground of the interposition of a dying Christ, that
He is with us; that this is His world, where He suffered for us, loved us, died that we might live, and
lives Himself now to save us by His life, as He bath
reconciled us to God by His death. He hath reconciled God also to the possibility of enduring, with
much long-suffering, a freedom for his enemies from
retribution, even in sin, if haply they may, by
Christ's dying love, be subdued to the power of
mercy, and come to repentance. He has made it
consistent with God's universal justice and love to
let there be, in the sight of the whole universe, such
a spectacle of apparently- successful rebellion; of
creatures in rebellion, and yet not punished; of
miserable, vile worms in this external Tophet,
wriggling themselves in contempt and sneers at
God's very forbearance, and crying out to one
another and to God's prophets in scorn, Where is
the promise of His coming? Do not the wicked
flourish like a green bay-tree? Who is the Lord,
that we should regard Him?  There is no God who
will ever trouble Himself to regard us.
These things, says Jehovah, hast thou done, and
I kept silence. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself. And the quiet of
Jehovah, or rather of Jehovah's thunderbolts, in
such a world as this, is indeed wonderful.  But farther even than this, God's restraining hand not only
grasps the reins, to hold back the fiery coursers of
his own justice, but is laid also on the ~ery passions of his rebellious creatures, which otherwise
would create a hell even this side the judgment.
72 
PROBATION.
God is here, in Christ Jesus, waiting to be gracious,
and therefore he not only confines, keeps down, and
keeps back, these fires and quaking crags of an
eternal retribution, waiting to be just, but these in ward fires of depravity also, in sinful souls, that
otherwise would burst forth, defying all restraint,
the            fountains of a     great deep  of internal  all-devouring passion broken up, and rolling in fiery billows. God keeps off this catastrophe, that otherwise would be the very realization of hell beforehand. He reins up even the very nature of things,
and the necessity of moral causes, thereby for a season almost falsifying what he himself hath taught
us, and what we know is true, namely, that wickedness in its very self, and by an immutable necessity,
burneth as the very fire. He checks all this, and
allows not these native energies to put forth half
their   strength, but     arches over men's own tempestuous sea of wickedness in the very heart thereof,
and makes a channel as it were, in which there is
air to breathe and a space to move, and a practicable
way laid down, on which they may pass from sin to
holiness. By the very nature of this vast probationary discipline, by mutual checkings and restraints in this vale of a selfish humanity, which
otherwise would be nothing better than a broad
valley  of th      e       shadow of death, he makes possible a
transit into life. Yea, even by setting passion as
sentinel over passion, and making men's own sins
grim watch-wolves against one another, he keeps
them in comparative quiet. The pressure of men's
own selfishness compels them to restraint, and self                        3
73 
PROBATION.
denial. The wind sometimes sweeps over the ocean
in such a broad condensed typhoon, sweeps down
upon it with such exceeding weight of fury, that
the waves which otherwise would rise as mountains,
are pressed down as with a colossal fiat-iron, are
concentrated in upon themselves, and cannot even
break in angry foam, because of the immense pressure. And so it is with men's passions under the
discipline of God in this world of restraint and probation. It is not because the Lord is slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but
because he is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing
that any should perish, but that all should come to
repentance.
And now just consider for a moment the astounding effect, which through the incredible deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of men's hearts, this
very forbearance of God in so many cases produces.
Instead of escaping with all haste to the mountain
refuge of salvation, while God's angels, under the
commission of the Crucified, stand behind sinful
men, warding off a tempest of fire worse than that
of Sodom and Gomorrah, they turn this interval of
peace, and hope, and proffered mercy, into an interval of delusion and indulgence in their sins, and not
yet seeing and feeling the fire, will not believe it.
And because sentence against an evil work is not
executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of
men is fully set in them to do evil. And there they
are, on the way between Sodom and Zoar, sporting
themselves with their own deceivings. Because the
crags of fire are kept from falling, and the firma
74 
PROBATION.
ment over us does'not tremble in flakes and cinders,
God's guilty creatures here mock at tlie promise of
his coming, and turn the very possibility of repentance, which, at the expense of Christ's sufferings and death, he has provided, into a most diabolical distorted argument to make men believe that
he will never execute his justice.   Was the like
ever heard or known, even in hell itself?  Nay, for
there, not the ideas, but POWERS of the world to
come they grapple with, and the devils themselves
believe and tremble. They cannot doubt or deny
God's faithfulness.
But on earth the delusion and denial run yet
further, and inasmuch as by this probationary discipline men's own sins are kept down from raging,
and they have leisure and peace to be amused and
gratified, and God himself indulges them with his
goodness, on very purpose to persuade them to repentance, they cajole themselves into the persuasion
that they are very amiable creatures, and that sin is
a very venial thing, and that God will surely par(Ion them even without repentance. Because they
are occupied and mollified with earthly enjoyments,
and seek and find honor one of another, and the
passions of their souls, not thwarted and disappointed at every step, do not break out into open,
angry malignity against God, they distort this quiet
also, this apparent absence of a furious hostility,
into an argument against their own depravity, and
a persuasion that they do not need such a mighty
change as the gospel proclaims necessary for them,
and a delusive hope, nay, a lying assurance, that
75 
PROBATION.
they are nothing, and have done nothing, so vile, as
to expose them to God's wrath, which therefore
they need not be afraid of. Thus they turn God's
very cup of mercy into poison for their own souls.
His costly, precious medicine of salvation, and the
gentleness, compassion and forbearing patience,
whereby he renders it possible for them to be
healed, they use as an anodyne in their sins. Truly,
what a climax of iniquity is this! If there be judgment for nothing else, surely such wickedness as
this demands it.
From such a view of the nature of our probation,
we learn something of the strength of the argument
within and without, that demonstrates eternal misery to those who die in their sins. To die in one's
sins is just to begin to live in them in all the terror
of the second death. If here on earth men would
not part with them under a system by which the
Eternal World itself could be brought into this
world, to bear upon men's consciences, without consuming their souls, what will they do in that world
where all things will be left to work out their own
nature and power to the utmost. Here, it is retraint; there, it will be perfect freedom. Habits concealed and partially confined here will break out
there into an uncounteracted despotism. All evil
passions will have perfect sway.
We see, therefore, the necessity of the change
from sin to holiness in, this world, and clearly, in this
world, or never. Here only, the nature of sin can
be known, with a purpose and possibility of acting
on that knowledge, where Christ Jesus himself
76 
PROBATION.
keeps it from devouring us, that we may, under ex perience and discovery of our disease, come to Him
to be healed.  We  must have conviction of sin,
with faith in the consequences of sin, in a world
where, as yet, those consequences are kept off.  We
must believe in the consequences, and be prepared
against them, before they come.  It will be too late
afterwards.  And as to the examination of the argument from the nature of sin, and the investigation
of the state of our own hearts, if we do not examine
these things now, it will be too late to do so when
we experience them, when all that was restrained is
let loose upon us. For this examination, we must
have a laboratory in which we can breathe.  We
could not analyze gunpowder in a room where the
air was flame. We could not try the properties of
arsenic if we were compelled to breathe thie fumes
of it. Here is Christ's open laboratory, both for experiment and change.  Here is the place of the
Divine Mercy.  Here is the theatre of the sufferings
and the death of Christ, here the trial of the virtue
of His blood.  Here, and here only, the law of the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus can set us free from the
law of sin and of death.  Here is the scene and
season of the application of all the influences of a
Saviour's Cross, and all the motives of the gospel,
all the hopes of heaven, and all the terrors of hell,
all the powers of the world to come, and all the
amazing experience of the goodness of God.  When
this scene is closed, when the shop is shut up, there
can be no more such chemical experiments and
changes.  Now, the goodness of God leadeth thee to
77
I 
PROBATION.
repentance, but when  all these influences cease,
when all these merciful agencies are withdrawn,
and God lets things go into operation according to
their essence, then there will arise another demonstration, essential to the glory of God, and the good
of the universe, the demonstration of God's justice.
Then they who mocked at His warnings, and despised His long-suffering here, cannot do otherwise
than experience His justice there.  Surely He will
laugh at their calamity, He will mock when their
fear cometh.
We learn, too, from such a survey, what is tile
nature of the experiment we must make in regard
to salvation, and how to make it, and to whom we
must come, that in us the purposes of God's longsuffering may be accomplished.  There is no being
but Christ Jesus, from whom, for us, there is any
hope.  This world is Christ's world, given IHim by
the Father, that He should give eternal life to as
many as wil come to Him, as many as will believe in
Him.  He is our peace, our hope, our refuge; He
and He  only,  neither is there salvation in any
other. We owe all possibility of our salvation to
Christ, and it is both for His sake, and by Him, that
this great and wondrous system of Divine forbearance and offered mercy to the chief of sinners is
kept up, with all the wondrous remedial agencies of
providence and grace applied. Our building is in
flames, and it is just falling upon us; but Christ
Jesus stands beneath the burning rafters and holds
them; stands beneath the great arch of thle gateway,
and bears up the pillars, and cries to all to escape
78 
OntCR  to  pit.
It is appointed unto mnen once to die, but after this,
the judgment. How impressive, how solemn, even
to sadness, is this little word once. Sometimes it is
the most solemn word in our language. In many
of its connections, a world of meaning, yea, an eter nity of thought and feeling, is thrown upon it. It
stands in such a connection, and bears such a
boundless weight, in that exceeding solemn passage
from the lips of our blessed Lord, When once the
Master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the
door.  That once determines the eternity of millions.
It is appointed unto men once to die.  There are
a great many things that we can do only once.
There are opportunities that we can enjoy only once.
There are forms of trial that we can pass through
only once. There are precious peculiarities of
blessing that can light upon us only once.  If in
such cases the object fails, if their design is lost, if
the one opportunity is wasted, it can never be recovered. There is probably one decisive trial in
every man's life, one point where all the currents of
his probation pass into their eternal course. When 
It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this,
the judgment.  HIow impressive, how solemn, even
to sadness, is this little word once. Sometimes it is
the most solemn word in our language. In many
of its connections, a world of meaning, yea, an eter nity of thought and feeling, is thrown upon it. It
stands in such a connection, and bears such a
boundless weight, in that exceeding solemn passage
from the lips of our blessed Lord, When once the
Master of the houseis risen up, and hath shut to the
door.  That once determines the eternity of millions.
It is appointed unto men once to die.  There are
a great many things that we can do only once.
There are opportunities that we can enjoy only once.
There are forms of trial that we can pass through
only once.   There are precious  peculiarities of
blessing that can light upon us only once.  If in
such cases the object fails, if their design is lost, if
the one opportunity is wasted, it can never be recovered. There is probably one decisive trial in
every man's life, one point where all the currents of
his probation pass into their eternal course. When
ontf to pit   @Ie. 
ONCE TO DIE.
it comes to that, then everything is suspended on
this once. A man may have many sicknesses, many
warnings of death, but he can die only once, and
when that time comes, not all the urgencies of the
universe can put it by.
On this word once hangs all the solemnity of every
important crisis of our life; for the moment you say
twice, the solemnity and responsibility are not indeed
divided, but carried forward from the first to the
second, and then it becomes again once, and every thing of importance is thrown finally and forever
upon that once. It is only when the last opportunity
has come, that men really feel the power of this
solemnity, the weight of this responsibility. Given:
a hundred days more of life: how many of them
will the man of prayerless, irreligious habits be
likely still to spend without God and without hope
in the world, without any preparation for death and
the judgment? Or, given: a hundred days more,
not all certain, but within which some day will be
the man's last day-that is, he may not live out even
the hundred, but certainly, some day within that
number, he will die,-how long, in that case, would
he be likely to go on without repentance? We say,
without hesitation, that ordinarily, a man whose
habit of procrastination has gone with him, or has
carried him through many years unaffected by the
consideration of death and the judgment, unmoved
by what he owes to himself as an immortal being,
and to God his Creator and Judge, will not likely
be much moved by the announcement, that he has
only a hundred days remaining, and possibly not
3*
81 
ONCE TO DIE.
even a hundred.  There is scarcely a doubt that, for
the present, he would pursue the same course as
heretofore.  As he drew near towards the close of
the allotted period, he might begin to be anxious;
but, even in the very last day but one, he would be
very likely to say, There is one more opportunity,
one more day remaining: I can close up all to-morrow, and make my peace with God Or, it may be
that, under the influence of long habits of insensibility, united with a gloomy sense of the impossibility or hopelessness of change, he might say, It is
too late; I must take my chance, come what may.
In either ease, not till the very last day would he
fully realize the greatness and solemnity of the crisis.
Something like this course of combined insensibility,
anxiety and procrastination, does really take place in
almost every ease of fatal sickness; and, doubtless
under the dread power of the soul's great adversary,
a sullen despair often enters and takes possession
before there is reason for it, and the victim of sin is
struck down by those words, too late, before it really
is too late.
It is only when the last opportunity has really
come that men begin to feel the power of that one
word, once, and the solemnity of such a crisis. Only
once more!  When it comes to that, the solemnity
deepens indeed. The fast performance of any duty,
any action, any detail in the routine of life, to which
we have been long accustomed, even though it be
trivial, possesses something of this solemnity. Even
to a prisoner confined for years, and now at length
to be liberated, the last time that he should walk his
82 
ONCE TO DIE.
cell would have something of this solemnity;  and
the last remnant of any very precious thing is
solemn indeed.  Your last sight of the sun, or the
moon, or the stars, or the ocean, if you knew it was
the last, would partake of deep solemnity.  The
exile's last look at his home, his native land; the
last look of the mourner at the face of the dead; the
last farewell word or kiss of the dying,-what
unutterable solemnity may be concentrated in such
occasions!  Paul's last interview with  the dear
church at Ephesus, when they fell on Paul's neck,
and wept sore, and kissed him, sorrowing most of
all for the words which he spake, that they should
see his face no more; it was just that that made the
interview so solemn-the sight of the face of that
beloved apostle for the last time. One may remember an account of a bank note found in the pocket
of a despairing, wretched young  man, who had
destroyed himself, on which was written something
like this: My last bill; the last remnant of a fortune
miserably squandered, and I lost! Or we may remember an account of a man in a great emergency,
when life for himself and some others depended on
the instant successful kindling of a fire, finding that
there was but just one match left, their last possibility. What a concentration of interest and solemnity on that sole possibility!
But time,-when it comes to that-one more day
-your last day-your last remnant of a thing so infinitely precious as that!  Oh, who shall convey
any adequate sense of the solemnity of the last draft
of time upon eternity I What if that draft were an
83 
ONCE TO DIE.
unavailing effort of terror and despair, and on the
back of it were written those tremendous words,
Too late    I How  inexpressibly mournful  is the
lamentation, The harvest is passed, the summer is
ended, and we are not saved!  How heart-breaking
the wail, even of the weeping Saviour, over that
beautiful and beloved city, once the Zion of the
Holy One of Israel, and indulged with so many
warnings, so many waitings, so much mercy, so
much patience, so much long-suffering and forbearance, so many seasons of such gracious and gentle
visitation, so many and such precious opportunities,
precious and available, even to the last, and the last
infinitely the most precious of them all!  "Oh that
thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy
day, the things that belong to thy peace! But now
they are hid from thine eyes. How often would I
have gathered thy children, even as a hen gatheretli
her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate."
In this there is a most impressive and admonitory
appeal to every individual soul. For such is the
dread experience of multitudes of men, trifling with
Time, and permitting all precious opportunities, one
after another, to pass unregarded, unimproved, till
the last comes, and all are hidden forever! Hidden
forever as mercies, but only to reappear in another
guise; hidden from sight and from all possibility of
recovery, now, but only to come up in the judgmnent. And with what tremendous power of retribution will such despised occasions of Christ's merciful visitation come armed there! Not more terri
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ONCE TO DIE.
ble the gory apparition of murdered John the
Baptist to the startled soul of Herod, than the
avenging horror with which such murdered mercies
will pass before the conscience of the careless sin ner. Of all transactions in that Coming Day, per haps none will occasion a more intense bitterness of
remorse, and unavailing regret, or an angrier,
keener anguish of despair, than the review of slighted, wasted opportunities of eternal mercy.
Indeed, we take it to be this that is especially referred to in that incomparably solemn passage of
God's word, "Because I have called, and ye refused;
I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and
would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at
your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh:
when your fear cometh as desolation, and your
destruction as a whirlwind; when distress and
anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call
upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me
early, but they shall not find me; for that they
hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the
Lord. They would none of my counsel, they despised all my reproofs, therefore shall they eat of the
fruits of their own way, and be filled with their own
devices. For the turning away of the simple shall
slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy
them."
In this profoundly-instructive and warning passage, it is the turning away, the mere turning away
of the soul, from invitations, admonitions, opportunities of salvation, that shall accomplish the destrue
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ONCE TO DIE.
tion, otherwise not accomplished, and shall be the
very heart and seal of desolation to the lost Soul,
otherwise saved. Every gracious opportunity is
God's merciful call, every day of time, and of light
from the cross, is a new emphatic gesture of God's
outstretched hand; and when all these oft-repeated
and compassionate efforts of Divine love disregarded come up for review, with the cost at which every
one of them was exercised, and the manner in which
they were all treated, then will the sight and sense
of these things alone, were there nothing else of
judgment, be a calamity like a whirlwind, taking
away the soul.
But how  can men  persist in such madness?
What indescribable folly, what desperate fool hardiness, so to deal with time, in reference to eternity!
What madness to defer, we will not say to a convenient season, but, as generally happens in such a
case, to the last season, the soul's efforts for eternity!
Think of the madness of throwing all your fortunes,
like an insane dicer, on the last throw. If you were
merely at a distance from home, and it were necessary for you to return by a set day, you would
feel it important for you to take an early train, and
not throw the whole possibility of a seasonable re-,
turn upon the last train. And so with regard to
any and every very important interest.
Now the whole amazing weight of all these considerations comes down upon this one word ONcE,
in reference to death and the judgment that's to
follow. This very word, in the great and solemn
text in Hebrewvs, is chosen, and the whole thought
86 
ONCE TO DIE.
is arranged, with all this solemnity that we have
described, and more than all that we can conceive,
investing it. It is appointed unto men once to die,
and only once, and then they are forced across the
tremendous verge, for ETERNITY. You cannot die,
and make the experiment of what is to come after
death, and then, if you do not like it, return to have
one chance over again, or to make a new choice in
your mode of life, and your manner of entering the
eternal world. You cannot die but once, and that
once settles your life or death for eternity. It is
the last train. And yet, from the neglect of all men
to prepare for death, an unknowing beholder would
say, There must be other trains; this cannot be the
final passage.  For how can men busy themselves
with the trifles of time, in such amazing unconcern
as to the great object and end of time,-ETERNITY!
Is there anything that can give any adequate
idea of such madness? Let us suppose that Sodom
and Gomorrah had been cities in the sea, like
Venice., and that the only mode of access and departure had been by a steam-vessel, and that the
last evening before the destruction of those cities, it
had been distinctly made known that a steamer
would leave for the opposite coast precisely at the
hour of nine, the only steamer, and the last voyage
ever to be made, the last opportunity of escape from
the impending ruin. It has been distinctly announced that on the instant departure of that
steamer, the storm of fire and brimstone would burst
over the whole city in avenging flames, and there
are some professed believers in that overhanging
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ONCE TO DIE.
perdition, who have resolved to set sail in that very
steamer. But instead of being on the pier at the
appointed hour, watching and praying, they were
waiting to pack up their jewels, or to enjoy one
more social festival, one more masquerading ball in
Sodom's theatre, one more ballet dance in Gomor rah's scenic opera, or to finish one more speculation
in their city lots, in case the ground itself might not
be swallowed up, and they could return and build
again upon their property. Yet, after all this, they
hurried in their carriage to the pier, but only to
arrive there just as the steamer had cast off her
moorings, and was darting on her way. They had
but half believed that she would go; but now they
see her for the last time, and it is too late. They
had not half believed that the storm of fire would
come; but now the pitchy lurid cloud of fire and
smoke has rolled over the whole city, and the roaring of the thunder is so near, incessant and terrible,
that their souls are paralyzed with despair, and the
flakes of fire are already dropping upon them, and
there is no escape. It is manifestly too late; conviction has come too late; decision too late; there is
no remedy.
But would the terror of such despair be any adequate measure of the calamity upon the soul of
being too late for an eternal salvation?  Alas!
nothing can measure that.  And yet, the madness
of such infatuation in Sodom, such procrastination
in Gomorrah, would be some faint image of the folly
of a soul, dancing on in sin, and dreaming on from
speculation to speculation, always counting upon
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ONCE TO DIE'.
time, and neglecting, till too late, all preparation for
death and Eternity. It is possible to be prepared;
to be prepared to-day, in case you should be called
to-morrow. Yea, by going to Christ to-day, it is
possible to be so prepared, that if to-night thy soul
should be required of thee, to-night thou shouldst
be with Jesus in Paradise.  What infinite madness
thlerefore to delay! If you could not be prepared
till some future period, then were there some excuse
for some little procrastination; but where grace is
at your disposal now, if you will accept of it, what
madness to neglect it! If you were sure of another
opportunity, you cannot be sure that then it will be
available.
The other day, just as a railroad  train had
started, a man was seen at the top of his speed to
overtake the cars, and he barely succeeded in laying hold of the handle to throw himself upon tihe
steps, when his foot missed, and he was thrown by
the very violence of his motion under the wheels
of the cars, and died instantly. He was too late,
and the very effort to recover his last and lost opportunity, destroyed him.
Again, the other day, just as a steamer was starting from the ferry, a man was seen to rush in reckless haste to the edge of the floating pier, and thence
with all the impetus of his motion, leaped for the
deck of the steamer, but even while he was leaping,
the distance had enlarged, and he sunk beneath the
boiling billows.   He was too late; and the very
recklessness of despair hurried him to his ruin.  So
it is with multitudes who have put off a passage in
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ONCE TO DIE.
the Ark of Salvation to the last opportunity, and
the last is too late.
Not long since in England, a grave, respectable
man, perhaps sixty years of age, stood by the cars
just as they were starting, undecided whether to go
or not. There were friends within the carriage,
urging him to step on board, but he kept saying,
"No, not this time," and yet kept hold upon the
very handle of the door, half inclined to go, and
balancing between going and staying, when the
motion of the cars threw him from his balance, and
before they could be stopped, he was crushed to
death between the cars and the platform.  Hie was
undecided up to the last moment, till it was too
late, and his very indecision was the cause of his
destruction. So it is in multitudes of cases, with
those who mean to go, but are never quite ready,
not just now, not just this opportunity, till already
it is the last opportunity, and the unhappy victim
of indecision and procrastination knows it not.
With great power of solemnity the once employed
in scripture, on the subject of death and the judgment, teaches us the hazard of the habit of delay.
It is the habit that all men have formed, who have
not fled to Jesus Christ from the storm of fire that
is coming. Every day it grows stronger and
stronger. Every day there is greater power of selfdelusion, persuading you that to-morrow shall be as
this day, and much more abundant, while every
day there is greater certainty that to-morrow will
not be as this day, and greater probability that tomorrow may be the day when you shall meet the
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ONCE TO DIE.
decisive once of the text, that is to settle your whole
eternal destiny. Are you prepared to die? If not,
every hour of your life is madness, and every action
of your life is a new mortgage of Satan upon you.
Are you prepared to die? Thus only are you the
master of your own life, but otherwise, it is conm pletely in the power of Satan, and may remain so to
the last moment. Are you thinking to be prepared? Ten thousand thousand have been thinking in the same way, and while thinking, have died.
Are you yet undecided?   Then you are leaving
death itself to decide the matter for you, and if
death decides for you, he decides against you.
Then, too, every time you think of being prepared,
of coming to Christ, and do not come, you deliberately decide against him. It is not merely saying,
by and by, but positively declaring, not now. After every such negative, your likelihood of dying
unprepared is greatly increased. Your habit of deciding wrong is strengthened, your habit of indecision as to the right is strengthened also.   The
case is mightily against you, if you do not break
from this habit, this very day.   If you leave the
decision to sickness to startle and impel you, the
probability is, nay, the almost certainty, that you
leave it to death. Take your health, and not your
sickness, take your hour of life, and not of death,
for going to Christ.. Take to-day, for that is the
direction of the Holy Ghost, and only when you
obey God to the letter are you sure of salvation.
91 
THE doctrine of a day of judgment, and the details respecting it, are matters of pure revelation.
Our natural theology, through the human conscience,
and by the convictions of mankind, in view of the
inequalities and imperfections of the present state as
the system of a moral Governor, does indeed demonstrate a future reckoning and righting of all things
in regard to the righteous and the wicked-demonstrates a future state of retribution. But of a day
of judgment, and of the appointments and arrangements of God in regard to it, there is nothing taught
outside the Book of Revelation. All pretended new
revelations in regard to these things, so far as there
is any truth in them, are but fire stolen from God's
word, and palmed upon the world as new, original
discoveries; and this is a species of plagiarism of
which none but a being who could say, Evil, be
thou my good! would dare be at the foundation.
Accordingly, it is found to be a characteristic of all
such pretended discoveries, that they diminish the
sanctions of God's word. Their object is, not to
give us higher truth, but to narrow, degrade and
falsify, or neutralize the truth already in our keep
itV if uB#RR1tnt 
THE JUDGMENT.
ing. Whatever they teach is lower than that which
is already taught, and diminishes its sanctions. If
there were many such progressive revelations, all
positive truth would at length be annihilated. There
are two passages in regard to all such pretended
revelators, that stand as fiery cherubim, with drawn
swords, at the gates of the sacred word, before which
one would think the most daring soul would tremble.
"There be some," says Paul, "that would trouble
you, perverting the gospel of Christ. But though
we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other
gospel than that which we have preached, let him
be accursed." The other passage is that at the close
of John's Revelation: "If any man shall add unto
these things, God shall add unto him the plagues
that are written in this book. And if any man shall
take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book
of Life."
The revelations which God has given to us in
regard to the day of judgment for mankind, are
remarkably connected with information concerning
two other grand subjects-namely, the judgment of
the fallen angels, and the change or destruction of
the material universe.   The passages that teach
these things are sublime and explicit; they are like
sudden bursts of thunder from heaven; and being
uttered, there they are left, and not a word is added;
-an example of solemn silence, full of awe. " If
God spared not the angels that sinned," says Peter,
"but cast them down to hell, and delivered them
into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judg
93
t. 
TIHIE JUDGMIENT.
ment, the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly
out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the
day of judgment, to be punished."  "The angels
which kept not their first estate," says Jude, "but
left their own habitation, Hie hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, to the judgment of
the great day."
"Of old," says David, in the 102d Psalm,  "hast
Thou laid the foundation of the earth, and the
heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall
perish, but Thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall
wax old like a garment. As a vesture shalt Thou
change them, and they shall be changed. But Thou
art the same, and Thy years shall have no end."
Now, in reference to those who denied or disbelieved
such a coming change in the material universe, in
connection with a general last judgment, Peter says
that they are wilfully ignorant; that the same
heavens and earth which by the word of God were
created, are by the same word kept in store, reserved
unto fire, against the day of judgment, and perdition
of ungodly men.
Now, these things are such accompaniments or
forerunners of the judgment, that of their infinite
awfulness and sublimity we can have no possible
adequate conception. By these heavens the psalmist
meant all that the eye could reach, all that the human
mind could know, of the expanse of rolling worlds.
All this universe is to be burned up.  "Lift up
your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth
beneath," exclaims Isaiah, in reference to this destruction.  Go forth of a starry evening, gaze upon
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THE JUDGMENT.
the countless glittering orbs above, beneath, around
your own small globe, and think of Jehovah as
folding them all up together like a worn-out gar ment, and whelming them in a universal sheet of
fire! It is a great triumph of faith to bring these
things as realities within the scope, not only of our
conception, but confident belief. The sacred writers
seem to have had no more doubt upon these subjects
than they had in regard to the simplest practical
truths of the gospel; indeed, they appeal to these
tremendous revelations for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness, just as they do to
the plainest disclosures of man's responsibility. We
can go no farther than the sacred writers; but as far
as they go, we are bound reverentially and solemnly
to follow.
On one of the most memorable and explicitly
recorded occasions of Paul's preaching (that is,
before Felix), it is said that he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. The main
body of his discourse seems to be here described;
and it is added, after mention of the judgment to
come, that at that point in the sermon, Felix trembled.
This was indeed one of those terrors of the Lord,
with which the preachers of the gospel were instructed by the Holy Spirit to knock at the door of
mrnen's hearts.  "For we must all stand before the
judgment-seat of Christ.  Knowing, therefore, the
terrors of the Lord, we persuade men." This recorded sermon of Paul, or the brief note which we
have of it, is a single illustration of the impressive
style in which he and his fellow ministers of Christ
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THE J UIDGAIENT.
labored for the awakening and salvation of an immortal soul. It had been given to Paul, according
to the Redeemer's promise, to know both what and
how he ought to speak;  and under the guidance
of that Divine inspiration, every thought and sentence of his discourse was conducted. Hie was to
preach concerning the faith in Christ; and, first of
all, in the chariot of the terrors of the Lord, he drove
directly at the conscience of Felix.  No other mode
of dealing would have been suitable for such an
audience, even if it had not been Paul's habit, under
the teaching of the Hioly Spirit, thus to make the
law a schoolmaster, to bring the soul to Christ.
But Felix was a very bad man, and if fragrance and
flowers would not win even a common sinner, or
bring hiim to his senses, much more would it have
been lost upon this Romano,Jewish Judge.  He
was a villain in state-robes and ermines; and yet,
the word of God, under Paul's management, did get
hold upon him, and we doubt not, mainly by that
power of the judgment to come.  With what majesty and glory would Paul have demonstrated the
claims of the Divine Law, and the nature of that
holiness, without which no man shall see God.
WVith what pungency to a guilty conscience would
hie have portrayed the self-denial and habitual purity
of heart and life required by the Supreme Jehovah!
But if he had stopped there, probably the iron
wAould not have entered into Felix's soul, although
Felix knew in his inmost heart that hlie was himself
a person of a manner of life right contrary to all
that Paul had been insisting on. Yet men can very
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THtE JUDGMENT.
quietly listen to essays on the nature and the obli gations of virtue and holiness, and the baseness of
vice, and say amen to the whole of such a preach ment, if you stop short of retribution and the ven geance of eternal fire. The beauty of holiness and
the ugliness of sin even the most sinful men admit.
But Paul did not stop there, but drove on with his
burning eloquence, and carried Felix pale and
trembling into the eternal world, beneath the terrors
of the Lord God of an eternal judgment. He reasoned not only of righteousness and temperance,
but of the judgment to come, where every transgression of God's holy law, should meet a just recompense of reward. That tremendous judgment to
come! It is the first and only note we have, in the
divine record, of any of Paul's sermons on that subject. What would not the whole intellectual and
Christian world give to have heard that sermon.
Yet we can tell, pretty nearly, from Paul's own compositions, in what style of argument and imagery
he would have thundered with God's artillery upon
the conscience. We need only to connect a few sentences from his own Epistles to show what must
have been the tenor of his appeal on this solemn
subject. "For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness
of men.  And we are sure, Oh Felix, that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who
commit such things. And thinkest thou this, Oh
manai, who judgest them that do such things, and
doest the same, that thou shall escape the judgment
of God? or despisest thou the riches of his goodness
5
97 
THE JUDGIAENT.
and forbearance, and long suffering; not knowing
that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?   But after thy hardness and impenitent
heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the
day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.  For he will render to every man according to his deeds; to those who by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory and honor
and immortality, eternal life; but to those that
obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon
every soul of man that doeth evil. For is God unrighteous that taketh vengeance?   God forbid!
For then how shall God judge the world? Yea,
and he will judge it with the righteous judgment of
God, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from
heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, talking vengeance on them that know not God, and
that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory
of his power, when he shall come to that devouring
judgment."
But all this reasoning of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come, was only preparatory,
on Paul's part, at the door of Felix's conscience, for
the introduction of the claims of the Saviour and
the cross. Hle did not indeed begin with the cross,
but grappled the law first upon the conscience of
his hearer, preparatory to bringing the man to
Christ Jesus. Hie seems to have thought that it
would be but a waste of words to tell a heedless
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THE JUDGMENT.
hardened hypocrite like the corrupt judge before
him, of the character and claims of a Redeemer, un less he could convince the man of his own sin, and
then he intended to have displayed  the whole
scheme and glory of the gospel, and the mercy of
the Lord Jesus to the chief of sinners.  And he
would doubtless have gone on preaching Christ to
Felix, had not Felix's impatience and procrastination stopped him. When Felix began to tremble,
the man certainly was not far from the kingdom of
heaven. If he had cried out, Oh man of God, what
shall I do to be saved, or if in silent anguish of soul
at the view of his unveiled guilt and condemnation
before God's law, he had humbly waited to hear of
a crucified and forgiving Saviour, then might the
result have been the triumphant conversion of the
Jewish Judge, and his translation into the kingdom
of heaven. But at the very first pangs of conviction, he broke up the whole audience; he would
stay to hear no longer, but concealing his sense of
guilt and his terrors of conscience, he cried out, go
thy way for this time; when I have a convenient
season I will call for thee. It was not so much
procrastination, for it is doubtful if he had the least
design of recurring again to the subject; but it was
the sense of guilt, and the terror of conscience,
under this sudden and unexpected revelation of the
judgment which he could not and would not endure. It is appointed unto men once to die, and
after that the judgment; and that judgment was
a power of the world to come, appalling and intolerable to the guilty soul.
99
I -
..:11. 
THE JUDGMENT.
It always is. Next to the reality of eternity, rises
that form of truth and justice on the soul, which
stands in the gate of eternity-that reckoning with
God-that discovery, decision, and judgment of
character for an eternal destiny-that day of doom
-that last decisive day! Once death; and after
that, the judgment! Death is a power of this world;
eternity and judgment are powers of the world to
come. The idea of that day of doom receives its
grandeur and its horror from the stupendous reality
of that eternity to which it is the introduction; and
the idea of eternity itself, on the other hand, owes
its solemnity and power over the conscience to the
certainty of judgment, and an endless destiny in
heaven or hell. Considering the interminable array
of all that has passed in the guilty experience and
history of the whole human race; that it is all to be
recovered, in all its personal relations, and to sweep
again before the mind, beneath God's eye, in that
day of doom; and considering the certainty and infinitude of what is to follow, the idea of judgment,
next after that of God and eternity, is the mightiest,
the most comprehensive, the most solemn and
weighty, of all human ideas.  All other conceptions
of the mind are transitory and insignificant in the
comparison. It is a power of the world to come,
which, when it once takes hold upon the sinful
mind, fills it with an overmastering terror, that
nothing but the hope of Christ's mercy can allay.
Under the conviction and dread of its nearness, the
souls of men have often been stirred, in great masses,
with agitation, horror and dismay. Sometimes,
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THE JUDGMENT.
whole cities have poured forth their inhabitants
weeping, wailing, fainting, dying, at the very thought
that the day of judgment was nigh; sometimes, an
earthquake, or the sun's eclipse, or any great portent
of dissolving nature, such as we might suppose will
usher in that day, has thrown a whole community
into such prevailing and despotic fear, that all business has been suspended, all thoughts of earth and
energies of mind have been paralysed, and men have
stood shivering and pale in expectation. There have
been seasons when men have anticipated daily the
thunder of the trumpet that shall wake the dead.
These mighty agitations show that this power of
the world to come, this idea of the day of judgment,
is as a ground-wave in men's convictions, and, when
moved by the wind from eternity, sweeps everything
before it. It is because we are a guilty race, and
have a guilty, accusing conscience, and a sense of
responsibility to God, and a foreboding of Divine
justice; it is because that day of judgment is believed and known to be the day of doom, eternal,
unalterable, according to the declaration of God,
that we must all appear before the judgment-seat of
Christ, that every one may receive the things done
in his body, according to that he hath done, whether
good or bad. Even where the light of Divine revelation has not reached, there has been this brooding
sense of the judgment to come-sometimes more
definite, sometimes less so, but always active and
powerful, according to the activity of men's consciences. Yet men keep it at bay, as they do the
devouring fire of conscience itself, which they ward
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THE JUDGMENT.
off by an insensibility, sustained by their all-engrossing devotion to the things seen and temporal.  The
things unseen and eternal are thus hidden, and kept
out of view; so that it is wonderful to see how near
men dwell upon the verge of them, and yet how
distant they live from them-ihow far off they hold
them —how dim and faint their thought and vision
of them.  And for this very neglect and strangeness,
so much the more overwhelming is the terror with
which these realities take hold upon the soul, when
they suddenly advance upon it, and stand forth to
the quickened imagination as just bursting on the
world.  The actual belief of the judgment, in its
nearness, is a thing against which the soul cannot
stand. It drops everything else, as a man engaged
in a midnight robbery drops his spoil and flies, when
the officers of justice break upon him.  Confronted
with the terrors of the Lord, it cannot endure them.
If this day of doom were announced throughout
the crowded city, as to break upon the world tomorrow, or next week, and men really believed it,
who can describe the mighty change that would be
effected; the dropping of men's schemes of business
and pleasure; the relinquishment of their unrighteous
and ill-gotten gains; the abandonment of commerce;
the solemnity and loneliness of'change; the astonishment, anxiety and terror, that would sway the
streets; how men's hearts would fail them, and all
faces would gather blackness, and many would go
insane, and many would die, from the mere excess
of sudden fright and conviction I Yet now they are
wholly at ease and quiet; they dream on in their
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THE JUDGMENT.
fancied security, dancing on the verge of doom, and
this power of the world to come has as yet no grasp
upon them.  When Felix trembles, the god of this
world is at hand to shield him from the truth; he
betakes himself to his merchandise, or rushes into
the next nighit's ball, or draws around him the scenic
shows of an opera, or busies himself deeper than
ever in his successful worldly speculations. For
thus, and with a mighty despotism of worldliness,
the things seen and temporal intercept before the
vision of the eternal.  The fires are burning there,
waiting there, the revelations and the fires of judgment; and the midnight horizon of the soul sometimes glows ruddy and wild with their light; and
the brooding, dreaming, restless, anxious thoughts
reflect it, just as the low clouds gleam through the
darkness in the fire of a distant conflagration. But
still, because sentence against an evil work is not
executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of
men is fully set in them to do evil.
Now in perfect correspondence with these mysterious depths of man's nature, in which God seems
to have set, as in the bottom fountain of a well, the
deep reflection of some of heaven's profoundest
truths, and from which we sometimes hear rolling
up, as from subterranean gongs, the vast reverberation of voices from the powers of the world to
come; in perfect correspondence with these buried,
muttered thunderings of conscience, God has concentrated, in the terms of His own revelation of this
day of doom, some of the most solemn and mightiest images of grandeur and glory. In correspond
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THE JUDGMENT.
ence with the regency, the kingly power in the soul,
of this terrible consciousness of accountability to
God, and of an advancing day of reckoning and
retribution, God has invested its announcement with
a dread array of images, of tempestuous magnifi cence and sublimity. It reminds us of many pas sages in Habbakuk and the Prophets, and the
Psalms: Clouds and darkness, trembling and burning mountains, the cleaving cataract-sound of many
waters, the channels of the great deep upturned,
lightnings and thunderings, hail-stones and coals of
fire I Before him went the pestilence, and burning
coals were under his feet. And he rode upon a
cherub, and did fly; yea, he did fly upon the wings
of the wind. The wreathing smoke, the bickering
flames, the arrowy darting fires, the bowing heavens,
the pavilion of dark waters, the blast of the breath
of his nostrils, the elements themselves on fire, and
melting with fervent heat, the heavens dissolved,
and worlds fleeing with a great noise from the face
of God; these are some of the draperies let fall before the breaking of that Day. "I beheld in the
night visions till the thrones were cast down, and
the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was
white as snow, and the hair of his head like the
pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and
his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued
and came forth from before him; the judgment was
set, and the books were opened."  " I saw a great
white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose
face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there
was found no place for them. And I saw the dead,
104 
THE JUDGMENT.
small and great, stand before God, and the books
were opened, and the dead were judged out of those
things which were written in the books, according
to their works. And the sea gave up the dead
which were in it, and death and hell delivered up
the dead which were in them, and they were judged
every man, according  to their works."   "And
Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied,
Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his
saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their
ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." "Behold he
cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him,
and they also that pierced him, and all kindreds of
the earth shall wail because of him."
But of all the solemn references to that great
Day, and descriptions of it, the one by our Blessed
Lord, in the 25th chapter of Matthew, with its grave
and awful minuteness and yet vastness of detail, is
the most overwhelming.  "When the Son of Man
shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with
him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory,
and before him shall be gathered all nations; and
he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And he
shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats
on the left. Then shall the King say to them on
his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Then shall he say also unto
105
I
I 
THE JUDGMENT.
them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels. And these shall go away into everlasting
punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."
And these things are near us, pressing, crowding
upon us. Only death keeps them off; once death,
then the judgment. How strange it is that we can,
with so little effort, put these realities so far from
us, that in effect, if there were an Eternity between
them and us, we could hardly be less excited by
them! The things present and temporal are set by
us as a screen before the things unseen and eternal.
Oh that God would mercifully, by his grace, break
up this blinding habit, remove our insensibility,
and inspire within us that daily and perpetual faith,
which shall be in us "the victory that overcometh
the world!"
In the admirable writings of Jane Taylor there is
a poem entitled, "The World in the Heart."  It is
a beautiful and searching chapter in the christian
conflict, and in some of its lines the nearness of the
things eternal is presented with a solemn and startling impressiveness; and the sense of that nearness
is truly described as an experience, of which the
most careless minds are not always destitute, though
alas, in most cases, it is transitory and ineffectual,
the soul being careful and troubled about many
other things. The world in the heart is a dreadfully successful barricade against the powers of the
world to come.
And yet, amid the hurry, toil, and strife,
The claims, the urgencies, the whirl of life,
106
- I
71 
THE JUDGMENT.
The soul-perhaps in silence of the nightHas flashes, transient intervals of light;
When things to come, without a shade of doubt,
In terrible reality stand out.
Those lucid moments suddenly present
A glance of truth, as though the heavens were rent;
And through that chasm of pure celestial light
The future breaks upon the startled sight.
Life's vain pursuits, and Time's advancing pace,
Appear, with death-bed clearness, face to face,
And Immiortality's expanse sublime,
In just proportion to the speck of Time;
While Death, uprising from the silent shades,
Shows his dark outline ere the vision fades.
In strong relief against the blazing sky
Appears the shadow, as it passes by
And though o'erwhelming to the dazzled brain,
Those are the moments when the mind is sane.
For then, a hope of Heaven,-the Saviour's cross,
Seem what they are, and all things else but loss.
Oh, to be ready! ready for that day!
Would we not give earth's fairest toys away?
Alas! how soon its interests cloud the view,
Rush in, and plunge us in the world anew I
107 
ta tR r   n} MfRt+
THERE is a sense of the future judgment in the
heart. Every sinful being is conscious of it. There
is no sin ever committed, but it carries with it a
monition, a prediction,-I shall meet that sin again.
The mind travels forward, with the speed of
thought, to the time when all things shall pass in
review. The consideration of that review may not
always be distinct in the consciousness; nay, there
may be, there almost always is, a shrinking back
from the idea of the future judgment, an attempt to
avoid its acknowledgment. Men avoid looking in
the face the thought which nevertheless springs up
in the soul, For all these things God will bring thee
into judgment. If this declaration of God's word,
echoed as it is in the depths of men's being, were
listened to seriously, it would prevent a great many
sins. A man is engaged in some sinful indulgence,
pursuing some unholy train of thought, prosecuting
some wrong enterprise, committing some unlawful
action, perhaps simply making some malicious or
ill-natured remarks. Meantime there is a murmur,
sometimes distinct, sometimes indistinct, going on
fermatioits of (ORtiatgI~tlt in rtf-tR~tiR 
AFFIRMATIONS OF CONSCIENCE.
in his conscience. If now he would stop and listen,
and while he listens, think what conscience is speak ing and meaning, it would often arrest the evil; if
he would say, when conscience murmurs, Speak
louder! What were you saying?  There is often
this threatful muttering in a man's being, this sup pressed rebellion of his moral sense, when he does
not notice it, or rather, he is so accustomed to disregard it, to give it, as we say, the "go by," that he
lets it sound on, and it makes no abiding impression.
Just so, externally, persons become accustomed to
the noise of a factory, though the whirring of the
machinery when it is heard for the first time, is
quite stunning.   So persons on the sea-shore become accustomed to the roar of ocean, and it ceases
to excite notice, whilst persons from the inland are
filled by it with the most sublime impressions.
But we easily become more accustomed and insensible to the motions of our inward being, than
our external senses do to external sounds. Amidst
sin, or sinful indulgence, we do not like to listen to
the voice of conscience, and would rather she would
speak in indistinct murmurings, than in clear tones.
But if men would attend to what is going on within
them, a great deal of sin and misery might often be
saved. It requires a great deal of hardihood and
obduracy to look conscience distinctly in the face,
and with her eye, like that of God, upon you, proceed to the very sin against which she warns you.
Let a man's attention in such a case be wholly given
to his conscience, and it will stay his sin. But the
attention in such a case is so occupied with the sin,
109 
AFFIRMATIONS OF CONSCIENCE
that the face of conscience is hidden, and the voice
of conscience, though it sounds on, is like a whisper
in the presence of a cataract.  But when the noise
of passion has subsided, then the sound of conscience  for a season is awfully clear; when the
crime is committed, the soul is at leisure to attend
to itself; then at once it hears the judgment now
past, and remembers the warning before given.
Now  if men  would beforehand attend to conscience as they do afterwards, it would make a great
difference in their conduct. If every man, in pursuing a course which he doubts or suspects is
wrong, if every man, in entering into temptation,
would let conscience speak out, would attend to her
uneasy moanings, and would say, What is it?
Speak, for I will listen; then, that indistinct feeling
of condemnation, indistinct in the presence of passion, but awfully distinct in the remembrance,
would become clear; loud, alarming.  The indistinct idea of sin, of God, and of the judgment,
would become as if an angel had stood in your
way, and had said, This is wrong, God sees you, for
this there will be judgment.
The voice of conscience always speaks with reference to the judgment.  The voice of conscience is
not merely condemnatory, but prophetic. It is not
merely by the present sense of sin that conscience
acts so powerfully, but by the sense of a coming
condemnation. Conscience is a prophetic miniature
of the judgment, in that inward court which she
holds in the soul.  God will bring thee into judgment, God will bring thee into judgment; this is
110 
IN REFERENCE TO THE JUDGMENT.
what she is evermore repeating; this constitutes
her sanction, the foundation of her power. This is
the essence of all those forebodings, those gloomy
presentiments, that sometimes fill the souls of wicked
men, and which they vainly strive to dissipate.
There is sometimes a state in the sinner's soul like
that chill rawness in the atmosphere, which pre cedes a wintry storm; there is a gloomy shivering,
when there are, as yet, no clouds; the guilty mind
may hear the distant moaning of the storm, when
as yet it has not darkened the horizon.   It is a
striking expression in the scriptures in regard to
the wicked, that a dreadful sound is in their ears.
It is there, whether they attend to it or not, just as
the roar of ocean is still there, though men living
by the sea-side cease to notice it.
Wicked men so accustom themselves to live upon
the borders of the ocean of eternity, and to dance
and trifle on its shores, listening only to the music
of their own sins, that the sounds that come across
it are scarcely ever attended to.  And yet, there it
is before them, the ocean of eternity, and a sense of
it is always brooding over the mind, and there is
sometimes a consciousness of it. Sometimes the
sense of it is like a night-mare upon the soul, for
which men know not how to account. Sometimes
their indistinct sense of what is buried in the future
pursues them into the midst of their busiest occupations, their most absorbing pleasures, and the worm
of conscience is gnawing away in secret, when
there is the consuming care of gain, or the flush of
wine, or the excitement of the dance upon the coun
ill 
AFFIRMATIONS OF CONSCIENCE
tenance. Many men have these seasons, who never
tell of them; hear this dreadful sound, who never
mention it to others. I doubt not that sometimes
professed infidels have written their works beneath
this brooding sense of indistinct avenging evil in
Eternity. There was something in the very bosoms
of Hlume and Voltaire, that was always giving the
lie to their own pages.
Sometimes, when such men come near to death,
the cloud is all lifted, a lurid light strikes through
it, the inward eye sees far out over the ocean of
eternity, the inward ear is rendered keenly and
painfully sensitive to the tempest sounds that come
booming and wailing across it. Sometimes even
great and hardened sinners enter into the shades of
avenging retribution before they die. We have
seen a man of great powers of mind, great experience in guilty pleasure, great contempt for religion,
great wit and richness of intellect in conversation,
beneath a gloom so deep under the hand of disease,
that we could scarcely doubt that the images of the
despised future were  busy. with him; the spirits
with which his evil life had peopled the eternal
world were beginning to return upon him, to peer
in through the darkness of his infidelity, to show
their dreadful faces, and to wake up the snakes
in his own heart, coiled in his conscience. We
shall never forget the expression of that man's
countenance, as we once saw him gazing into the
pale face of a dead man, a former companion of his
pleasures, carried beneath the window in a coffin.
How often, when we little think it, are the wicked
112 
IN REFERENCE TO THE JUDGMENT.
like the troubled sea, whose waters cast up mire and
dirt!
A  very graphic writer describes an interview
with an imprisoned murderer, who, at the close of
the conversation, "folded his arms, leaned back
against the wall, and appeared to sink gradually
into one of his reveries. I looked him in the face,
and spoke to him, but he did not seem either to
hear or see me.  His mind was perhaps wandering
in that dreadful valley of the shadow of death, into
which the children of earth, while living, occasionally find their way; that dreadful region where
there is no water, where hope dwelleth not, where
nothing lives but the undying worm. This valley
is the fac-simile of hell, and he who has entered it,
has experienced here on earth, for a time, what the
spirits of the condemned are doomed to suffer
through ages without end."
It is a fearful thing to see a man passing through
that valley, beset by the fiends in it, his sins having
found him out and fastened upon him. But if it is
dreadful to see another in it, how much more
dreadful to experience it!  And yet, perhaps insensibility is worse. It has sometimes been witnessed.
A notice of the death of Hume, by a thoughtful and
masterly observer sets the fearfulness of such insensibility in great solemnity before us.  "We behold
him," says John Foster, "appointed soon to appear
before that Judge, to whom he had never alluded
but with malice or contempt; yet preserving to
appearance an entire self-complacency, idly jesting
about his approaching dissolution, and mingling
113
4 
AFFIRMATIONS OF CONSCIENCE
with the insane sport his references to the fall of
superstition, a term of which the meaning is hardly
ever dubious, when expressed by such men. We
behold him at last carried off, and we seem to hear,
the following moment, from the darkness in which
he vanishes, the shriek of surprise and terror, and
the overpowering accents of the messenger of
vengeance. On the whole globe there probably
was not acting, at the time, so mournful a tragedy,
as that of which the friends of Hfume were the
spectators, without being aware that it was any
tragedy at all."
flow dreadful to face death with conscience for an
enemy! In such a position, how powerfully does
conscience act with reference to the judgment!
What instruction may be gathered from the keen
desire of restitution for fraud and injustice, sometimes evinced on a dying bed, and often also in a
season of health, beneath powerful conviction of sin!
It seems as if the soul could not die beneath a sense
of injustice to others, unconfessed and unatoned for.
The soul often seeks atonement in restitution. But
who shall make restitution to God for a life of injustice, ingratitude, injury towards him? And if
fraud and wrong towards a fellow-creature can so
afflict and torture the soul, when it comes to be
remembered and felt even in this world, what will be
the misery produced by a sight and sense of sin in
eternity as committed against God?
The doctrine of the atonement once revealed, it
does not seem possible that any man who believes
in a future judgment, and has ever looked into his
114 
IN REFERENCE TO THE  JUDGMENT.
own heart, can have the hardihood to reject so divine
a truth. Accordingly we find that with its denial,
men have coupled the disbelief of the judgment,
and the denial of a future endless retribution.
Perhaps we ought to say, the a1ttenpt at such disbelief, for every man's own moral constitution makes
him a believer, however unwilling. And when a
man looks over his own life, and into his own heart,
and begins to realise in some measure the nature of
that revelation, which is to take place in eternity,
What can he do? There is no reparation that he
can make, no restitution that he can offer to God.
But with infinite power of consolation to a wounded
conscience the divine reality of the atonement rises
on the soul. Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh
away the sin of the world I
115 
IN one of the sea-side sermons by our blessed
Lord, beneath the unclouded sky and sweet, open
air of Judea, He told the people (and the Omniscience
of God, the meanwhile, seemed brooding upon them,
in the all-surrounding transparency of cloudless
light) that "there was nothing hid that should not
be manifested, neither anything kept secret, but that
it should come abroad."
Two propositions are contained in this disclosure.
The first is, that there is nothing hid which shall not
be manifested; the second, that the purpose for
which anything, for a time, is kept secret-the reason
why such temporary secresy is permitted, is, that it
shall come abroad. We could not have known
either of these propositions, had not He who knoweth
all things revealed them to us. They embrace a
great universe of truth; the nature of our probation
and accountability; the certainty of a future judgment; the justification of God's present government,
under which so many crimes seem to go concealed
and unpunished; and the fact, that these things are
permitted now, only to be revealed and set right
hereafter. Had not God taught us this truth, and
,C iscttaurt5 of tie #u~gmatit 
DISCLOSURES OF THE JUDGMENT.
made us thus to look into futurity, we should have
supposed that many things might forever remain
unknown, except to the beings who transacted them;
or, at any rate, that thoughts, purposes and feelings,
inscrutable by mortal sight, might remain eternally
hidden from mortal knowledge. But God tells us
that there is nothing hid which shall not be manifested; and this proposition extends to the thoughts
and intents of the heart, and leaves nothing, either
of event or motive, out of its circle. All things shall
be manifested, shall be made manifest, shall come
abroad, shall be introduced to others' knowledge.
All things are known to God, and cannot be otherwise; but they shall also be made known to others.
There is no place of concealment, and no such thing
as concealment, in the universe.
In the first place, there is a sense in which there
is nothing, even in the counsels and works of God,
which shall not be manifested by Him, for His glory.
All things were planned and made for the display
of His perfections; and even as it pleases, and when
it pleases, the great and glorious Sovereign of the
universe, the veil shall be taken from them, and they
shall be known. The strength and acuteness of
reason in God's intelligent creatures shall be employed in searching out His works and ways forever;
a blessed employment, which, by reason of the infinitude and incomprehensibility of God's perfections,
must be eternal. And God will forever make such
manifestations of Himself to all holy beings as will
forever increase their glory and blessedness.
But, in the second place, and in a more absolute,
117 
118     DISCLOSURES OF TIlE JUDGemENT.
unlimited sense, there is nothing out of God, nothing
in His creatures, now hidden, which shall not be
manifested; there is nothing in the counsels and
works of man, nothing thought, nothing spoken,
nothing acted, in secresy, in darkness, which shall
not be made known. No length of time, nor depth
of loneliness, is any security of concealment. No
oblivion'can cover a single transaction, either inward
or external; no interval of forgetfulness can banish
one circumstance, or dim or wear away one past
reality, or diminish its brightness. And thoughts are
realities more eternal than things. Thoughts lead
to things, give birth to them, and dwell forever with
them; and neither thought nor thing can be annihilated, or its trace perish. Ages on ages might roll
on, and no remembrance occur, no association bring
it up, no indication take place, by which the existence of such a fact might be dreamed or suspected;
but having once been, it is eternal; and when it is
reneweu in the mind, the present and the past consciousness shall be brought together, and made as
distinctly and clearly one, as if no interval of time
had elapsed. It shall be as if a vacuum between
two objects were removed-as if two leaves of a
book, that had been torn asunder, and removed to
distant and different quarters of the globe, had been
brought together, there being no interruption of the
sense by that removal. There is no more separation
of the mind's identity and consciousness from any
thought or event in its past existence, whatever interval of time may have elapsed, or different experience ensued, though it were whole ages, than there 
DISCLOSURES OF THIE JUDGMENT.
would be between the sense of these words, on the
bottom of a page in John's gospel, " The hour is
coming, in the which all;" and those words that begin
the next page, " That are in the graves shall hear Hfis
voice,"-than there would be between these two propositions, if you were to tear these words asunder,
and carry the last without the first into Asia Minor.
Whenever these words are brought again together,
the whole sense again is as perfect as if they never
were separated; and so it is with the mind's identity
and consciousness.
The past can no more be separated from the present, than the present from the future.  A  thing
may for the present be forgotten, but it cannot be
lost, being an eternal possession of the mind, a transaction of its stewardship, for which account must
be given. It may be buried in utter forgetfulness,
nearly the whole span of a man's life; but the
smallest, most trivial association may reproduce it.
Sometimes the mind suddenly and unaccountably
goes back and lives over again in perfect freshness
a scene of its past being, not remembered for years.
A  mote in the sunbeam, an odor wafted on the
wind, a tone in the voice, a strain of music, a falling leaf, the shape of a cloud, the title of a book,
the glance of an eye, the song of a bird, a color in
the sky, may bring it all up at once, without an
effort of the will, or a thought that seemed leading
to it.  There may have been that in the scene,
which the soul would fervently wish could be annihilated; there may have been that, which is of
such a nature, that the soul itself would rather now
119 
120     DISCLOSURES OF THE JUDGMENT.
be itself annihilated, than dwell with the remembrance of it.  But involuntarily, unsought for, in
spite of will, wishes, fears, up it comes. A man
can trace no magic circle for his being, within which
the past shall not intrude; within which he can
stand in safety, and stretch his wand of power, and
say to the pale ghosts of his sins flocking towards
him from the darkness, Keep off! They will not
mind him, and sometimes they seem to come crowding and shoaling towards him all at once, struggling
for the mastery. IHe can separate himself from no
past frame or experience, habit or action, thought
or result, of his being. Neither the evil nor the
good can be forgotten. In this sense also the words
of Ecclesiastes are true, The thing that hath been, it
is that which shall be; unto the place from whence
the rivers come, thither they return again.
More than three thousand years ago a handful of
grain was deposited in an Egyptian tomb. More
than three thousand years passed away, and the
buried grain was discovered. It had all the germinating properties of life hidden within it, and
when, after this long interval, it was planted in a
garden in London, it sprang up, and produced its
appropriate harvest. So it is with buried, hidden,
forgotten thoughts and things. They never die,
never can die. They may be entombed with the
dead, but they never lose their vitality. They may
pass out of the consciousness, and be forgotten; but
they are to be sown again, and to bring forth their
fruit for weal or woe, in the mind, in eternity.
This is the security, from the nature of the human 
DISCLOSURES OF THE JUDGMENT.
mind, fearfully and wonderfully made, for the ful filment of this assurance, that there is nothing con cealed which shall not be manifested. A man's
being is a chain of experiences coiled up, and coil ing on, every link indissolubly connected with the
preceding, so that it cannot, in any part, be severed,
and so that, if you have one link in hand, you are
sure of all. And a man's own self is to go back
step by step and uncoil this chain, and examine
every link of it, and hold it up to the light, and it
is to be seen how it was forged, from what furnace
in the mind, by what process of the will, with what
moral and mortal tempering and hardening.
But there is a higher security of manifestation
than this, and that is, the purpose and word of the
living God. Neither was anything kept secret, but
that it should come abroad. It is kept secret, only in
order to come abroad.  Nothing would be kept
secret, suffered to be hidden, were not that God's design. There is this inscription on every hidden
thing, To be manifested. Therefore it is safe, it cannot be lost. The very fact that it is hidden makes
it sure to come abroad. There is a particular insurance from God upon it, that makes it more safe
from forgetfulness and loss, than if it had been transacted in open day, and were among the known
things of a past eternity.  There is a superior certainty, over the chaos of things that have been
known, connected with those that are unknown, of
being brought out into the light; for that is the
particular design with which God put them by, as
it were, and suffered them to pass into oblivion.
6
121 
122    DISCLOSURES OF THE JUDGMENT.
Whatever remains concealed, God's purpose is connected with such concealment, and that is as if
every such concealed thing or thoughlit were labelled,
and written in a book, catalogued, numbered, with
place, time, circumstance, to be brought up at the
great appointed day. There is such a book; the
fires of the last clay cannot consume the record.
"For God shall bring every work into judgment,
with every secret thing, whether it be good, or
whether it be evil."
And now as to the purpose of God in permitting
such secresy for a season, some things are plain.
MLany things are kept secret, in order that they may
be completed, the purpose of the agent fully revealed, and so far as God permits it, accomplished.
If there were not this possibility of present secresy,
men could hardly be said to be free agents. Doubtless, then, it is partly for the development of character, that God permits evil to be concealed, and the
wicked to go unpunished.   A  man who will sin,
though he knows the eye of God is on him, merely
because his fellow-beings do not see him, is essentially wicked. A man who will sin against his own
conscience and knowledge of truth and righteousness, though neither God nor man should see him,
or because he alone sees himself, is essentially
wicked. A man who would refrain from sin, because men see him, while he would not, if God only
saw him, is essentially wicked. God will let men
therefore for the present, play the hypocrite; lie
will let men's inward wickedness develop itself,
while they say, no eye seeth me.  He will try what 
DISCLOSURES OF THE JUDGM,IENT.
men are.  He will see what a man is, alone; lie
'ill let him think he is alone; he will let him for get God, and act out his evil nature, that the uni verse also may see what he is, alone.  So things are
kept secret, in order to be revealed. A daguerreotype is formed, and can only be formed, in the dark ness; that is, the plate must be shut from the surrounding light, and receive only the light transmitted from the person to be taken, in order that when
it is produced, it may bear, without blur or dimness,
the lineaments of the face it has reflected. If the
light were let in upon it, the process would be
stopped; there would be no picture.  So it is in
some respects with men's characters in their development.
Secresy is often essential to the commission of
crime, and essential to the production of evidence in
regard to men's character. How many a villainy
would have been stopped, how many a sin crushed
in the bud, how many a fraud or murder arrested,
if there had been a single eye known to be in the
room, on the face, on the hand, on the paper. If
the first concoction of evil plans were seen in their
commencement, in their originating steps, there are
comparatively few that would be finished. Some
persons indeed, in great power and boldness, sweep
onil inl their career of evil, regardless with what
transparency the world may see their motives. But
ill general men cannot accomplish their schemes of
selfishness, without  concealment.   And  in  this
world many a crime goes unpunished for want of
evidence.   There will be evidence enough in the
123 
124     DISCLOSURES OF THIE JUDGMENT.
eternal world. Every murderer, who thinks he has
removed every witness of his crime, has only sent
the witnesses out of this world into the next, out of
the porch or ante-room into the judgment hall itself.
He has only sent forward the evidence, by which he
is to be tried. Every man who has secretly injured
or defrauded another, has had the fraud or the injury inscribed and catalogued for eternity.  Every
man who has neglected prayer, neglected the word
of God, neglected his own soul, has had the neglect,
every instance of it, not only written down in the
book of his own conscience and memory, but
checked as it were, in the record of things to be
manifested in eternity. Every man, every day, is
filling up his character. God keeps a book of character.   Every thought, every act, goes into it;
every attitude of the moral being. The book is
filled up, in order that its great leaves may be unfolded and read for the knowledge of the universe;
that all may see what man is, what God is; that
every mouth may be stopped, and all the world
plead guilty before God; that man may be seen in
the greatness, wilfulness, and inexcusableness of his
depravity, God in the holiness and justice of his
punishment.   The more secrecy, hypocrisy, and
successfill wickeness there is here, the more clearly
will the justice of the condemnation of the wicked
appear hereafter.
It may be that secresy in sin is often permitted in
mercy.  God does not keep secret His own expostulating and restraining words and influences; He
sends them abroad, pours them upon sinful minds 
DISCLOSURES OF TiE JUDGMENT.
and consciences, hedges up the path of the sinner
with them, to turn him from destruction to repent ance.  But he often permits men's sins to remain
secret, so that they may come to a hearty repentance
before God, and not be shut out from society, or
from paths of usefulness, by the wide-spread knowl edge of guilt. God conceals every man's heart
from every man; for the heart is deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked, so that none but God
can know it. Hence the apostle says, Some men's
sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment,
and some they follow after. Likewise also the good
works of some are manifest beforehand, and they
that are otherwise cannot be hid. Some sins are so
plain, so glaring, that they carry the thoughts at once
to the bar of God, and spectators are led irresistibly
to speak of the fearful account that must be rendered; and such sins are as swift reporting messengers sent onward to the judgment. Other sins are
not fully completed, till after the author of them has
gone to his grave; the results of them are not
developed, the purposes of them not accomplished;
but as fast as they are, so fast the witnesses of them
travel on after the author, to overtake him in the
eternal world.
The witnesses against some men, we have reason
to believe, will thus be crowding into the eternal
world to' the end of time, the indictment against
them not being filled up till the last result of their
iniquity is developed. A man, for example, who
writes an immoral,  but immortal  book, may be
tracked into eternity by a procession of lost souls
125 
126    DISCLOSURES OF THE JUDGMENT.
from every generation, every one of them to be a
witness against him at the judgment, to show to
him and to the universe the immeasurable dreadful.
fulness of his iniquity.  A  man whose teachings
or whose influence  remain behind him  for evil,
does in a solemn sense remain sinning in this world,
long after his soul has gone forward into the land
of spirits.  And it must be an awful reception which
such a man gives to the witnesses of his guilt, as
they come into his company,  covered with  the
mantle of his sins, filled with the element of perdition ministered by his soul to theirs.  It may have
been the dread of that, that made the rich man in
his torments beseech father Abraham to send Lazarus to testify unto his five brethren, lest they also
should come into that place of torment.
But the good works of good men are as immortal
as the bad works of evil men.  They, too, are swift
messengers, but bright celestial ones, before the
throne of God in judgment.  They too, come trooping into the eternal world as witnesses, long after
the authors of them have entered on their reward.
And who can tell the blessedness of such men as
Baxter, Bunyan, Doddridge, Flavel and others, whlen
they see, generation after generation, the results and
marks of their own  earthly labors, in souls that
follow after them to glory.  No good that they have
done can ever be hid. Not a cup of cold water
given to a disciple, nor a widow's mite put into
Christ's treasury, nor a penitent tear, nor a fervent,
faithful prayer, nor- any thought or deed of selfdenying love, but is recorded in the book of life, 
DISCLOSURES OF THE JUDGMENT.
and sends on its witness for the great day.  "Blessed
are the dead who die in the Lord! Yea saith Spirit,
for they rest from their labors, and their works do
follow them."
The pursuit of this subject teaches us most impressively what a solemn world we live in. We
seem to walk by ourselves, we are often alone with
ourselves, and there is no window in our bosoms,
through which men can look into the recesses of
our hearts and see what is going on there. But
there is no such thing as absolute concealment.
Our deeds are all done, our characters all formed,
in open light. There is no such thing as darkness.
What appears darkness to us is light to God, and
every thought and every thing, every feeling, every
action, is thrown from us into the light. How
solemn, how beautiful, are the declarations in the
scriptures: "Thou hast set our iniquities before thee,
our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. If
I say surely the darkness shall cover me, even the
night shall be light about me. For the darkness
hideth not from thee, but the light shineth as the day.
The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall
not see him, saith the Lord? There is no darkness
nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity
may hide themselves. Mine eyes are upon all their
ways, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes."
And if it is hid now, for a season, from the universe, it is only because it shall be revealed when
God pleases. So with every thing, whether good or
evil, the one just as indestructible, indelible, uncon
127 
128    DISCLOSURES OF THE JUDGMENT.
cealable as the other. If we ever think or act in
the darkness, it is for the light. As rockets are
shot into the sky, to explode and blaze there, so our
thoughts, words, deeds, shoot into the eternal world,
to have their development there, but not like the
transitoriness of a meteor in the evening sky. The
good thoughts, the good deeds, the good words of
good men will shine in the firmament of their own
consciousness and remembrance, and in the light of
a Saviour's love, forever. The evil thoughts, evil
deeds, evil words of the wicked will be as baleful,
everlasting fires, darting from every quarter their
corrosive influence. So the good man shall be
satisfied from himself, and the wicked shall be filled
with his own mischief. In the light of eternity,
under the disclosures there, every being need only
be left to the unrestrained development of the
character with which he went out of this world
into that, and this would be enough to constitute
everlasting happiness or misery. The seeds are
sown, the elements established in this world. Say
ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him, for
they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe to the
wicked, it shall be ill with him, for the reward of
his hands shall be given him.
And here let the solemnity of these principles be
noted, as to our sins of omission, and let any man,
the most careless, the most hardened, ask himself if
he is prepared to meet the revelation of them. Our
negative life, or what we call such, is as determined
in its moral character as our most positive; and in
the light of that great declaration of God, To him 
DISCLOSURES OF THE JUDGMENT.
that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it
is sin, our negative life may sometimes be the
guiltiest of all our existence. When the universal
stewardship is reckoned, for which God is to hold
every man to his account, it is not perhaps the ques tion, What have you done with your talents, your
wealth, your opportunities? that will prove the
severest trial to the soul, but, What have you neg lected to do, failed to do, refused to do, or left undone, that you had the time and occasion given you
to accomplish? It is this last question that in most
cases will work the greatest revelation of guiltiness,
and the greatest remorse and woe.
Alas! too often it is the emptiest hours, the most
unmarked, that most upbraid us.  Where are the
many days, almost a blank in our existence, that
might have been filled, or marked at least, with
memories of prayer, with thoughts of God, and aspirations deep and earnest after heaven, with efforts
to do good, however baffled, and voices of supplicating sorrow, even amidst defeat?  Alas! they
have gone sinfully vacant to the judgment, even as
the case from which the jewel has been stolen is
reserved to prove the theft.  Of many of our days,
we can tender to God, as of a wasted talent, only
the folded napkin. Each day is as a vase, a
precious crystal vase, bestowed of God to be filled
with grace from His own fountain, with living
water from iHis own throne, with some precious
treasures of words and deeds of love, and sweet opportunities, not utterly neglected but usefully employed. Each day should bring something to God,
6*
129 
130     DISCLOSURES OF THE JUDGMENT.
the precious vase, with some little offering, though
it were but a cup of cold water, or a publican's
prayer. God gives it whole; but every day, in the
careless, prayerless, godless man's life, returns it
empty, broken. But for every empty and every
wasted day, thou must give account to Him.
We are taught the prayer of the psalmist, that
God would make us sensible of our hidden sins; but
from ourselves a great many things are concealed,
not by the darkness, but the glare of light. A great
master of thought and style in our English tongue
once likened the realities of our moral being not revealed as yet, to the stars, invisible by day, but which
are only waiting for the obscuring daylight to be
withdrawn. He employed that phrase in reference
to the repressed and hidden thoughts, memories, and
possessions of the mind, brought suddenly into view
in an hour of darkness and of judgment, like the
dying moments of a drowning man. Then, all the
past of life rises from its obscurity into clear and
awful light. Now, the distractions, the gaieties, the
business and brightness, of our daily worldly existence, hide us from ourselves, and make most men
more ignorant of their very selves, their own real
character in the sight of God, than they are of the
most abstruse of the sciences. In such ignorance
there may be a sullen peace at present, there may
be calmness and stupidity of conscience, but only
while this ignorance lasts. But when the distracting
and obscuring shows of this world die from the
vision; when the light from things seen and temporal, that  now  veils  and obscures  the unseen 
DISCLOSURES OF TJIE JUDGMENT.
and eternal, shall be drawn away, then will all that
we are not, in comparison with God's standard of all
that we ought to be, and all that we are, in compari son -with God's standard of all that we ought not to
be, become insufferably clear. How dreadful must
be that inevitable revelation of sin in all the life,
and of guilt within the soul, to the man of gaiety
and pleasure, who never in this world would admit
the indictment of God's word against him; to the
fools that danced through life, making a mock at
sin; and to all those who never here, amidst their
round of amusement and pursuit, would look either
at God's word or their own hearts long enough to
see and feel their real character in God's sight!
And who, when that revelation takes place, can
meet God without a Saviour? What, even now,
can the dying sinner do, when it pleases God to draw
aside the obscuring veil, to set his sins in array
before him, and to give him some insight into the
deep and dread reality of the character he has
formed, while living/without God and without prayer
in the world? He can do nothing but despair, were
it not that, just at this place and condition of utter
guilt and irremediable ruin, Christ Jesus interposes.
And here, to the Cross of Christ, this subject brings
us all; for, apart from Him, what can we do, when
God makes us known to ourselves, as He himself
knows us? He has set our iniquities before Him,
our secret sins in the light of His countenance; and
what refuge can there be, when they are so set before
us, so illustrated by the holy eye of God, if Jesus
Christ have been rejected by us? It is the partial
131 
132     DISCLOSURES OF THE JUDGMENT.
illustration that God now gives, and the partial conviction of sin which follows, in minds not utterly
hardened, that reveals, and was intended to reveal,
both the solemnity and terror of the judgment, and
the necessity of the cross.
And while this power of the world to come shows
the need of just such a Saviour, and just such a
salvation from sin, as are brought to us in the gospel,
it also shows the blessedness even of the most painful
conviction of guilt, and the merciful and compassionate intent of God in producing such conviction.
Truly, the greater the severity of God, the greater
is His goodness.  How frivolous, how unreflecting,
how perfectly groundless and inconsistent, is the
objection brought by some men against the system
of the gospel, that it is a harsh and gloomy system!
To be sure, it is gloomy to determined sinners, to
impenitent men, who wish to sin on, undisturbed by
conscience and the fear of coming wrath; and if it
were not gloomy to such, it could not be from God,
and never a single dying sinner could be saved.
But it is gloomy to such, just to drive such to the
cross, just to bring them to the Saviour; and then
and there it is all brightness, and a brightness the
greater and more glorious for the gloom.
Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. We persuade them from the sin to the
Saviour, from the law to the gospel, from the gloom
to glory, from conviction to pardon, from death to
life. Let the conviction of sin come, and let it press
our guilty burdened souls in anguish to our Saviour,
for that is our only hope. Let no man shrink back 
DISCLOSURES OF THE JUDGMENT.
itrom the revelation of his sins now; now while pardon may be found, it is mercy unspeakable to have
your sins set in array before you, to have some
leaves in the Book of Judgment illuminated for you
beforehand. Draw not away your vision; let the
soul, though aftrighted, gaze; it may do you good,
it may save you. Draw not away your shrinking
heart from the sword of the spirit, from the hand
and probe of the merciful heavenly physician, searching and revealing your guilt. Yea rather pray God
so to manifest your sins now, beforehand, and to
make you so painfully and despairingly sensible of
the guilt and the burden of them, that you shall be
compelled to cry out, Lord save me, I perish!  God
be merciful to me a sinner!
133 
WHEN our blessed Lord stood upon the earth as
the Saviour and the light of the world, He said, " If
any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge
him not; for I come not to judge the world, but to
save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth
not my words, hath one that judgeth him; the word
that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the
last day."
There is in this passage a striking testimony as to
the independence, self-evidence, and self-existence
of the Word of God. It is not man that can judge
the word, but the word itself is the judge of man,
and the judge more particularly for the sin of unbelief in rejecting the Saviour.  Not to receive Christ's
words is to reject both him and them; and Christ's
words are God's words, both in the Old Testament
and the New, as is plain, not only from the oneness
of Christ with God as God, but from direct palpable
passages, such as that in 1st Peter, i. 10, 11, where
the old prophets are represented as searching what
or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which
was in them did signify, when it testified before
ac  t   rts0 at  tiaft  } fn, an} t e 
THE PERSON OF THE JUDGE.
hand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that
should follow.  Now Christ, in the character of the
faithful Witness of God, declares that at present if
any man hear his words and believeth not, he judges
him not. Nothing else will be needed, even at the
last day, for his judgment and condemnation, but
just to hear the word which he has rejected.  And
so nothing else will be needed for the condemnation
of those who have resisted the light, but just to see
the light.
This is the condemnation, that light is come into
the world, and men loved darkness rather than
light, because their deeds were evil.  When men
neglect God's word and reject it, they are neglecting
and rejecting that, which not only carries its own
irresistible Divine evidence in itself, irresistible to a
good and humble heart, but they are also investing
it, in that very rejecting, with the ermine of their
Judge; they are arming it as the instrument and
power of their condemnation. The fact that its
evidence is in itself and irresistible, takes away all
excuse for not attending to it, such as the criminal
might plead if there were a long array of external
evidence, which he must consult and decide upon
before coming to the word. And considering the
nature of the light, its neglect as well as its rejection
condemns him; its neglect is its rejection. Hlow
shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?
This heedlessness as to God's voice is both consequence and proof of depravity.
But in this passage the word judge must not be
taken as meaning the person, or supplying the place
1I5 
THE PERSON OF THE JUDGE,
of the person, who shall sit in judgment at the last
day. It is rather to be taken as intimating the
nature and strength of the evidence, which will
judge and condemn. Thus we say, if a man is
brought in before an earthly tribunal accused of
murder, and in the course of the investigation a letter addressed to him from a distant party is found
in the Post Office demanding money as payment for
concealing that very murder, we say of such a letter
that it judges the man at once, it condemns him; or
if a man steals his neighbor's goods, and yet denies
that he knew they were his neighbor's, and a writing
is produced in court found in the possession of the
man, showing beyond all possibility of doubt that
hle knew whose the goods were, and had the intention to steal them, we say of such a writing that it
judges and condemns him. In this sense it is, that
the WouD is said to judge and condemn the sinner.
Let us enquire, more directly, first, as to the judge
in person in the last day; second as to the accuser;
third as to the evidence against the criminal at the
bar.
A man advancing to trial for some great crime,
of which he is accused, will be anxious to know
who is to be the judge, the day when his particular
case comes to be tried. Perhaps among the judges
on that circuit there is one, with whom the prisoner
has in past time held transactions that go far to
establish, if known, the proof of his guilt. Perhaps this judge holds a claim against him, which he
has resisted and denied, and in addition to that, may
have foreseen the very crime for which the man is
]36 
AND THE EVIDENCE.
to be tried, and may have forewarned him against
the temptation and the danger. If this be the case,
then, the moment that judge's name is named to
the prisoner, his soul will sink within him; he will
say to himself, Then it is all over with me, for he
knows my guilt, and must condemn me. Whoever
might be tlhe jury, the prisoner would come to trial
before such a judge with the hopelessness of despair.  The very name of the judge destroys all
possibility of deliverance. Considering the uprightness of his character, the evidence that will come
before him, and the amount of his own knowledge,
there is no hope.
Now, how stands the case with guilty man, arraigned for his sin against God, in the judgment at
the last day?  Has he no anxiety, advancing swiftly
to trial, and perfectly conscious of his guilt? Is
there any question as to the person of his judge?
If that person were a being who had but one unsatisfied claim against him, and that claim iniquitously
denied and resisted, or who had been cognizant
of but one of the transgressions for which he is
arraigned before God, having met him in time past,
and forewarned him against it, and forbidden him
the course which was leading to it, even then he
would despair of acquittal, he must be perfectly
sure of condemnation. But if the judge be a person
knowing not one merely, but all his crimes, if he
have had an eye, the eye of Omniscience, upon all his
steps through life, if he have seen his iniquities in
their very first thought in his soul, their earliest
indeterminate and shadowy but not resisted begin
137 
THE PERSON OF THE JUDGE,
ning, if he have known the growth of them from
motive into act, and from act into habit, and all the
while against all light, check, and warning;  what
then?  And if he be a person not merely knowing
all these things, and irradiating them with light, as
the sun irradiates and marks the leaves it shines
upon, but also, the very Being against whom all
these things have been committed; if he be the
Law-giver, upon whose authority the criminal in
the reckless violation of his laws, every step of his
way through  life has dared to trample; if he be
also the kind and gracious expostulator, admonisher and prophet, who has met him every step of
his ways, as a friend, to bid him beware; and not
only so, if he be also, in mysterious love, one who,
to make an escape for him from the perdition of his
ways possible, has died for him, and yet whose death
he has despised as foolishness, or denied as an unreal,
unmeaning parable; if he be the Being, to whom
he owes his existence, protection, support, and every
blessing; if, in fine, he be the God, Creator, Preserver, Redeemer of the sinner, and if all these
attributes, claims, authorities, and retributive demands and necessities, meet in the person of his
Judge; can human language state strong enough
the certainty, or depict the terribleness of the prospect before him?
Under such a prospect, with such a cloud of vengeance lowering, has he any being with whom he
can entrust his case, any lawyer in the chancery of
Hieaven, any Advocate with the Father, who dare
or will undertake the hopeless cause, or plead a suit
198
11 
AND TIHE EVIDENCE.
for the criminal at God's bar? Is there any created
being who can do it, man or angel? If there were,
is there any creature who dare or will do it; any
creature in heaven or on earth, who would have the
heart, the disposition, even if it were permissible
under God's government, to stand up in behalf of a
criminal, whose guilt is not only undoubted, un questionable, and to the bottom known, but has not
one redeeming quality, and is attended with every
possible exasperation under heaven? If there be
none among good beings in all God's universe who
can, or whose unmingled purity and goodness and
delight in God's justice and holiness would let
them, even if they could, stand up to plead for the
exemption of such unmingled guilt from deserved
punishment, is there one among evil beings, one of
the demons below, under whose guidance the criminal at the bar has rushed on to such excesses and
uninterrupted continuance of sin, who would speak
for him? Alas! they will stand, if opportunity be
given, as  his fierce, malignant  accusers.   The
tempter is the enemy and accuser of mankind.
There is no lawyer either in heaven, earth or hell,
who can or will undertake his cause. Hie must
stand alone. His guilt isolates him, as to his personal accountability, conflict, and desert and endurance of the penalty, from all the universe, while
it connects him as to its aggravation, its consequence, and its evidence, with all the universe.  It
isolates him as to friends, it gives him over to
enemies.
There was an Advocate, a friend, a Redeemer, to
139 
THE PERSON OF THE JUDGE,
whom the criminal might have committed his cause,
no matter for its utter blackness and desperateness,
whatever may have been the depth, enormousness
or malignancy of his guilt. There was an Advocate
appointed of God for this very purpose, and with a
title which no other being in the universe dare take,
the Friend of Sinners; a title and an office without
parallel under God's government; a Being appoint ed by the injured law-giver himself, as a Counsellor
of Mercy, to save the guilty from deserved punish ment. His name shall be called Wonderful, Coun sellor. But this wonderful Being, this Advocate
with God, must be applied to by the sinner himself,
and in this world; and if such application be re fused, or neglected, then the case goes forward on
its own merits, to the judgment, and there the criminal stands alone, surrounded by the evidences of
his guilt, but isolated in it from the whole universe
of God, with none to befriend or deliver him. The
judgment being set, the witnesses summoned, the
assizes opened, he has had his choice, his voluntary
disposition of all things, and there can be no
change; and the very fact of no Advocate appearing in his behalf, were there no other positive evidence against him except the accusation, would be
sufficient for his condemnation. HIe must stand
alone, with innumerable participators in his guilt,
indeed, and accessories to it, and accusers of it, but
not one defender; alone, without an advocate, in
utter despair. Alone, cut off from God, overwhelmed with the conviction of sin, and unable to
open his lips except to cry out guilty before God!
140 
AND THE EVIDENCE.
And the Judge in this case! Who is he?  How
shall we describe his appearance, his attributes?
We have supposed a case, and it is the reality; but
we can take the description only from God's word.
"And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white
horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge
and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire,
and on His head were many crowns; and He had a
name written that no man knew but Himself. And
He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood;
and His name is called the Word of God. And
out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, and IIe
treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath
of Almighty God. And He hath on His vesture
and on His thigh a name written, King of kings and
Lord of lords."
Can we recognize the Person of this description?
Have we ever seen or imagined this King of wrath
and glory, or has He ever been revealed to us in any
other character?  Have we seen Him, have we fled
to Him, as our Advocate and Intercessor with the
Father, our Redeemer and not our Judge alone?
"Behold He cometh in the clouds, and every eye
shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him;
and then shall all the kindreds of the earth wail because of Him." Look back once more to the most
sublime of all the visions of the Prophets, whose
subject is the judgment of the last day, and compare
the burning imagery of the Old Testament with the
answering flames of the New. "I beheld till the
flames were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did
w 141 
THE PERSON OF THE JUDGE,
sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair
of His head like the pure wool; His throne was like
the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire. A
fiery stream issued and came forth from before
Him: thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and
ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him:
the judgment was set, and the books were opened."
" When the Son of Man shall come in His glory,
and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit
upon the throne of His glory, and before Him shall
be gathered all nations. And He shall separate
them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his
sheep from the goats; and He shall set the sheep on
His right hand, but the goats on His left. And He
shall say to them upon His right hand, Come, ye
blessed, but to them upon His left hand, Depart, ye
cursed. And these shall go away into everlasting
punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."
Thus far God himself has guided and rendered
both possible and lawful the excursions of the human
imagination in regard to the Judge at the last day, and
the unparalleled scenes of the judgment. Farther
no eye can pierce, no mind can follow, till that day
when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking
vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Till then,
He stands in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, for the redemption of mankind. But even in
that position of forgiving mercy, how august, how
glorious, and to be feared with holy fear by those
who love Him.  " His head and His hairs white like
142 
AND THE EVIDENCE.
wool, as white as snow, and His eyes as a flame of
fire, and His feet like unto fine brass, as if they
burned in a furnace, and His countenance as the sun
shining on His strength, and His voice as the sound
of many waters."
From the Judge we turn, under the guidance of
God's word, in the midst of this awful and glorious
scene, to the accuser. This is none other than the
Divine Law itself, in all its majesty. It has a two fold office of indictment and conviction; that of the
guilt of man for breaking the great moral law of
God revealed on Sinai, and that of his guilt in the
rejection of Christ and His words in the gospel.
"Do not think," said Christ to the Jews who did
not believe on Him, "that I will accuse you to the
Father. There is one that accuseth you, even Moses,
in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye
would have believed me, for he wrote of me."  Even
so the law, in its original charge against us, and
conviction, and penalty of death upon us, is our
schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ. But if it fail of
that-if we reject Christ, whether trusting in the law
that we have broken, and in a miserable, patched-up
morality of pretended obedience to it, or, in utter
insensibility and heedlessness both of the law and
the gospel, disregarding Christ, and so rejecting
Hlim,-then the law also accuses the soul in regard
to such rejection.  God's law, both in the Old and
New Testament, one and the same, the law of precepts and the law of love, makes the accusation. It
comes down upon the soul; and by it is the knowl
edge of sin, and every mouth is stopped, and all the
143 
THE PERSON OF THE JUDGE
world becomes guilty before God. And the greater
the knowledge of sin by the glory and clear-shining
holiness of the law, the greater the guilt of the soul,
and the showing of that guilt, in the rejection of the
Saviour. If it were iniquity to break God's law,
what incomparably greater guilt, when the law itself
pointed to a Saviour provided of God for redemption
from the guilt and the consequences of such violation!-what incomparably greater guilt to set at
nought that salvation, to trample on the claims of
the Divine Redeemer as well as the Divine Lawnay, as God's word sets the guilt of such rejection
forth, to trample under foot the Son of God! If
they who despised Moses' law died without mercy,
under two or three witnesses, of how much sorer
punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy
who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and
counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing,
and done despite unto the Spirit of grace? And
this is the guilt of every rejection of Christ Jesus,
under whatever circumstances.  Call it what you
please, disguise or mask or flatter it as you will, it
comes to this; it is the climax of human guilt; it is
the last, preponderating, overwhelming act and
proof of man's depravity agaidst the love, as well as
the majesty and holiness of God.
And now, do we want confirmation of all this?
Is proof needed at the judgment? The criminal
himself is stricken with despair, guilty before God.
The law only need appear against him, and it condemns and silences him.   Its bare accusation is
awful, irresistible proof; he is struck down by it.
144 
AND THE EVIDENCE.
But is there a manifestation needed, a judge and a
judgment of his guilt, in the very showing of the
law under which and against which he acted, such
as will fill all minds with a conviction as deep and
abiding as eternity, as outshining and glorious as the
holiness of God? We suppose there is; we suppose,
indeed, that this is one great object of a day of judg ment, to vindicate, in the sight of all the universe,
the ways of God to man. We suppose that its pro cesses will be conducted with reference to this very
purpose. Accordingly, the original evidence shall
be called up. Against what has the criminal sinned?
What was the light that shone upon him? What
the manifestation of the Divine glory that stood in
his way? And as to the last completion and seal
of his iniquity, its highest possible development in
this world, and its seal of unchangeableness and perpetuity in the eternal world, in the rejection of the
only and infinitely merciful remedy offered from
heaven, what is the demonstration of that? " He
that rejecteth me," says Christ, "and receiveth not
my words, hath one that judgeth him. The WORD
that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the
last day."
Let, then, the universe hear that. Let its glory be
seen by bright intelligences. Let Him speak again,
who spake as never man  spake.  Let the beauty
and the power of his teachings, and the loveliness
and compassion of his example, and the tenderness
of his invitations and promises, be spread before the
universe of souls.  Let him be heard saying, "Come
unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and
7
145 
THE PERSON OF THE JUDGE,
I will give you rest."  Let the law appear in the
glory of its transcript of God's holiness and goodness, and the gospel in its thlrilling manifestation
of the wonders of God's forgiving love. Then shall
it be seen that against all that light, love, and mercy,
against all that tide of tenderness and expostulation,
and the current of providence and grace, the sinful
man pursued his way down to ruin. It shall be
seen that though the blood of the Lamb of God
stood before him, he trampled over it; that though
the merciful and gentle Spirit of God warned him,
and strove with him, he heeded it not; that when
the sword of the Spirit was flashing the terrors of
God's law upon his soul, it was of no avail, nor of
any avail all his experience of the goodness of God's
leading him to repentance. It shall be seen to be
his condemnation, that light came into the world,
and into his soul, but that he loved darkness. It
shall be seen that by that light the things into which
the angels in heaven desire to look, and by the wonderful glory of which they are ravished, were shown
to him; but he cared not for them.   That though
the attributes of God in the cross of Christ were
demonstrated to him, as intense, eternal, and unalterable against sin, he cared not for that; that though
the transcendent spectacle of a dying Saviour, the
incarnate Son of God, lifted up for him, was shown
him, he cared not for Mzat; that when a thousand
times it was shown him that on his acceptance of
this Redeemer hung his last and only hope of forgiving mercy from his God, and that his contempt
and rejection of this divine effort would seal him up
146 
AND THE EVIDENCE.
to inevitable and eternal guilt and misery, still he
received Him not.
All these warnings, restrainings, converting in fluences, were in the word, and all this demonstra tion of guilt arises out of it; the conviction of in gratitude, of selfishness, of unbelief, of ambition,
of the pride of evil, and the fear of man, and the
shame and disregard of good men and of God, and
the treasuring up of wrath against the day of wrath,
and revelation of God's righteous judgments. And
it will be found that in the midst of all his darkness
the Word of God followed him; that in misery it
got hold upon him; that in the visions of the night
it terrified him; that in a thousand forms it was laid
before him; that good men and good books, and the
prayers of saints, and the providence of God,
brought it home to him; that it lodged in his conscience, and was an elem-ent there, of which he endeavored in vain to rid himself, but never could
exclude it from his being; that it was ever pressing
him to God, while he himself was pressing farther
from Him; that it set him on fire round about but
he knew it not; that it drew him to the light, but
he would not follow. The demonstration of his
guilt from the word of God will be as clear as God's
own holiness, and as definite as the actions of his life.
Oh guilty, dying sinner! Thou must have an Advocate with God, or thou art lost forever! What
canst thou do, in the day when He shall reckon with
thee? Thou art advancing to thy trial; hast thou
retained thy counsel? There is one appointed Advocate, whom thou mayest have without retaining
147 
THE PERSON OF THE JUDGE.
fee, and mayest put thy whole cause securely in His
hands, and He (Oh wondrous mystery of grace!)
will justify thee! yea, JUSTIFY thee before God,
thou guilty, dying sinner! Wilt thou trust thyself
with Him? Wilt thou tell Him all the secrets of
thine heart?  Wilt thou let Him intercede for thee?
Friend of sinners! Wonderful, Counsellor, Advocate, both of the government and the criminal!
Yea, appointed of God to be a Prince and a Saviour,
to give repentance and the remission of sins!  Oh
that every heart would hide in Him, would trust
Him, would love Him, would receive His glad salvation!
148 
IN the last revealed exposition of the judgment
we see the dead, small and great, stand before God;
and the books are opened, "And another book was
opened which is the book of life. And the dead
were judged out of those things which were written
in the books, according to their works."
It may be that this is not figurative language. It
is commonly so regarded, at least that part of it
which speaks of books. But we know nothing
which should prevent us from interpreting even that
with a degree of literal simplicity. Not that any
man would dream of there being books at the judgment made out of perishable matter, and bound
with parchment, any more than a sane mind would
expect to find palaces or streets of solid gold in the
New Jerusalem. But there may be a literal record,
in form and space, of the life of every creature,
answering to our idea of the reality of a book,
which shall truly be opened at the judgment, and
be there used in determining the eternal sentence of
every individual.
It may be said that the Divine Omniscience is of
itself such a book; but in the passages which speak
',, 0t; tings$ grtt R i-rf   t ilt f r   244s, 
150  THE THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOKS.
of this matter, there is manifestly a special record
by that Omniscience referred to, which special record
is to be opened in form. And who can tell but that
every attitude of his moral being, every movement
of his heart, his will, his affections, as well as every
word of his lips, and every action of his life, goes
down, by some mysterious arrangement, spontaneously into such a record?  There may be a series
of moral and spiritual daguerreotypes thus perpetually drawn from every intelligent creature, by as
fixed a spiritual necessity as the physical arrangement by which the sun inevitably draws the picture
of the face upon tile plate prepared for it. And as
that picture is drawn without any disguise or mistake, exactly as the face is, in whatever position it
happens to be, or with whatever expression it happens to wear, so with the series of pictures or reproductions of our moral selves, our elements of character, our habits of action, our attitudes of thought,
feeling, expression, which go into God's book for
the judgment, out of which, when it is filled up, can
be read at a glance the whole character and destiny
of the individual.
Let us, then, look for a moment, first at the contents
of this book of God as a book of character; also
at the certainty with which,  supposing it were
opened beforehand, even in this world, the end
could be predicted from its tenor; and again at the
only cause or agency by which its condemning tenor
call be changed into mercy. Our life, then, under
the operation of the Divine Omniscience, becomes a
solemn book, on the leaves of which are written, 
THE THINGS WRITTEN IN TIHE BOOKS.  151
though invisibly to mortals, the processes of our
real existence, the goings on of our inward, hidden
being, the movements of real, undissembled, abso lute character and motive.  Our appearance in the
eyes of men, our actions with the world, our life
which the world notices, occupies but little of the
writing in this book. By far thie greater part is
taken up with the processes of a life which men do
not and cannot see, which God only sees fully and
clearly, and of which we ourselves seldom read
more than one page at a time.  For though no part
of the writing in this book goes into it without our
consciousness, yet the moment it is there, the moment it is recorded as a development that has actually
taken place in and of our nature, we forget it, and
pass on to the next. Every fact, every development
in it is indestructible, is eternal. Every event, every
thoughit, every feeling of our existence, every
passion, every wish, every impulse, is a part of ourselves, a part of our character, a part of our actual life, a part of the evidence by which we are to
be judged, a part of the realities with which  the
book is filled, for us or against us.  A thought once
conceived, a feeling once indulged or experienced,
a word once spoken, a movement or event once
acted, goes down into the record, cannot be withdrawn from it, cannot be obliterated; may now be
invisible, but it is perpetual, is laid up for the judgment. It may be invisible now to every eye but
God's, and yet it is visible now, whenever our own
consciousness, the notice from ourselves, which was
present when it was acted, when it first went into
~f 
152  THE THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOKS.
being, is again fixed upon it. And that may be at any
time, and in a manner the most unexpected. The
consciousness is sometimes carried back to a single
word or feeling in the pages of this book even after
the lapse ofyears, and there it pauses, bringing out the
letters as in fire, reading them as clearly as if the hand
had this moment traced them, and remembering the
very atmosphere of character connected with them.
Every letter in this book is preserved, every letter
is important. The minutest processes of thought,
the evanescent shades of feeling, the succession of
uttered words, that seem almost as swift, as idle, as
without law, and as countless, as the trembling and
whispering of the leaves, when the wind breathes
over a vast forest, must all be put down, all go to
make up the whole meaning, all are parts of that
mysterious, sacred, immutable, awful, eternal reality,
called character. I write immutable, because, when
the book is filled, there shall be no change forever.
The very last entry or record made in it in this
world may change the whole for eternity; may possibly, by the grace of Christ, do this, as in the case
even of the thief upon the cross, when that last development, the last dying breath of the wind of life
over the forest,-Lord remember me when thou
comest into thy kingdom,-changed the character of
the whole book of the existence of that immortal
being for the judgment. But when the last stir,
the last whisper, upon the leaves has passed, the
book is finished, and character is immutable, eternal. And ordinarily, nay, almost always, the last
entry made in the book, the last recorded syllable, 
THE THILINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOKS. 103
is just as was the preceding, just follows in the
train of habit and of life written down in all the
previous pages.
And again, because immutable, I have written awful. Yes! the reality of character, fixed for eternal
duration, is a most solemn and awful contemplation.
There is no idea in the whole compass of our
conceptions more solemn than that of character.
What you are now, what you have been thus far
through life, in all likelihood you will be through
eternity. We say in all likelihood, because, if you
are now an unconverted soul, then, judging from
all human experience, and from your own habitual
neglect thus far, of the opportunities of change, the
probability is that you will not change before you
die. And what you are when you die, you will be,
not in all likelihood, but in all certainty, through
eternity.  There is, therefore, nothing more solemn
than the contemplation of character, nothing more
intensely interesting than to watch its development.
We have said that every letter in the book is preserved. There may be actions, there may be words,
there may be thoughts and feelings, so seemingly
idle, so shadowy, so evanescent as the summer lightning, in a man's existence, as by themselves to seem
of no importance; but they all go to spell some
words, and the words go to make up sentences, and
the sentences complete the book, and make up the
final sentence at the judgment. There may be interjections and glancings and points of thought and
language, almost as meaningless and characterless
by themselves, as the fount of type distributed in
7* 
154  THE THINGS WRITTEN IN TIlE BOOKS.
the printer's cases; but when they come to be set
up together, and copied in the book, even a comma
gives meaning. And therefore it is said by our
blessed Lord that for every idle word that men shall
speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day
of Judgment. Letters form syllables, syllables form
words, and words are connected by points so mi nute, that a hundred of them together might not
form a single syllable; but their position fills them
with meaning. It is not their greatness in them selves, but thne place in which you see them in the
book, that gives thfem interest, makes them of con sequence. And so it is with the almost invisible,
imperceptible tenor of men's words and fancies, the
current of men's unmarked, unnoticed life.  Even
a comma gives meaning, and a word that seems idle
now, may be found, when you read the impression
it makes in its own place, set in connection, to be
very far from idle, nay, to have some deep and
solemn meaning, or to throw an important light
upon some other train of meaning. Sometimes
things that seem as evanescent as the flashes of
heat lightning in a summer's night, reveal a whole
horizon of character in an instant; just as in a single flash from amidst the darkness you may see revealed, with almost the distinctness of day, trees,
buildings, mountains, and the whole line where
earth separates from heaven.
The materials of character lie in our being and
habits, distributed apparently without law or order,
as a superficial observer might suppose, just as the
type in a printing office seems scattered without 
THE THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOKS.  155
meaning. But there is a law of character, a law of
development, by which they are set up; the evolutions of our being put them daily, hourly into
shape, into publication, and then comes their record
in the Book; then they are indestructible, eternal,
and full of meaning. That record is as clear and
correct as the eye of Omniscience. No mistake is
ever possible. The sun does not strike upon the
plate of a daguerreotype a reflection of the image set
against it with half the unerring precision, with
which our thoughts, words, feelings, our whole elements of being, character themselves, register them
selves, engTave themselves, in that Book for eternity.
The clear white paper does not receive the impression from the type forced upon it, with half the
exactness or power, with which the Book of character receives and preserves, in unmistakable, indelible
identity, the whole image, or reproduction, of the
minutest processes of our being.
No syllable nor idle word can be lost. But even
if it could, even if there were not this infinite, and
to a wicked mind, intolerable exactitude of a reproduction; even if there were no greater accuracy
than that with which the human mind can turn off
its own creations, calculations and processes of
thought, and numberings of event, by mere material
machinery, with the perishable visible qualities of
ink and type; even then there could be no material
mistake.  Though a word be lost, and even whole
sentences, you may almost invariably determine
their purport unerringly by the context. Even
manuscripts almost illegible, may be clearly de 
156  THE  TtlINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOKS.
cyphered by the skill of man, and lost inscriptions
may be restored, in a manner that leaves no doubt
whatever in any mind in regard to their meaning.
And so in the context of a man's life, when it has
flowed on for a few pages, you could not only guess,
but might read unerringly the meaning not only of
words, but even of sentences here and there lost or
illegible.
And if God should open to you the Book of
Judgment, that invisible record of which we have
been speaking, and make its pages visible to you
only for a little distance; if he should show you
what is already written down in the record of any
man's life up to the present moment, you could pre dict yourself, with unerring certainty, from that
part alone, what the tenor of the next page will be,
except for only one cause, one possible change that
may be effected. One cause put out of view, you
could tell as unerringly that the next page of ex istence will be of the same moral tenor as the past,
as if you stood in futurity on the eternal side of the
page, and read it as already past. One cause only
excepted, and there runs through the record of a
man's existence an inalienable despotism and identity of impression and law of character from begin
ning to end, from time into eternity. It is the law
of sin and of death in our corrupt nature, which you
are as sure will come out and be reproduced in
every successive page of existence, and rule the
whole, except for one cause, as you are that you
have already seen its development in any one page
or sentence. The beginning is declarative of the 
THE THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOKS. 157
way, and the way of every man is declarative of
the end of that man. You may not only predict with
dread certainty that the next page of life turned
over, and noted down, will be the same with all the
past, but you can predict and read the end, as
certainly as if you stood at the end; as certainly as
if God placed you by the dying sinner's bed, with
your ear so close to his departing spirit, that not
even a breath of impulse or feeling in his soul could
stir unknown.
Except for one cause you know that the soul of
the man whose life, as it is written for the judgment,
God has opened before you thus far, showing you
that it has run on hitherto without God, without
prayer, without an element of life indicated in it,
will enter on the eternal world and pass to the eternal judgment, and be engulphed in the eternal
destiny, just as hopeless and prayerless and lifeless
as it has lived, with just the same elements of
character and none different, with just the same
ceaseless and determined absence and rejection of
all the life of heaven, and just the same adherence
and immutable despotism of the death of sin.
And now, what is this one cause? What is that
solitary interposition, the possibility of which throws
a bare single uncertainty into a calculation otherwise
unerring, a prediction otherwise as sure as if the
Eternal himself had uttered it? What is that principle, or mighty agent, that can or may possibly
interfere, and change the tenor of that book of
character and judgment, which you have thus far
read with the most perfect conviction that this man's 
158  THE THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOKS.
life is flowing on to inevitable perdition? Perhaps
there may have been not even an indication of any
suchl agency, not a solitary trace of the effort or
operation or existence of any such principle, in all
the almost countless variety of impulses, thoughts,
feelings, plans, desires, expectations, efforts, attainments, disappointments, developments of character,
which you have been perusing.  Perhaps, amidst all
that variety of selfish, sinful development, and all
the succession of events and changes, and trials of
God's providence upon the soul, there may have
been one unvaried continuity of hardness of heart,
and insensibility and carelessness of mind, in regard
to all considerations drawn from the eternal world;
an abandonment and destitution of all feeling, all
alarm, all anxiety on the only subject on which  the
soul of man ought to be anxious, while on every
other subject it is full- of interest. And if so; if this
insensibility has become the habit of the soul, of
which you are reading thle development thus far, to
judge of its character and end for the future; and
if you can trace no presence or effect of a higher
power, life and effort, than that of the law of sin and
of death in this fast ripening nature, then you have
double reason to conclude that there never will be a
change, but that this nature will go on developing
as before, and is only fulfilling and ripening for endless ruin.
But it is scarcely possible to find such a case; it
is scarcely possible but that there must be, in some
part of the record of this individual life, this development of character, and of influences for its formation, 
THE THINGS WRITTEN LN THE BOOKS.  159
some trace of the presence of that agency, some
proof of the working of that principle, which alone
is to change, if it ever be changed, the tenor of this
record for the judgment. And indeed, if you look
carefully, you will see in ten thousand instances in
the chain of events, circumstances, providences,
causes, trials and blessings, prosperous and adverse
discipline traced through the book, the undoubted
presence and effort of a heavenly agency, the indi cations of a cause working to turn the current of the
man's being, if possible, towards heaven.
You will find seasons of warning, of visitation, of
solemnity-you will find the record of innumerable
interpositions, both of Providence and grace-you
will find the history of seasons, in which seed was
sown that had almost taken root and sprung up in
the man's character, to bear fruit to life everlasting.
You will find, above all, thie solemn record of the
man's Sabbaths of mercy, and of the course of his
feelings and experiences beneath them, and of the
manner in which he turned aside from them unchanged, and withdrew his soul away from their
merciful influences; and as you see how, year after
year, he came up to them, passed through them all,
and entered again into the world a prayerless, unchanged man, you will feel with a deeper and deeper
solemnity that the man's prospect of ever being
changed is smaller and smaller, and the certainty of
his going on to the end of his career as he has thus
far pursued it, greater and greater.  You begin to
see that that agency which alone could defeat the
certainty of your prediction as to the end of that 
160  THE THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOKS.
man, has manifestly been at work already, and been
successfully resisted. You will perhaps meet with
the record even of precious revivals of religion, set
dclown in the book of this man's character for the judgment, and all the experiences of his soul in the midst
of them- experiences of God's warning and gracious
providences, and offers of the most inestimable kind.
And if you meet with one such season, where the
converting influences of God's Spirit have been
descending on the souls of others around this man,
but have had no effect upon him, leaving him, to
say the least, just as hardened and careless as before,
you will think that the possibility of an interposition
now in his case, to change the whole tenor of his
character, and make a new record for the judgment,
even the record of faith in Christ, of a holy sorrow
for sin, of heartfelt repentance, of forgiveness and
eternal life, is indeed faint. You will feel that the
way of this man is declarative of the end of this
man; and that, in all probability, the next page of
the journal for eternity which you have been perusing will be of the same hopeless tenor as the last;
and that just thus the record will go on, till the last
day of life, with its mercies, is wasted, and the last
leaf of character filled up, unchanged, for the eternal
world.
But it is time to change the argument from supposition to reality, and to turn the glass through
which we have been gazing at the book of another's
destiny in upon ourselves. May there not possibly
be readers of these very pages, whose individual
consciousness recognizes and claims the portrait as 
THE THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOKS. 1C)61
their own? Are there not those, whose consciences
say distinctly and undeniably, Thou art the man,
and this is the prediction of thy destiny. If you
have not yourself fled to the Redeemer of your soul
to have your name entered as a penitent in his book
of Life, whose character have you been reading thus
far in God's book of Judgment? Is it not your
own, in forgetfulness of God, in procrastination, in
neglect of your eternal interests, in resistance against
the Hioly Ghost, in the waste of innumerable opportunities, in presumptuous sins against the Divine
mercy, in hardness, insensibility and unbelief?
And what now is the prediction of your own destiny, and what think you in your own case of the
principle that the character and way of a man is
declarative of the end of that man? Is it not as
certain as that the sun shines, that you will continue,
unless you cry out for God's mercy, unless you seek
the arresting and renewing power of God's grace,
that you will continue just in this dreadful neglect
of all opportunities of grace, till the book of your
character is filled up entirely for the judgment, till
the last moment of your life comes, without one
element which is not an element against you, without one, which is not an element of sin and death?
Oh then, if you entertain the least thought of salvation, have mercy on your own soul! Let it not
pass on any longer in life beneath such a prophesy
of death, beneath such a tremendous weight of evidence for your destruction. Rest not, till you get
some element besides your sin and condemnation in
the book of Judgment. If there be not the element 
162  THIE THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOKS.
of love to Christ, of faith in Christ, of reliance on
Christ, of sorrow for sin, if there be not the element
of repentance and prayer, there is nothing there,
which is not utter desperation, which will not banish
you forever from heaven, which will not whelm you
in inevitable ruin.
Now, in more than a dream, as you look over
your past life, God opens to you the book of Judgment; but thus far, if you have not repented of
your sins, it is for you the book of guilt and ruin,
the book of exclusion from Hieaven, and the titledeed of your soul to the world of woe! But praised
be God, it is not yet filled up, there are pages in it
yet unwritten. What shall be the tenor of the next
page, even if one day's leaf still remains for your
will, your character, to turn over? To think of
its being at your own disposal, to fill up, as you
will, for Eternity! If now  you will but write
CHRIST'S name there, and write your own name
beneath it, though yours is the name of a poor,
guilty, lost sinner, a worthless name, yet if you put
it there as your own humble believing signature,
God will put it with Christ's own name in his book
of Life. And then the whole nature of this book of
Judgment shall be changed for you from a book of
only sin and misery to a book of grace and glory!
Let it be written on this page in your history, that
there was weeping and prayer on earth, and joy in
heaven over one sinner that repenteth I 
IN the affirmation of things revealed to faith, and
received on the ground solely of the word of God,
the sacred writers always assume them as absolute
knowledge.  There is no shadow of dcubt admitted
or intimated. So with the disclosure of the resurrection of the just. The link by which the argument of Divine truth is fastened to its practical conclusion of duty is just this-forasmuc, as ye know.
The encouragement, the animation, the impulse to
duty, is not hope merely, but knowledge.   The
apostle speaks, at the close of the great resurrectionchapter, given to him for the church, in a firm, unhesitating manner, as of a thing demonstrated, and
not to be questioned.
Then, again, the point or period where this assurance of reward for all the labor of the righteous in
Christ Jesus has its termination, its fulfillment, is to
be considered;  the vista, through which the mind
of the writer runs on to far distant ages, stopping
nowhere short of the final coming of the Lord in
glory and for judgment. Ye:NOW that your labor
is not in vain in the Lord. But it was not from any
present victory or success, not from anything in the
(T,1 t                    Deurll  f  th   Out 1+, 
-64    THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST.
saints' then present experience, or even earnest, of
the inheritance of glory; for they were then passing
through great trial, and were regarded as the offscouring of creation; and it was not by any appeal
to sight, or proof from sense, that the conclusion was
established, but wholly by faith, founded on God's
word, God's promises, through the cross, death, and
resurrection of the Saviour, bringing future eternal
glories near, as known, undoubted realities.
BECAUSE CHRIST HAS DIED AND RISEN AGAIN.
This is the whole and sole foundation laid by the
apostle; and this stupendous fact once admitted,
that Hie, who was in the beginning with God, and
who was God, and who is God over all blessed forever, became man, God manifest in the flesh, suffering, dying, rising, we KNOW that the purposes of
God in this amazing transaction cannot fail. Whatever object God had in view in the incarnation,
death, and resurrection of the Lord of life and glory,
must be accomplished. There is no more possibility
of a failure, than there is that Jehovah should abdicate the throne of the universe. The blindest faith
may find light here, and the deepest despondency
may be encouraged here, in this one fact, undiscoverable, unimaginable, but by Divine revelation, that
Christ, the incarnate Son of God, has died. It is
the central fact of all our knowing; it is as a sun
shot into the chaos of human speculation, and a
radiance spreads from it through infinitude, and a
power is in it vivifying all knowledge. The discovery of the law of gravitation was not so simplifying and explanatory in the theory of the physical 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST.
universe, as the knowledge of the death of Christ,
by Divine revelation, in the moral universe. If we
believe this fact as God has revealed it, then we
know that all God's promises, made with respect to
this fact, and on the ground of it, are sure; they are
all yea and amen in Christ Jesus. They all hang
and hinge upon this fact, cluster and revolve around
it, and derive their life and activity from it. Whatever else might fail, nothing that is attached to the
cross of Christ can fail.
Now, as to the nature of the resurrection, as a
demonstration grounded on this transaction, we may
find it briefly summed up in a passage in the Epistle
of Paul to the Thessalonians:  "For if we believe
that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him."
This constitutes the whole argument in the fifteenth
chapter of the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, the dying and rising again of Jesus. By Him
is the resurrection of the dead. For this purpose He
both died and rose again, that believers in Him,
having died to sin and risen in holiness, might rise
also from the dead unto life everlasting. The resurrection of the dead is to be the great revelation of
the Divine glory; it will be the scene in which all
the processes of grace and of God's providential
wisdom, that have been drawing on silently and in
concealment, will come to their most glorious outbreaking development before the whole universe.
Till that day everything lies hidden, or in germs, or
like the processes of a living vegetation under
ground. Before that day, the very providences of
165 
166    THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST.
God are as seed sown, and preparing, out of sight, to
rise into light and glory. There can be no concep tion, beforehand, of the greatness of that glory.
If a man that had never seen in its blossoming
perfection that plant that blooms but once in a
hundred years, were to look upon the rough stem,
or uncouth leaves of the tree, could he form the
least conception of the consummate loveliness of the
flower, when it shall appear, the exquisite beauty
and grace to be developed? If any man had lived
all his days in a twilight prison, or subterranean
cave, and had never beheld the sunrise, could he
have the least imagination of the glory of that scene?
But far less can it come within the scope of a human
intellect to behold in the seed-corn of God's operations the infinite glory of the future, or to conceive
the nature of that scene, when the Lord Jesus shall
be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, to
be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all
who believe.  The resurrection itself is a transaction
of inconceivable, incomprehensible power and glory.
The time when it takes place is the time of the
Redeemer's second coming. Hence "the coming of
the Lord," and "the appearing of the Lord," being
connected, in the minds of the disciples, with such
glorious expectations, came to be the signal phrases,
by which they described the consummation of all
things in God's scheme of redemption. When the
Saviour cometh in the clouds of heaven, and all the
holy angels with Him, he cometh to raise the dead,
and to judge all nations. When Paul says that those
also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him, 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST.
he means that the dead in Christ shall be raised, and
carried into heaven to be forever with the Lord.
In nearly all his epistles he presents the same great
fact, as the great ground of encouragement and joy,
and sometimes in a logical strain not unlike the one
in the great resurrection chapter to the Corinthians.
This also is in fact the grand heart of that triumph ant chapter, the eighth of the epistle to the Romans.
If the Spirit of Hiim that raised up Jesus from the
dead dwell in you, iHe that raised up Christ from
the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by
his Spirit that dwelleth in you. And the triumph ant strain in the second epistle to the Corinthians
has the same key-note, the same theme, the same
conclusion.  "We, having the same spirit of faith,
according as it is written, I believed, and therefore
have I spoken, we also believe, and therefore speak;
knowing that HIe which raised up the Lord Jesus,
shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us
with you. For all things are for your sakes, that
the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving
of many redound to the glory of God. For which
cause we faint not, knowing that our light affliction
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory, and that when the earthly house
of this tabernacle is dissolved, we have a building
of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens."
To the same purport is the great passage in the
epistle to the Philippians. " For our conversation is
in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile
167 
168     THE RESUPI.Ra-CTION OF THE JUST.
bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto his
glorious body, according to the working whereby
he is able to subdue all things unto himself." These
different passages are like the ground waves in a vast
deep sea, or like the tidal movement of the whole
body of waters under a heavenly orb. The tide of
emotion, in faith, hope, joy, love, rolls up in one
and the same mighty argument, addressed to different minds, at different times, yet always for the whole
church of Christ, and with the same conclusion. In
the fifteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians the argument is drawn out into greater detail
than anywhere else, not only as to the raising of the
dead, but as to the kind of body with which the
dead are to be invested. It is sown in corruption,
it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor,
it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is
raised in power; it-is sown a material body, it is
raised a spiritual body. Its model is the Lord from
heaven; for as is the heavenly, such are they also
that are heavenly; and as we have borne the image
of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the
heavenly. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that
is written, Death is swallowed up in victory! 0
Death where is thy sting, 0 grave where is thy
victory!
Now we are to remark that all this is not the
mere resurrection, but the resurrection into the 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST.
image and likeness of Jesus Christ. The two things
are widely different, although the one is not to be
conceived apart from the other, and both are merged
in one and the same mighty event of Christ's
coming. The bare raising of the dead is not the
thing which is so much insisted on in the New
Testament, as perhaps the mightiest to us conceivable exercise of God's power; but the raising of the
dead in the glow  of Christ Jesus; that is, the
righteous dead, those who sleep in Jesus, to the
possession, in body as well as spirit, of a sonship of
God that shall make them joint heirs with Christ, to
be glorified together with Him. The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for that manifestation of the Son of God. And we ourselves also,
says the Apostle, who have the first fruits of the
Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves,
waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of
our body. It is not the resurrection of our body, but
the redemption, which certainly includes the great
reality and consummation of glory in the possessed
and perpetual likeness of Christ. All before that is
but the earnest of an inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of
Hiis glory. The bare raising of the dead is not a
thing so difficult or impossible to conceive, nor does
it seem to us the most amazing exercise of Divine
power conceivable; but the investment of our immortal being, and change of our mortal, with this
spiritual and glorified body like unto Christ's is referred to as an exercise of Divine power, so entirely
beyond the possibility of conception by the human
8
169 
170   THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST.
mind natively, that the Apostle prays for an inspiration, baptism and illumination from above, " that ye
may know what is the hope of his calling, and what
the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
and what the exceeding greatness of his power to
usward who believe, according to the working of
His mighty power which He wrought in Christ,
when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at
His own right hand in the heavenly places, far
above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in
this world, but also in that which is to come; and
hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to
be the head over all things to the church, which is
His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all."
Now, sitting down before this last passage, if we
endeavor to analyze the elements, and sound its
depths of meaning, we speedily find that there are
involved in it ideas and processes not only sweeping
the whole universe of God, but rising to the ineffable and incommunicable perfections of Jehovah, in
that light inaccessible and full of glory, to which no
creature can approach nor hath seen, nor can see.
And yet this infinite glory of God in Christ Jesus,
and this exercise of infinite Divine power in His
resurrection and ascension at the right hand of the
Father, is presented as the type by which, and according to which, to measure the glory of the redemption of our body. We must consider, therefore, that there is here a transference from the grave
of mortal flesh to the throne of eternity, a transference of a human being, not indeed ever at any mo 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST.
ment separate from the Divine, but the transference
still of the Man Christ Jesus, raised from the dead,
past all orders of intelligences, angels, archangels,
principalities, powers, thrones, dominions, almost
infinite on infinite, past them all, to the very throne
of God, for it is the throne of God and of the Lamb,
to which He is exalted; the transference, or trans figuration and transference, of a body that lay in the
tomb, quickened, glorified, beyond, far beyond, all
forms of glory and of power, and all possible conception of such forms, that had ever been created,
up to a glory and a lordship, such as the Eternal
Word had with the Father before the world was.
Considering this, we perceive the need of a baptism
of the soul by the spirit of wisdom and revelation in
the knowledge of Christ, before we can begin to understand the greatness of such a transaction.. And
considering this, we begin to comprehend how unsearchable, how incomprehensible is the exercise
and manifestation of the same Divine power in us,
according to the working of that mighty power in
the resurrection and enthroning of Christ with the
majesty of Supreme Deity, the same Divine power
in us, according to that pattern; even the investiture of all the redeemed in Christ, with the same
likeness and life out of the embrace of death, enthroned in glory everlasting!
If now we wish for a still more direct confirmation of this theory, a more explicit proof of this being the definite sense to be put upon this passage,
we have but to turn to that wondrous promise in the
third chapter of the Revelation of John, where our
171 
172    THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST.
Saviour says, To him that overcometh will I grant
to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His
throne. What is here meant no man can tell this
side the grave, any more than John could tell
what the being a joint heir with Christ meant, when
he said, It doth not yet appear what we shall be,
but we know that when He shall appear, we shall
be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  But
that is meant, whatever it be, which the Apostle
prays, in such strong and fervent language for grace
to understand, that which is shadowed forth in the
description of the mighty power of God, when
Christ Jesus himself was raised from the dead, and
seated on the throne of eternity. His prayer is,
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of Glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of
your understanding being enlightened, that ye may
know what is the hope of His calling, and what the
riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
and what the exceeding greatness of His power to
usward who believe, according to the greatness of
His mighty power which He wrought in Christ,
when he raised Him from the dead, and set Him at
His own right hand, in the heavenly places. The
illumination, divine, supernatural, by the Holy
Spirit, is here prayed for, that we may know something of this glory here and now, even in this mortal state, that it may not be to us as a succession of
unknown hieroglyphics, but revealed to our hearts at
least, by the Spirit; but to know it absolutely and 
THE rESUPIRECTION OF THIE JUST.
perfectly here, is impossible, and therefore there is
here just such a hyperbole of thought, logic, ex pression, as in that other wondrous prayer, that we
might comprehend with all saints what is the length
and depth and breadth and height, and know the
love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, and be filled
with all the fullness of God. In either case, in both
cases, it passes knowledge indeed; and what definitely is meant, we cannot know, till we ourselves,
and Christ in us, and we in Christ, are revealed in
eternity. A meaning in any sense answering to
those amazing words of God and promises of Christ,
a meaning in any sense corresponding to that
astonishing declaration, that Christ Jesus, who is
now seated on the throne of the universe, will give
to the overcoming believer to sit down with Hiim on
His throne, as itHe is seated with the Father on His
throne, must surpass the possibility of our present
faculties and state to know, and must shadow forth
a glory utterly beyond our conception. And we are
reminded by such expressions of the declaration of
the inspired Apostle concerning even himself and
his fellow Christians, that now we know only in
part, and that here we see only as through a glass
darkly. It is not dimly that we see, but in fact, in
comparison with that which is to be seen, in comparison with the excess of glory and of light soon to
be revealed, we see darkly! What then will it be,
when we know even as we are known I
173 
In the fifteenth verse of the seventeenth Psalm,
David exclaims, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake,
with thy likeness. I will behold thy face in righteousness."   In the 15th verse of the 49th Psalm
David says, speaking of the universal death of
mankind, "But God will redeem my soul from the
power of the grave, for he shall receive mne." This
is precisely similar to the language of the 73d
Psalm, "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and
afterwards receive me to glory.' Before this reception into glory there comes the sleep of death.
The repose of the grave is before the resurrection,
and the resurrection is not from death merely, but
from the grave. Death, and the lying down in the
grave, are as a sleep, from which the resurrection is
an awakening. This was Job's and David's conception of it; this was Paul's exhibition of it.
Paul loved to present death as a quiet, peaceful
slumber in the Lord. "II would not have you to be
ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are
asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which
have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died
and rose again, even so, them also which sleep in
Wba~~~~itnlg1  2t  fikRtit5. 
AWAKENING IN GOD'S LIKENESS.
Jesus will God bring with him. He that raised up
Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal
bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you." They
that sleep in Jesus are to be raised by virtue of his
resurrection, as they have been forgiven and justified
by virtue of his death, and sanctified by the grace
of his spirit. Christ is risen from the dead, and bee
come the first fruits of them that slept. He is the
first born from the dead, the beginning; that in all
things he might have the preeminence; Christ the
first fruits, afterwards they that are Christ's at his
coming. All will not sleep, nor be raised. There
will be those living in the body, when Christ cometh
to judgment, who will not go down to the grave.
There will be a world of people, as living, as active,
perhaps as careless, as the world at this day, when
the peal of the last trumpet breaks upon the universe.  There will be believers, perhaps a multitude, who shall never see death. But all will be
changed; and what the resurrection is to those who
sleep in the grave, the change will be to those who
are living when the graves are opened. But the
dead in Christ, they that sleep in Jesus, will be
raised first of all, in an incorruptible, glorious, celestial body, and then all living believers will be
changed into the same body, so that the effect will
be the same with them, as the awakening from the
sleep of the grave with those who slumber there.
This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this
mortal must put on immortality. Whatever be the
process going on, while the sleep of death continues, it is a sleep in Jesus, from which the awak
175 
176     AWAKENING IN GOD'S LIKENESS.
ening will be the positive entrance of the soul into
everlasting life, in an immortal, incorruptible, spirit ual, glorified body.
Now, the glory of that awakening passes all con ception, this side the grave. It is clear that it is of
the nature of an awakening; that is the word best
fitted for it. There must be something like a dream,
a sleep: the language of inspiration clearly intimates
as much. There are no processes of nature that
meet the case, except by faint analogy, such as the
grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying,
and then awakening into the light of day, and the
green, fresh life of sunny nature; or such as the
chrysalis, the grub, the worm, awakening from
darkness and deformity, from a confinement to earth,
into illimitable freedom, in exquisite beauty of form
and color, on bright, glittering wings, in the pure
liquid air. But these wondrous transformations and
resurrections are of things material and corruptible,
with all their loveliness, and can by no means shadow
forth the yet incomprehensible glory of a change
from the material to the spiritual, from the corruptible to the incorruptible, from the sleep of the grave
to the glories of eternity. Whatever be the nature
of that sleep, whatever the state of the soul while the
body is in the grave, the awakening from it will be
a surprise of infinite and overwhelming glory. The
grand surpassing thought in it is that of the likeness
of God; and who can arrive in this world at any
adequate conception of that glory? For a sinful
creature to find itself suddenly and entirely perfect
in God's likeness, would itself be a surprise and a 
AWAKENING IN GOD'S LIKENESS.
blissfulness overwhelming, even here. For a creature
to lie down in death, in this body of sin, with all the
consciousness of sinfulness, which accompanies most
vividly the most holy in this world; for a sinful
creature thus to lie down in the cradle of the dying
body, rocked there to sleep, as by the Saviour's love,
and then, out of that sleep, to awake in God's perfect
likeness! All the images and analogies that we
could summon to our aid would fail to convey any
appropriate imagination or description of it. If a
man were translated from the deepest dungeons into
the light of noon, that would be nothing-if a man
were snatched from the central deserts of Arabia,
and transported into the fresh, cool verdure of gardens like the Paradise of Eden, that would be nothing
-if, out of the dark, unfathomed caves of ocean, a
prisoner should rise to the bright air of day, and the
open life of creation, that would be nothing. For,
oh! there is nothing to compare with the change
from the sinfulness of a fallen race into the holiness
of God-from the gloom and corruption of a body
of sin and death, into the spirituality, the light, the
glory, the dazzling radiance, the infinite purity, of
the glorified body of the incarnate Son of God!
Take Job, as a child of God, and suppose him
dying, amidst his extreme affliction and suffering.
Take David, with all his attainments, in advanced
old age. Think of his decrepid frame, stiffening and
helpless, health and warmth deserting it, with his
mind perhaps verging towards second childhood;
and can any imagination conceive the change from
such bondage, imprisonment and weakness, into the
8*
177 
178     AWAKENING IN GOD'S LIKENESS.
perfect likeness of God? Take Lazarus, full of
sores-take Latimer, burning at the stake-take
Baxter or Flavel-and look at the form and state
of their mortality, and see if you can command any
imagination of the overwhelming surprise of glory
comprehended, of necessity, in a translation and
transfiguration into God's own likeness. We may
take the experience of the dying Payson, one of
the nearest approximations of heaven to earth, and
of earth to heaven, ever known; but even there,
great as was the tide of ineffable happiness God was
pouring through his soul, yet there is nothing that
can convey to us an adequate image of the astonishment of wonder and of rapture with which such a
being must find himself awakened, in immortal life,
in God's own perfect likeness.
The consideration of this subject brings together
and illustrates a great number of passages both in
the Old and New Testament, but especially in Paul's
epistles, all shedding a grand and glorious light on
one another. Of this nature is that expression of
Paul in the epistle to the Philippians, That I may
know him, and the power of his resurrection, in connection with that great prayer for illumination, by
the spirit, in the epistle to the Ephesians, on which
we have already dwelt. These passages are illustrated with great glory, when we bring David's
wonderful expressions in the 16th and 17th psalms
in connection with them, showing the dependence
of the church in body and soul upon, and its connection with Christ's resurrection. The power of
his resurrection is not only that power by which he 
AWAKENING IN GOD'S LIKENESS.
himself was raised, but that efficacy of his resurrection, by which (as he is the head, and believers are
his body) the body, and every member of it, will
experience the same glorious resurrection with the
head. For our conversation, says Paul in another
passage to Philippians, is in heaven, from whence also
we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who
shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned
like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things
unto himself. And again, he is the Saviour of the
body, and we are members of his body, of his flesh,
and of his bones. With this stands connected that
expression, Christ in you the hope of glory, and
also, in the same first chapter of Colossians, the
mention of Christ's death and resurrection, according to the pleasure of the Father, having made peace
through the blood of his cross, by him, in the body
of his flesh through death, to present the saints,
holy, and unblamable, and unreprovable in his sight,
without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, without
fault before the throne of God in his likeness.
Also here are illustrated those passages in the
eighth chapter of Romans, in connection with the 5th
chapter of the 2d Corinthians, and the 4th and 5th
of the 1st Thessalonians with the first chapter of the
second epistle to the same; all, parts of one and the
same magnificent and mighty anthem, looking for,
hastening unto, and yearning after the coming of
the day of Christ, and the glory to be revealed
when he shall come to be admired in his saints, to
shine out in them, and they in him, according to
179 
iso     AWAKENIrING IN GOD'S LIKENESS.
that expression, "When he, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory."
Then shall be that manifestation of the sons of
God, for which the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth, and that redemption of the body, for
which the soul, even in the enjoyment of the firstfruits of the spirit, yearneth and groaneth.  And
here are illustrated all those fervent and almost impatient desires after Christ's appearing, expressed so
frequently in the New Testament, and which  became so habitual and peculiar a characteristic of the
saints, that they were described as those who long
for his appearing.  For then only would they appear with him in glory, then only be delivered from
this body of sin and death, and through their transformation into the likeness of Christ's glorified body,
obtain a full introduction in that body of light, into
the knowledge and enjoyment of all the glories of
the celestial world.  And hence, too, the anathemas
pronounced against those pernicious infidels, who
denied that Christ had come in the flesh, as well as
those who denied his resurrection.  And hence the
frequent repetition by our blessed Lord, in his sermon on this subject in the sixth of John, of that
cheering passage of promise to the believer, And I
will raise him up at the last day; a thing impossible except by the coming, dying, rising, and supreme glorification and enthronement of Christ in
his mediatorial kingdom.
We have cause to believe that one of the reasons
inducing the assumption by our blessed Lord of a
human body for accomplishing the work of redemp 
AWAKENING IN GOD'S LIKENESS.
tion was the utter impossibility, except by such in carnation, and our transfiguration into, and possess ion of, its image and glory, in a body like Christ's,
that we could ever see God. For he dwelleth in
light inaccessible, whom no man hath seen, nor can
see; and this impossibility of seeing God in that in accessible light, of beholding God's face in right eousness, and of awakening in his likeness, could be
taken away only by God in Christ becoming man,
God manifest in the flesh, assuming a mortal body,
which itself, by the power of the divinity in Christ's
own death and resurrection, should be changed,
glorified, and formed a type, according to which,
and according to that alone, and by transfiguration
like it, it would be possible to be admitted amidst
the glories of heaven, with the possibility of communing with them and understanding them. Our
utter incapacity now to form any definite conceptions of the glories of the heavenly world may be
the want of that very medium, through which alone
the heavenly world can be definitely seen and conversed with, that body which is the image and likeness of Christ's body. When clothed upon with
that house which is from heaven, then the soul will
see and understand, and then it will be satisfied.
It will be as familiar with the scenes of heaven as
the angels are, and those scenes will be as familiar
and as suited to the souls of the redeemed in Christ's
image in their glorified spiritual body, as to the souls
of angels. But it may be absolutely impossible,
without that spiritual organization, to come into
181 
182    AWAKENING IN GOD'S LIKENESS.
such communion with the spiritual world, as that
after which David was longing, that to which  all
the redeemed are advancing, that which  all the
angels, and the spirits of the just made perfect, forever enjoy. 
THE Sabbath of this announcement was one of
the most marked in the ministry of our Saviour.
It was that in which, after a great and merciful miracle of healing, he justified to the Jews his own
working on the Sabbath day by the example of
God himself, the Creator and providential governor
of the universe.  And when the Jews interpreted
that as making himself equal with God, our blessed
Lord, instead of disavowing any intention of claiming such equality, went on to declare and explain it
still more distinctly.
He revealed to the Jews the great fact that all
works whatsoever which the Father doeth, the same
doeth the Son likewise, and that even as the Father
raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so
the Son quickeneth whom he will.  Moreover he
told them that all judgment was committed to the
Son, in order that all should honor the Son as they
honor the Father.  He told them that the hour was
coming, and even then was, when the dead in trespasses and sins should hear the voice of the Son of
God, and they that heard should live.  For that, as
the Father had life in himself, so had he given to
CTtefsrRto    of  9 iititatilt,. 
184I  THIE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION.
the Son to have life in himself, and authority to execute judgment also, because he was not only the
Son of God but the Son of man. He told them
that they need not marvel at that announcement,
for the hour was coming in which all that were in
the graves should hear his voice, and should come
forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the
resurrection of damnation. A series of disclosures
was here made to the people, in regard to the character and glory of Christ, of amazing magnitude
and importance, but with the plainest simplicity
and distinctness. Announcement followed announcement, with the grandeur of great thunder-bursts of
truth from heaven, yet in serene calmness and
majesty, and with a plainness that could neither be
questioned nor misunderstood. It was God manifest in the flesh, revealing himself in that form, as
possessing divine authority and attributes, the
Author of life, the Redeemer and Judge of man, the
Arbiter of all the destinies and results both of the
resurrection of life and the resurrection of damnation.
This was a wondrous sermon. Its texts are of
an unfathomable meaning in vastness and glory.
It was like taking up great mountains and throwing
them into the sea. And indeed, with what an
almost confounding weight must these disclosures
of the two Resurrections have fallen upon the minds
of our Lord's hearers! We can almost hear the
fire-side report made by one of them as he went
home to tell to his family what the great Prophet
had been saying to the people. "He spake as 
TIE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION.   185
never man spake. He told us that all things for
time, death, and eternity, were committed into his
hands, and that he, just as God the Father, had the
power of life, death, and the judgment. He told us
of the resurrection.  He said that he himself was
the Lord of it, and could raise the dead, and
quicken whom he would. He told us of the resurrection of life, and how every one who would believe in God through his word should have everlasting life, and should pass from death unto life,
and never more see condemnation. But 0, he told
us more than that; he told us of the resurrection of
damnation; and when he told of that, it was witth
tones of such tenderness and sorrow, yet solemnity
and awe, it was with such profound and overwhelm
ing conviction accompanying the manner and the
words in our souls, it fell from his lips upon us, not
idly nor speculatively, as the Pharisees talk, but
with such exceeding and eternal weight of truth
and earnestness, that indeed it seemed as if the judg
ment had come, and Gehenna's gates stood open be
fore us, and we were entering in.  Yes, he told us
of the resurrection of damnation; and I, who nevei
before trembled at what our prophets have spoken,
nor at what John spake of the fire uinquenchable,
when he warned us to flee from the wrath, felt this
in mine inmost soul. The resurrection of damnation! The resurrection of damnation! The words
still ring in mine ears. Oh what shall we do to
escape the resurrection of damnation?"
Yes, even so, without all question: such was the
preaching of Christ. The most burning revelations 
186   THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION.
of hell and of heaven came from His words; and
such, we doubt not, was the effect again and again
produced upon the souls of His hearers.  And here,
again, we observe the reverberation of the tones
and expressions of the Spirit of God from the Old
Testament into the New, and from the New into the
Old. Our.blessed Lord was preaching simply what
had been taught from the beginning of the revelation
of God; and here, on this occasion, He had been
referring to what was plainly set down in the Book
of the Prophet Daniel. And when He said that all
judgment was committed into His hands, because
He was the Son of man, He referred to the description of the dominion of the Son of man coming in
the clouds of heaven, seen in the night visions of
Daniel. And when He spoke of the resurrection of
life, and the resurrection of damnation, what was it
but a Divine illumination and paraphrase of the
great resurrection-text in Daniel, that they who sleep
in the dust of the earth, shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt; when they that be wise shall shine as the
brightness of the firmament; and they that turn
many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever?
In truth, the Old Testament declarations on this and
other subjects were as the frame and canvas of a
vast transparency prepared and sketched of God;
while Christ and His Spirit and teachings in the New
Testament are as the light from heaven, lighting all
within, illuminating all the figures, and shining forth
through them to all the world with such power and
plainness, that he who runs may read. 
THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION.  187
Christ it was, and His Spirit indeed, that spake
through all the prophets; but when Christ came on
earth as the Word made flesh, then the Divine predictions in Daniel and all others became incarnate
in Him, and the truth was seen and felt, no more in
the difficulty or dimness of prophetic hieroglyphics,
but living, moving, acting. The words that Christ
uttered came as tongues of flame from the eternal
world, touching men's souls as with fire; and all
His revelations concerning the future retribution for
the wicked assumed an awful distinctness, whether
investing selected persons standing for classes of
men, as Lazarus and Dives, and couched beneath
the coloring and imagery of heaven and hell, personifying realities, or pealed forth in decisive language, as sharp and startling as the Archangel's
trumpet, These shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous, into life eternal!
Now, this powerful form of contrast adopted in
the last sentence is familiar both in the Old and New
Testament, but far more direct and startling in the
New. Whatever of glory and blessedness there is
known to be in the resurrection of life, we may and
must, with certainty, conclude right the opposite in
the resurrection of damnation. Experience, in both
cases, deserts us, and we are thrown upon God's
word. But there is a kind of predictive and corroborative experience, which we possess in each case,
through the Spirit of God, and the revelation in our
own consciousness, which is exceedingly powerful.
The Spirit of God producing, in souls submissive
and believing, a hungering and thirsting after righte 
]88   THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION.
ousness in God's likeness, shlows, beforehand, some thing of the glory to be revealed, in the event of an
awaking in that likeness. The happiness arising,
even in this world, even out of these desires after
God, is sometimes so great, that it is like an experi ence of heaven-like being filled with all the fulness
of God. And just so the Spirit of God, and men's
own convictions, together with their dread and fore boding of punishment, produce in the conscience of
the wicked a sense of guilt, and a terror of coming
wrath, which is sometimes insupportable; a sight of
their own defilement and depravity, in the likeness
of Satan, and in contrast with the character of a
holy God, which produces some experimental demonstration of the terror of an awakening in the
image of fiends.
To a mind that has any proper appreciation of
the difference between holiness and sin, any true
knowledge of the character of God, any sense of
God's holiness, any true conviction of guilt, and
sense of the evil of sin, there could be nothing more
terrible than the contemplation of such an awakening, nothing so dreadful as the prospect or the fear
of it in one's own case. There could be no description of the world of woe more terrific than this, that
it is a world of unmingled and eternal depravity.
And this is the least we can possibly make out of it,
namely, that that depravity of our nature, which is
here restricted, negatived, and neutralized, even
with the worst, and made oftentimes to assume
many insinuating, amiable and pleasing forms, will
there be perfectly developed, without any restric 
THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION.   189
tion, any neutralization, any disguise. This is the
world of seeds, of causes, and of tendencies; that is
the world of harvests, of results, and of perfected
and eternal consequences. There will be no mixture of causes or of character there, but perfect,
defecated wickedness, purified from all mixture of
good, and incurably, immutably, everlastingly evil.
There will be nothing but the scum and dross of
creation. It is rising to the surface here, and in process of development and of separation from the
precious metal. It is mingled and separating now,
because the very system under which we live,
through the interposition of Christ, is that of probation and grace, for such development and separation,
that character may be. perfectly tried and known,
that all who wish to become good, may, and that
the righteous may be perfectly purified. But there
the scum and dross will be gathered and flung away
by itself, according to that significant declaration of
the Psalmist, Thou puttest away all the wicked of
the earth like dross. Many shall be purified and
made white, and tried; but the wicked shall still do
wickedly, and all forms of evil character will go on
to fill up their measures of iniquity, and there must
be an eternal separation, without any more combination. It must be so, for the defence of God's
own character, for the sake of His righteousness and
justice, and for the purity of heaven itself. Otherwise there would lie against God's government
there, and against the possibility of unmingled
blessedness there, the same objections that are
brought here; according to that very striking pas 
190   THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION.
sage in Jeremiah, where the prophet, describing the
uselessness and misery of a state of society where
justice is not executed, but the evil are permitted to
mingle successfully with the good, corrupting and
corrupted, observes that "the bellows are burned,
the lead is consumed of the fire, and the founder
melteth in vain, because the wicked are not plucked
away."
But there will be nothing of this at the resurrection, but each world and system, of the righteous
and the wicked, will be alone in its perfection.
There will be no such thing there as a growth of
character which is half tares and half grain, but all
will be either tares or grain solely. The tares will
be gathered into bundles to burn them, and the
grain into God's barn. iHere, a man going into the
field, can hardly tell, sometimes, what is wheat and
what are tares, and sometimes even the same ear
will seem one side grain and the other tares; but it
cannot be so at the end of all things, when character
will be developed and discerned in infinite perfection. The angels shall come forth, and shall separate the evil from the good. The opposite and
conflicting elements of character and of being will
draw off to opposite extremes, opposite worlds, and
there will be nothing but eternal and unchangeable
fixtures of holiness and blessedness or of sin and
misery.
Now, just as, if Christ be in you, though the body
must die because of sin, yet the spirit is life because
of righteousness, and He that raised up Christ from
the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by 
THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION.  191
His Spirit that dwelleth in you; just so, if Christ be
not in you, then, as the body must die because of
sin, so body and soul must remain in sin, for there
is no spirit of life to raise the body in Christ; but
you are under the law of sin and of death, and yours
is the carnal mind which is enmity against God,
and the spirit in you is death because of wickedness.
And as it is the work of the spirit of life to make a
spiritual body, so it is the work of the spirit of
death to make a corrupted and corruptible body. He
that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life
everlasting; but he that soweth to the flesh shall of
the flesh reap corruption. And as the body of the
resurrection of life is a glorified body suited to tho
character of the holy soul, and growing out of it, in
the likeness of Christ, by the Spirit of Christ, so the
body of the resurrection of damnation will be
equally suited to the character of the sinful soul,
growing out of that, by the spirit of death and of
evil, a deformed and tormented body in the likeness
of fiends. So that, although the awakening to shame
and everlasting contempt spoken of beforehand in
Daniel, seems a faint and mild form of the prediction of retribution, as compared with the figures
and realities used by our Saviour, yet, interpreted
by those, as it must be, and illuminated by the
glare of that fiery corruption reaped from sowing to the flesh, it conveys a most terrific and
tremendous meaning. What but a shame and everlasting contempt by us inconceivable can await the
soul of the wicked, awakening in a body as deformed as the soul; in a body of infernal spirituality, 
192   THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION.
which, with the same translucent power of a celestial
body, will convey, and answer to, without any concealment or imperfection, the whole corruption of
the soul, its real, undisguised, unmingled character
of perfect evil.
For such it must be, to answer to that declaration
of Christ, Depart ye cursed. For nothing, in which
any mixture of good remained, could have such a
curse from God; and anything bearing such a curse
must be a terror and contempt to itself as well as a
terror and contempt to the universe. And it is quite
as impossible to conceive the overwhelming horror
of surprise, in which a wicked soul will rise in such
accursed deformity of utter wickedness in the resurrection of damnation, as it it impossible to conceive
the overwhelming surprise of glory and blessedness,
in which the holy soul will rise in God's perfect
likeness. Take the case of the rich man given by
our blessed Lord, as we have already taken the
case of Lazarus amidst his sores, his sufferings, his
wretchedness, on earth, with the dogs for his companions, to show how impossible it is for us to conceive the overwhelming surprise of blessedness and
glory to him, when he found himself conveyed by
angels, in God's own likeness, into the bliss of heaven;
take the case of the rich man amidst his sumptuous
living, his costly and splendid array, his crowd of
waiting servants and of friends, all ministering to
his pleasures, all praising his virtues, all treating him
with marked and uninterrupted respect; and who
can conceive the overwhelming surprise of horror
with which he awoke on dying, and in hell lifted 
THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION.   193
up his eyes being in torments?  Who can conceive
the awfulness of the man's terror and despair, in
finding out his own character! No wonder that
our Lord has said there shall be weeping and gnash ing of teeth.
And let it be remembered that it is our blessed
Lord himself who has said all these things. And
though the carping unbeliever sometimes endeavors
to countenance his attacks upon God's word by
shooting his envenomed arrows at what he calls the
hard and cruel things of the Old Testament, yet
let it be remembered that for every threatening of
evil to the wicked there, you will find incomparably greater terribleness and distinctness of retribution shrouded in the words of our Redeemer.
Nay, not shrouded, but the shroud taken off, the
covering in the Old Testament removed, and everything in the preaching of Christ made as if we stood
ourselves on the burning verges of heaven and hell,
and beheld, with our own eyes, their realities. For
truth itself was incarnated in Christ, and as he was
the Word made flesh, so the reports from heaven
and hell in the Old Testament, coming through his
lips, seem living and moving as incarnate forms
among us.
Poor rich man! destined to such an awakening!
could not some one, armed with the truth of heaven,
have gone in at some of his grand feasts, and told
him what was before him? Could not some earnest
fiend have said to him, Dear sir, you are close upon
your mortal sickness, and you are not prepared for
death, and when you die, from all this luxury you
9 
194   THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION.
will wake up in unmingled wickedness, contempt
and misery! But if there had been such a faithful
messenger, one among a thousand, what would have
been his reception? Have you no more manners,
the rich man would have answered, than to bring
your untimely croakings here in the midst of my
company and pleasures? Away with your libels
upon God and human nature, as if God were not a
God who loves to see his creatures enjoying themselves! As if man were a being of so much wickedness as to be destined to the state which you call
hell!  Aye, but there stands -Christ's own word,
In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments.
Poor rich man! had he no friends, nor warning
messengers to entreat and save him. Oh yes! he
had many! He had Moses and the Prophets. He
had David describing to him his own state and
danger. He had Daniel telling him of the resurrection of the wicked. He had God's word, God's
providences, God's mercies, seeking to bring him to
repentance; but all in vain.
Now, for what purpose are these disclosures?
Have I any pleasure at all in the death of him that
dieth? saith the Lord; and was it any pleasure to our
Blessed Redeemer, to unveil the secrets of the world
of woe? Is it not all in mercy, all in love, that he
puts for us, in such vivid light, the resurrection of
life on one side, and the resurrection of damnation
on the other, and bids us choose? 
T At Murk  4f tt t             "4rattrg
IN the mighty transactions of the judgment, how
solemn and awful is the instrumentality of the
angels of God! The Son of man shall send forth
his angels. They are the angels of Christ; and as
to their number, it seems to be intimated that all
heaven, all the holy beings in God's universe, will
be his ministers in the transactions of that day.
The Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the
holy angels with him. The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Hieaven with his mighty angels, in
flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know
not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ. There was, in the antediluvian world,
a prediction of the scene, and a foreshowing of
the Lord's coming. For Enoch, the seventh from
Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold the Lord
cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute
judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have
ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches,
which ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
And at a later period, as an advancing step in this
revelation, we have the sublime delineation in 
196   THE WORK OF THE ANGEL REAPERS.
Daniel.  " I beheld till the Ancient of days did sit,
whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of
His head like the pure wool; His throne was like
the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire. A
fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him;
thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten
thousand times ten thousand stood before Him; the
judgment was set, and the books were opened.
What multitudes on multitudes, countless, inconceivable, are here represented! Each as a flaming
fire, each as the lightning, in power, swiftness, and
glory! Who can conceive the unimaginable grandeur, the awful splendor of that day! All that
ever went before, of God's judgments, were but
faint symbols of this. God's coming on Sinai was
terrible in grandeur, yea, of intolerable sublimity
and glory; yet it was little compared with this.
All the efforts of the human mind fail before the
inconceivable magnitude and majesty of this final
reality, this last whirlwind blaze, this ministration
of flaming intelligences amidst material burnings,
this manifestation and execution of the Divine attributes in the unrestricted fulness of their hitherto
veiled and restrained glory, this final development
of judgment and of retribution by the agency of all
the brightest and mightiest holy beings in the universe of God! There have been dreams of these
things; men have been visited in the night visions
with appalling bursts of the light, the glory, and
the terror of this last day, so that they have awaked
in anguish uncontrollable; and some in words and
images of fire have told the scenery through which 
THE WORK OF TIIE AN'GEL REAPERS.   197
their dreams have carried them; but no possible
imagery can adequately realize this last transaction
to the mind.
The angels of God, as presented in the parable
of the tares, are the reapers of the final harvest. They are commissioned by the Son of man
to gather out of His kingdom all things that offend,
and them which do iniquity.  They are thus to
sever the wicked from among the just. They are
to gather first the tares in bundles, preparatory to
what follows. They are to make this great and
final separation of the evil from the good, before
they are cast into that world, in which the fountains of the great deep of retribution will be broken
up upon them.  They are supposed to know, instantly and unerringly, the objects of their search.
There can be not a moment's doubt or hesitation.
The tares and the wheat will both be disclosed in
perfection. A good angel on this commission will
have no more difficulty in knowing, as quick as
thought, an evil being from this world, than he
would have in discovering an angel of darkness
from the bottomless pit. As in the resurrection, the
awakening of the wicked will be to shame and
everlasting contempt, in the character and likeness
of unalloyed evil, while the good will shine out as
the stars of the firmament in brightness, so in the
change that will take place with all the living at
the last day, all the growing tares then above ground
will put off, with their mortal covering, all character
but evil, and will develop all of evil that before
was concealed. So that the passage of the light
0 
198   THE WORK OF THE ANGEL REAPERS.
ning cannot be more swift, than the knowledge
where the lightning should strike; and the angels
that are to gather the tares into bundles, will have
no more difficulty or uncertainty as to the indications of their work, in gathering out of Christ's
kingdom all things that offend, and them that do
iniquity, than those who are to gather the bright
shining golden sheaves of wheat, to transport them
into God's garne'r.  What a harvest-home will that
be, what a procession of glory, what songs of rejoicing, what melodies of heavenly blessedness,
when the reaper's work is done, and the companies
of  white-winged seraphs  convey  their glorious
sheaves, their gathered multitudes of the redeemed,
into the presence of God and the Lamb!  And on
the other hand, what a harvest-home of misery,
what a procession of terror, amidst weeping and
wailing and gnashing of teeth, with the majesty and
overwhelming glory of Halleluia anthems to the
divine justice vindicated, when the reaper's work is
done upon the tares, and the bundles of evil are
carried to their own place!
And here we find, very clearly revealed, the
principle of association, according to which the
reaper's work is to be accomplished, when they bind
the tares in bundles to be burned. The law of
socialism, which men talk about so carelessly, may
be, when fully realized and carried out, an infinitely
terrible thing. These bundles of the tares mean, in
all probability, that in the day of judgment and of
retribution like will be gathered to like, forms of
evil with kindred forms, peculiar refinements and 
THIE WORK OF THE ANGEL REAPERS.   199
hideousness of evil character with similar hideousness. This probability becomes quite a revealed
certainty when we compare the note of the bundles
in the parable of the tares with the category given
by John in the 21st chapter of the Revelation,
where he says that the fearful, and unbelieving, and
the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers,
and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have
their part in the lake that burneth with fire and
brimstone; which is the second death; and also with
the various notices, throughout the Scriptures, of
the variety of degrees in which punishment is to be
meted out of justice, and assumed by the sinner, according to the forms and degrees of his light and
wickedness. And this makes a terrible demonstration of the nature of hell, considered as formed out
of the combustion of the elements of sinful character, out of the necessary play and growth of principles of evil, out of the combination, concentration,
and perfect development of specific forms of sin.
For if we will but apply this supposition even to
our own world, we may see, by what it would be
here, something of the tremendous reality of evil
which it must be hereafter. Suppose that in this
world men of similar evil dispositions and crimes
were assorted and bound together, and left to the
full development of those evil habits and tendencies.
Suppose that all the murderers were gathered into
one set, one community, and all the revengeful,
cruel and passionate into another, and all the liars
into another, and all the fraudful and dishonest into
another, and all the proud, haughty, scornful and 
200  THE WORK OF THE ANGEL REAPERS.
ambitious into another, and all unbelievers and cor rupters of the truth into another, and all adulterers
and sensualists into another, and all drunkards and
intemperate  into  another, and  all the  profane
swearers and blasphemers into another, and were
thus left to themselves, and to the unrestrained
growth and conflict of their respective depraved
tendencies, chosen sins, vile, vicious habits, and
abandoned, profligate practices. How unimaginably
and intolerably dreadful and hateful would society
become, even here upon earth! It is not so now,
simply and solely because of God's restraining
mercy in the arrangements of His providence and
grace. He so governs the world, restraining its
superfluity of wrath, that one passion in society
modifies and confines another, even by the very
selfishness of men. And it is just because every
part of society is made up of all varieties of depravity, that depravity does not, in any one direction, go
so far as to make our earth an absolute hell beforehand. But suppose all restraint withdrawn, and
the associative principle in evil left to work itself
completely out, in its fullest perfection and power,
and then consequences would ensue, which might
almost make the mind insane, even to follow them
in imagination.
It was something like this idea that the poet
Dante pursued with such terrific minuteness and
horror of detail, in his tremendous delineation of
the compartments of a moral and material hell.
And the inscription, which that mighty poet has
read, as traced in lurid fire over hell's portals, 
THE WORK OF THE ANGEL REAPERS.   201
shows a theology deeper, truer, more scriptural, in
his mind, and in the minds of multitudes for whom
he wrote, in the middle ages, than that of multitudes
of sickly sentimentalists since the Reformation.
The theology of David and Paul, the one by eminence the inspired poet, and the other the inspired
logician, of true Christianity, and thatof Dante and of
Jonathan Edwards, the theological poet of the middle ages in Italy, and the theological logician of the
modern world in New England, meet and coincide
in that description. The united attributes of Divine
Justice, Divine Power, and Divine Love, are recognized in the eternal punishment of all the incorrigibly wicked.
"Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost forever,
Justice-the founder ofmy fabric moved;
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval Love.
Before me, things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here!"
And indeed all hope they must abandon, whose
character of evil brings them into such a world.
There the tares will grow on, everlastingly, forever
burning, yet forever unconsumed. For wickedness
burneth as the fire, and there is no stay to the onward progress of character, in a world of results and
consequences. What it could have been, if it would
bave changed, what it might have been, had there
been the disposition, the repenting will, under a
9* 
202   THE WVORK OF THE ANGEL REAPERS.
system infinitely favorable for a return to holiness,
has been offered, but not accepted; what it is, and
must be forever, is all that remains. There can be
nothing else. God gave the opportunity of what
man miAght be, and the trial of what he would do, under the offer, nay, the urgency of pardon, regeneration, and eternal life through Christ; and now there
only remains what man must be, and what God
must do, man having passed, as a guilty being,
through such an ordeal of the divine mercy, unchanged. And here we perceive that the object of
the reapers work, the end of the commission to the
angels, in binding the bundles of the tares, in severing the wicked from among the just, in gathering
out of God's kingdom all things that offend and
them that do iniquity, is just this, to burn them.
"Let both grow together until the harvest, and in
the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, gather
ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles
to burn them. The Son of man shall send forth his
angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all
things that offend, and them that do iniquity, and
shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth." This is what God
will do with the wicked. As to what, according to
our ideas, he might do, ought to do, must do, we
may reason, imagine, surmise, wonder; but as to all
positive declaration of what he certainly will do, we
are shut up, absolutely, to God's word. As to the
inevitable consequences of sin, we not only may,
but must, reason, and with the utmost certainty, out
of God's word, as well as in it, knowing in ourselves 
THE WORK OF THE ANGEL REAPERS.   203
that the wages of sin is death, and having also the
light of God's judgments to guide us. But as to
God's direct agency, as to his own execution of the
penalty of his law, we must go solemnly, submissively, tremblingly, to God's word.
And here we are before it. And from the book
of Genesis to that of Revelations we find this furnace of fire; find the wicked, according to that expression in Jude, suffering the vengeance of eternal
fire. The last great prophet of the Old Testament
closes his revelation with the announcement of this
fire. "For behold the day cometh that shall burn as
an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do
wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh
shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it
shall leave them neither root nor branch." And the
first great prophet of the New Testament opens his
announcement of the gospel with the same fire.
"Every tree, which bringeth not forth good fruit, is
hewn down, and cast into the fire. iHe will gather
his wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the
chaff with unquenchable fire." And this same line
and demonstration of fire is continued in our blessed
Lord's discourses and parables with unparalleled
vividness and power; so that sometimes, as in Mark,
the sermon is one tissue of flame, and he repeats the
warning of fire no less than seven different times, in
as many verses, mentioning three times the fire of
hell, and five times repeating the assurance that it
never shall be quenched.  And once he carries us
into the eternal world, and sets us down in hell,
with the rich man tormented in its flames, and tells 
204   THE WORK OF TIE ANGEL REAPERS.
us of the great immutable, impassable gulf between
that and heaven. And in his very last sermon upon
earth he leaves the wicked burning in that fire.
IIis last words before the crucifixion, to a world of
reckless sinners, open wide the doors both of heaven
and of hell, and set before us the equally immutable
awards of either. "These shall go away into everlast ing punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."
Now, this is God's arrangement, God's work; this
is what God will do with the tares, with the wicked;
and the result in their case can be nothing but weeping and gnashing of teeth; the consciousness of
guilt, the sufferance of deserved punishment, and
the remorse of conscience, as the worm that never
dieth, in the darkness of eternal despair. And with
all this there will be the clearest sight and the deepest conviction of God's perfect righteousness and
justice; nay more, of God's infinite love; a love
abused, wasted, rejected on the part of the careless,
obstinate soul, when God at the expense of the
death of his son was interposing to save it from destruction, and it would not be saved; and a love
now at length exercised for the guardianship of the
universe, in eternal punishment demanded, made
necessary, and absolutely drawn down upon the
sinner by himself, in opposition to all God's efforts
to the contrary.
The ordeal of Divine mercy through which the
sinner thus forces his way to ruin, was a trial and a
conflict on the part of God for man's life, man's salvation; it was a struggle on the part of man for his
own perdition. Every way was tried, is tried, to 
THE WORK OF THE ANGEL REAPERS.  205
induce men to flee from the wrath to come; but, in
multitudes of cases, in vain. " How often would I
have gathered your children, but ye would not!" In
following out even the brief and simple course of
this parable, into what an array of the Divine power,
wisdom, and love for man's salvation, has the argument led us! What openings have we seen, through
which heaven's light radiates on the earth as in a
flood of demonstrations of Divine truth, in language
not of words only, but of the mighty realities of the
cross, and of God manifest in the flesh, and of the
dying anguish of a Divine Sufferer, dying for man's
sins; dying to demonstrate God's justice, that it
might be possible, throughi such demonstration of it,
for believing man to escape the realization and the
sufferance of it; dying, in the exercise of God's
compassion, that the guilty and the lost might live;
and dying to show that if they do not live, if they
will not live, through the merits of that death, they
must die forever; dying to show at once the infinite
depths of human guilt and ruin, and the infinite
depths of Divine holiness and love; dying to demonstrate the meaning and eternity of both worlds,
hell and heaven!
What openings of blazing light upon human
character have we seen, our character, rendering its
depravity and ruin, unless changed here, unmistakable, inveterate, irremediable! What movements
of Divine providence have we seen, awakening, pursuing, enlightening, teaching; causing, as it were,
the very fire from the eternal burnings to fly in men's
faces, and to light upon their souls! XWhat is there 
206   THE WORK OF THE ANGEL REAPERS.
indeed, 0 careless, sinful, dying men! that God could
do to awaken you, that Hie is not doing, has not done?
You have been both entreated and alarmed, disciplined with trials and blessings, experiences of conviction, and promises of pardon; you have been
pleased and disappointed, treated with indulgence
and tenderness, and again brought into calamity;
but in the day of your adversity, God has to complain of you, that you turn not to the hand of him
that smiteth you; and in the day of your prosperity,
your heart remains unchanged, hardened, and secure
in sin. What now remains, after all this trial of the
Divine mercy and love unavailing, but wrath against
the day of wrath, and revelation of God's righteous
judgment? What can be done? If mercy has
been tried in vain, justice must follow. Under the
Cross of Christ, God gives to sinful men the choice
of just what attributes they will please to have displayed in themselves. Hle lets them experience all
that they choose to experience of the Divine character, the Divine perfections. But in their guilt persisted in, all that they can experience, finally and
eternally, is the Divine righteousness andjustice; and
therefore God points us to the Saviour, and Christ
himself pleads with us, beseeches us, by His dying
love and agony, that we would be reconciled to God! 
IT is a magnificent conception which is conveyed
in this language, yet rarely do men pause and ponder before it.  THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE!
Life worthy to be called life; life holy, beatific,
glorious, divine; life, participant of God's own holiness and blessedness; life, in comparison with which
all that we have known of existence in this world is
but as a sleep and a forgetting, or as a dismal dream,
or as a terrible reality, the death of trespasses and
sins. The power of such a life! endless, unchangeable, save only from accumulating glory; perpetual
in its energy and freshness, with the boundlessness
and security of infinitude before it, forever and ever!
It is this glory which is held out for our attainment. We, who are here in death, even the death
of trespasses and sins, are invited to such a life.
We know not, as yet, either death or life, absolutely, nor the power of either as eternal, but only in
the embryo, or by an effort of imagination, in idea
and not in reality. Soon we shall know, forever;
shall know by experience what life is and what
death is; what life is by possession of it, and what
death is, by redemption from it; or what death is,
X0~ t  JuRr of ztnY Cf-Ittts~   fift. 
208   THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE.
by entering upon it, and what life is by the eternal
loss of it.
It is to secure for us the redemption from such
death, and the glory of such a life, that Christ
came. He would not have come, had not both
these inevitable consequences been eternal.  He
was made, not after the law of a carnal or tempo rary commandment, or necessity, or arrangement,
but after the power of an endless life. He came as
a Saviour, and came such a Saviour, with just that
endless life in view, and just that salvation from an
endless death; and he would not have come, other wise. He was made, was constituted, not for any
temporary purpose, plan, or ordinance, but in ac cordance with the necessity of an eternal salvation,
an eternal life, for its accomplishment, after its
power. Had it been a finite glory to be gained, or
a finite misery avoided, a limited life on the one
side, or a limited death on the other, a transitory
heaven and a transitory hell, then a transitory High
Priest and a finite Saviour might have answered.
There had been no need for the Divine Word to be
made flesh, nor any sufferance  of such a sacrifice.
But the penalties and powers concerned, the life
and death, the guilt and the redemption, being
boundless as eternity, and the government to be
honored and sustained, the government of God, a
Saviour must come in the glory and majesty of infinitude, possessing and answering to, the power of
an endless life.
Such we take to be the argument in this grand
and  glorious passage, in Hebrews 7: 16.   The 
THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE.   209
power of an endless life, and the might of a redemp tion into it, by the quickening and resurrection of
the soul from the death of trespasses and sins, re quired and demanded such a Saviour, and for God's
glory, justified such a sacrifice. A Saviour must be
had, the benefit and power of whose atoning interposition would extend through eternity, would secure the universe through eternity from the incursions and the malignity of sin, would destroy him
that had the power of death, would take away all
guilt forever from the soul, and would confirm all
redeemed and believing creatures in holiness and
happiness, in God's love and under God's law, forever. Let us then look at some of the things included under this vast and mighty expression, The
Power of an Endless Life.
And first, it is a perfect life. They who enter
upon it are without fault before the throne of God.
There is no sin, no defilement, no imperfection, no
spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing, nor remnant,
nor result, nor fear, of evil. There is not only no
imperfection, but on the contrary, a purity and perfection so infinite, that it is just a participation of
God's own holiness, a transformation and transfiguration into the righteousness of the Lord of life
and glory. The glory and the bliss of such perfect,
absolute, unspotted holiness, are beyond the possibility of our conception in this mortal state; and
therefore the inspired Apostle himself is compelled
to say that it doth not yet appear what we shall be,
only this we know, that we shall be like Christ.
And this perfection in his likeness will be of body 
210   THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE.
as well as spirit, because he will change even our
vile body, that it may be fashioned according to his
glorious body; and the very example of his own
resurrection is the pattern of God's mighty power
towards those who believe, according to the working of that amazing power which he wrought in
Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set
him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.
This is Christ's own glory, Christ's own life, and we
are complete in him, possessing and reflecting his
glory. We cannot, in our mortal state, have any
adequate idea of the infinite glory and blissfulness
even of a perfect freedom from sin; but as to the
positive glory of appearing in Christ's likeness,
neither the heart nor imagination of man ever yet
began the most distant conception of it, except as
God deigns an otherwise incommunicable revelation, by his spirit. In Christ the perfection of
Saints is an infinite perfection, and in him they
enter on the power of an endless life in perfect oneness in spirit and in work with the infinitely glorious Jehovah, even as the Son of God, in his spirit
and work, was one with the Father.
In the second place, it is a social life, in which all
the communicative and companionable tendencies of
our nature and powers of our being, will be exercised in an enjoyment ten thousand fold intensified
by being reflected from, and shared with, the
beatific experience of others. It is remarkable, as
an indication of the glory of the social life of
heaven, and the activity and blissfulness of mutual
thought and affection interchanged and ardent there, 
THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE.
that this same epistle to the Hebrews introduces us
to the innumerable company of angels, and the
general assembly and church of the first born whose
names are written in heaven, and to the spirits of
the just made perfect.  We are come to such vast
and glorious assemblages, as to scenes and objects
transporting, even to be only looked at and admired, but how much more enrapturing to go in and
out among them, holding communion with them.
The very sight of others in glory will be infinite
joy, a study of salvation, a rapture of delight.  There
will be so much to admire and love in every
creature, every creature will be so full of glory, so
ravishing a reflection of the glory of the Saviour,
that eternity might be occupied in silently gazing, and
adoring; and even so the Lord Jesus at his coming
with His saints will be admired in all who believe.
But there will be infinite sociableness in heaven;
that life will be the perfection of a social life, as
truly as it will be a life filled with all the fulness of
God.  There will be the good and the glorious of
all ages and all worlds to love and to rejoice with.
There will be communion among angels and saints,
sweeter than the conversation on the way to Emmaus, more frank and loving than ever could have
been imagined, in ten thousand infinite directions
and disclosures of mutual history and character, in
the suggestion, investigation, and comparison of
thought, amidst the providence, works, attributes
and revelations of the infinite God.  And indeed the
power of an endless life would find full employment
in the universe of God alone, and saints will find a
211 
212   THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE,
boundless study of the Divine glory in angels,
principalities and powers, even as to principalities
and powers shall be revealed in the church the
manifold wisdom of God. There will be mutual
study, there will be social study, there will be
nothing solitary in heaven, nothing exclusive or
concealed, nor any need of guardian forms of courtesies, nor any distant or reserved civilities, nor any
jealousy of honors claimed or due, nor any sense
either of superiority or inferiority, all pride and
envy being forever debarred from the possibility of
entrance or existence there. Divine love is the atmosphere of heaven; they dwell in love, they dwell
in God, for God is love, and in sweet forgetfulness
of self, the happiness of others is as dear and delightful to each as their own.
But in the third place, it is a life of blissful
activity. There will be employment enough in
heaven, and they need no rest, day nor night, nor
ever experience any exhaustion of their energies.
All is harmonious activity, nothing conflicting, entangled, opposing, or out of joint. All the powers
of the being are in concert, inspired with one mind
and one spirit in the service and the praise of God.
Every intellectual capacity will be carried to the
highest possible exercise, in studying the divine attributes, and accomplishing the Divine will. The
individual will, being in every respect one with
God's, and the whole soul filled with His love, the
activity of heaven in doing His will must be spontaneous and infinitely delightful, perpetual and unchangeable. And in whatever universe of God, or 
THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE.   213
part of His universe, an intelligent being might be
employed, there is everywhere a sense of God, a
perception of His presence, such as in our mortal
body we cannot have, but with which and in which
there is, to the soul that loves God, the fulness of
heaven's blessedness. God's will is the happiness of
such a soul, and activity in doing it would be the
irrepressible expression of such happiness. Would
that it were so on earth; our meat and drink to do
the will of our Father in heaven!
In the fourth place, it is a progressive life. And
here it is that this phrase, the power of an endless life,
comes into more immediate and definite exposition,
at least the significance of it is more palpable. An
endless life! the power of an endless life!  The very
idea of it is triumphant. The idea of the life of
an antediluvian, a life of only a thousand years, is
grand and imposing. - Only a thousand yearsI
What might not be accomplished in such a tract of
time on earth, with energies unfettered and untired,
a heart filled with God's love, and all the powers of
the whole being employed and absorbed with inexhaustible spontaneous delight and zeal in His service!
What progression, what acceleration would there be,
and what accumulation of impulse and power from
generation to generation! But a thousand years
are as one day in the conception and incomputable
arithmetic of an endless life. Our plans on earth
are contracted, fragmentary, broken, and incomplete;
but in the security and infinitude of an endless life
there may be plans, even by finite minds, encompassing ages and worlds. And there will be nothing 
214   THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE.
to prevent the execution of them, no fear of interruption by death, no doubt or indecision of mind,
no inward conflict nor external foes, no enfeebling
of the energies by sickness or unwillingness, nor
distracting of them by temptation, nor crippling of
them by want of means, nor any dividing of them,
as in this world, between present and future, temporal
and eternal, earthly and divine. There will be an
infinitude of wealth in God's bounty to draw from,
for all things are yours, children of this glorious
adoption in Christ! whether things present or
things to come; and ye are heirs of God, and joint
heirs with Christ, and he that overcometh shall
inherit all things. All fountains of strength and
grace shall be yours to draw from, and with angelic
skill and wisdom all needed resources will be combined, and with intuitive swiftness the best means
will be seen and adopted. The understanding will
be divinely illuminated, the mental vision seeing no
more as through a glass darkly, but face to face, and
the memory no longer treacherous and feeble, but
capacious and retentive beyond all bounds. All
past acquisitions will be secured, and nothing lost
or wasted. There will be no haste, nor anxiety, but
a divine and holy leisure and serenity of mind, even
in the swiftest, grandest onward excitement and
progress. It is only in the power and triumph of
an endless life, that any creature from this restless
world ever can be at leisure. But there you have
eternity at your disposal, and all your plans, glorious and unembarrassed, may move on forever and
ever! It is the power of an endless life. 
THIE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE.   215
There will be progression in holiness. There can
indeed be no addition made to the righteousness
of Christ, and that is what the believer is clothed
with from the outset, and that is what every redeemed
soul will reflect in glory everlasting. But as star
differeth from star in glory, so in the reflection of
that glory, which will be brighter and brighter the
more the soul studies and knows of God and his
holiness. The glory, the brightness, the worth of
that holiness will continually be increasing in the
creature, because it is infinite in the Creator, and
the soul will forever be coming into nearer and
nearer resemblance to God in Christ.
There will be progression in the power of holy
habit. Think of the glory and the power of such
habit in the soul, when ages on ages have made the
life of love a nature so irrevocable, that by the very
principles of an immortal-constitution there shall be
no more possibility of change, than in the nature of
the Son of God!  iow glorious is this certainty!
This is one element in the power of an endless life.
It shall be a power of life that all the opposing
powers in the universe might be let loose upon with
safety; might war against it, and should not overcome, might labor with whatever native or permitted intensity and energy could be brought into the
conflict, and yet should not start one impulse in the
soul, or one thought or motive from its foundation
in holiness, and its confirmed immutable fastening
to the throne and being of God, and its direction in
his love and glory! This is that great meaning,
beginning in this life, and running on through 
THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE.
ever, and yet no possible approximation be made to
a limit, in the knowledge of God, in the study of
his works and ways, in his kingdoms of creation,
grace, and glory. All that is comprehended in the
threefold division in that great promise of Christ in
the Apocalypse, shall be given, as an infinite possession for the wanderings, and acquisitions, and visions
of the soul. " Him that overcometh will I make a
pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no
more out. And I will write upon him the name of
my God, and the name of the city of my God, new
Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from
my God, and I will write upon him my new name."
"Since the beginning of the world men have not
heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the
eye seen, 0 God, besides thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for iHim."
And even the revelation by the Spirit is more
the implantation or excitement in the soul of a
longing, panting desire after God and his glory,
than any actual sight or knowledge. We want the
fire of inspiration, the winged fiery chariot of inspiration, to go careering on this vast immensity,
this illimitable, unimaginable, incommunicable dominion of the divine attributes; and if we could
give the widest scope and license to the grandest
imagination ever created, as to the possibilities of
glory to be encountered, we should fall infinitely
below them. In the matter of merely material
worlds, the career of journeying and investigation
from one to another, the contemplation and the
noting down, from universe to universe, of marvels,
10
217 
218   THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE.
which it might take a thousand thousand ages of
the swiftest possible motion to reach, and a thousand more to master and comprehend, present a
sphere of mental activity and acquisition, boundless
and eternal.  What heart can conceive, what mind
can measure, even in imagination, the infinitude of
the riches of creative wisdom and love! But when
you add to that the riches of God's grace, and superadd to that the riches of his glory, the kingdoms
of creation, redemption and reward, piled one above
another, in every direction an absolutely incomprehensible infinitude, you are confounded by the very
attempt, and can only humbly cry out with the enraptured and yet baffled apostle, Oh the depths! the
infinite depths! infinite on infinite!
And in view of such glimpses of God's glory, the
heart that has been taught by His Spirit, the heart
that has begun to know, in feeling and experience,
the power of His love, is ready to exclaim, My God!
it is enough! Thou art my all in all. Whom have
I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon the
earth that I desire beside Thee. Oh! if I may but
be made to know God, if I may but be taught to
love im, I want nothing else. My happiness is
secure in Iim. The power of an endless life is
power to me, because it will let me study and love
God to all eternity. The power of an endless life is
glory to me, because it absorbs me in the glory of
God,  unfathomable,  unsearchable, inconceivable,
adorable, eternal. This is life eternal, this is the
power of an endless life, to know Thee, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. 
THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE.    219.
And thus, again, that life is eternally progressive
in enjoyment, in delight, in happiness inconceivable,
unutterable.  Forever increasing with the increase
of the knowledge of God in Christ, ages on ages
shall witness an undiminished freshness and novelty
in the glory still to be revealed, a capacity of bliss
forever enlarging, and a reality of bliss forever
accumulating. The bliss arising from the knowledge
and the love of God not only never can have any
limit, but, in the nature of things, must be positively
and infinitely progressive. What raptures are produced, even now, even in this world, even in the
midst of suffering and torture, by the manifestation
of God to the soul! Take the case of such a man
as the dying Payson, and see him racked with pain,
yet swimming in a sea of glory; almost torn asunder
with the spasms of bodily anguish, yet, in his inward
spirit, visited not only of angels, but of God; almost
entranced in the light and glory of God in Christ
Jesus, and, under the communications of God to the
soul, filled with serene, ineffable, ecstatic rapture and
delight!  Take the case of Dr. Scott, whose experience of dying was in these words: "This is heaven
begun. I have done with darkness forever, forever.
Satan is vanquished. Nothing now remains but
salvation, with eternal glory-eternal glory." This
is of God-the presence, the power, the glory. It
is a power and a mystery of bliss beyond the reach
of mortal natural philosophy. Let reason, and naturalism, and rationalism, do the utmost with their
forces-let them call in all the powers of science,
art, nature, imagination, and they can produce no 
THlE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE.    219 )
And thus, again, that life is eternally progressive
in enjoyment, in delight, in happiness inconceivable,
unutterable. Forever increasing with the increase
of the knowledge of God in Christ, ages on ages
shall witness an undiminished freshness and novelty
in the glory still to be revealed, a capacity of bliss
forever enlarging, and a reality of bliss forever
accumulating. The bliss arising from the knowledge
and the love of God not only never can have any
limit, but, in the nature of things, must be positively
and infinitely progressive. What raptures are produced, even now, even in this world, even in the
midst of suffering and torture, by the manifestation
of God to the soul! Take the case of such a man
as the dying Payson, and see him racked with pain,
yet swimming in a sea of glory; almost torn asunder
with the spasms of bodily anguish, yet, in his inward
spirit, visited not only of angels, but of God; almost
entranced in the light and glory of God in Christ
Jesus, and, under the communications of God to the
soul, filled with serene, ineffable, ecstatic rapture and
delight! Take the case of Dr. Scott, whose experience of dying was in these words: "This is heaven
begun. I have done with darkness forever, forever.
Satan is vanquished. Nothing now remains but
salvation, with eternal glory-eternal glory." This
is of God-the presence, the power, the glory. It
is a power and a mystery of bliss beyond the reach
of mortal natural philosophy. Let reason, and naturalism, and rationalism, do the utmost with their
forces-let them call in all the powers of science,
art, nature, imagination, and they can produce no 
220   THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE.
thing like this, nothing of this; neither can they
account for this. It is God's own mystery, God's
own glory, God's own gift, God's sole almighty
power. Here are glimpses of what God can do,
what the manifestations of God to the soul can do,
even this side the grave, in a world of guilt and
suffering. Who, then, can reach to any adequate
conception of what God may do, what Hie has promised Hie will do, in a world where Hie himself
dwelleth, in light inaccessible and full of glory?
Who shall set any limits to the happiness of the
soul in Hiim, in a world triumphant over all evil,
where there is no more sin, doubt, darkness, unbelief, pain or suffering, but pure, clear, celestial,
radiant light, within and without,-the region of
the Paradise of God to dwell in, and the peace of
God, which passeth all understanding, filling the
soul and expanding it, as the air lifts up these heavens?  0 the power of an endless life! the power
of an endless life! in the manifestation and discovery of God to the soul I 
IN His last loving address to the dear disciples,
so sad, yet so consoling, our blessed Lord said, "In
my Father's House are many mansions: if not, I
would have told you. I go to prepare a place for
you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I
will come again, and receive you unto myself; that
where I am, there ye may be also."
My Father's House! How sweet a designation
of locality as well  as personal affection!   My
Father's House! And is not this vast universe the
House of my Father, and where He is, there the
very homestead of heaven, no matter where, if He
be there? Oh yes! But that is not the thought
that Jesus here suggests or intimates, nor that the
form of truth that here He teaches to the faith of
His disciples, for their joy and consolation. There
is delightful definiteness here. It is not the dim incomprehensible universality of Omnipresence merely, but a place for our abode, as determinate as
place is for us now, and with as intimate a home
relation, as the dearest fireside on this earth can
have, nay incomparably more intimate and personal
and definitely local, in our Father's House in heaven.
Wa   i     z  t  a it xes  
MANY MANSIONS.
It is that building of God, that house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens, to which the
thoughts are here carried.  We  know that if our
earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we
have that building of God;  and this text of Paul
in Corinthians may well be taken as a kind of
paraphrase or guide to this, in John, for the interpretation of the expression, In my Father's House
are many mansions.  Thus, then, let us examine some
of the glorious characteristics of that heavenly
building, which is there our home.
In the first place, it is a building of God. God
made it, with neither creature, nor created agency,
intervening. It is God's own, immediate work. It
is HIis work, as a different kind of work, and in a
very different sense, from anything material. It is
a building not merely of God, but as the expression
may allow, a building proceeding forth from God,
rather as an effluence from Hiis own essence, than
an ordinary exercise or result of creative power. It
is said that God is light, also that God dwelleth in
light, also that we ourselves, as the children of God,
dwell in God; we are also called children of light.
Now, if we knew the immateriality of light, we
might find in that something more than a mere type
of our Father's House in heaven.  This building of
God may be as different from all material constructions or creations, of which we have either knowledge or conception, as the light itself is different
from the forms of material substance, which we see
around us.
For, in the second place, it is a house not made
222 
MANY  MANSIONS.
with hands, not capable of being so made.  It is not
constructed piece by piece, as all buildings here in
this world are, but is one and indivisible, as if an orb
in the heavens were constructed of one perfect
diamond. Moreover, it is possessed and inspired
with the attributes of a spiritual glory, so that we
could get no more idea of it, nor of any likelihood
of it, from anything of material growth or construction, than we could get an idea of the nature or appearance of this all-surrounding crystal atmosphere
of heaven, from considering the doors of our
houses, or the iron hinges on which  they swing.
All possible forms of architecture here are made
with hands.  The temple of God, built by Solomon,
was so prepared, that there was neither hammer nor
axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while
it was in building; yet was it all built with hands,
and its glory was to pass away and be forgotten forever. We can build out of God's material creation,
structures of great beauty and grandeur; and we
can imitate the very forms of nature, almost at our
pleasure, using the materials placed of God at our
disposal. Almost anything and everything in this
lovely breathing world, the hand of man can imitate, with exquisite naturalness and skill; trees,
plants, roses, feathers, flowers, birds; all the creations that the sun evolves or shines upon.  The
first Crystal Palace was a house made with hands.
But its very idea sprung from the effort of a gardener to construct a large and peculiarly shaped glass
covering for a strange, costly and wondrously
beautiful lily from a foreign land. So with material
228 
MANY MANSIONS.
substances, the architect wants but the idea, and the
skill even of human hands can produce structures
of vast magnificence and splendor. But life and
light cannot be handled, cannot be put together,
cannot be imitated, nor anything like them be made
with hands, nor any approximation to them, nor
any symbol, or forth-shadowing resemblance of a
spiritual habitation. So this building of God, not
made with hands, is thus presented as inconceivably
superior in essence and in glory to anything suggested by our mortal frame, or the frame of this
material universe.
It is also, in the third place, an eternal building.
In this respect, again, it is different from anything
in this world, anything in the visible universe.
Everything that these eyes behold is transitory; not
one thing that we are acquainted with is permanent.
These spheres and orbs of glory, constructed with
such infinite skill and grandeur, connected and
revolving, and each in its own bosom creatively
germinating, by laws of such infinite complication
and harmony, by principles of such Divine wisdom
and benevolence, are yet to be laid aside. This
earth and these heavens are to be rolled together as
a scroll, though so Divinely glorious; these elements
shall melt with fervent heat, and all nature be dissolved in the chaos of a final conflagration.  "Of
old hast Thou laid the foundations of the earth, and
the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall
perish, but Thou endurest.  As a vesture shalt Thou
fold them up, and they shall be changed; but Thou
art the same, from everlasting to everlasting!" And
224 
MANY MANSIONS.
so is this building of God, not made with hands,
immutable, imperishable, like His own eternity, the
same forever and ever, indestructible, everlasting.
But, in the fourth place, it is eternal in the heavens. It is where God resides, in light inaccessible
and full of glory; it is where God manifests the
brightness of His attributes, in a display peculiar
and endearing, intimate and local. My Father's
house signified, even to the Saviour, a divine, beloved and heavenly abode, from which, for a season,
He had departed, had laid aside His glory, had left
His robes of Deity, as it were, lying there, thrown
off upon the throne of God, till He should return to
be reinvested with them, after having accomplished,
by His sufferings and death, in human form, that
infinite redemption which for guilty, dying sinners
He had undertaken. My Father's house signified,
even to Him, His home in the heavens.  Did He
not say so on earth?   "I came forth from  the
Father, and am come into the world. Again I
leave the world, and go to the Father." And again:
"Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my
Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them,
I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my
God and your God."
It is peculiarly the dwelling-place of God. That
city of which we read in the Revelation of Johnthat holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from
God out of heaven, and called the tabernacle of God
with men, having the glory of God, presents the
most distinct and definite image under which it has
pleased the Divine Spirit to shadow forth the place
10*
225 
MANY MANSIONS.
and nature of our house which is from heaven,
my Father's house, in which are many mansions.
The throne of God and of the Lamb is there; and
His servants see His face, with His name in their
foreheads. There is no temple there, for the Lord
God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
There is no need of the sun, nor of the moon there,
for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb
is the light thereof. And whereas, it is said of
those who are before the throne of God in such
glory, that they see His face, and then it is added,
that His name is in their foreheads, this is to signify
the completion of all those predictions and processes
of grace unto glory, begun on earth and fulfilled in
heaven; begun in beholding, by faith, as in a glass,
even in this earthly tabernacle, the glory of the
Lord, and being changed into the same image from
glory to glory; begun here on earth, by having the
life hid with Christ in God, to come forth there in
heaven in the life revealed, seen and known, with
Christ in God forever, according to the promise,
"When He who'is your life shall appear, then shall
ye also appear with Him in glory;" begun by the
burial and hiding of the life with Him and in Him
here, and completed by and because of the sight of
His face there, according to the promise and assurance, "We  know that when He shall appear, we
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."
The sight of Him as He is, in His Father's house
in glory, will complete the fulness of perfection and
of glory in His dear disciples, as they are in Him, in
their many mansions in that house, in His eternal
226 
MANY MANSIONS.
likeness. The sight of Iis face, without veil, without cloud, in the eternal glory, will bring out the
fulness of His name in their foreheads-that is, in
their whole conspicuous body, form, spirit and nature,
-His whole name, the glory of His Divine attributes, His whole image, a perfect reflection of iis
holiness in their holiness in Christ, eternal in the
heavens; the glory of God, and the glory of Jesus,
and the glory of the city, all possessed and reflected
in that name, in their foreheads, and flashing forth,
when they see His face, even as the glory of the
noonday sun would be flashed forth from a spotless
mirror, with insufferable brightness, the moment
you should turn the mirror to the sun. For the
Lord of glory and of life hath said of him that overcometh, and is to see God, "I will write upon him
the name of my God, and the name of the city of
my God, and my new name"; and when they see Hiis
face, then will the whole eternal glory of that name
shine forth in their whole being. They may be
under a cloud now, as a pure and spotless mirror
might be rolled up and covered round and hidden
in a veil of dark cloth, so that even beneath the sun,
you could not see that it is a mirror, could not see
the sun in it; but the instant you unroll the cloth,
take away the veil, and hold it up to the sun, then
it is so flashing and glorious, that you cannot look
at it. Just so, when these wrappings of cloth, these
folds of earth, that veil the dwelling of the soul in
this earthly tabernacle, are drawn away; when this
tent is taken down, and the believing soul, without
fault, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, is
227 
MANY MANSIONS.
before the throne of God, and sees Jesus as He is,
then will the soul itself be seen shining forth in
Jesus' likeness, glorious in His glory.
But now, in the fifth place, there are many man sions. There is room for all, and all who are there
belong there, and the house belongs to them, for
they are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.
As being the sons of God, the dwellers in those man sions have received the building as their inheritance
in Christ. For them he has fitted it up, and placed it
at their disposal.  "I go to prepare a place for you."
They have their mansions in fee simple. They are
no more tenants, but heirs, joint heirs with Christ,
who, as a Son, with them as sons, abideth in the
House forever. There is no incumbrance on the
property, and never can be. There is no mortgage
on our Father's house in Heaven, whatever there
may sometimes be, even on his own  house on
earth, which there never should be. There is no
debt upon it, nor ever was, nor ever can be; for
the debts of the children in it, to whom it is freely
given of God, were all paid by their suffering, dying
Redeemer, and to them it is given, free, full, the
title in Christ unquestioned, unincumbered, perpetual, So ought the house of God on earth to be
in this respect some faint type of the freedom and
glory of that house in Heaven. It ought to belong
to God, and to be held by man simply in trust for
him. And indeed, since he hath provided for us a
habitation so glorious, his own free gift, with a perpetual title of heirship to it in Christ Jesus, it is but
little that we can do for him, if, out of our abun
228 
MANY MANSIONS.
dance which he hath given us by the way, we put
his house on earth into his hands unincumbered,
for the glory of his kingdom, that it may be said in
Zion, of this and that man, when he writeth up
the people, These were born there. Oh truly we
ought not to be willing to have God's house on
earth in debt, where we are training for that house
in glory, which he hath already put out of debt at
our disposal.
Now, once more in our consideration of the building of God, if there are many mansions in our Father's house, and divinely glorious, there are to be
glorious inhabitants also (as indeed we have already
anticipated), and a great multitude of them, whom
no man can number.  "Ye are come," says Paul, "to
an innumerable company of angels, to the general
assembly and church of the first born, which are
written in heaven, and to the spirits of the just
made perfect." There will be the good and the
blessed, from all ages and nations, the crowned and
the glorified, all, whose robes have been washed
and made white in the blood of the Lamb. There
will be Paul and Peter and John, and all the beloved apostles and disciples, who walked with
Christ on earth, and shared his personal sufferings.
And there will be all those whom they were instrumental in bringing to glory. There will be the
Ephesian, Philippian, Corinthian and Athenian converts.  Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus, and
Dionysius the Areopagite, and Lydia the seller of
purple, and Barnabas and Timotheus and Apollos,
and multitudes of others from the Apostolic age,
229 
MANY MANSIONS.
will be there together.  There will be Phillip, and
his interesting convert the Ethiopian, seen last on
earth sitting together in the chariot, reading of their
Saviour's sufferings, now beheld in heaven, gazing
together on their Saviour's infinite glory.  There
will be Enoch and Abel, and Adam and Noah, and
hosts of shining witnesses of oldest time. There
will be Moses and Elias as on the Mount of Transfiguration. There will be Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob in the Kingdom of ieaven, with David and
Job, Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, and all thie Prophets,
and all who with them or through them died in
faith, having embraced the promises. There will
be the family of Bethany, and those dear ones who
followed Christ with their hearts, and ministered to
him of their substance.  There will be that saint
who washed his feet with her tears, and wiped them
with the hairs of her head; and she too, who broke
for him her box of Alabaster, and stood behind him
weeping; and those who followed him to the cross,
and watched him at the sepulchre.  There, too, will
be that poor widow whom Jesus beheld as she stole
trembling to God's treasury, and threw in all the
living that she had. Oh what a study of character
will be there, and what a comparison of infinite reward of glory with little but precious sacrifices and
services on earth! There will be the earliest noble
army of confessors and martyrs. There will be the
great companies of witnesses slain in the many persecutions of the saints. There will be the glorified
forms of those Christian heroes, whose bones lie
bleaching in the mountain snows, and those whose
230 
MANY MANSIONS.
life wore out in dungeons, or who by racking tortures rode to heaven in fire. What a congregation
of the good from every clime, and every nation!
What spirits of the just made perfect, in assembled
hosts, of men whose memory is sweet on earth, and
around any one of whom, if seen again on earth in
person, men would crowd in homage and admiration!  Think of meeting them together!  Think of
being made worthy to meet them! Think of the
only condition on which we can meet them, by a
participation in the life and likeness of one common
Saviour.
Dear friend, have you begun your acquaintance
with iHlim?  Is the power of his grace already experienced within you, and is your life so hid with
Christ in God, that you can feel that he has gone to
prepare a mansion for you, and that when he appears again, you also shall appear with him in glory?
Happy indeed are you, if by the law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus, setting you free from the law of
sin and of death, this is your assurance. And ought
not the possession of this assurance to be your constant aim and labor? Ask yourself daily, into what
house you are going when you die. Do not imitate
the fool, who spent his probation in pulling down
his barns and building greater, but never in all his
life made the least preparation for the dwelling of
his soul in glory.  Alas, there are many who take
far greater care for a house for their carriages and
horses, than they do for their own immortal spirits.
Do not imitate the wretched being, who from his
palaces, and magnificent furniture, and grand cloth
231 
MANY MANSIONS.
ing and living, went into a house of flames. Oh
see to it that you have this building of God. Give
all diligence to make your title sure, your calling
and election.
And another thing is evident, if you possess that
building in the skies, your affections will be fixed
there, you will sometimes long to go there, more
earnestly than ever the owner of a lovely paradise
in the country longs to escape from the city to the
sweet open fields, when Spring and Summer are
spreading glory and life over all nature. And again,
if you possess it, you ought to know that you possess
it, and to act accordingly, and never be much
troubled by anything that befalls the walls of this
earthly tenement, or you in it. You ought constantly to remember that this must be taken down,
before you can be admitted to that; but though the
taking down of this be painful, the being clothed
upon with that-the hope and assurance of itshould make you resigned and happy, and your only
anxiety should be, to be prepared.
232 
I'v tl  of 6,- at  far  6aW+
Ix that passage in the second epistle of Paul to
the Corinthians, to which we have already referred,
as a fit commentary on the preceding passage in
John, concerning our Father's house, and its many
mansions, Paul says we KNOW that if our earthly
house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a
building of God, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens.
The language of this expression of Christian confidence is peculiar in respect both to the intensity
of the confidence, as an absolute knowledge, and the
time of the possession described, as the present time.
WNVe know that we have. Hlere is the intimation of
a present experience as the ground of a future certainty. The experience in a Christian soul arises
from what, under the grace of God, that soul has
been and is now doing, the life, hid with Christ in
God, which it has been and is living, the character
it has assumed and is building up.  If there be this
well-grounded assurance of this glorious house, it is
because, as the apostle continues in his argument,
he that hath wrought us for this self same thing is
God, who hath also given unto us the Earnest of his 
2 t4   THE BUILDING OF GOD, FOP  GOD.
Spirit. And the proof that hlie hath so wrought us,
is to be found in the fact of our working in that
same direction, by that same Spirit. Let every man
take heed how he buildeth.  Every man is building
is flow building for eternity. The manner in which
he is building now, shows what will be the nature
of his habitation in eternity. The building into
which he is to remove so shortly, is preparing in
this world. In many cases it is already decided;
it is always so, if a man be truly a child of God; for
when a sinner comes to the Saviour, and begins
building for eternity, God is building with him and
for him.  "Know  ye not that ye are the temple
of the living God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?  He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in
God and God in him.  For thus saith the high and
lofty one that inhabiteth eternity; I dwell in the
high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.  He that keepethl His commandments dwelleth in Hiim. And hereby know
we that we dwell in Hlim, and that He abideth in us
by His Spirit that He hath given us."
This, then, is the rule under which we are all advancing to meet God in eternity. By the manner
of our passing through this world, we determine the
manner of our residence in the next. It is just
simply a question of character. They who work
with God, and build their house as the Spirit of God
directs, working out their own salvation by ilim
working in them both to will and to do, shall dwell
with God forever.  But if otherwise, if the master
workman is Death, by sin, and Satan, every man's 
THE BUILDING OF GOD, FOR GOD.
work shall be made manifest, for the day shlall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the
fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is.
It all proceeds just according to the rule that whlatsoever a man soweth that shall hlie also reap.  lIe
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.
We see, then, if a man has so much to do in this
world with the building of that house, if according
as he builds here, such and so the building will be
there, what madness it is to neglect this house, to
make no provision in regard to it, or to be employed
in constructing it out of materials that will not stand
the fire. It must be of such materials that God
can dwell in it, that we and God can dwell together
in it. If God cannot dwell in it, then it can be no
dwelling of happiness to us.  For it is written that
our God is a consuming fire. And when we bring
such a text as that, alongside with that other from
the Epistle to the Corinthians, that the fire shall try
every man's work of what sort it is, it seems that
we have a new light as to the kind of fire that is to
try the building. Suppose it to be simply the fire
of God's holiness, the fire of the presence of God.
Can we stand that, if our building is made of such
materials as cannot endure that light?  It is said of
all the wicked, that wickedness is in their dwellings;
and it is also said, Thou art not a God that hast
pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with
thee.  But it is also said of all the good, The upiight shall dwell in God's presence, and God hath
2 ').5 
2  THE BUILDING OF GOD, FOR GOD.
said, I will dwell in them, and will be with them.
The very essence of heaven, and the peculiarity of
the building there, and the blissful certainty and im mutable necessity of glory for the righteous there,
is this, that they dwell in the very presence of God.
But he himself is like the refiner's fire, and in the
last revelation he will come in flaming fire, and the
very work of the Holy Spirit in preparing submis sive and believing souls for his presence and glory,
is said to be that of the Holy Ghost and of fire;
and therefore rolls forth the woe of the prophets
against the men who build by iniquity, and in the
very same breath we are called to mark that it is
of the Lord of Hosts that such persons shall labor
in the very fire. But who among us shall dwell
with devouring fire, and who can lie down in everlasting burnings?
Now, a man may choose what materials he pleases;
he may build for himself just what character he
pleases; but let him remember that he is putting up
a building, which is to meet God's inspection, and
not only so, but if he has the least idea of eternal
blessedness, it must be a building in which God can
dwell.
Let us then suppose that a man having the command of all the elements, and of all the resources
of science for their combination, and of all the
agencies and materials for the construction of a
splendid residence, should undertake to build a
house out of a preparation of crystalized and solidified gunpowder, or whatever ingredients of mingled
sulphurous, bituminous, fiery and explosive power, 
THE BUILDING OF GOD, FOR GOD.
might be concentrated and hardened into beams,
pillars, walls, roofs and rafters. He might also have
his house furnished with wrought crystal furniture of the same material; brimstone couches, and
chairs carved of solid nitre, and stuffed and cushioned with gun-cotton.  The house is to be lighted
with gas, and he has all the fixtures prepared accordingly, and gas-pipes of transparent asphaltum running through every apartment. It is a wondrous
house indeed; the dreams of the Arabian Nights'
Entertainments never imagined such a building; a
splendid house, a most original and costly house;
and if things were well adapted, if the nature of
the materials would permit, it might be a most comfortable, useful, and lasting house. But there is one
thing the builder has forgotten, or by a strange
hallucination has overlooked, in thus consulting his
own will, and building his house according to the
freaks of his fancy;  and that is, the inflammable
nature of its materials, and the certainty that that
which is necessary to light it, will also inevitably
consume it; that which is requisite for the possibility of residing in it, will shroud it, from the foundation to the top-stone, in a sheet of fire.  The
instant the gas is lighted, or the fire kindled, the
whole building is a flash of living inextinguishable
flame.
Now, this is but a faint emblem of a man who
builds up his character in this world without God,
out of materials that are instinct with sin, and sealed
with God's displeasure. His character thus wrought
out, solidified, established here, is to be his possess
237 
238    TIlE BUILDING OF GOD, FOr GOD.
ion and abode for eternity. Its materials are all
chosen, not according to the reason of things, or
the will of the great God of Eternity, but according
to the freaks of his own fancy, the rule of his own
appetites and passions, the indulgence of his own
present pleasure.  All the fixtures even for lighting
up this abode, and making it comfortable, are
according to the same law of present self-indulgence,
wrought out of the same sinful ingredients; and
the very atmosphere of the dwelling is of the same
elemental stuff.  Now, the house of a man's character, even thus constituted, may be all very grand,
costly, luxurious, splendid in appearance, and may
abide quiet for the present; but what will become
of it the moment the fire tries it, the moment a
flame is kindled in it, the moment that light, by
which it must be lighted in eternity, if ever lighted
at all, is let into it and upon it?  What will become
of it, when the light of God's holiness enters into it,
flashes through it?  Why, indeed,  we have  the
answer to this question in the declaration of scripture, that to the wicked and the unbelieving, our
God is a consuming fire. Such the Divine attributes must be, in the eternal world, to a man whose
character is builded out of such materials, without
Christ, without God, without prayer, without holiness, wiThout hope.
For we know that we are designed to be, every
one of us, according to God's rule, a dwelling place
for God, a living temple, of which God shall be the
happy life and soul. And the building built up in
God and with God and for God here, and so formed 
THE BUILDING OF GOD, FOR GOD.
that God can inhabit it forever, will be blessed in
eternity, an immortal temple, a house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens.  And  unless  so
formed that God can enter it, can dwell in it, can be
glorified by it, then the moment God touches it, tihe
moment the light of God's holiness blazes upon it,
surrounds it, flashes within, it will be all a flame of
fire unquenchable. All the fixtures running to and
fro in such a character are of inflammable materials,
that will kindle with the fires of hell; all the furniture of such a character has only the seal of the
self-willed maker, and of God's wrath. And the
character thus formed in sin is of such a nature, that
that very light which is necessary in order to light
up and render happy any created soul, will inevitably consume it, the moment it meets it. That flame
of purity and love, which alone can form the possibility of any man's blessed residence in the eternal
world, will set the whole residence on fire, a lurid
and conflicting fire, a retributive and self-avenging
fire, forever burning, yet forever unconsumed, in
the very materials out of which the soul's dwelling,
nay, the soul's adopted nature, was constructed.
See, then, what you are doing, 0 man of sin!
You wish to be saved, you wish to be received into
heaven when you die. You wish by no means to
be lost, you are not willing to contemplate that as
your destiny, or to believe it possible. You wish
that your existence in the eternal world may be a
blessed and blissful existence, that for you there may
be a mansion of eternal rest, that your name may
be found in God's book of life, and that yours for
239 
240    THE BUILDING OF GOD, FOR GOD.
ever may be a place in the city of the righteous.
Consider, then, what this wish really signifies. It
means that you may be permitted to dwell with
God, and that God would deign to dwell with you
forever and ever.  It means that you desire to have
God's own abode within you, and to enter into an
eternal and intimate communion with God, so that
you shall be as cognizant and conscious of God's
presence and inspection, as God is cognizant of your
existence.  It means that you desire a state of
being, where every thought, wish, impulse and emotion shall be as clear to the eye of Jehovah, and
you yourself conscious of it, as this material
world and you yourself in it, or the men that walk
upon it, or the trees and flowers that adorn it, are
to your own eye. It means that you desire to meet
God, and to have the blaze of all iHis attributes
upon you and within you; that you desire to be
forever fixed, where you can never for an instant
escape the notice of His all-seeing eye, where your
inmost being will be turned to Hlim as to the sun,
where not a thought can arise, not a feeling be experienced, not a wish formed, not an impulse
cherished, but it will confront the instant blaze of
the Divine holiness; and where, consequently, unless you are one with God, your being will flash
forth in hostility, just as the house of nitre, or of
solidified oxygen, or alcohol, would kindle at the
touch of fire.
Just consider, then, 0 creature of such tremendous responsibilities, if you be a stranger to grace,
what it is that you are doing, while you are living 
THE BUILDING OF GOD, FOR GOD.   241
in your sins, that is, while you are living in neglect
of Christ Jesus, and of prayer, and without God in
the world.  For, to be without God is to be alienated from Hiim, it is to be without holiness, it is to be
passing on towards Him, in the habitual formation
of a character that cannot bear Hiis sight, a character
in hostility against Him. What are you doing to
prepare your own heart, your own mind, your own
consciousness, your thoughts and your affections, for
the habitual presence of God? What are you doing
to make your own being, with its spiritual furniture and habits, a temple for His indwelling, holiness and love? What are you doing in preparation
for that meeting of your soul with God, to which,
on the supposition of the least hope of a happy
existence in the future world, you are advancing?
What in preparation for that most intimate communion with God, and closeness of His inspection,
which your vervy wish to be happy in the future
world implies? What have you done already,
supposing you should now die, just as you are, what
have you accomplished in preparation for God's
taking up Hiis glorious and blissful abode with you?
Alas, is there any joy within your heart at the
thoughts of such a meeting, or do your thoughts
draw back in terror as the reality draws near? Unless you are changed indeed, and possess a new
spiritual character, unless you are submissive to
God, and a partaker of Hiis holiness, could God abide
with you? Is there any such possibility? Can
there be for you, in any such blissful sense, a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in
11 
242    THE BUILDING OF GOD, FOR GOD.
the heavens? Would not the meeting of every
prayerless being, every unregenerate heart, every
sin-defiled soul with God, be just that of antagonist
forces, incompatible, not to be united; that of
infinite righteousness and utter sinfulness, infinite
justice and uncancelled guilt, that of the Divine
sovereignty and the sinful soul's habitual and supreme selfishness, that of the will of the creature
and the Creator in uttermost eternal conflict?
It is one of the mightiest, most overwhelming
truths of our existence, that we are all advancing
into the immediate presence of God, all coming
where we shall see him face to face, where the
nature and operation of his attributes will be clearer
to the soul, and more sensibly experienced, than
the objects and qualities of the material world to
the bodily senses. The meeting must take place.
It is the great event to which we are all hastening.
It is the event which is to determine our eternal
destiny, according to the character with which we
meet God. And one would think the sense of this
truth, the remembrance of it, and a watchfulness
accordingly, would never be out of our minds, but
would inspire us with a spirit of incessant prayer.
One would think that the knowledge of a meeting,
so rapidly near, with Infinite Holiness, would arm
us with such an energetic and instinctive terror and
abhorrence of all sin, that we should recoil from the
least approach of it, and start as from the upreared
head of an adder in the way. One would think
that the very breath of ceaseless prayer in our
hearts, and the thought and the yearning co-present 
THE BUILDING OF GOD, FOR GOD.
with all other thoughts, would be, Oh God! cleanse
me from my sins, and make me like to thee! Oli
Thou, whom I must shortly meet, and whose very
love, if I be not a partaker of it, will burn me, lilke
thine own holiness, as a consuming fire, take possession of me now for thyself, baptize me now with
the Holy Spirit and with fire.  Let the refining
flame of thy love kindle within me, and never go
out, but burn on, till every sinful thing shall be
consumed, and every native faculty transfigured,
and every impulse of will, feeling, and emotion
baptized in that regenerating flame!
And how can such a prayer be answered, and to
whom, if it be sincere, will it certainly bring the
yearning heart and soul, that the whole being may
be thus gloriously and forever transfigured, regenerated, and delivered from all sin?  Oh! to Jesus,
to the Son of God, our Saviour, to the great Physician of the soul!  Behold the Lamb of God, who
taketh away the sin of the world!  There is tlhe
Being, to whom love will bring you, there is the
Being, who will answer your love, and will fulfil,
as hle must have inspired, all blissful and heavenly
desires within you. "Jesus answered and said, If a
man love me, he will keep my words: and my
Father will love him, and we will come to him and
make our abode with him."  "Lord, to whom shall
we go, but unto thee?  Thou hast tlhe words of
eternal life I"
2409 
THAT is a wonderfully glorious passage in the
Epistle to the Ephesians, which reads thus; "Of
whom the whole family in heaven  and earth is
named."  The glory of the whole context is infinite, and this is but a sort of parenthesis before the
prayer.  But the full comprehensiveness and grandeur of this parenthesis, can be known only in the
Redeemer's second coming, and final everlasting
reign. As all beings were created by him and for
him, so angels and archangels, principalities and
powers of heavenly height and glory, as well as the
redeemed from our fallen world, are named in him
and for him, for lhe is before all things, and by him
all things consist.
We have had occasion to refer to the manner in
whichi God makes heaven our home;  gives us a
home locality there; throws around the idea of place
there the same sweet associations that cluster in the
heart and delighit the imagination at the word hzome,
here.  But we are carried still farther.  There is
also the word family in heaven; indeed, the only
time in which this word is spoken in the New Testament is here, in this mention of the w7ole family in
it t        atlitg  111         t zfit,ru.~ 
TIIE FAMIILY IN IIEAVEN.
heaven. There is a family circle there; there are
famnily ties and associations dearer than all ties on
earth; and if we should descend from the vast and
mighty sweep of this whole phrase, "the whole
family in heaven and on earth," which takes in all
the redeemed out of every nation, and kindred, and
tongue, and tribe, from the beginning to the end of
time, and stop at the literality of the first clause; if
we should cut out those striking words, thle whole
family in heaven, from their connection, and interpret them of one household, applying there in heaven
something like the very thought and feeling of a
loving family on earth, with its particular and strong
affections, in which a stranger intermeddleth not, we
should not perhaps be far out of the way. Nor can
there be anything more delightful than the thought
of a whole family in heaven. No doubt, there will
be many such-many whole households, transplanted
entire, not one left out or missing, from earth into
the kingdom of heaven. There will be whole families gathered there, through the blessed instrumentality of one faithful and beloved member of the
household, first brought to Jesus.  There will be
children gathered by the piety of parents, and parents
gathered by the piety of children; brothers drawn
to Christ by sisters, and sisters drawn by brothers;
and whole families saved by the faith and prayers
of one.
One of the two that heard John speak, and followed Jesus, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. 
Hie first findethli his own brother, Simon, and he
brought him to Jesus. That is one example given
245 
THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN.
us in God's own record of the manner in which  He
maketh up Hiis jewels; how the endearments and
affections of our family ties and duties sometimes
lead on those of grace; the earthly affection brings
the heavenly to bear upon the soul.  And can there
be the least doubt that in heaven itself, the tie on
earth so strong between Andrew and Simon, and
made the means of the salvation of the one, through
the instrumentality of the other, and thus exalted
and glorified, even here, will be recognized, will
make the family there, in some sense, a family still?
Why, we may learn something on this subject, even
from the lost in the world of woe, as presented by
our Saviour.  We find the elder brother in the gulf
of flame, trembling at the thought of meeting the
family circle there; five brethiren, whom he expected
to meet, and to meet as brought thither partly by
his own example, and in such a manner that the
family on earth would be known as a family in hell.
That direction, also, of the Lord of the harvest, to
gather the tares in bundles, and bind them for the
burning, has a marked meaning here; for the principle of association and participation in sinful example, instrumentality and character, suchi as marks
and attends an evil family all through life, will be
one of the principles of association and relationship
in an endless retribution. And the same principle
of association in heavenly and holy relationship,
character, example and influence, marking the families of redeemed on earth, will hold them peculiarly
known and near in heaven.  There will be trains of
blissful causes, sacred instrumentalities, set at work
246 
THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN.
in family circles here, the results of which will be
seen, marked, traced, admired there, holding the
same circle nearer and nearer through eternity,
nearer and dearer in Christ, and in one another, in
and through iHim.
But if the whole family in heaven and earth is
recognized, there are also the more particular representations, and representatives of the family there.
There are children in heaven. There are babes in
heaven, and there must be an infant's heavenly discipline there. Of such, said our blessed Lord, is the
kingdom of iHeaven; and we may suppose that he
had in view not merely the childlike temper and
disposition of a new-born soul in his kingdom here,
but the fact that the kingdom of the redeemed there
is made up, in so great a degree, of little children.
I shall go to him, but he will not return to me, exclaimed David, speaking of his own babe, that God
had taken, and speaking of the child as at rest with
God, in the presence of God in heaven. Thither
the affections of David travelled; there his hopes
were placed; there was his eternal dwelling-place
and home. When he himself should depart from
this world, he expected to be with God in glory.
Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; he could speak
that promise of himself, as well as a prediction of
the Messiah's resurrection. By the Earnest of the
Spirit he was confident, for God had wrought him
for the self-same thing, and he had the witness of
the Spirit within him that he was a child of God.
A The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and
my cup. Thou wilt show me the path of life: in
247 
THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN.
thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand
there are pleasures forevermore. As for me, I will
behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfled, when I awake, with thy likeness."
But his child had gone thither, to God, before
him. If there is anything clear in David's confidence, it is this, that his child was in heaven, and
there in heaven he expected to meet him. I shall
go to him. I shall rejoin him in God's good time,
when it pleases God to take me also to my heavenly
home. And the confidence has a personal and not
merely a local direction. I shall go to him, not
merely to the place where he is, but to him. It was
in the heart of David to recognize his child again in
glory; and the confidence does not seem to be set
down as amere imagination, springing out of a present
fondness, or a mere desire that it might be so; but
out of the darkness of his present sorrow it was the
breaking forth of a great truth. It was an inspiration flashing from earth to heaven. As a sheet of
lightning in the blackness of a midnight storm reveals instantly and vividly the whole horizon, so
this confident declaration of David lights up the
whole landscape, not only of heavenly realities, but
of the Jewish belief in regard to them; not only
throws a stream of sudden radiance into the revealed
spiritual world, but shows the contemplation of a
future existence habitual to the Hlebrew mind, and
that, too, on occasion of the death of an intfant.
There was no surprise in David's servants, as
though he had announced to them a new and most
surprising, most overwhelming doctrine, such as it
248 
THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN.
must have been if it had been new; but David
enunciated it, and they received it, withi thie utmost
calmness of a customary conviction, as a fixture of
their own belief and instruction, to which they were
to resort for consolation and submission under such
a bereavement.  Here, again, we have the scepticism
and blindness of those who would dephlogisticate
out of the word of God, in the Old Testament especially its living breath and flame of thoughlt and knowledge in regard to a future world of rewards and
punishments, put to shame and scorn.  And out of
the mouth of a babe, speaking as it were from the
eternal world, God perfects truthi and praise. Here
we have a great prophet of God, speaking to the
people over the grave of his own child, concerning
a truth which they had all been taught from God's
Word, as well as declaring out of his own impulse of
Divine inspiration, I shall go to him, but he shall
not return to me!
Now, as to the recognition in the heavenly world,
it is to be marked that David himself did not die,
did not depart to his heavenly home, to rejoin whatever loved ones of his family circle might be gathered there, till near twenty years after this beloved
child had gone from its cradle to Abraham's bosom,
to the companionship and glory of the celestial
world.  Twenty years the child would have been in
heaven with Moses and Elias in glory, a lamb in the
fold of Christ there, before his earthlly parent would
again see him; and could he be expected to know,
in the bright form of a seraph, educated for twenty
years in the presence and likeness of Jesus, his own
11*
249 
THIE FAMILY IN HIEAVEN.
departed babe? Why not, as well as Elijah, when
translated to heaven, could be expected to know
Moses, who had been dwelling in heaven five hundred years before Elijah went  thitlher?  There
would be no more of mystery in the one recognition
than in the other, but an equal delight and glory.
That a Christian parent should recognize a child,
passed into the skies, and educated there, is no more
mysterious than that Moses and Elijah should recognize each other, or rather know each other, though
they never met on earth, but only in heaven.
But whether that come to the mind as a mystery
or not, there is something unspeakably delightful
in following a little child, in imagination, into the
heavenly world, and dwelling on the blissfulness
and glory of its development there. There must
be a nursery, an infant school in heaven, a peculiar
training of these buds and blossoms of immortal
being, which for all heaven may  be a scene of
greater rapture and delight, than perhaps any other
of the infinite wonders of redemption, even in the
heavenly world. What a sight must it be, that of
the spirit of a babe, an infant, a prattling child,
growing Lip in heaven, opening, developing, in the
image of Jesus, perhaps beneath the guardianslip
and teaching of other angels-an employment how
ecstatic, how divine I
For aught we know, there may be a form of
glory, or degrees and qualities of glory, resulting
from such a development in heaven, transcending
all other manifestations of the manifold wisdom of
God through the church to all ages. And as we
21-  
THE FAMILY IN IHEAVEN.
have reason to believe that so vast a preponderating
multitude of those transmitted from our world to
heaven die in infancy and childhood, so the greater
part of heaven is filled with just such scenes, and
heaven might be conceived as one vast ecstatic holy
school of youthful happy spirits. What curious,
wondrous, blissful forms of the wisdom and love of
the Creator, combined with the perfection of the
work of our Divine Redeemer, may be seen in the
evolution of the infant immortal spirit from the very
bud of being,-who shall tell! Who has not felt, at
times, an earnest desire to look into the invisible
workings of an infant's mind, to see the dawnings
of thought, reason, self-consciousness, to know the
motions of this wondrous opening and dreaming
soul, even as we know our own! Oh certainly, to
see the growth of a mind in heaven, to watch its
developings in Christ, above the brightness of the
firmament, must be a process of glory so exquisite,
that nothing which we now see in the grandeur and
beauty of all this material universe can bear any
proportion to its loveliness.
But we pass from the family to the name. Of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth are
named. It is Christ the Saviour. Not a creature
of the redeemed of all our race, infant or aged, but
bears his name. All are there through the virtue
of his blood, and through that alone, without which
no more the babe than the child a hundred years
old, or the chief of sinners, could ever enter heaven.
The whole family, young and old, are named of
Christ, washed in his blood, clothed in his right
251 
THE FAMiILY IN HEAVEN.
eousness, and in him, and him alone, without fault
before the throne of God. This is the certainty,
and the only certainty, alike of the babe's salvation,
and that of the matured, believing child of God.
It is that Christ has died for the sins of the whole
world, and that his blood cleanseth from all sin.
It is that the child as well as the sinner a hundred
years old, needs a Saviour, and that Jesus died for
children. All that are in heaven bear his name,
and only thus can any be in heaven.
It is as difficult for God to save a child as a
grown person, equally a wondrous work of his
Divine redemption; but it is also equally easy; for
Christ has died, and it is not on account of any imagined or possible innocence or merit, that any
human being, infant or aged, is ever saved, but only
on account of the merit and the death of Christ.
So the whole family in heaven and earth are named
of him, though we have reason to believe the greater
proportion by far of the members of the family at
any one time, and at all times, passing from earth to
heaven, are infant members. Their first lisp of
language is his name, and the first exercise of belief
into which their minds open, is faith in his blood,
and the first and simplest feeling and emotions in
which their hearts beat, intelligent and self-conscious,
are of gratitude and love to him.  And the first
song in which their joy finds utterance must be the
anthem, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain; and
their infant melodies may be the sweetest of all
heaven's melody, and the grandest part in those
celestial services, that which they bear in the halle
252 
THE FAMILY IN HiEAVEN.
luiahs of redemption. Perhaps, indeed, it is this
very thing, of which the Psalmist caught a view by
inspiration, when he exclaimed, "0 Lord! thou hlast
set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth
of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise! "
No lteral interpretation can be given to that passage
in any other way. But if you translate it of the
infant singers in heaven, it is a very natural window
opened into the glories of the celestial world.
The assurance that little children, through the
blood of Jesus Christ, are taken to heaven, should
greatly mitigate the grief of parents and friends,
when God takes them away. They cannot help
sorrowing, for ever since Adam and Eve ]eft the
Garden of Eden and mourned the death of Abel,
the loss of children has been and must be regarded
as one of the severest of earthly trials; but they
must not sorrow as those who have no hope. The
sting of death is taken away, and the imagination
and heart can follow the little one into a world of
glory, where there are no conceptions of beauty and
blessedness, in which they may not properly array
it. All that ever they could depict to themselves,
or by the Earnest of the Spirit ever foretasted, or
could desire to experience, of holiness, radiance and
happiness in the heavenly world, they may feel sure
is outdone, is overpassed, by the infant cherubs that
have gone before them. If the fancy in vain strives
to paint the glories that surround the believer,
when on rising from the river of death, thie visions
and realities of the celestial world burst upon the
soul, still more impossible is it to conceive the
253 
THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN.
beauty and happiness of a babe in heaven. What
a privilege it is for parents whom God has bereaved,
to feel that they have children there! What a
privilege to have consecrated them to God, to have
prayed over them, to have led them to the Saviour,
to have offered them to God in baptism, to have
claimed His promise for them, to have given them
to Jesus as the members of His family, the lambs of
Ilis fold! And now, if God has taken them, from
how many thousand evils, snares, temptations,
dangers, sins, have they been snatched!  Neither
pain, nor sickness, nor sorrow shall they ever know
more.
And what education could the most careful parents
ever have given them, compared with that angelic
and ecstatic discipline in which they are nurtured there in the perfect likeness and beholding
of the Redeemer; or what care could the most
anxious parents ever have bestowed upon them,
compared with the care of that Saviour who has
taken them to His bosom; or what fortune could
the most indulgent parents ever have provided for
them, though all the riches of the universe had been
placed at their disposal, compared with that inheritance of which they are with Christ the heirs, those
glorious mansions they inhabit, that blessed society
where they rest? And we may add, what happiness could they ever have conferred upon the most
delighted parents here, compared with that they are
conferring in heaven upon myriads, who perhaps
gather from the remotest dominions of the King of
saints, to gaze upon their glory, and to admire with
254 
THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN.
new love and gratitude, and new ecstasy of enjoy ment and surprise, the glory of the Saviour revealed
so ravishingly in them. If there is joy among the
angels of God over one sinner that repenteth, oh
what joy likewise over every babe received to
glory!
But again, and more solemnly still, the consideration of this theme ought to make us think of the
sacredness, preciousness and glory of the work of
training up a little child for Christ and His Kingdom. Hiow blessed the thought of a whole family
in heaven! Hiow precious, how delightful, the
mutual communion, example, instrumentality, effort,
faith, prayer, by which one after another, coming
into the Christian life here, enter on the life of
glory there, till all are gathered at length, a dear
unbroken family before's God's throne! Hiow infinitely important the work of faith, love, instruction and prayer, to be applied continually by
parents upon the susceptible hearts and ductile
minds of their little ones, that from the earliest
period, the image and superscription of Jesus may
be impressed and growing daily! We know not
how rapidly they may be passing from the time,
when, if they were suddenly taken, we might feel
the assurance that Jesus has taken them to Himself
in glory, to the period of conscious unbelief and
voluntary neglect and rejection of Jesus from the
heart. What fervent effort ought to be used, what
earnest prayer, what affectionate persuasive instruction, that they may not enter upon that period, or
if entered on it, that they may turn from it, and
2,511-) 
THE FAMILY IN HIEAVEN.
hasten to the Saviour, in faith, penitence and love,
thle youthful happy subjects of His sanctifying grace!
Both the uncertainty of life, and the certainty that
if habits of youthful piety are not commenced, tlhe
habits of procrastination and of sin are greatly and
constantly strengthening, and the prospect becoming less and less favorable of a conversion to God,
ought to impel every Christian parent to an earnest
heartfelt, never-ceasing diligence, in pleading and
applying the instructions  and  promises  of the
gracious Saviour, and the affectionate persuasive
power of a heavenly example.
2.56 
CUB, t      Io,~v~ f art            P. ta +
THIE power of an endless death! Amazing and
infinitely dreadful expression! Yet thus hath eternal
life its infinite and opposite extreme; and little indeed could we know of either but by the disclosures
of Divine revelation. Accordingly, in one of the
grandest chapters in the book of Job, we have the
following sublime and impressive interrogation from
the Almighty:  " Hlave the gates of death  been
opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of
the shadow of death?"
And what mortal can answer it?  WVho hath ever
gone down to those portals, or been admitted within
the secrets of that prison house, and returned?
What living man knows anything about death, even
the death of the body, save as he sees some of the
phases of departing life; but when it is gone, knows
not which way it fled, nor how, nor whither? And
as to the changing substance that remains, the mould,
the worm, the putrefaction, the corruption of the
grave, all that is no more a process of death, than the
disintegration of a granite mountain by the rain, the
light, the air, frost, fire and sunbeams. And whatever thou hast seen or known of disease or pain, 
258   THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS DEATH.
dark-walking pestilence or noon-wasting destruction,
fretting leprosies, plagues, lazar-houses, consump tions, fevers, poisons, wounds, or the bloodiest mur derous carnage of war, if thou art yet alive, thou
knowest nothing of death. So far from having
entered the gates of death, thou hast not seen even
the doors of its shadow.
THE DOORS OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH! Rightly
considered, there is surely something exceedingly terrific and awful in this expression. Where are those
doors? And if we were admitted within them,
what is there there sending such shadow here? All
that we see and know is but the shadow; and if such
be the shadow, what must be the reality! and where
is it? Sometimes God has caught us up as in a
vision; once He stood upon the world, and bade us
look down into the gulf, opening it before us; and
always He makes us know that the substance, which
sends, from the doors of the unseen, such a shadow,
englooming the world, is infinite depths beyond the
confines of time, filling eternity. And death here,
Shadow or Skeleton, is the King of Terrors, because
we know him not till we get beyond, within those
unseen portals, whence this vast, wide, creeping,
desolating shadow issues and enshrouds us.
DEATH!  Its shadow covers the world, darkens
it, and fills all hearts with gloomy fears and forebodings. All their lifetime, through fear of death,
men are subject unto bondage. Its shadow is here,
but its substance and its power are the power of an
endless life, life in death, and death in life, conflicting forever. The reality of death is in eternity. 
THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS DEATH.   259
And that death is called in scripture the SECOND
death. This is that, of which the first death is but
the shadow. This is the last, and, in some respects,
the most terrible designation of it in God's wordthe second death. There is nothing after that, but
that holds on, perpetual, eternal. And it is under
this designation that we must examine it. It is
appointed unto men once to die; but that death is
scarcely worthy of the name of death. The death
that comes after the judgment-the death of the
soul-the death of sin, and of retribution for sinthe death eternal-that is death indeed, that is the
second death. Salvation from that is indeed salvation. Anything less than that would be but the
purchase of a lease, that would of itself inevitably
run out. Redemption from the second death was a
work worthy the interposition and atoning sacrifice
of the Son of God; but nothing less than eternity
made it so. Nothing less than the power of an
endless life, on one hand, and the power of an endless death, on the other, demanded, for a High Priest
and Saviour, the Almighty, the Word that was with
God, and was God.
Under this view, let us examine it. We have to
set out with the great fact of scripture and of our
own experience, that death is death in sin, and that
only. Dead in sin, dead in trespasses and sins, and
such like expressions, are some of the forms conveying the description, or announcing the reality, of
this state. The sting of death is sin, and the strength
of sin is the law,-expressions which carry us at
once beyond the grave, not referring merely, or by 
260 TIHE POWER OF AN ENDLESS DEATH.
any means mainly, to that shadow of death under
which this body passes to the tomb, but to the reality
and power of death in eternity; and that reality and
power is sin. The first thing, then, to be noted of
the substance of death, under the power of an endless life, is, that it is perfection in sin.
It is not until this corruptible shall have put on
incorruption, and this mortal, immortality-not till
after the passing of the shadow of death, and the
raising of the body from its dominion into the glorified body-that, in eternal life, the saying is brought
to pass that is written, Death is swallowed up in
victory.  Oh death! where is thy sting?   Gone forever, because sin is gone. And, therefore, in the
last description of the blessed in Christ, the all-em
bracing proposition is, that there shall be no more
death. Over such the second death hath no power;
for there is no  sin, but an eternal victory over it,
eternal, absolute, perfect holiness, in the imparted
and participated nature of the Redeemer.
And on the other hand, it is not till the absolute,
unmingled mastery of sin beyond the grave, not till
the destruction of both soul and body in hell, that
life is swallowed up of death, and death is seen and
known, as sin is seen and known, by and in eternity. In this view there is a tremendous emphasis in
the declaration that sin, when it is finished, bringeth
forth death. When sin is finished, the whole being
is alive with it, in a living, positive, active death,
perfect, unmingled, unalleviated. There is no good
left.  It is absolute evil, unbalanced, unmodified,
unmitigated.  Perfection in sin is the negation of 
THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS DEATH.  261
all good, and the active despotism of all evil.
Neither of these can be without the other. John
says, even in this world, He that loveth not his
brother, abideth in death. He knoweth nothing of
life, nothing of God, nothing of heaven. In this
the children of God are manifest, and the children
of the devil. In the absence of all good, all evil
reigns. Even now, the carnal mind is enmity
against God; it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be. But enmity against God is
the parent of all other enmity.  Our blessed Lord
said, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin;
and again, by the Apostle John, Whosoever committeth sin is of the devil. And again, our blessed
Lord, Ye are of your father the devil, a murderer
from the beginning; and by the Apostle John, He
that hateth his brother is a murderer.
Now here is the dominant spirit of heaven, and
the dominant spirit of hell, love on the one side, and
hate on the other, and each in infinite perfection.
To be ruled by the spirit of hate is to be by nature
the children of wrath and children of the devil.
When that nature is given over to itself, then there
can be nothing but despair, no more possibility of
good, no motive for good, no desire towards it, no
possibility of ever communicating aught but evil.
And as the happiness of heaven consists in the
knowledge of good, so the misery of hell consists in
the knowledge of evil. In both directions the
measure is infinite. Approximation towards God,
in His knowledge, likeness and love, is the rule in
heaven, distance from Him, and enmity against Him, 
262   THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS DEATH.
is the rule in hell. And there is no half-way, but a
perfection in both extremes. This is the nature of
things in a world where all tendencies, both good
and evil, will be left to a perfect development. The
points of starting are separate and absolute, and the
directions opposite, and so the course in either case
runs on, according to the judgment pronounced in
the shutting up of God's own word, He that is unjust, let him be unjust still, and he that is filthy, let
him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him
be righteous still, and he that is holy, let him be
holy still.
This then brings us to a second manifest point in
the power of an endless death, that it is progressfo
in sin. As it is the power of an endless life, that it
is progression in holiness, in the knowledge and
likeness of God, and consequently in happiness inconceivable, immeasurable, so it is the power of an
endless death, that it is a living death, and a
progressive death, in the increase of wickedness,
the knowledge and experience of evil, and consequently the endurance of misery. IHere we are
on simple and plain ground. Character is progressive, unalterably so, even in this world, in one
direction or the other. And here, also, character
would be exclusively bad or good, and sin with the
sinful would go to an instant entireness and supremacy, if it were not for the interposition of a Saviour,
which has made this world a world of restraint and
grace. Even under all opposing, preventing and
reclaiming influences, evil character, if not changed
by grace, exasperates and grows, even to the end. 
THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS DEATH. 263
Character accumulates and shoots onward. There
is nothing that gathers such strength, and at length ac quires it even from opposition. This is the power of
habit. The progression of the mind in evil is tremendous, and wickedness burneth as a fire.  There
comes a time, even this side the grave, when the
power of habit is absolutely irresistible, and passion
is like a forest conflagration. Yet here there is vast
and constant restraint. What then will it be, when
all restraint is taken away, and what when ages on
ages shall have passed, and all the while the habit
growing, and the evil nature becoming more and
more permanent and predominant. Then will passion be seen in its omnipotence, and the will in its
immortality and inflexibility as the slave of the
passion, yet one with it, as the regent of a hurricane,
bound to it, and madly driving through eternity.
Progression in sin is as inevitable as progression in
holiness.
In the third place, there will be communion in
sin; a community, and yet anarchy, a fellowship, and
yet repulsion, nearness, and yet malignity. Heaven
is a social state, a state of perfect love; hell is an
unsocial state, and yet a community; but of perfect
wrath and hatred. The conception is fearful beyond
expression, of a world of intelligent beings, demoniac
in nature and by habit, abhorred of one another,
repulsive and repelled, and yet, by very wickedness and hate compelled into proximity, suspicious,
angry, raging, tormenting and tormented, living in
malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.
Fearful as the conception is, it may be in a great 
2(64  THE POWER OF ANI ENDLESS DEATH.
degree realized, even in this world; and in fact the
last expressions used, are just merely descriptions
by the Apostle of a state of society on earth, of
which he and his friends had formed a part. It was
a state of society little better than that of Sodom
and Gomorrah, the state of all bad passions dominant,
with little restraint save that of fear, hatred and
revenge. The description of such a state on earth
is to be found in the first chapter of the Epistle to
the Romans; a description of human beings, filled
with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder,
debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters,
haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors
of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful; who, knowing the
judgment of God, that they which commit such
things are worthy of death, not only do the same,
but have pleasure in those that do them.
What have we in this account, when all restraint
is removed, but the very elements of hell in depraved human nature? And we have only to carry
forward the evil which we see here, to a progressive
social perfection there, a perfect unrestrained development; we need only take what we are by nature,
in our depravity, and let it run on at natural compound interest, and no hell of revelation could disclose more dreadful realities. We only need to take
a wicked community, and endow that community
with the power of endless life and progression in
wickedness, that is, with the power of endless death. 
THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS DEATH.   265
The good are all drawn off to a better world. There
is left only in the seething mixture the dross of the
universe. It is one of the descriptions of God's
justice and goodness in the word of God, Thou
puttest away all the wicked of the earth like dross.
It is the scum and corruption of this universe that
will form thie social state of hell. The universe is
to be purified, and its dregs, its impurities, as dross,
when the scurf rises to the surface from the crucible,
shall be thrown away, shall be gathered into one
place. The wicked shall be driven away in his
wickedness, and the strongest spirits in this seething
mass of demoniacs will still be uppermost, and there
will be plans of evil carried careering over ages,
ambition towering upon ambition, empires and
shoals of evil natures driven on over the depths of
hell, and chasing one another like waves as wide as
the ocean. Raging waves of the sea, foaming out
their own shame, clouds without water, carried
about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness
of darkness forever! Such are some of the expressions in scripture descriptive of the character of those
who shall compose this fraternity of perfect, progressive sin, and absolute despair. Separated from
the good they must be, and gathered into one place
they must be, by the very necessity of God's goodness and love as the guardian of his universe, no
more to permit the combination of evil with the
good, nor the spread of temptation, nor the power
of bad example. How terrific is the thought of
12 
266  THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS DEATH.
such a community! Hiow fearful the imagination,
how dire the prospect, for an immortal intelligent
nature, of spending eternity in such companionship!
Yet such are the very terms of judgment announced
by our blessed Lord beforehand, "Depart, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels." What remorse, recrimination, angry despair,
weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, must
constitute the materials of social intercourse there,
we can more easily in silence contemplate and shudder at, than openly express.
In the solemn providence of God, in the deep
valley of Hinnom, outside the city of Jerusalem,
there was of old a place of infinite abomination,
where the carcasses of animals, and the dead bodies
of malefactors, were thrown together, and an incessant smouldering fire was kept up to consume them.
It became an emblem of the place and state of everlasting torment of the wicked. The glorious predictions of Isaiah close with it:" They shall go
forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that
have transgressed against me, for their worm shall
not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and
they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." That
outcast and detested place, that vale of death and
putrefaction, where carcasses were festering with fire
and worm together, day and night unquenchable,
the energies of corruption always going on, and the
elements of consumption always administered, that
dreadful place God chose, to be some emblem, and
indeed a most lively and terrible emblem, of the
everlasting corruption and conflagration of the soul 
THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS DEATH.   267
in sin, in the world of retribution and despair, where
thleir worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
And may not these two agencies have been chosen
on purpose to signify, the first the nature of sin as a
corruption and undying worm in the conscience
and the soul; and the second, the external kindled
fire, to signify the retributive and guardian justice
of God, a fire which He will never quench, which
never indeed can be quenched, being as eternal as
his own goodness. Not once, nor twice, but many
times, and sometimes with vast and mighty array of
circumstantial imagery, our blessed Lord took up
the same emblems, and wrought them, with solemn,
awful, deliberate intensity of truth, into his appeals
to the soul against sin and temptation.  "If thy
hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to
enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go
into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off;
it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that
never shall be quenched. Where their worm dieth
not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye
offend thee, pluck it out, it is better for thee to enter
into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having
two eyes to be cast into hell fire. Where their
worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."
This then brings us to the last point, as to the
power of an endless death, its absolute endlessness.
It is eternity in sin. It is that, or it is nothing. It is
that, or the shadow of death has no substance. It is 
268  TiE POWER OF AN ENDLESS DEATH.
tlat, or the system of redemption is a mockery, and the
Bible the falsest, most deceitful book in the world.
The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. The death is
the opposite of life, and wages are paid to a living intelligence. Forever, and forever, and forever! The
death itself of Christ for us, demonstrates the endlessness of death without him, the eternal ruin of the soul,
had he not died, and the everlasting destruction from
the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his
power, of those who obey not the gospel.
And we are thus taught, with an exceeding and
eternal weight of solemnity, the dreadful meaning
of that declaration of our blessed Lord, "If ye believe not in me, ye shall die in your sins." To die
in your sins is to be buried to all eternity in them,
beneath the experience and power of an endless
death. But as there is no possibility of redemption
from them but in Christ, no possibility of having
them removed but by his Spirit, who but must feel
the infinite importance of an immediate application
for his mercy? There is no time to lose. The law
of sin and of death in our depraved natures is every
day growing stronger, while we stay away from
Christ. It can never be overcome but by him; it
will soon become the power of an endless death, if
we do not go to him. It can be broken now, but
only in him, only by the law of the spirit of life in
Christ Jesus, working in our souls. If it be not
broken now, it cannot forever. If you die in your
sins, under this law of sin and of death, there will be
no more change, but from wickedness to wickedness.
a 
THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS DEATH.  269
iow should there be?  Are there any conceiv able motives that could be tried in that world, that
have not been tried in this, under a far more hope ful state? There can be no new atonement, there
remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but if there
could be, it would be only a new world of proba tion, and the law of sin and of death there, would
act with still greater certainty and power than here,
keeping the soul from Christ. But the neglect and
contempt of Christ in this world is the very thing
that shuts the soul out of heaven in that. On the
supposition of the possibility of a change there, it
must be by the power of motives, as here; but no
motive can be imagined, none can possibly exist, of
greater power than that derived from the knowledge
of an endless hell on the one hand, and heaven on
the other, and from the knowledge of the way of
salvation. But these motives have already been
presented, and failed, in a world of probation and
restraint, where guilt and habit were neither so great
nor powerful; and how should they ever be effective, in a world of unmitigated rebellion and depravity.
There must be again in such a world the announcement of hope, and the moment there is hope,
then again there is all the balance of disposition
and indisposition, willingness and unwillingness, as
in this world. And the discovery of there being
still hope in that world, after all revelations to the
contrary in this, would cut off all possibility of belief in eternal misery at all, so that the only motive
that could have the least power against the habit 
270  THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS DEATH.
and the love of sin would in reality be destroyed,
and  ill possibility of change would be destroyed
with it.  All appeals would  cease to be of any
avail, and onward the soul of the sinner would be
carried in the career of increasing and perpetual evil.
But  the whole question is set at rest by God's
word.  There is no room for any speculation on the
subject.  The wicked are driven away in their wickedness, they die in their sins; and these shall go
away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal. If we notice the broaching of
any other speculation, it is only to show, by the
place where it lands us, that a sinful character itself,
unchanged, constitutes and creates an essential and
inevitable hell, even were there no other retribution
than the last law announced in God's word, "He
that is filthy let him be filthy still."  And in the
nature of things, the guilt, the power, the horror of
such a hell must go on increasing.  There could be
no end.
We revert, then, to the necessity of an immediate
application by faith, in prayer, in repentance, to the
Lord Jesus. We see clearly what, in our sins, we
are coming to. Yet in point of fact we are not so
much coming to the promised wrath, as carrying its
elements in our souls, to their place of full development, to be there lighted, to be there set on fire, and
left to burn on uninterrupted.  What, in such a case,
shall be done?  Who, that stays away from Christ,
that defers for one single hour the outcry of the
soul to him for mercy, is not guilty of a madness
that cannot be described? 
(i2ntinURW G&ItitES at  (fn ftes
THE proverbs of the Hebrews are radiant with
spiritual life. They are not merely a poor man's
almanac, or a "pocket piece" of prudence for this
world, or sagacity in making money. They are set
deep in Divine sanctions, and the beginning of their
wisdom is the fear of the Lord.  How vast and
solemn is that definite retributive disclosure to which
we have referred, "The wicked is driven away in
his wickedness, but the righteous hath hope in his
death."
This text of "picked words" was a commanding,
well-known proverb of the nation, and is one of the
plainest and most pointed sentences in the word of
God. It deals with great principles, announces great
principles. It is not a mere maxim of economy or
prosperity in this world, or of guidance for this life,
which indeed it does not touch, but springs at once
beyond it, and reveals the rule and nature of an
eternal existence. The idea of a future endless life
of happiness or misery underlies this utterance, and
bears it up, as the earth bears up its mountain ridges,
and the sea its waves. There could never have been
TI I,tat  
CONTINUED WICKEDNESS,
this mighty utterance, were it not for that idea, and
not as an idea merely, but belief, deep, vast, authori tative. Out of no economical calculations, or pro cesses, or rules, of the wisdom of this world merely,
could this flash of light have sprung, irradiating the
eternal world, but out of the intelligence of a well known and acknowledged revelation.
This is an important consideration.   When great
principles pass into proverbs, it is proof that the
universal heart is filled with them;  when a great
meaning is condensed into a proverbial expression,
and conveyed in it, as one of the intellectual and
moral coins of society, it is manifest that there is a
general understanding of it; that it appeals to deep
and well-known convictions in the soul, and is,
indeed, a record of such convictions. Such con densed and universal utterances are like the spark
that has run through a succession of electric batteries,
gathering strength in them all, and at length discharging itself with irresistible energy. And this
great proverb is just such a discharge of truth, just
the accumulating lightning of truth, deep-working
in the soul, established by the attributes and laws
of Jehovah, expressive of the eternal reality of
things, and exploding in an utterance for all mankind, in all places, in all ages.
The doctrine enunciated is as clear as the day.
Its significance and application rush instant into
eternity. It does not stop; cannot be restricted to a
temporal existence, to the fears of a retribution, or
the expectations of a reward, this side the grave; or
to any effects, either hoped or dreaded, in this world,
272 
AN ENDLESS DEATH.
from any earthly agencies, principles, or combina tions of circumstances or events. It has nothing to
do with this life, except as bringing in the powers
of another life to act upon this. It takes a plunge
with the soul at once into eternity. It is a flight
beyond the grave into the realities of a retributive
existence after death; and there is no other meaning
that can be given to it, no other light in which it
can possibly be taken, no other sense in which any
sane mind can contrive to understand it.
The wicked shall be driven away in his wickedness.
If the proverb had stopped there, if there were no
other clause following it, and belonging to it, with a
clearer elucidation of its meaning, a clenching of its
argument beyond the grave, then the company of
sceptical, self-blinded critics, in their desire to blind
others, handling the word of God deceitfully, might
have said that it simply means that the wicked shall
be expelled from court, shall have no employment
or honor from the King, shall find no entertainment
or support in His presence, or by His officers, or in
His dominions. Some such critics have contended,
(and immense learning in such a case may be blinder
than ignorance, as one may see by looking into
Hengstenberg), that when David, in the seventeenth
Psalm, said that he should be satisfied when he
should awake in God's likeness, it meant simply and
merely that David intended to awake early enough
to be up in season for morning prayers!
And the same critics might have contended concerning the first clause of this proverb, that it merely means a temporary fine with a banishment or
12*
273 
CONTINUED WICKEDNESS,
transportation of some few years to some Oriental
Botany Bay; intimates just a residence for some
year or two in the Bridewell of Judea, but afterwards a reformation and restoration to favor. But
the succeeding phrase puts a stopper upon all this,
and so establishes the scope of the passage, that
there is no denying or evading it: " The wicked
shall be driven away in his wickedness; but the
righteous hath hope in his death."  The passage has
precisely the same sphere of application for tihe
wicked, that it has for the righteous; and if an immortality of existence is referred to for the righteous,
so it is for the wicked.  That it is such a future existence for the righteous which is here signified, and
nothing earthly, nothing limited to this world, is
absolutely demonstrated by the only quality predicated of the righteous, or as belonging to him,
being that of hope in his death, that is, hope of
something after death, the hope of a life of happiness in holiness beyond the grave.  But right the
reverse is predicated of the wicked; and the words
driven away, in the first clause, answer precisely to
the word death in the last clause.
And the little particle but is of amazing force in
the connection of the two affirmations.  The wicked
dieth in his wickedness, and therefore without hope;
but the righteous hath hope in his death.  It is as
certainly the lot and sphere of the wicked after
death here referred to, as it is the lot and sphere of
the righteous after death.  Moreover, the language
in reference to the wicked has a prolonged scorpion
power, a demonstration of continued existence in
274 
AN ENDLESS DEATH.
misery, which might have been sophistically evaded,
or at least the way might have been more open for
attempted escape from its evident meaning, if merely the word death had been used in the first clause;
if merely it had been said that the wicked shall
disappear out of existence; but it is said that the
wicked shall not merely cease to exist, but shall be
driven away in his wickedness, shall continue in his
wickedness, thus driven away. The form of expression is strikingly similar to that in Job concerning the wicked: "Ile shall be driven from light
into darkness, and chased out of the world."
It is beyond all question the lot and sphere of the
wicked after death referred to in this proverb.
There is no possibility, by any twisting, or screwing, or distortion, or blinding, or critical perversion, of getting any other meaning out of it.  Interrogate it how you please, with whatever crossexamination, or brow-beating of the witnesses, or
sophistical torture of the testimony, you can make
it speak only this thing; that in his death, and after
death, the wicked man still lives, and that he not
only still lives, but is driven away in his wickedness,
which secures and renders inevitable his misery.
In opposition to the hope of the righteous in his
death, the wickedness of the wicked constitutes
hopelessness in his; nay, it is the certainty of perdition, it is absolute despair.
The whole proverb is just precisely a counterpart
of that passage in the New Testament, "The wages
of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life,
through Jesus Christ our Lord." One paragraph of
275 
AN ENDLESS DEATH.
stumbling-block, and gives the lie to any such
assertion as that of the absence of the teaching of a
future retribution in the pages of the Old Testament.
What can be made of this passage, if this great
doctrine is not in it? How could any but an idiot,
any man that can put two sentences together, perceive the connection between them, and reason
from the one to the other, see anything es61e in this
passage, any other meaning in it, but just this of an
unending retribution beyond the grave? What
other significance can even be imagined for it?
There is nothing in it, if that meaning be not there;
it is absurd unintelligible jaigon otherwise.
And what, in the face of such a clear indisputable
announcement, recorded as a proverb of the nation,
and passed into circulation as one of the established
coins of its habitual admitted thought, and acknowledged genuine truth, would we say of the impudent
assertion that a people that had such central, outshining truth as this, for their daily currency of intellect and heart, knew nothing of the doctrine of
immortality, and were never influenced by the expectation of future rewards and punishments, nor
were ever dealt with by Jehovah on such grounds?
Let us suppose that we heard the proverb uttered
in English, or had met with it in a book, penny wise
and pound foolish, and that some sage critic should
tell us that the people among whom this proverb
originated, and where it was in vogue, knew neither
the meaning of penny nor pound, nor ever had any
coined money in circulation, nor ever transacted
any of their business through any such medium
277 
AN ENDLESS DEATH.
stumbling-block, and gives the lie to any such
assertion as that of the absence of the teaching of a
future retribution in the pages of the Old Testament.
What can be made of this passage, if this great
doctrine is not in it?  How could any but an idiot,
any man that can put two sentences together, perceive the connection between them, and reason
from the one to the other, see anything else in this
passage, any other meaning in it, but just this of an
unending retribution beyond the grave? What
other significance can even be imagined for it?
There is nothing in it, if that meaning be not there;
it is absurd unintelligible jaigon otherwise.
And what, in the face of such a clear indisputable
announcement, recorded as a proverb of the nation,
and passed into circulation as one of the established
coins of its habitual admitted thought, and acknowledged genuine truth, would we say of the impudent
assertion that a people that had such central, outshining truth as this, for their daily currency of intellect and heart, knew nothing of the doctrine of
immortality, and were never influenced by the expectation of future rewards and punishments, nor
were ever dealt with by Jehovah on such grounds?
Let us suppose that we heard the proverb uttered
in English, or had met with it in a book, penny wise
and pound foolish, and that some sage critic should
tell us that the people among whom this proverb
originated, and where it was in vogue, knew neither
the meaning of penny nor pound, nor ever had any
coined money in circulation, nor ever transacted
any of their business through any such medium
277 
CONTINUED WICKEDNESS,
what would we say of such an impudent fool? Suppose, to make the two cases more similar, that two
thousand years hence a book of our English literature should be found, with just this proverb in it,
penny wise, and pound foolish, along with others
of like tenor, such as time is money, or, a penny
saved is a penny earned, or, take care of the shillings,
and the pounds will take care of themselves; and
suppose that some sagacious German critics of those
days should undertake, in the face of such proverbs
and declarations, to affirm and maintain that neither
the English nor the American nation knew either
the nature of gold or silver, or ever had any of those
precious metals in their possession, or ever carried
on any of their commercial affairs of trading business with pieces of stamped money of known and
determined value. Would any credit be attached
to any such speculations? Would not men stamp
the critic's own mind as that of a blinded, credulous,
unbelieving fool, or rather would not such a critic
be treated, if not avowedly intending a hoax, as a
perfect lunatic in literature?
Yet just this is the boasted wisdom with which
some learned critics have put their confounding
eye glasses to the Bible. Just with this stupidity,
just with this mixture of credulity and unbelief,
have men come to the consideration of some of the
most explicitly and undeniably revealed truths in
God's word. Just thus impudently have they denied the plain and inevitable meaning on many a
passage, and with the same stolidity have closed
their eyes, their minds, their hearts, against doc
278 
AN ENDLESS DEATH.
trines revealed in such unmistakable fulness and
power, that the wayfaring man, though a fool, need
not err in regard to them. In such cases God at
length does not unfrequently give the man over to
strong delusion to believe a lie. And such cases
realize the declaration in Isaiah, "He feedeth on
ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that
he cannot deliver his soul, nor say is there not a lie
in my right hand?" And the words of the prophet
Jeremiah receive a new fulfilment, "The wise men
are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken; lo,
they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what
wisdom is in them? Every man is brutish in his
knowledge, and the spiritual man is mad."
And furthermore, we see the reason of such lying
criticisms, so profoundly, palpably false, and covering the plainest book in the world with such Egyptian darkness.  It is because of the threatening and
repulsive nature of such announcements to men that
will indulge their sins, and still hope for heaven.
It is because such principles as those announced in
regard to God's dealing with the righteous and the
wicked, and revealed in such passages as this explicit proverb, cover the whole ground of an eternal retribution. They arraign man as guilty before God,
and accuse and condemn the sinner as deserving of
nothing less than hopeless, and therefore everlasting
banishment from God's presence, and an immutable
confinement and permanence of nature in that
wickedness which he has chosen.
If a man chooses to live in it, in it he will die
and if he chooses to die in it, (and at his own choice
279 
CONTINUTED WICKEDNESS,
it is whether to die in it or be redeemed from it,) if he chooses to die in it, in it he will be driven
away; and no matter where, if he be still the same.
It might be a province in the precincts of heaven;
but if he carries that wicked nature with him, in
which he is driven away, everywhere in the uni verse it would be misery. No outward change
could be a change within.
Now, in this view, this Proverb is just exactly
counterparted by our blessed Lord, when he says,
"If ye believe not that I am He, your predicted
and appointed Messiah and Saviour, ye shall die in
your sins.   The manner of this announcement by
the Lord Jesus presents this perdition of dying in
your sins as the climax of horror, beyond which no
imagery nor reality could go. It is the announcement of an eternal destruction. But as from the
Lord of life and glory comes this new announcement of the terror and certainty of everlasting
death, so from him, and him only, comes the offer
and assurance of a possible deliverance, the promnise
of an everlasting redemption to any and every man,
whosoever he may be, that will sincerely trust in
him. Such an one shall not die in his wickedness,
but shall be redeemed from it, shall be released from
its bondage, purified from its defilement, delivered
from its condemnation, and set free from its power.
Sin and death shall have no more dominion over
him, but even now, the very moment of the beginning of his faith, he shall begin to live an indestructible eternal life. Believing in Christ, he hath
passed already from death unto life, and over him
280 
AN ENDLESS DEATIIH.
the second death hath no power, and the first death
is but a release for him into the blissful presence
and likeness of his Saviour. Hle hath hope in his
death, such a hope as fills the whole valley with
light, such a hope as in Christ Jesus takes away the
sting of Death, and sings out of the heart, as from
an organ, the dying anthem, "0 Death, where is thy
sting, Oh grave, where is thy victory!" "He that
believeth in me," said our Lord Jesus, "though he
were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth
and believeth in me, shall never die."
We see, in this Proverb, some of the reasons
why our blessed Lord affirmed that if the men of
his day would not hear Moses and the Prophets,
neither would they be persuaded, though one rose
from the dead. The light is so clear, the doctrine
of future rewards and punishments so explicit, that
there is no escaping from it, except by an insensibility, blindness, and unbelief, that would remain
unmoved, even if a man came from the dead to
bear witness to the secrets of another world. The
evil is in a sinful heart.
But we also see, on the comparison of this passage with answering passages in the New Testament, an example of the climax from one to the
other, from the lower to the higher, from the dawn
to the perfect day, from the vestibule to the inner
temple. This passage in the Old Testament is
translated, transfigured in the New. In the presence of Jesus, it appears as Moses and Elias appeared, in a new glory, in garments that shine like
the sun, in the overwhelming power and radiance
281 
CONTINUED WICKEDNESS.
poured by him upon all truth, and reflected from
Eternity realized.
And so again we see our heightened responsi.
bility and duty.  The greater our light, the greater
our guilt, if we neglect or reject it. The more advanced and precious our privileges, the deeper
and more terrible our ruin, if from them we pass
to everlasting woe.  Nearer in Jesus to the highest
heavens of glory; nearer also to the deepest hell,
by the possibility of a perdition, through neglect
and rejection of that blessed Saviour, more intolerable than that of Sodom!
282 
9, ta: ant Costs
WHAT contrasts, what lights and shades, what
depths of extreme worlds, what inconceivable experiences, till experience itself has given the reality,
in that simple announcement, "Was dead, and is
alive again, was lost, and is found!"
We know but little of death, still less of life; in
another sense, we know but little of life, still less of
death. Something we know of both; enough on
the one hand, for some computation of the power
of an endless life, enough on the other for some
prophecy or forewarning and assurance of the terribleness of eternal death. Something we know of
life, in our experience of physical existence, and the
exercise of intellectual capacities exceedingly limited. But in our native state, untransfigured by
Divine Grace, not quickened by the Divine Spirit,
we know nothing of life in its positiveness, its joyousness, its greatness, its glory. We are sinful;
and sinful beings can never know what life is, till
the law of the Spirit of life in Cbrist Jesus has
begun to set them free from the law of sin and of
death. And even then, in this world we know but
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DEAD AND LOST.
prison, life in a body of death, life imperfectly un derstood, imperfectly developed, manifested often
mainly in groanings that cannot be uttered, and in
the earnest expectation of the creature, waiting for
the manifestation of the Sons of God. What can
we know, here on earth, of the boundless freedom
and glory of the life of heaven?
But we are quite as ignorant of death, although
death has passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned, and this is an article of as universal experience as life. Yet because even under this penalty,
grace has interposed, and our world is suspended
between life and death, of death positively we know
almost nothing. Change we know, decay we know,
the decline and departure of life, the body mouldering in the grave, some of the concomitants and
circumstances of death; but death in its reality,
death positive, death spiritual, death eternal, we
know little of that, because the ravages of death are
suspended, and we are held back from the experience of it, by the very nature of the system of
mercy and grace in Christ Jesus. Perhaps we know
less of death eternal than we do of life eternal; for
life eternal is a gift, through Jesus Christ our Lord,
and the earnest of it is already conferred; but death
eternal is only the wages of sin, and the wages are
not paid till the day of reckoning and of retribution.
And although in some terrific cases-there has
seemed to be, even on earth, the commencement of
an experience of the world of woe, yet no living
man ever had the gates of death and of hell opened
before him, ever entered into their secrets. A tor
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DEAD AND LOST.
tured conscience reveals much in the way of fore warning and prediction; and the anguish of despair,
so far as there be despair this side of the grave,
sometimes almost draws back the parting veil; but
still, except by the declarations of the word of God,
we know almnost nothing. By those declarations
we may know; but they demand faith, and we must
take them on God's authority; and if we will not
believe them, there is nothing in us, or about us,
that can supply the place of faith, or be to us
beforehand a realization of the things revealed in
God's word. The wrath of God itself is revealed
from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men; but we have nothing as yet in our
own experience, or in the course of the world, to
make us know to the full what the wrath of God is,
what it must be to suffer that wrath in hell.
The revelation is given, on purpose that we may
avoid that wrath; for the wrath is future, and the
hell is future, and we are commanded to flee from
it; and faith in it is requisite, before the experience
of it, that we nay flee from it. If we do not take it
on God's assurance, and at His command apply to
Jesus Christ for redemption from it, then we are
lost; if we wait for the experience of it before we
will believe it, then, when the realization of it comes,
it will be too late for that faith in Jesus which might
have saved the soul. There will be the eternal
knowledge of that wrath for those who wait to be
thus convinced of it, but no longer any possibility
of fleeing from it; and therefore that wrath is directly
pointed against unbelief itself, against that state of
285 
DEAD AND LOST.
mind which renders a man insensible to God's warnings, and prevents him from fleeing at once to Christ.
" He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but
the wrath of God abideth on him."
The most vivid images of scripture, therefore, are
but faint and inadequate shadowings forth of the
reality; they demonstrate and unveil it, as far as
possible, but they require belief. Our blessed Lord
makes His appeal to our very senses, as far as it can
be made. He takes the torture which is most terrible
to us, that from which our sensitive nature shrinks
back with the greatest horror and repugnance, and
constructs a world out of it, and carries us into the
midst of that world, as in the tremendous colloquy
between Lazarus in heaven and the lost man in
hell; so that we see the flames, we hear the wail of
souls tormented, we observe the anguish of despair.
But all this is still only an appeal to faith. We
have not yet ourselves gone into those torments;
and this powerful rhetoric of heaven is adopted, that
we might not; and it is like placing angels with
drawn swords before the entrance to that world of
woe-it is like piling crags of burning coal before
the gates of the prison of God's insufferable wraththat we may not enter.
But all this requires faith. Perhaps it comes the
nearest to the demonstration of experience to which
the Lord God of our salvation could bring it, and
yet not break down our freedom; not render faith
impossible; not destroy the liberty of will, the possibility of a voluntary choice; the nearest to a physical
and moral compulsion to which God could bring
286 
DEAD AND LOST.
mere truth, and still leave us free agents, still leave
it as a matter for ourselves to decide, by our own
preferences, whether to seek God's mercy in Christ
or not, whether to believe or not.
The strong representations, the overwhelming
appeals, the vivid realities of God's word, almost
force conviction, almost take away the opportunity
of faith; and yet they are powerless without faith.
If a man who never knew what fire was, never had
experience of the sensation of burning, should stand
before a pool of molten lava, about to plunge into
it, what could you do to convince him of the mad ness of such a step, except assure him that it would
be instant and inevitable destruction? You might
thrust his hand into the flame of a candle, or touch
his bare arm with a live coal, but still, as to the pool
of lava, he would have to exercise faith; you could
go no farther in your demonstration. Anything
farther is the very thing, the very experience of perdition, from which you would pull him back; but,
after all your attempted demonstrations, you can
give him no adequate idea of what it would be, if he
should plunge into a sea of burning lava.
But much greater, of necessity, is the inadequacy
of all truth, and all mere imagery, to set forth the
reality of what is coming in the eternal world. It
goes beyond all our experience, and must have faith.
If we shall ransack the universe, and combine all
its agencies and capacities of representation, or of
appeal to the imagination, we could contrive no demonstration that would answer in the place of experience, or obviate the necessity of simple faith in
287 
DEAD AND LOST.
God. There must be that faith as to what we ourselves are, as to our present condition, as well as
what we are to be; that faith as to the nature of
our present ruin, as well as the means of our redemption from it. The combinations of human
language, and the appeals of resemblance from what
we do know to what we do not know, make some
little approximation; but still, as to experience, we
know almost nothing.
Deep calleth unto deep, death bears testimony to
death, the King of Terrors is God's artist, with his
pencil dabbled in the grave's corruption, to draw
our character, and we are said to be dead in trespasses and sins. But the moral death infinitely
transcends the physical, and passes out of reach,
beyond all conception, all comparison. For when
the physical death ends, the moral death begins.
Nay, the physical death may be said to be the first
positive symptom or demonstration of the moral
death, for until the physical death is realized, the
moral death is suspended, its positive agencies are
held back from operation. What we call death is but
the close of mortal life, and it is only when life ends
that positive death begins. The passions and faculties of our being do not, this side the grave, enter
upon their eternal elemental war. Nor is there
anything that can adequately shadow forth that
state, nothing positive, nothing negative; nothing
but the agony of a wounded conscience ever begins
to make the soul realize the truth.
There are tremendous images. The shock of
furious armies, the crash of falling avalanches,
288 
DEAD AND LOST.
mountains overwhelming cities, volcanoes in action,
herds of wild beasts, confined and roaring in the
dungeons of the Coliseum, making the whole structure shake with their bellowings, then all at once let
loose, and with a fierce conflict of hunger and rage
grappling with one another; the elements in wild
affright and uproar; earthquakes, conflagrations,
floods, pestilences, wars; all these are dire images
of terror, ruin, desolation, destruction.   But all
these, and even the stars dropping from heaven, as
when a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, and the
whole universe beaten together in chaos, or shrivelling as a parched scroll; all these come short of any
representation of an eternal death; they all fail,
they are mere transitory syllables. The moral death
is unapproachable by any such representation. And
so is the greatness of the moral life, and the glory
of a moral regeneration.
For if we were to see all these things in perfection, all these events and images of death and chaos,
in utmost perfection, and then witness an instantaneous restoration from death to life, from destruction to
reorganization, from rage to serenity, from desolation to peace, from chaos and ruin to order and
beauty, from pain and misery to comfort and happiness; all this would go but a little way towards
symbolizing the change from spiritual death to
spiritual life, from sin to holiness, from hell to
heaven. If we were to behold a decaying human
body suddenly rise out of the coffin in all the beauty
and freshness of youthful life and health, it would
be a change of solemn, overwhelming, supernatural
13
289 
DEAD AND LOST.
power and glory. If we should behold a marble
statue, as we gaze upon it, walk living from its
pedestal, endued suddenly with the powers of vitality and motion, it would be a wondrous, overpowering miracle. Could we have stood by the grave of
Lazarus, and seen the dead man, the decay of whose
body in the tomb had already commenced, come
forth at the word of the Lord of life and glory,
bound hand and foot with his grave-clothes, that
had been a most stupendous spectacle.  But all this
is nothing to the contrast between a dead soul and
a living soul, dead or living forever and ever.
A dead tree is a striking object, a gigantic, dead,
withered oak, or sycamore, or maple, for example,
dry, leafless, blasted, amidst a living forest; and if
we should see such a tree instantaneously clothed
with verdure while we are looking at it; or still
more, if with gradual but rapid progress we should
see the buds start and open into leaves, and new
sprigs shoot forth fresh and waving; such a change
and innovation would be an amazing phenomenon.
The winter of our world is a solemn season, and the
resurrection of all nature in the spring is a miracle
of such unlimited power and exquisite beauty, that
the scene arrests, with vast influence, every reflecting mind.  But all these illustrations are deficient,
incapable; and neither the death nor the life of
nature is any adequate exponent of the death or the
life of the soul.
If now, quitting all these images, we should take
a man like John Newton, and follow him closely,
with a perception of his qualities and character like
290 
DEAD AND LOST.
that of Omniscience; if we could bring a vivid per fect view of the man in his early, increasing, and
uttermost depravity, and contrast it with an equally
vivid and perfect view of the man in his greatest
purity and most exalted life, that would be something.
But in such contrast it is only the faint beginning
on both sides, the dark and the bright, that we see;
it is only as the evening or the morning twilight;
thle one verging to a darkness and a death, that if
it went on to its perfection, would be the blackness
of darkness forever; the other but the dawning of
life, which is to open into perfect day only in the
world of heavenly glory.
We can have no absolute realization beforehand,
either of the heaven or hell of character carried to
its extreme, and perfected in good or evil. The
anguish of a wounded conscience, a sense of the
burden of unpardoned sin, as we have already intimated, does something in the way of personal experience. And if men would look into their hearts
and lives, more frequently than they do, and compare them with the holiness of God and the requirements of the Divine Law, they would have knowledge and experience enough of death and hell to
drive them to most earnest and unceasing prayer
for God's mercy. There is proof enough, demonstration enough, imagery enough, and vivid and powerful to the uttermost possible degree, and yet falling immeasurably short of the reality.
Neither is there anything in that other image, lost
and found, that by any illustration can reach and
expound the infinitude of an eternal ruin and salva
291 
DEAD AND LOST.
tion. It can only shadow it forth dimly, darkly,
but profoundly; for that word lost, applied to the
soul, is perhaps the most tremendously expressive
word in our language; and in every man's  own
thoughts it distances instantly all possibility of
approximation by images or illustrations of things
lost here; and the very use of such illustrations is
not so much to convey any new revelation, or open
up any deeper depth of meaning, or more absolute
realization of infinitude, but rather to set the mind
more vividly at work, to quicken the play of its
activity, to inspire and energize its sluggish imagination, to carry it brooding over the deeps of hell.
And when the mind becomes thus active and heated
on the subject, the word itself, when the ideas of
heaven, hell, eternity, are quickened from their
slumbers, will do more than all possible illustrations.
And, indeed, such illustrations can be only and
remotely relative. For there is nothing in all the
universe that ever can be actually and absolutely
lost, except the soul. God knows where every lost
thing is, and can lay his hand upon it in an instant.
And although things may be withdrawn from the
sight and hidden from the knowledge both of angels
and of men, for a season, by and by they may come
into view again, and God could bring them into view
in a moment. The constellations that have vanished
from the sky, God knows where they are, and what
use to make of them. The lost knowledges too,
in men's minds, can be revived. The sciences and
arts, that have gone out of existence, are as absolutely true and possible as ever. The lost manu
292 
DEAD AND LOST.
scripts, and burned libraries and parchments, could
all be restored at a motion from the Almighty. The
lost tribes could be discovered, the lost navigators
disentombed, the lost ships brought up from the
bosom of the deep. Every missing coin of gold or
silver is somewhere still, and though rust-eaten, or
gone back to its original elements, could be produced. Everything mislaid may have its place
again and its use again. Nothing is really lost, that
is not lost by sin. But a lost soul is lost even
to God.
Nothing is lost that is lovingly known to God.
A holy angel might be lost for a season, in our
common sense of the word, wandering among the
worlds of God, might lose his own way in the
wilderness of God's infinitude of glory in this
universe, as a little child is lost in a pathless forest;
but he would be sure to find his way back again;
and even the sense of such bewilderment would be
no trouble or anxiety to him, for he could not go
where God is not, and though he should be wandering a thousand years, they would be wanderings of
bliss and glory. But a lost sotd is lost from God,
from heaven, from the universe, from all good, from
all blessedness, in all evil, in all woe. A lost soul
is lost by sin, by corruption, by enmity against God.
A lost soul is good for nothing, and fit only to be
burned, fit only to show the infinite misery of sin.
Oh, who  can tell, who here can imagine the
infinite horror in that word lost, applied to the
ruined soul, the soul forever dead and lost in sin!
And who is there that can be willing to hazard such
293 
DEAD AND LOST.
loss, such ruin?  If not, then hasten to the cross of
Christ, for as in the sufferings and death of the Redeemer you have the greatest possible demonstration beforehand of the value of the souli, and the
infinite wretchedness of its ruin, so in the mercy of
that Redeemer you have the only possible deliverance and refuge from the wrath to come.  In His
grace, HIis willing grace, freely offered to all; HIis
dying grace, dying to make it possible; His sanctifying grace, ready to renew and save the soul; in
Him, His love, His grace, is our only possible redemption. And oh, to be found in Christ!.
294 
THE very casual droppings from the honey-combs
of Divine mercy and truth in God's Word are full
of infinite principle and argument.  Take, for example, that declaration from the heart of Divine
love, on occasion of the conversion of Zaccheus, in
Luke 19: 10. " For the Son of Man is come to seek
and to save that which was lost."
There are in this passage three distinct and grand
elements of thought, bearing upon one another,
balancing one another, elucidating one another.
They are as the quantities in an algebraic equation;
given, the one, the other is determinate, is certain.
They are attributes and relations of personal and
moral infinitude, and the connection between them,
and the conclusions among them, are profound and
mighty. So infinite indeed is the passage in its
reach and application, that these three questions,
Who it is that came? how He came? and for what
He came? contained in it, constitute a volume of
theology embracing heaven, earth and hell. When
we proceed to investigate these points, we find a
power and profoundness of connection and con
Tt %rgamtitt of ntlin, frOm
atvatiou, 
THE ARGUMENT OF RUIN,
elusion among them, so close and inevitable, that the
strongest mathematical demonstration could not be
more irresistible; a logic and a sweep of internal
mutual evidence and significance, so vast and
majestic, that when we begin thoroughly to comprehend it, the mind is overwhelmed by it. Simple as are its terms, the compass and sublimity of
the passage, in the investigation, Who it is that
came, how iHe came, and for what He came, are
past measurement, past utterance.
There is a grand reciprocal argument between
the dignity and glory of a Divine Saviour, and the
character and ruin of the lost, whom he came to
save. The one reveals, illustrates, determines, the
other. Especially is this the case, in reference to
the guilt and misery of the creature. We must
look first at the great blaze of light in this direction, produced by the determination of the question,
Who is it that came, and the manner of his coming. We are not left to the least uncertainty or
doubt in regard to it. The Son of man is the
Creator and Lord of the universe, by whom and for
whom all beings and things have their existence.
He is the Word, the Being, who was in the beginning with God, and who was God. In his original
glory being in the form of God, and on an equality
with God, he nevertheless took upon him the form
of a servant, and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the Cross. In this humiliation, suffering, and death, he became an offering for sin, set
forth of God as a propitiation, a sacrifice, through
the Eternal Spirit, by his own blood, for the obtain
2 9 G 
FROM SALVATION.
ing of an eternal redemption, that God might be
just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.
For this purpose the Eternal Word was made flesh,
and dwelt among us, with all the fulness of the
God-head bodily, God manifest in the flesh, justified
in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into
glory. By virtue of his own possession and manifestation of supreme Deity, he became an eternal
and unchangeable High Priest and Saviour, not after
the law of a carnal commandment, but the power
of an endless life, having offered up himself once
for all, a sacrifice, whose efficacy is to all eternity,
for deliverance from eternal death, and the gift of
an inheritance in life everlasting. Even such a Divine Almighty Saviour was necessary, that he
might be able to save to the uttermost all that come
unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. Such is the being who came,
and such the manner of his coming, to seek and to
save that which was lost.
What, then, is the measure and peculiarity of significance, the exceeding and eternal weight of meaning, accumulated, by such a preparation, upon that
word LOST? What is the conclusion forced upon it,
and what the definition wrung out, or the impossibility of definition, because it is found to be illimitable and immeasurable, in the same way as eternity
itself is unsearchable, and yet known, absolute, unquestionable? From the previous terms of the
equation given, you are flung into an infinitude of
disclosure, a boundless abyss of undeniable, yet
13*
11.197 
THE ARGUMENT OF RUIN,
tremendous truth, the last, and the most terrible,
that the mind can know or be employed Upon.
What is this light, this sudden blaze far round
illuminating hell, this penetrating revelation of the
unseen and the eternal, by the person and the cross
of Christ? What light does the announcement of
God manifest in the flesh for human salvation, the
Word made flesh, and suffering, dying, throw upon
the character and condition of the lost? How lost,
in what manner, in what nature, to what extent, to
necessitate, or justify, such an interposition?
For, if there is a necessity of justification for
God's pardoning the guilty, there is also a necessity
of justification for God's offering up his own Son.
How could he do it, without an infinite and eternal
reason? How could he do it for any expediency
or necessity short of infinitude?  How cotld he do
it, but under the sanction, which indeed he has revealed to us, of the power of an endless life, for
guilty creatures, on the one hand, if redeemed, and
the power of an endless death, inevitable, on the
other hand, if not redeemed?
The redemption is in Christ Jesus, whom God
hath set forth, a propitiation through faith in His
blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission
of sins. The infinite God declares the necessity of
such a sacrifice for such a justification. Now, then,
we may turn the equation; we are compelled to do
it. If God hath set forth Christ crucified, the Son
of God incarnate, suffering, dying, that God might
be just, and the Justifier of him that believeth, and
the Redeemer of the soul from an eternity of sin and
298 
FROM SALVATION.
misery, then also, at the other end, there must be
set forth such an eternity, such an infinite reality of
guilt, of death, of ruin, to justify the offering up of
the Son of God as a sacrifice; a reality having in it
the weight of eternity, and deciding at once for the
universe-not as a dream, not as a pageant, not as
a transitory show-the infinite necessity and justice
of the measure, for the purposes of infinite love, as
a measure in the highest degree worthy of Jehovah,
and illustrating the infinite glory of His attributes.
God can do nothing inconsistent with those attributes; and behind such a sacrifice as that of Christ,
the Son of God, there must be the sanctions of eternity; and we are justified in saying that there must
be, because God has declared to us that there are.
This word lost, then, has a meaning never possessed
by any significance that we give it in regard to any
interest in time, or anything limited or transitory,
missing by us, or separated from us. The lost whom
Christ came to seek and to save are not entities or
intelligences, mislaid merely, and sure to be found
again, and restored uninjured as before; they are
not merely wandering about bewildered, as a lost
child in the wilderness, or as one that has mistaken
his way.  Not for that would the Son of God come
down from heaven-not for that was any such interposition necessary as that of Christ upon the cross.
This word came embraces the whole transaction of
redemption, the incarnate Son of God suffering and
dying.  But not to find mislaid souls, or to guide
mistaken ones merely, was that sacrifice demanded.
An angel could have done that-a being of limited
299 
THE ARGUMENT OF RUIN,
knowledge could have done that, could have ransacked the globe, yea, the universe, for everything
lost, and found it; could have found it, and brought
it back to God. Indeed, there is nothing really lost,
in that sense.   God knows where everything  is
hidden, is wandering, is mislaid, and can in a moment
bring it to light, if He pleases. There is no sacrifice
upon the cross needed for that.
Infinitely different from anything like this, is the
loss of lost souls. It was a loss, in the manner and
the nature of it, from which no created being or
power could recover the sinner. It was a moral
loss, a spiritual loss, a loss of immortality, a loss forever. It was a death in trespasses and sins, and
therefore an eternal death. It was an alienation
from the life of God, and enmity against him, and a
penalty and power of endless duration, under the
law of sin and of dath in the soul, and of retributive wrath upon it. It'was a death, and a ruin, and
a loss, by the terms of the law,The soul that sinneth,
it shall die, and by the terms of the-gospel, He that
believeth not the son shall not see life, buiithe wrath
of God abideth on him.
And being such a loss, it was eternal. Nothing
but such a loss could be eternal, and such a loss
could be no other than eternal. It was not a loss
of time, not a loss for any limited period of duration; for that would have brought its own cure, its
own redemption. The end would have come, and
the restoration. The finding again, and the recovery, at the close of the fated period, of whatever
length it might be, would be as certain as the loss.
-ID00 
FROM SALVATION.
Nothing could be said to be lost, in that sense,
which merely had its period to run, and then would
come back into heaven again, by as known and immutable a necessity and certainty, as it ever went
out. There would be no need of a Saviour for that.
It would be indeed a work of supererogation to set
up an atonement by the sufferings of the Son of
God for the recovery of a guilty race, which, left to
itself, would assuredly and inevitably work out a
salvation for itself by its own suffering.
The essence of salvation by mercy is, that it could
have been had in no other way; and that certainty
alone secures its being a spiritual, abiding, eternal
salvation. A salvation indeed could not be infinitely prized, which could have been possible in any
other way. What security would there be against
the spirit of pride, ingratitude, and rebellion, even
in heaven, if it could be ever said in answer to the
claim of supreme allegiance and everlasting gratitude, "What do we owe to you?  We should have
been saved at any rate, and by our own suffering."
And who can imagine the result, which yet would
be inevitable, when the time of ruin, suffering, and
loss, on the part of those not saved, should have been
lapsed away, served out, and the banished, punished
crew of rebels and of unbelievers should return from
their transportation in hell, literally saved so as by
fire, with the scars of the thunder of divine retribution upon them, to take their place in heaven,
singing the glory of their own personal sufferings,
side by side with the company of the redeemed,
amidst anthems to the Lamb that was slain! In
301 
THE ARGUMENT OF RUIN,
very truth, the idea of salvation at all is inconsistent
with the idea of any temporary or limited perdition.
If the lost are saved, it is because they were lost forever. If they were not lost forever, they were not
lost at all, but were only taking one necessary step
to everlasting blessedness.
Furthermore, if the loss were not a loss eternal,
were not known to be such, the power of habit in
sin is so despotic, so irresistible, the preference of
sin instead of holiness in depraved natures is so omnipotent, that a sinful man would say, "Rather than
have all this labor of salvation, rather than encounter all this self-denial and renunciation of sin and
its enjoyments, I will let the ruin take its own
course; the disease shall be in its own Saviour;
since it is not forever; and I will even try the experiment of the appointed ages in the purgatory of
hell-fire. They will- come to an end, and all will
be well at last, and I shall be saved at any rate."
Proclaim such a theology, and let the result show
how many creatures of sinful nature and habit its
indefatigable preachers will ever succeed in turning
from their iniquities. No man will renounce his
sins, who, by continuance in them, is sure at last of
entering heaven.
Neither, again, can this word " lost" mean annihi.
lation, the extinction of being, the cessation, for.
ever, of thought and feeling. There can be no
punishment in that, nor retribution, nor wrath
abiding, nor wages paid, nor second death, nor any.
thing, indeed, that needs a Saviour. A new race of
souls could be created, that should amply supply
302 
FROM7 SALVATION.
the place of those dropped from existence, without
any atoning sacrifice, or any diminution of the happiness of the universe. God could as easily create
new souls, as he could new worlds, without any interposition of a Saviour.
Nor was it any bare negation, or form of negation, but a positive, absolute perdition, of which no
words can convey any adequate sense or measure;
a perdition without end, and a loss therefore of souls
in sin and death eternal. It was a loss of immortal
beings, from the purity and enjoyment of heaven, to
the guilt and misery of an endless hell. It was the
loss of lost souls, in a perpetual death of enmity
against God, and in the consequent inevitable endurance of everlasting punishment. That presents
a case, worthy indeed of the interposition of the
Saviour; for salvation of a world from such ruin,
the Son of God might justly die, and the Father's
infinite love might justly be exercised, even at such
an expense. And it is declared that the Lord Jesus
came to save his people from their sins, to seek and
to save the lost in sin, the lost eternally.
This is the very argument of the Apostle, and it
is irresistible. Because we thus judge, that if one
died for all, then were all dead; dead in sin, in a
death that kills beyond the tomb, in a death that is
undying, a mortality that is immortal, a death in
trespasses and sins, of which the habit itself, and
the nature, is death, and the penalty everlasting
punishment. This indeed is a ruin and a misery,
demanding the interposition of an Almighty Saviour, and justifying God in such a sacrifice. Thus
303 
THE ARGUMENT OF RUIN,
it is that God has interposed.  "Unto you first, God,
having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless
you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of
all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners. He shall save his people
from their sins."
He only can save them, and in God's appointed
way. There is no other name. If ye believe not in
Him, ye shall die in your sins.  We  must  be
saved from sin, or we have no salvation, even in
Christ. Whomsoever Christ does not save, that soul
is lost in sin forever; and such a loss of the soul is
a calamity, in comparison with which, it were better
for a man that he had never been born. What
shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and
lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in
exchange for his soul? Christ came to save, because, if not saved by Him, the ruin of the soul
would never end. Had it not been so, Christ would
never have come, but would have let the ages roll
on, and produce their fruit, and bring at length
their promised and inevitable renovation. But the
demonstration of eternal death, from the offer of
eternal life through Christ, is unquestionable.
In this view, the coming of Christ, and the offer
of salvation through IHim, is a most awakening and
alarming advent and interposition. Though an interposition of infinite mercy and love, vet is it as a
burst of thunder on the sleeping careless soul, and
as a glare of lightning in midnight, disclosing both
our guilt and danger. It startles the soul from its
304 
FROM SALVATION.
false security with that impressive question pressed
by  the Apostle Paul, "How  shall we escape, if
we neglect so great salvation?"
On the one side there is manifested by this light
the greatness and dreadfulness of our ruin, on the
other, the greatness and glory of our redemption;
both are measured by the character and the cross of
Christ.  We learn, on the one side, the profoundness
and terribleness of our despair, native, eternal, if left
to ourselves; on the other, the mightiness and allsufficiency of our hope in Christ. Without Christ, the
depths of our despair are unfathomable and eternal.
But in Christ, if the soul flies to Him, the greater the
guilt, the greater the hope, by the very appointed
argument of supplication, "For Thy name's sake,
pardon mine iniquity, FOR it is great." God loves to
show His power and glory in such a salvation,-the
power of an endless life from the power of an endless death,-a translation all the way from hell to
heaven. It is beyond all possibility of question,
that having given His Son to die for us, God is
ready to save us, desires to save us. We are in a
desperate condition; but if we only feel it, and lay
hold on Christ, then, the more desperate, the more
hopeful, and the deeper our despair, the stronger
our encouragement. Because, Christ came not to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, and the
greatest sinner first, as the most needy, and the
chosen object of mercy.   So did he choose Paul as
a pattern.
And we see clearly that Paul was in the right.
when he counted all things as worthless, if he
805 
THE ARGUMENT OF RUIN,
might be found in Christ.  Paul, as lost in sin,
made it the aim of his whole existence to be found
in Christ, and what else, personally, should be the
perpetual business of our existence? We are lost,
whom He came to seek and to save.  Has He found
us?  Is He carrying us home rejoicing?  Are we
folded in His arms, as the careful loving shepherd
of our souls?  Are we found of Christ?  All the
lost souls ever found will be found in Him. When
God searches for souls saved, He will look nowhere
but in Christ. If you are not in Him, no matter
where or what you are, or may have been, you are
lost. Even God cannot find you, out of Christ;
even God will overlook you, out of Christ. No
matter if your name were in all the church records
upon earth; no matter if you died receiving ten
thousand sacraments; if you are not in Christ, by
a living faith, God cannot find you; you are lost.
Yet now the Saviour himself is seeking for you
to save you.  Suppose you were a wounded wandering sheep upon the mountains, lying helpless,
almost insensible; yet if you heard the voice and
footstep of the shepherd, seeking you, you would,
even by moanings and bleatings inarticulate, show
him where you are. When the blind men sat by
the way-side, and Jesus passed by, they no sooner
heard that he was near, than they cried out, with so
great an outcry, that the angry bystanders told them
to keep their peace. But what cared they for the
bystanders, so they could only be found of Christ?
Oh, that weary, worn, way-side wanderers now would
use the same diligence for salvation! The anxious,
806 
FROM SALVATION.
loving, compassionate shepherd is on the mountains.
Come forth, ye wandering, dying, lost, yet heedless
souls, come forth from your graves, your tombs,
your darkness, your insensibility, your despair, come
forth and see your Saviour!  It is night, dark night
upon the mountains, yet he is there, looking for
you.  Will you give Hiim no sign that you are there,
will you make  no outcry, that he may snatch you
from ruin, and carry you home rejoicing?
307 
'iE, t lr#n iiirnt        of nIn, front t e
2X;  of tratt.
THE argument from the lost is connected with
another, of equal, irresistible power and glory, from
the state and relations of the found.  These  are
somewhat opened in the declaration by our blessed
Lord, "That joy shall be in heaven over one sinner
that repenteth; joy in the presence of the angels of
God, over one sinner that repenteth."
There is illimitable grandeur in this representation. It embraces and illustrates many things, the
vastest in God's universe; and is indeed like a flash
of lightning, or a shaft of steady golden light, from
one end of the universe to the other.  Let us look
at it first as the representation of an absorbing interest in heaven, of which we ourselves are the subjects, but of which we should have known nothing,
had it not been for this declaration of our Saviour.
"There is joy in heaven."  It is a great fact which
is here noted, something like the fact that at the
creation the morning stars sang together, and'all the
sons of God shouted for joy. It is an impulse and
movement, powerful and simultaneous throughout
God's holy universe, that is here noted; for nothing 
THE ARGUMENT OF RUIN.
less than this can be comprehended in the designation heaven, so far as place or infinitude are concerned, and nothing less can be comprehended in
the term joy applied to the inhabitants of heaven,
so far as intensity of emotion is concerned. That
which, amidst the perpetual inconceivable ardors
and raptures of enjoyment, in the celestial world,
can arrest attention as a new and sudden impulse of
joy even in heaven, must be deep, intense, and
blissful beyond conception.
Let us consider this. It takes much to move a
world. An event, indeed, must be of some note to
move even one large city in a world, so deeply that
the movement shall be simultaneous and universal.
We remember once reading an article in an English
periodical, saying that there was but one man in the
kingdom, whose death would really make a sensation all over the city of London; a thousand others
might die, and all the people in the city would not
even know it, much less care for it. That one man
was then the Duke of Wellington.
And so of events. It must be an astounding
event indeed that would move a city of fifteen hundred thousand inhabitants to its centre. But how
much vaster in magnitude and importance must the
event be, much to move men's minds simultaneously
to any great extent all over the world. The fall of
a mountain in Switzerland, burying a whole village,
would create no stir at the Antipodes, perhaps would
not even be noticed. A great battle in India, involving the loss of thousands of lives, and the fate
perhaps of empires, is announced without creating
309 
THE ARGUMENT OF RUIN,
any deep feeling. If the thing be near us, of course
we feel it more.  The burning of a steamer on our
own waters may affect us more than the second engulphing of a city like Pompeii in the fiery lava.
We are affected but little by things at a distance,
even on the surface of our own native world.
Carry this principle to other worlds, think of a
distant planet, and the intelligence that a whole
globe had gone from the sky, with all its inhabitants, would produce scarcely any excitement. Hiow
muchless the fate of one individual among many
millions of inhabitants. Suppose it were proclaimed
in this world that a creature in the Star Sirius, who
was under sentence of death, had repented and was
pardoned. Would it produce the least sensation?
Would any notice be taken of it? Not so much as
the rise of stocks five per cent., or the sudden reception of half a million of gold from California, or
the intelligence of the failure of a great bankinghouse in London.
Now, apply these facts to the actual relations between us and heaven, to the effect of intelligence
from this world to that, as made known to us.
Heaven is illimitable; its inhabitants are innumerable; its interests and its objects of interest are infinite and transporting. Its transactions are of a
grandeur and glory, compared with which perhaps
the building or burning of our whole globe would
be a minute thing.  And yet there is anxiety in
that world respecting intelligence from this. The
countless inhabitants of heaven take so absorbing
and thrilling an interest even in one soul in this
310 
FROM TIlE JOY OF HEAVEN.
world, that when it is told in heaven that here on
this earth one sinner has repented, there is a sensa tion there; there is a universal sensation, there is
joy in ieaven, as over an event of glory, important
to the whole universe of God.
There is such an intimate connection and com munion, and such a fervent sympathy, between that
world and this. And yet that celestial region where
this sympathy is felt, and where this benevolent
concern and joy are manifested, may be farther dis tant from us in locality than the farthest point of
the universe to which the telescope has ever carried
our vision, or of which any astronomical computation has ever rendered our knowledge possible.
And that glorious celestial region is the place where
the inhabitants see God; where there is the personal
presence and glory of the Saviour; where there is
no night, nor any mechanism of a material universe
needed; neither sun nor moon, nor hanging worlds
of flame; but where the Lord God Almighty and
the Lamb are the everlasting light and the all-surrounding temple. Would we have supposed it
possible for the inhabitants of such a region, in the
midst of their absorbing and glorious employments
and enjoyments, to have leisure for a thought upon
a world like this? And yet, between that inconceivably exalted and glorious region and this wandering, distant orb on which we dwell, there is this
intimacy of sympathetic interest so close and thrilling; an interest turning exclusively upon the welfare
of the soul, and absorbed in the one question of its
311 
THE ARGUMIENT OF RUIN,
repentance-joy in heaven over one sinner that
repenteth.
Now, what an amazing difference between the
interest of heaven towards us, and our destitution
of interest towards heaven!-the intense benevolence
and sympathy in that world, and the intense stupidity
in this!  There is but one way of accounting for it,
and that is the great fact revealed in scripture, that
ours is a fallen world, under a scheme and possibility
of redemption;-there is but one way of accounting
for it, and that is made known in the same passage
that announces this heavenly joy, as a joy over one
SINNER that REPENTETH.  There is stupidity here,
and a lack of all right interest towards heaven, because this is a world of sinners in rebellion against
God, in whom the very beginning of life, and of the
manifestation of sympathy with heaven, is in repentance. And there is this absorbing interest there, for
the same reason, because this is a world of souls in
rebellion, and repentance is the redemption of a soul
from this rebellion and ruin, and the inhabitants of
heaven are perfectly benevolent.
They have none of our defect of sensibility.  A
vast interest loses none of its greatness with them
by distance, and their judgment of things in principle
does not depend, like ours, upon circumstances.
They see and know the value of the soul.  The ruin
of the soul in consequence of sin is eternal, and they
see and know that.  We are this side that demonstration; they are on the other.  We know it by
faith; they know it by sight.  We know it by God's
word, in order to avoid it; they know it not only
312 
FROIM THE JOY OF HJEAVEN.
so, but by beholding it. We are warned of eternal
realities; they are in the midst of them.
It is joy over one sinner that repenteth. The whole
emotion of heaven turns on that. That is the one
only point in the life of mortals that excites any interest in heaven, and that commands the interest of
all heaven. Without that, men are of no worth;
they are the cast-off lumber of creation; they are fit
only to be burned; they are good for nothing but
to illustrate God's justice; they are of no more interest than the fallen angels. But while there is a
possibility of repentance, they are objects of interest
and of affectionate ministry to all heaven; and the
moment repentance begins, so soon as in any lost
soul that light is seen breaking out of darkness, then
there is joy in heaven. It is as if all heaven's inhabitants were gazing towards a dark quarter of the
universe, where God is going to light up a point
hitherto black, dreary and unknown, with the sudden
blaze of a new created world in glory. When the
light flames out into the void of chaos, the morning
stars shall sing together, and all the sons of God
shall shout for joy. So is the joy over one sinner
that repenteth. The repentance is the flame of a
new radiant lustre hung up in God's universe; it is
the light of a new creation of God. The repentance
is life out of death, light out of darkness, holiness
out of sin, bliss out of guilt and misery, love out of
enmity and rebellion, heaven out of hell. There is
nothing but this in the life of a sinner that can make
him the subject of a blissful interest in heavennothing but this that makes a soul worthy of the
14
313 
THE ARGUMENT OF RUIN,
notice of heaven-nothing but this that can awaken
joy in heaven. If you would ever produce joy in
heaven, or be the possessor of joy yourself, then
repent! This is the only possibility of your salvation.
It is joy over one sinner. If there were but one in
all the guilty part of God's universe, that would be
enough to produce this joy, enough to illustrate
God's glory, the Saviour's love, the wonders of redemption; enough to create an eternity of blessedness out of an eternity of woe.  Nothing  could
more strikingly demonstrate the infinite worth of
the soul, the dreadfulness of its destruction, the
importance of its salvation; one soul, no matter
whose, for there is no respect of persons with God,
and the soul of the poorest beggar is of the same infinite worth as that of the greatest philosopher or
monarch on his throne. It is one sinner's repentence, one sinner's salvation, that stirs all heaven.
Amidst the truths of doctrine flaming out from this
great fact there shines prominent the truth that repentance is salvation; that God will never leave a
soul once penitent to fall away and perish. Such
souls are kept by the power of God through faith
unto salvation. Otherwise the joy of heaven would
be a mistaken joy, and the sympathy of heaven a
mistaken sympathy. But it is joy there, even while
the soul is yet struggling here. It is joy there, as for
a glorious certainty, even while in this world there
is yet doubt and darkness. It is joy there, because,
when a sinner repents, a sinner is saved. Hiell is
despoiled of a victim, and heaven is enriched with
a soul in the image of Christ.
314 
FROM THE JOY OF HEAVEN.
Furthermore, the repentance of the soul is the
thing for which Christ died, Christ, the Son of God
Incarnate, and the accomplishment of that object is
infinite joy. This is the object of His mission on
earth, and the inhabitants of heaven know it. They
know well that Christ came to seek and to save that
which was lost. They know the amazing instru mentalities and agencies put in motion to accom plish this object, and the mighty transaction
planned from eternity and finished on Calvary, and
in heaven itself, by that sacrifice through the Eter nal Spirit, that stupendous work of Love, the
foundation of the possibility of repentance. And
that for which Christ died, occupies the attention
and engages the activity of heaven. It cannot be
otherwise. Of the angels of God it is said, Are they
not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to
those who shall be heirs of salvation? A great, yea,
a truly astonishing passage, opening to us, as
through a wide-flung gate, a sudden view of the
rushing activities of all heaven in this work of human redemption; the incessant holy ministries of
angelic beings waiting upon His movements who is
King of saints, and who hath at IHis control, as the
Captain of salvation, all principalities and powers,
and every agency and name that is named or is
active, either in this world or in that which is to
come.
The great passages in Daniel 7: 10, and in
Revelation 19: 11, and onward, are similar disclosures as to the work that absorbs the active
ministry of heaven. It could not be otherwise than
315 
THE ARGUMENT OF RUIN,
that that object for which Christ incomprehensibly
emptied Himself of that Divine glory which He had
with the Father before the world was, and as it
were absented Himself from heaven, and became incarnate, and died upon the cross to bring it about,
should command the attention and engage  the
activity of heaven. It could not be otherwise than
that angels should glory in its accomplishment.
And whatever incomprehensible mystery there
might and must be to the intellect, to the intelligence of all heaven, in the incarnation and the crucifixion, it would all serve, not to distract the attention
of angelic minds from the great end of this mystery,
but to raise that object into more commanding
attractiveness and brightness, and to fix the instant
gaze of souls with more intense interest upon it.
Incomprehensibility there must be, to them as well
as to us, in the mystery of the incarnation. The
goings forth of Emmanuel from heaven, the veiling
of that Divine Person in human flesh, the process,
whatever it might be, alluded to by the Apostle
Paul in the second chapter in the Epistle to the
Philippians, when He who was in the form of God,
and for whom it was no robbery to be equal with
God, made Himself of no reputation, and took upon
Him the form of a servant, and was made in the
likeness of men, is to us entirely inconceivable,
and must have been to all heaven incomprehensible. He, by whom all things were created, visible
and invisible, worlds and creatures, thrones and
dominions, principalities and powers; He by whom
all things consist, and who must be omnipresent to
316 
FROM TH E JOY OF HEAVEN.
all beings and thlings of His dominions; He to
whom it was said, Thy throne, 0 God, is forever
and ever; Hie of whom, and of whose glory in the
heavens, amid the worship of the holy seraphim,
Isaiah had that glorious vision, recorded in the
sixth chapter of his prophecy, when one cried to
another and said Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of
hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory; HIe, the
object of that worship, the Creator and Lord of
those angelic beings, with their thundering halleluias, wondrously withdrawing Himself from that
worship in heaven, and passing into the form of a
servant on earth, entering into an eclipse, so to
speak, of which the first portion of the veil visible
must have been the form of the Babe in Bethlehem.
0 there was a mystery in that, more incomprehensible to them, heaven-ward, than the sight of the
Babe, and the revelation of incarnate Deity to us
earth-ward. For to us the man Christ Jesus is seen
first, and we travel from that sight to the revelation
of His Deity. But they had seen only the Divinity,
seen their own God and Creator, seen Him, of whom
the first annunciation in his essential glory, before
yet the angelic minds of heaven had been created,
is the ultimate declaration, beyond which the
thought of created beings either in heaven or on
earth cannot go, that, "In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. All things were made by Hiim, and without HIim was not anything made that was made."
Well! to see Hiim, their Creator, dying away
from that infinite glory, of which His was the
317 
THE ARGUMENT OF RUIN,
mastership, the ownership, and theirs the adoration
and the service, to see Him passing into the form of
a servant, making Himself of no reputation, to see
Him entering into that veiling, that INCARNATION,
the reality of which  is the certainty of human
redemption, the central revelation of God's plan,
and the invisibility of the Deity becoming visible;
this must have been to them a greater incomprehensibility than it ever yet has been to us.  We feel as
though no word could have been uttered in heaven
while this was taking place, as though the inhabitants of heaven must have gazed silently, in submissive adoration and awe.  But when He brinigeth
in His first-begotten into the world, He saith, "Let
all the angels of God worship Him!" and something of the glory of that worship was made visible
to the shepherds, when suddenly there was with the
announcing angel a multitude of the heavenly host,
praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, good will to men!"
But now, this is to be marked, that the greater
the incomprehensibility of these transactions  in
heaven, the more immeasurably did it enhance and
exalt beyond all conception the greatness of the
end for which, as to earth, as to mankind, these
transactions were taking place, the repentance of
the ruined sinner, the salvation of the lost soul.  So
far from being turned away from that, or distracted
into idle questionings by the incomprehensibility of
the stupendous scenes of the incarnation, the minds
of angels were turned by it to more adoring views
of God's love, and more exalted conceptions of the
318 
FROM THE JOY OF HEAVEN.
magnitude of the interests at stake, the infinite
greatness and worth of the object to be accomplished; and they were fired with more intense desires to be in some measure instrumental in accomplishing that purpose. They saw, by the mystery
of that incarnation, the worth of the soul, the certainty and awfulness of the penalty of God's law,
the dreadfulness of sin, the eternal ruin of man
without a recovery from sin, the glory and blissfulness of one sinner's repentance. They saw the
glory of the Saviour manifested in that; the glory
of God in the display of all iis attributes. They
saw the glory of the Divine Word, which had been
veiled for this purpose, coming out from that veiling,
that eclipse, into a brightness transcending the most
transcendent of all previous manifestations of might,
majesty and loveliness. They saw the happiness of
the redeemed soul, the awfulness of the hell of sin
and wrath, from which the repenting sinner is rescued, and the ravishing excellence, glorv and beauty
of that perfect image of the Saviour, into which, by
faith, through the power of the Eternal Spirit, the
rescued soul is transfigured. All this in the regeneration of one sinner that repenteth! All these
elements of blissfulness in the tide of joy that as a
ground wave rolls through all heaven at the salvavation of one repenting and returning sinner!
Now, there are some glorious and blessed lessons
out of this survey of things through the window of
this grand revelation; and, first, that which makes
joy in heaven calls for joy on earth; and that which
commands the activity of heaven, in blissful ministry,
319 
THE ARGUMIENT OF RUIN,
with seraphic fire, demands the activity of earth.
The hearts of Christians should be on fire here, as
the hearts of angels are on fire there. There is no
other object that can be put into comparison or competition for one moment with this of the sinner's
repentance, or that does not sink into insignificance,
or pass into absolute wickedness, beside it. It justifies all the activity of our being in the work of
revivals of religion, all our efforts to win souls to
Christ. It puts the mark of reprobation on all indifference to this great interest. It shows, in the
most striking light, the sin'fulness and wonderfulness
of such indifference, and how buried in sin men
must be, to remain insensible to transactions involving their own eternal welfare to such a degree and
in such relations, as on that account alone to stir the
heavenly world to its centre. All heaven is anxious
for earth, astir for earth; but earth is heedless for
itself, and careless both of hell and heaven,-a combined blindness and madness of infinite malignity
and destructiveness.
But again, that which commands  the belief of
heaven should command the belief of earth. The
blessed creatures of the heavenly world do not draw
back from plainly-revealed truths or facts, because
of real or alleged incomprehensibilities; nay, the
incomprehensibilities attending the incarnation of
the Son of God for our redemption only deepen their
sense of the necessity of such an interposition, and
confirm their knowledge of all the plain facts of sin
and of endless retribution. But here in this world,
sinners on trial for their eternal retribution put the
320 
FROMi TIHE JOY OF HEAVEN.
incomprehensibilities of God's triune or incarnate
existence as a breast-work of unbelief against the
plainest truths of the gospel. The blind, unbelieving
moles of creation look out from their dirt-hills, and
deny the things which they cannot understand, or
take, by virtue of speculation about them, a release'
from truths as plain as the noonday.
And such truths are those of an eternal retribution, as illustrated by the cross, and by this very joy
of heaven over souls repentant at the cross.  And
therefore, furthermore, that which excites the dread
of heaven should excite the dread of earth. The
terror of heaven on our account is the wrath to
come; the anxiety of heaven on our account is deliverance fromn that wrath to come, by our repentance.
And shall there be no corresponding anxiety here?
Shall there be stupidity here, while all around us in
God's universe there is a stir of anxiety, activity and
sympathy, both in heaven and hell; for hell itself
is moved to destroy us, as heaven to save us.
There is no defect of warning here, no more than
there. We are in rebellion against God, and we
know both its wickedness and its consequences.
The riot act has been read ever since the creation;
it is read in God's word; it is read in men's own
soul     s.   Conscience reads it perpetually amidst the
mob of a man's wicked thoughts; and still men rush
on to perdition. They themselves together make
suc       h   a         stunning noise in their rebellion, their ten
thousand. activities of sin, their hubbub of earthly
vanities, that they will not hear God's voice; and
multitudes of them, when they do hear, do not be                      14*
ID21 
FROM THE JOY OF HEAVEN.
lieve, or endeavor not to believe, that God will ever
carry His threats into execution.  " Oh," they say,
" the guns are only loaded with blank cartridges!"
And because sentence against an evil work is not
executed speedily, therefore the hearts of the sons
of men are fully set in them to do evil.
But whose fault is all this unbelief and insensibility
and ignorance? And when the great guns of God's
promised justice are fired in upon the masses of the
rebellious, then how terrible will be the conviction,
the consternation, and the misery!
322 
THE beginning of evil is in man's departure from
God; the perfection and immutability of evil is
when God departs from man.  The essence of happiness and misery is in character; a man sinful in
heart shall be filled with his own ways, and the good
man also shall be satisfied from himself.  The determination of character is in man's own power; for
he may get from God what elements of good he
pleases, and may have whatever of evil he pleases
taken away. The good is of God, and if a man
sows that, he shall eat the fruit of it.  The bad is of
man and Satan, and if a man chooses that, he shall
eat of the fruit of that. The warning against it and
the salvation from it are of God.  The misery consequent upon it is of the sinner's own self, and not
of God; though God is the security, both  to the
righteous and the wicked, of having their respective
wages paid to them.  I will bring evil on this people, says God, even the fruit of  their thoughts,
because they have not hearkened to my words, nor
to my law, but have rejected them.  Say ye to the
righteous that it shall be well with them, for they
shall eat the fruit of their doings; but they that
01;aratttr anit;n~acZ 
.:24    CHARACTER AND CONSEQUENCES.
plough iniquity and sow wickedness shall reap the
same. This throws all consequences, even for eter  nity, back upon character.  Character produces con  sequences, and is the great lord of destiny forever.
God tells us that character formed according to
His word, by His counsel, is safe, and forms a se curity of happiness for eternity; but otherwise, it is
a security of shame and misery, the shame and mis ery being the inevitable result and production of an
irreligious character. Now, if this requires faith in
order to believe it, it is faith in God, which is the
highest exercise of reason, and moreover it is not a
faith without corroboration in experience. By see ing what vast and dreadful consequences wait often
upon guilty character and upon single acts of crime,
even here in a world of probation, we see continual
proofs that a man's misery in the eternal world may
be wholly from himself, and wholly the natural re sult and working of inevitable consequences.
Now, all great demonstrations of these principles
in this life, are important. They ought to be examined  and pondered.   The history of wicked
souls is a history of wretchedness, up to the last
point at which you can trace them; and if you
think that wretchedness shall stop in eternity, it
must be because the character of the soul stops,
which is impossible. But even if it did stop, still
there is the fruit of character, and the fruit of the
sinner's doings, to come back to the sinner as his
harvest; and how he is to shake off that, how he is
to get rid of that, no man can tell. But how the
harvest may come, how it does come, how certain it 
CHARACTER AND CONSEQUENCES.
is, may be known even by experience in this life,
and often is known, in extraordinary instances,
which are like the thunder before a storm, like the
warning signs of an earthquake, and which the human soul should make the most of, for its admonition.
All great crimes and great virtues are public
property. They are warnings of evil, and examples
of good. In the Word of God a man who commits
a great crime, be he Cain, David, Peter, or Judas, is
marked, and the case is held up, in clear light, without any disguise, for the world's admonition and instruction. The position and family of the man
make no difference; there is the sternest impartiality
ant' openness. The repentance of the man, if he
have become penitent, is recorded; and repentance
makes a great difference in the divine administration
with the man. Repentance in faith is the very condition of forgiveness. He that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall find mercy, however black and
enormous those sins may have been. But God is
no respecter of persons. Neither wealth, nor respectability, nor position, nor family, are regarded
by Him, except as aggravating the guilt of the offender.  If a man is guilty, he must bear the consequences; and the higher his position in society,
and the more involved and vast and important his
social relationships and responsibilities, the more
terrible are those consequences, and the more important is that example. So that while in one view,
as respects those who suffer from another's crime,
the greatness of their interests and affections, so
825 
326     CHARACTER AND CONSEQUENCES.
dreadfully sacrificed, deepens the public sympathy;
in another view, in respect to the guilt that disregards and sacrifices such interests and affections, it
increases, or ought to increase, the public hatred of
the crime and indignation against the criminal.  In
proportion as the consequences of his crime are felt
by others in misery, they ought to be felt by him in
punishment.  And if they have to bear their share
in the consequences, he certainly will have to bear
his.  And a great part of his guilt, and what indeed he will have to suffer for, besides the direct
crime, is the bringing such consequences upon others, the disregard of his responsibilities, the sacrifice
of the interests entrusted to his care.  For no man
liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.  In
another sense besides the Christian sense, this is
true. A man cannot live, without living for good
or evil to others; a man cannot die, without dying
for good or evil to others.  When he is born, other
interests are born with him, and dependent upon
him; while he lives, other interests live with him,
and are affected by him; and his sun can neither
rise nor set, but with others, experience of its lights
and shadows.
Therefore God always makes  great far-shining
harbor-beacons out of great virtues, and great lighthouses on desperate reefs out of great crimes and
great criminals. Some men are very willing this
should be done in respect to virtue, with unregenerate men; philosophic virtues, moral virtues, publie spirit and philanthropy; but the virtues of grace
and the characters of grace, they despise, and  set 
CHARACTER AND CONSEQUENCES.
down such men as hypocrites. And in respect to
crime, if they can catch a professedly religious man
in such a snare, they are glad enough to make an
example of such a one. They are very willing to
harangue the world about -David's murder, but if
you speak in the same terms about any other murderer, they accuse you of cruelty, and of a want of
sympathy with an unfortunate criminal. We have
known men go to the verge of blasphemy in consigning the whole character of David to the deepest
damnation, who would perhaps shed tears of sensibility over the same guilt, unaccompanied by David's
repentance. There are men who so hate religion,
that they cannot endure it, even as the cure of
crime.
Now, society are bound to get all the good they
can out of great crimes as well as great virtues.
Upon the criminal, the government must execute
the deserved punishment, for the good of others,
for the protection of society, for a warning to the
world. If a man will sacrifice both himself and
others in the indulgence of his own passions, then
both God and man must bring all the good that is
possible out of that evil, must make use of the
warning, must hold up the lessons. And God, by
the freedom with which he lets consequences come
down even in this world, which confessedly is not
the world of retribution, but of restraint, shows us
what may be expected, when consequences shall
have their full swing and development, when complete justice shall be administered, and men shall be
judged according to the fruit of their doings, as well
327 
328     CHARACTER AND CONSEQUENCES.
as the nature of their character. For if God spared
not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to
hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to
be reserved unto judgment, and spared not the old
world, bringing in the flood upon the world of the
ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Go
morrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example, then the Lord
knoweth how to reserve the unjust now and in
every age unto the judgment to be punished. And
if those consequences here in this world, on the commission of crime, were so tremendous, what will
they be when the fountains of the great deep of justice shall be broken up in the eternal world, and
God shall let all the consequences of sin unrestricted
come to pass? All present consequences are in one
sense mere warnings; all present experience of the
evil of sin is but a prediction of what is to come;
and all present sight and demonstration of what sin
can do is but a foreshadowing and forewarning symbol of what it must do in eternity, when God lets
loose his hold of consequences, and adopts the consequences as part of a just retribution.
In the Tyrol mountains a band of patriots preparing against an invading army, loosened an immense mass of huge fragments of rock and soil
upon the brow of perpendicular precipices under
which the invaders had to pass, and then lay in ambush above, ready at an instant's signal to topple
down the ruin. The invading army rolled on, glittering and secure, till it got within the heart of
these fastnesses, and not an obstacle was to be met, 
CHARACTER  AND CONSEQUENCES.
nor an enemy to be seen. And in that deep defile
there was something ominous and awful in the loneliness and silence.  Suddenly there echoed through
the pass a clear ringing voice from the heights, "In
the name of the Holy Trinity, cut all loose!" And
instantly the vast and irresistible rock-cataract rolled
down into the defile, crushing and burying almost
the whole army. The souls of sinners pass through
such defiles sometimes even in this world, and consequences come rushing down upon them like a torrent. But this is nothing to what shall take place
in the Eternal World when the time of suspension
is ended, and the voice is heard through the universe, "In the name of the Holy Trinity, cut all
loose!" Consequences now are tied up, under the
power of the Redeemer's sufferings and death, while
mercy is offered, and a salvation is possible both
from the guilt and the consequences of sin. And
God's messengers and mercies do, as it were, stand
at the mouth of those eternal defiles, and warn men
away; there are passes, which if you enter, you are
lost, there being a time, when all that keeps the ruin
from descending will, in the name of the Holy
Trinity, be cut loose.
At present, God is satisfied with warning men of
the consequences to come. Afterwards, when the
time for warning and escape has gone by, there will
be the consequences beheld and experienced; and
if you now will not be warned by consequences reported to you as coming, others will be warned,
when consequences are adopted as retribution; and
the whole universe will be warned by your very
329 
330     CHARACTER AND CONSEQUENCES.
sufferance of these consequences. God will get this
good out of you, even if you continue his enemy;
you shall glorify the divine attribute of justice, and
serve to keep others from sin, even in the endurance
of that penalty, which you affected to deny, or
were too heedless to regard, or used no endeavor to
escape. At present, the experience is that of mercy,
and the question is whether you will be insured
against consequences by taking hold upon the
mercy, whether you will flee to Christ, and be in sured against the penalty by forgiveness and grace
in Him. At present the character is forming, its
fixedness for eternity being determined by the
choice you make in reference to Christ; by the
manner in which you live and the state in which
you die, in relation to Him.  Afterwards come the
results of life and character.  And when they come,
they will be very different from the warning.
But results even here are sometimes so astounding; and when they come even partially in this
world, they bring upon the sinful soul such a huge
overwhelming anguish and sense of guilt, that it is
easy to forsee, let but every act and principle of
life be visited in a similar way, what an infinite
weight and train of evil the soul will have to encounter in Eternity. Our sins in the light of their
consequences merely, to say nothing of the light of
God and IHis holiness, would be a terrible array;
the view would be intolerable. Consequences, when
they are known, arm the conscience with a new authority, and create a new and peculiar sense of sin.
Sometimes, in this world, an act of bare careless 
CHARACTER AND CONSEQUENCES.
ness, attended with fearful consequences, agonizes
the mind with a remorse like that for murder.  ANe
have seen the description of such anguish in a man
appointed to the charge of watching the lanterns on
board a beacon-ship. The ship was moored upon a
dangerous sand-bank, to keep up a floating light as
a warning, and it was the duty of the keeper to see
to it that by night the lights were always burning.
One stormy night, shortly after he began to take
charge of the beacon, he fell into a profound sleep
while watching upon deck. From this he was
awakened by shouts and cries from the sea, which
was raging furiously. The lamps in the lantern had
all been extinguished while he slept, and for want
of the beacon, a large ship had run a-ground, and
the waves were then breaking over her with great
violence. When the lantern was lighted again and
hoisted, the vessel could be seen breaking up, and
the people crying, struggling and sinking among
the billows. They seemed every one to upbraid
the keeper of the light-ship, whose untimely sleep
had been the occasion of their untimely end. Nothing could be done to save them, and the scene of
their death haunted the man night and day. The
masts of the wrecked vessel projected above the surface of the sea for several months after she was lost,
keeping him in recollection of the night in which
so many human beings perished in consequence of
his neglect and carelessness. It almost made him
mad, the memory of that one night of horror.
Now, in this world, we are able to trace consequences but a very little way, and in very small
331 
332     CHARACTER AND CONSEQUENCES.
part; and there may be a thousand results from
our habits and actions, our sins of omission and of
commission, which we do not yet see, for one which
we do see. As, for example, the ramifications of the
consequences of that night's carelessness would extend through all the relationships and responsibilities of every human being lost that night, through
many a circle of interests unseen, unheard of. And
in view of this fact, who is not ready to exclaim
with David, "Who can understand his errors?"
Who can know the full nature and extent of his
guilt, till he sees, as God sees, how far his guilt has
worked, and what it has accomplished? And
hence God  says that he tries the reins and the
heart, in order to give to every man exactly according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his
doings. The fruit of his doings! That is a tremendous computation, of which eternity alone can
reveal the sum. No man knows as yet either the
infinitude of his influences and responsibilities, or
the depths of his heart; neither what things may
be let down into it, nor what may be brought up
out of it. No man knows to what desperate courses
temptation might lead him; into what snares, that
look now too infernal to be thought of, his own
heart, left of God, might precipitate him.
There are tendencies in that heart which even
now, under God's warnings, are burning on, like
trains of wet powder with slow matches, leading to
magazines in the centre of great mountains. There
is no knowing what trains of passion there may be,
nor how near they may'have already burned to 
CH,ARACTER AND CONSEQUENCES.
wards the catastrophe, nor what tremendous magazines of consequences, what rock-galleries of evil to
be exploded they may lead to. Sometimes, God in
Hiis Providence cuts a ditch, as it were, across the
train, and so stops it. Sometimes great calamities
intervene, to save the man, by losses and disappointments here, from ruin in eternity. Just as, in a
great devouring fire, in a large city, whole streets of
buildings are sometimes torn down or blown up, to
stay the conflagration, so the dearest earthly interests of men have to be demolished, for the sake of
their eternal interests. Sometimes the experienced
consequences, even of great crimes, in this world,
are thus the means of staying the conflagration.
The very sentence of death for murder may be the
means of a preparation for forgiveness and life everlasting; the consequences experienced in this world
of a particular great crime against God and man,
may lead to a salutary deep conviction of sin, all
sin, in the sight of God, and heartfelt sorrow for
the same, deep conviction of the soul's ruin, and a
hearty penitent search for the divine mercy and
grace in regeneration.
But all providences and all consequences are unavailing without this.  All the ditches digged in a
man's path, to stop his career, all the houses blown
up to stay the conflagration, will be of no use, no
efficacy, without the spirit of God received into the
soul. The fire will still burn on underground, or at
some unexpected point it will leap clear across the
ditch that was digged to stop it, and on it goes, careering towards eternity, where the gulf of death
333 
334     CHIARACTER AND CONSEQUENCES.
itself will not stop it, but will only give a clear uninterrupted sweep to its devouring energies.
Sacred and solemn are the lessons and admonitions, from such realities. As sinful beings, it is
clear that we have put so many things in train for
explosions of evil, that there is no evil which can be
imagined that may not at any time burst upon us,
unless we seek safety in Christ, and seek it in season. As sinful beings, we are under all the penalties of God's law, and all the principles of an eternal
retribution.   We  walk beneath a firmament of
upper, nether, and surrounding fires. Beneath the
glorious and merciful restraint of the atonement,
God holds them in, and bears them back, on every
side, from hurting us, for the present time of probation, and during the present offer of salvation in
Christ.   But they are the realities of things, the
certainties of the universe, the inevitable upshot of
consequences, the penalty, the principle, the necessity, of law and government. God holds them in,
during a world of probation, so that things in such
a world, appear to be really upside down, and are
not as they should be, according to eternal law and
righteousness, which is against all sin, and connects
all sin with suffering. Yet now and then, even
here, the reality, the penalty, the principle, breaks
out. There are, as it were, safety valves, here and
there, in this iron firmament above and around us;
this firmament of God's restraint, that for the present
holds off the fire from us; and now and then one of
those safety valves or demonstraters flies open, and
lets down a jet of flame, a spout of hideous combus 
CHARACTER AND CONSEQUENCES.
tion, a sheet of fire like that which consumed Sodomr
and Gomorrah. Men gaze at these things with momentary horror, but still go on. Perhaps they pick
up the falling lava, when it has got a little cool, and
speculate about its origin, and its meaning, and the
extent of pent-up fires that it may be supposed to
indicate, and whether the firmament itself will ever
fall. But few believe the danger, and secure themselves against it. They are too busy to take care of
their souls, too fond of self-indulgence to listen to
God's warnings. They want none of his counsel,
and despise all his reproofs. Therefore shall they
eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with
their own devices.
335 
THE PROVISION.
o rtt ztrn r,ortarmrA+
CONSEQUENCES are always a tremendous subject,
with eternity in view; but there is nothing in the
utmost reach of consequences unveiled before
us, which gives the least shadow of a reason for
complaint against God, were it only because Hiis attributes and system of government and our relations
to it, the tendencies of things and our responsibilities, are fully and fairly laid before us. We are not
only informed of the good and invited to it, but are
told of the evil and warned off; and therefore, if
we  madly incur the evil, it is our own choice,
against God's choice for us.  We shall now consider
first the danger and the evil before us, as God warns
us of it, as it lies in the nature of God's Retributive
system, against which if we run, notwithstanding
all God's warnings, it is certain that instead of God
bringing the evil upon us, it is we who bring the
evil on ourselves. And second, we shall consider
the danger and the evil as to the voluntary habits
of character which we form in sin, in the disregard
of God's warnings, and the neglect of prayer, by 
FOREWARNED, FOREARMED.
which habits and tendencies of character we ensure
a shipwreck to the soul.
I say, then, that we are not in the midst of those
evils and dangers which surround us, without the
provision of a perfect security against them, if we
choose to avail ourselves of it.  We can foresee the
evil and hide ourselves;  and if we hearken to God,
He himself will hide us.
We  say, Forewarned, forearmed.  It is a proverb
of deep meaning.  A man warned of an evil, which
is not inevitable, may avoid it; he has the means
of avoiding it, if he will apply them.  It may cost
effort, watchfulness, diligence; it requires forecast,
arrangement, the application of his faculties and
energies in earnest, to prepare for the crisis, the
emergency.  But if he will prepare for it, he may;
he may be ready to meet it; he may secure himself
against it.  Forewarned, he is forearmed.   The
weapons are in his power, the armor of defence is
round about him.  And even if the evil be inevitable, yet still, being forewarned, he is forearmed, and
may be prepared to encounter it, so that when it
comes he may bear up manfully, and by the provisions he has been enabled to make, in the time
given him for such preparation, may come forth, if
not absolutely triumphant, yet not destroyed, nor
fatally injured. Nay, the wise and earnest grappling with inevitable evil, and the patient endurance
of it when it comes, the preparation for it as foreseen, and the discipline in passing through it, may be
a great benefit to his character; and on the whole,
the evil, he being forewarned of it, and having acted
337 
FOREWARNED, FOREARMED.
the part of a wise and noble nature in meeting and
bearing it, may be an absolute blessing. He may
ride out the gale, though he cannot escape it.  But
a sudden hurricane, uuexpected, unknown, or a
storm for which, though he knew it was coming, Ihe
made no preparation, may carry him to the bottom.
When the signs in the heavens forewarn an experienced navigator of the approach of a sudden tempest, he instantly takes in sail, makes all fast, battens down the hatches, sets every man at his post,
and so waits the bursting of the hurricane.  Forewarned, he is forearmed.  A sudden fall in the barometer, while he was sitting in his cabin, when the
heavens were as yet cloudless, and the air serene
and clear, may have been his first warning, and he
alone, of all in the ship, may have seen it; and it
may have been observed by him at that particular
moment, merely because he happened, without the
intention of an observation, to turn his eye towards
the instrument; or it may have been observed, because, being in a latitude where sudden storms were
not unlikely, he kept an unwearied vigilance, and
consulted, every few moments, the indications of
that faithful sentinel of tempests.  But, however
that may be, when the warning comes, it no sooner
forewarns than it forearms him.  Hie may neglect
the warning, and thus refuse to use the armor; but
he might have used it, and was bound to do so;
and when it came, it threw upon him the whole
responsibility of guarding against the predicted
evil, or of all the consequences, if he went on to
meet it unprepared.  The evil is inevitable, the
338 
FOREWARNED, FOREARMED.
tempest must come, but if he calls all hands at once
to action, lets them know what he knows, puts
every man on guard, and the ship in storm-trim,
then when the gale rages, though the ship may
labor and plunge, and be in great peril, yet she
rights again, by God's blessing on human watchfulness and effort, and rides out the storm in safety.
Forewarned, the Captain was forearmed. But if he
had been heedless of the warning, or had counted
upon time enough by the next watch, or the next
morning, if he had been seated at a table with a
merry party of passengers, or at a game of cards,
which he was unwilling to interrupt, and so had
taken for his own and their amusement the time
given him to prepare for the safety of the ship, then
the storm bursting, finds everything loose, and all
sail set, and comes like the crash of an earthquake.
The masts go by the board, the ship founders, and
every soul perishes; and the whole responsibility of
every life lost comes upon the Captain, heedless of
the warning, which it was his office to know, and
his business to obey. Forewarned, he was forearmed, and he might have been prepared; and in
that view, it was not the storm that did the injury,
but his carelessness. If he had put to sea without a
compass or a rudder, or with a supply of provisions
so insecure and insufficient as to produce a famine,
it would have been his own heedlessness, and not
the laws of nature, nor the violence of the waves,
nor the ungovernable will of the winds, nor the
pathless wilderness of ocean, that produced all the
evils consequent on such a course. And just so, if
339 
FOREWARNED, FOREARMED.
his ship is wrecked because of his delay or heedlessness in not preparing for a storm of which he is
warned, or if he runs upon a reef, laid down in his
chart, of his nearness to which he was ignorant because he had not taken the observations which he
was bound to take in order to ascertain his latitude, it is neither the storm nor the reef that wrecks
his ship, but his own heedlessness.
Now, apply this to our spiritual destiny. For, even
thus, it is not the laws of God, that wreck and ruin
our souls, if we run against them, but our own iniquity in disobeying them.  It is not the reefs of evil,
eternal though they be, that bring us up, and destroy us, but we, who madly, and against all warning, run upon them. It is not the bursting, overwhelming hurricane, that sends us to the bottom, but
our wilful heedlessness in rushing into it, our madness in meeting it unprepared, our self-indulgence
and indolence, taking that time for gratifying our
own passions, which was given us, with full warning
of what was to come, that we might avoid the evil.
The sinner himself, and not God, is the author of
the sinner's destruction.   The prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself; the wicked pass
on and are punished.  God utters His thunders and
flashes His lightnings across the path of the sinner,
but he disregards them. On the sea of life, not
only the barometer in his own soul tells him of the
coming tempest, and he neglects the warning, but
even when the clouds roll up angry and heavy before him, with the roar of the thunder and the lurid
play of the lightnings, he steers his ship right into
340 
FOREWARNIED, FOREARMED.
them. God warns him off, but he minds not the
warning. There is never an inevitable storm, but
he has time to prepare for it, full notice of it, and
might ride it out in safety. There is never a reef
rising, nor a dangerous shoal, but it is laid down in
his chart, and the means given him to know his
position, so that he mighlt give it a wide berth, and
steer clear of it completely, without even corning
near enough to see the breakers.  There is a barometer in his conscience, and a chart and compass in
the Word of God, which, if he would go by it,
would keep him clear of all danger; and even when
he is entering into danger, the elements themselves
act the sentinel for him in season, and the moaning
winds, and the agitated waves, and the big beginning
drops of rain, forewarn him, if the storm be inevitable, to prepare for it. It never need find him
unprepared, nor come upon him unawares. But if
he will not mark these signs in heaven above and
in the earth beneath, if he will not regard these
warnings of God, neither in his own soul, nor in
God's Word, nor in the Divine Providence, nor in
the gathering elements of wrath and ruin, but will
pass on and be punished, so be it, since that is his
decision; he must eat of the fruit of his own way,
and be filled with his own devices.
Forewarned, forearmed. The proverb applies not
only to the external dangers and evils on our course
through life, and to the appointed penalties of
courses of disobedience and folly, if we enter on
them, but also to the responsibilities of our being,
the dangers in ourselves, the tendencies, principles,
341 
FOREWARNED, FOREARMED.
and elements of retribution or of blessedness with
which we are laden.  We are fearfully and wonderfully made, with capabilities, powers, and faculties,
that in themselves can make a heaven of hell, a hell
of heaven. Now, knowing all this, knowing beforehand the power of habit in character, being told
plainly by the Lord God, besides knowing it by our
own experience,-that we are daily treasuring up,
in what we make of ourselves, in our favorite and
indulged elements of feeling, of thought, of action,
in our whole natures, as formed and worked in a
world of probation, that we are daily treasuring
up what we are forever to be and to experience,
and daily setting in motion trains of tendencies and
influences, which are to be developed in their consequences,-and those consequences belonging so exclusively to our voluntary being, that by them and
in them we are to abide forever-knowing all this,
what course do we take in setting forth this being
of ours into life, daily, as it were, launching anew
this ship of existence with all its activities and responsibilities?  Under whose care do we place it?
Into whose trust do we commit it? What officers
do we put in command? By what principles do
we determine they shall be guided? What and
whose chart do we provide, and with what security
that it shall be faithfully consulted? Who makes
the barometer that we hang in the cabin? What
kind of compass is it that we put in the binnacle?
And into whose charge do we put the care of the
engine? All these things are for us to determine,
and we do determine them, and we must abide by
342 
FOREWARNED, FOREARMED.
the consequences.  We  know that the result of
these things is life or death, eternal misery, or eternal
blessedness.
If all these things are under the guidance and
command of God, if it be with reference to what
He has taught us, and with a simple single-hearted
regard to principle and duty as marked by Him, that
we arrange all these things, if we commit the care
of our mind, heart, life, habits, and whole character,
to the Lord Jesus Christ, if we go to His Word  as
our chart and compass, if we take our conscience,
our inward barometer, to Him, to make it right, if
we commit heart, conscience, understanding, and
life to His spirit, to mould and guide us according
to His will, then we are sure of success, and can
meet with no evil.  There shall be no wandering
from the way, no mistake, no darkness, no running
upon reefs through intoxication, or wilful ignorance,
or heedlessness, no explosion, nor sudden hurricane,
unprovided for and ruinous, but a safe passage, and
an eternal harbor in heaven. But if a man neglect
all these things, if he say within himself, To-morrow
shall be as this day, and much more abundant; there
shall no evil come, or before it comes, I shall have
prolonged time to prepare; thus far, all has gone on
well, and no shipwreck, though I have been in
many seas; then, as his time past of security or
exemption is no assurance of safety for one day to
come, but on the contrary is itself a consideration
why he should suppose the threatened evil more
likely to come the very next day,-so in fact it will
343 
FOREWARNED, FOREARMED.
come, suddenly and unexpectedly, and will cut him
asunder at an hour when he looked not for it.
And thus heedlessly do men go on. Because
sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully
set in them to do evil. It would seem, in many
cases, in spite of all the forewarnings of God, to be
fully set in them to secure evil, and to render it inevitable and eternal. Men put into their characters,
and cultivate into perfection, evil elements, as sure
to come out in eternal consequences, as the spots of
the leopard's cub are sure to be found in the full
grown creature; tendencies and habits are fostered,
by which the soul is sure to make shipwreck; and
the shipwreck, when it comes, and comes without
remedy, is the man's own work, and not God's; it
is the man's own work against God's. If a man
will put his soul under charge of sin and sinful passion, instead of God's grace, as the pilot; under
charge of self-will instead of God as the commander; then the consequences are of his own making.
Suppose that a man building a steam-ship should
supply it with a store of ardent spirits, and put it
under charge of a drunken engineer, or a man  in
the habit of using intoxicating drink. With all
this, the vessel may possibly make several voyages
without injury, and the man, on being expostulated
with as to his folly, may say and think that things
are not so bad as they are said to be; the vessel has
gone well thus far, and no calamity, and another
voyage may be just as successful as the last. Tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abun
344 
FOREWARNED, FOREARMED.
dant. Such a man goes on in a headstrong, sinful,
obstinate disregard of consequences; and now when
the consequences come, he must be held responsible
for thle whole of them. If the vessel is wrecked, as
she is likely to be wrecked, in consequence of the
owner's recklessness, and if the lives of a hundred
passengers, who were persuaded to embark, because
of confiding in his prudence and in the good qualities of the steamer, are sacrificed in the shipwreek,
certainly the sacrifice lies at his door, and the guilt
comes upon him. The responsibility has various
steps, and if it lights on the intoxicated engineer
first, it lights next and largest on the owner or commander, who continued him in their employ, and
supplied the means of his dangerous vices. He
may be as the entrusted agent, but they are as the
wholesale dealers and principals in the ruin, and on
them the responsibility of the ruin falls.
Just so it is in reference to eternity.  Men go on,
voyage after voyage, year after year, with materials
and officers in charge, that must, some time or another, inevitably wreck them; but because the ruin
does not come now, they think little of the danger.
They are forewarned, but it does no' good; they
take no heed to the warning. On the contrary,
they take the very steps that are sure to realize the
warning, to bring down the predicted consequences.
And in such a case, when the result comes, it will
come like a whirlwind, realizing the prediction in
God's Word, and sweeping everything before it.
Now, there is a salvation from all this, or God
would not have been at the pains to spread out all
15*
Si5 
FOREWARNED, FOREARMED.
the warnings in regard to it before us in His Word.
There is a deliverance in Christ, both from our selves, and from God's retributive justice; and it is
hard to say which is the greater salvation; for we
carry within ourselves, in the elements of an un changed sinful character, the very essence and assurance of perdition, the very elements of everlasting misery. Unbelief and sin in the soul are as unfailing a well of everlasting death, as faith and love,
and the Lord Jesus Himself in the soul, are a well
of everlasting life. And the question is, Shall the
depths of death be exhausted and closed up by the
Redeemer, and made to give place to the unfailing
spring of life everlasting in Him? This may be
done; the fountains of evil in the soul may be
sealed, the tendencies of evil all removed and destroyed, the disposition to sin may be exterminated,
and nothing but the life of Christ remain abiding
in the soul, and a will as sweetly subdued to iis
will in meekness and lowliness as itis was to His
Father's, till the soul be presented without spot or
wrinkle or any such thing, spotless before the throne
of His glory with exceeding great joy. Thus sin
gives place to holiness and hell to heaven, wherever
the Lord Jesus takes up His abode. The sting is
taken from death, and from every other evil, and
what before was evil and only evil continually, a
cormplication and accumulation of evils, from which
there was no possibility of being extricated, becomes now a train of God's ministers for good, a
chariot of fiery and glorious discipline, to which
Satan himself is harnessed, if God pleases, to do
346 
FOREWARNED, FOREARMED.
God's bidding; and life and death, and angels, principalities and powers, adversity or prosperity, temptations, trials, distresses, tribulations, things present
or things to come, are bound to that chariot, and
reined in by the reins of  that promise, that all
things shall work for good to the soul that loves
God.
This is our salvation in Christ; an infinitely perfect and glorious salvation; and therefore let no
man complain of any the darkest and severest terms
and colors, in which the depths of our depravity
are unveiled before us, and of the hell to which
that depravity is carrying us; nor let any man
complain of the endeavor on the part of God and
his servants to make us realize the intolerable burden and hatefulness of our guilt; for if that process of rebuke will but open our eyes, will but
take away our insensibility, will but carry us, yea
drive us to the Cross, and compel us to flee in anguish and self-despair to the Saviour, the severest
treatment is the greatest mercy. An utterly false
benevolence is that which  shrinks from  making
known our guilt and ruin; a lying sympathy is
that, and a most reprehensible and contemptible
dread of giving offence, which fears to mention hell
to ears polite, which sheaths the sword of the spirit
in flowers, and never discloses the terror of the
Lord, but with apologetic circumlocution. God's
greatest severity is man's mercy, and the Lord Jesus
is, never more tenderly compassionate than when He
says, "i le that believeth not the Son shall not see
life,  but  the wrath  of  God  abideth  on  him."
347 
FOREWARNED, FOREARMED.
Surely, considerate men would  much prefer that
God and His ministers should let them know their
danger plainly, rather than suffer them to rush on
blindfold into the midst of it.
Faitlhful ministers of the Gospel have sometimes
been accused of gloom, darkness, and terror in their
delineations of the nature and consequences of human guilt. What would such critics say, if men
like Jonathan Edwards stood in all our pulpits, and
rolled the thunders of God's law upon the guilty
conscience? Let men consider, if the bare description
of the realities of guilt and perdition be so terrible,
what must be the realities themselves? Who can
dwell in the devouring fire? Who can lie down to
everlasting burnings? Let those who dread even
the announcement of such terrors, hearken to the
merciful warning in God's Word, and flee to Christ
Jesus while they may. God be praised that we
have the possibility, the opportunity, of such a
refuge!  God be praised that Jesus is an Almighty
Saviour. It is omnipotence and infinite mercy that
we need, and now, while the Almighty arm is
stretched down to us from heaven, let us take hold
upon it. Now let us cast ourselves upon God's
mercy in Christ, praising Him that out of the depths
of such an abyss of ruin as ours is by character
and retribution, He can raise us by infinite grace
and love 
348 
THE passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, on
which the preceding chapters are founded, pours its
vast and solemn train of thought and warning on
the soul, as follows: "For it is impossible for those
who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the
heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy
Ghost, and have tasted the good Word of God and
the powers of the World to come, if they shall fall
away, to renew them again into repentance, seeing
they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh,
and put Him to an open shame."
This passage of God's Word, solemn and pungent as it is, has, we doubt not, in cases almost innumerable, failed of its- proper application and effect, by being restricted to a supposed particular
and small class of sinners. It belongs to all, who
have ever enjoyed the privilege of fully hearing
the gospel, being enlightened by the Word of God.
There is not one specification in it which may not
enter into the Divine Indictment against the whole
multitude of men in Christendom, who from Sabbath to Sabbath have heard the Word of God proclaimed and expounded. They are fully enlighten
aT( at  Z!ttttiitatt d,)art~ ng. 
THE ULTIMATE WARNING.
ed, they have tasted of the heavenly gift of the Gospel, and all its blessings have been placed at their
disposal, they are made partakers of the Holy
GhQst, according to the sense of this passage, if not
in its fullest sense, just as the Jews were, who, according to the charge of Stephen, had received the
law by the disposition of angels, but had not kept
it, but being stiff-necked and circumcised in heart
and ears, did always resist the Holy Ghost. But
all men, under the Gospel, are made more largely
partakers of the Holy Ghost, than under the law;
his ordinary influences are more abundant, and the
sin of resisting and rejecting those influences is
more common. The gifts of the Holy Ghost are
larger and more varied, and all are in one sense partakers of them, who have been instructed in the
fact of their having been given for the accomplishment of the work ofGod's mercy in the redemption
of mankind. The gracious influences of the Holy
Spirit continually accompany the Word of God,
and all who hear it are aware of God's promise to
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him, and by
His Spirit and with His Word God strives with
men, so that they do really grieve the Holy Spirit
of God, by continued impenitence and sin. They
have tasted the good Word of God, the Word
which is quick and powerful, and able to make
them wise unto salvation through faith in Christ
Jesus. They have experienced also the powers of
the world to come; the whole revelation from God,
especially in the New Testament, is a manifestation
of those powers, and a grappling of them, like
350 
THE ULTIMATE WARNING.
great grappling irons, upon the alarmed hearts and
consciences of men.  "Knowing the terror of the
Lord," says the Apostle, "we persuade men, and are
made manifest in men's consciences. And knowing
the glory and joy of the Lord, we persuade men.
There is hope laid up for you in heaven, and a blissful and glorious inheritance, even the inheritance of
Saints in light, and a crown of righteousness, and
rest fromn sorrow and from sin, in the likeness and
presence of the Saviour, when the Lord Jesus shall
be revealed from Heaven with His holy angels, in
flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know
not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord, and
from the glory of His power, when he shall come to
be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all
them that believe."
Now, in this very last quotation from Paul, this compact and comprehensive burst of revelation, are the
powers of the world to come; powers of eternity,
powers of hell and heaven, powers of promise and
despair, powers of attraction and of fear. And
they who hear them, taste them; they cannot but
have some recognition of them; and oftentimes, beneath the working of the Spirit of God with them,
they are powerfully affected by them; they are
wrought upon to such a degree, as to feel, if they do
not exclaim with Agrippa, "Almost thou persuadest
me to be a Christian." And yet, after all this, in
multitudes of cases, despising the riches of God's
goodness, forbeasance, and long-suffering, and not
351 
THE ULTIMATE WARNING.
recognizing the fact, not remembering it, not laying
it to heart, nor considering its solemn consequences,
that the very purpose of this goodness of God is to
lead thiem to repentance, arrested and awakened
men, even after having thus heard and tasted the
powers of the world to come, and the good Word
of God, do nevertheless return to their carelessness
and insensibility, and after their hardness and impenitent heart, led by that, following that, and not
obeying the powers of the world to come, and the
good Word of God, and the strivings of the tIoly
Spirit, they treasure up wrath against the day of
wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of
God; who will render to every man according to
his deeds; to those who by patient continuance in
well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but unto those who do not obey
the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and
wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of
man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the
Gentile; but glory, honor, and peace, to every man
that workethl good, to the Jew first and also to the
Gentile, there being no respect of persons with God.
Hiere, again, in this passage, this compact and
comprehensive delineation of God's ways with man,
and of careless man's neglect, ingratitude, and madness with God, and of the consequences coming, we
have the powers of the world to come, and the
manner in which many a hardened and impenitent
heart treats them.  This good Word of God, sharper
than any two-edged sword, and these powers of the
world to come, are the rod and spur for a sleeping
852 
THE ULTIMIATE WAPRNING.
conscience and insensible heart; they convince of
sin, they alarm the soul with a sense of danger.
These powers of the world to come are as the broom
of the Divine Law; they perform the work of
sweeping; sometimes for a season they sweep the
habits by an enforced moral reformation; they
frighten men from their sins, they almost persuade
them to flee thoroughly and truly from the wrath
to come, by submission to the Saviour, by receiving
HIim into the heart, as its everlasting life and possessor.
But now do we wish for a description of the result, precisely corresponding to the text, if they do
not thus admit the Saviour, thus cast themselves on
Him? We may have it in the words of Jesus
Christ, which, if they had been written after the
great and solemn passages from the Epistle to the
Hebrews, and in illustration of it, could not have
been a more pointed and enlightening commentary.
"When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he
wvalketh through dry places, seeking rest.  And
finding none, he saith, I will return to my house,
whence I came out. And when he cometh, he
findeth it empty, swept and garnished. Then goeth
he, and taketh to him seven other spirits, more
wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell
there; and the last state of that man is worse than
the first."
Or, again, do we wish from another Apostle, a
similar commentary, an equally powerful and
solemn explanation? We may have it from Peter,
concerning those, who for a season, by the power of
353 
THE ULTIMATE WARNING.
the truth and of conscience, driven into just such a
temporary reformation, seem clean escaped from
those who live in error; but not truly fleeing to
Christ, nor trusting in His blood, His grace, nor receiving Him into their hearts, they still are the servants of corruption, with all their promised and
imagined liberty. "For of whom a man is overcome, of the same he is brought into bondage.  But
if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the
world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are entangled therein, and
overcome, the latter end is worse with them than
the beginning. For it had been better for them not
to have known the way of righteousness, than, after
they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened
unto them according to the true proverb, The dog
is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that
was washed to her wallowing in the mire."
The powers of the world to come are elevating
powers, reforming powers, impelling powers, persuasive, mightily argumentative and constraining,
when believed and felt. Beneath their influence
men are naturally drawn upwards towards heaven.
They are sometimes taken by these powers, as by
angels, and laid down at heaven's very threshold,
where one step would be an entrance. But if from
thence they turn away from such a glorious salvation, and from such a mighty agency, and from beneath such an impression wrought upon them, and
such an almost persuasion effected in them, then
there are no other powers, and no other agencies,
354 
THiE ULTIMATE WARNING.
that can raise them again to that vantage ground of
mercy.  That good Word of God, and those poahecrs
of the world to come, and those precious influ.ences
of the Hioly Spirit accompanying them, have lifted
them into a condition, in which salvation was ac cessible, and very near. But, if from all these advan tages, these pinnacles of opportunity, these ladder tops of means and grace they fall away, or if under
all these influences and privileges they remain unmoved, unconverted, then there is no more hope.
What possibility remains, after all the round of
God's applied expedients is run through, and is ineffectual?  Light, knowledge, love, warnings, threatenings, promises, invitations, commands, arguments,
entreaties, gifts, powers, providences, the Word, the
Spirit, convictions, awakenings, the Cross, the sufferings, the death of Christ, and the glories of
Heaven, and the terrors of Hell, all applied in vain!
What is there left, what more powerful, what as a
last resort? What is there of hope or possibility, to
throw yourself back upon, after all the agencies Qf
mercy in God's universe have been tried in vain?
A last resort!  Here we  come upon the mighty
and closing reason for the "impossible," in the appeal to the Hebrews. It is impossible to renew
them again unto repentance, seeing that they crucify
unto themselves the Son of God afresh, and put
IHim to an open shame.  They crucify Him unto
themselves.  They do it on their own account, their
own responsibility.  Instead of accepting His crucifixion for them, and gratefully trusting in it, pleading it, claiming it as their redemption, as the atone
355 
THE ULTIMATE WARNING.
ment for their sins througlh iHis dying love, they renrounce it as God's work of mercy, and renew it as
their own work of contempt.  Sinful, unbelieving,
unconverted men in our day do this in some measure as the Jews did, but more knowingly, more deliberately, and unto themselves, as their own private
choice, as a thing which they accomplish alone, and
wholly for themselves, no other participating with
them.  The Jews of old did it as a nation, and
while they did it thus, they ignorantly fulfilled their
own prophets and the will of God, and crucified
Christ for their own as well as the world's salvation,
that is, for any and all who would believe, Jews or
Gentiles; and many of themselves, individually,
were brought to repentance and faith in the crucicified Redeemer, by that very act being charged
home upon them.  But when men, after knowing
the purpose and meaning of the atonement, and receiving its propositions, still reject Christ, and remain impenitent, they crucify Christ unto themselves.
They crucify Him, even in that sense in which Paul
says that by the Cross of Christ the world was crucified unto Him, and He unto the world; just so Christ
is crucified unto them, and they unto Christ, his
love having no more power over them, and they no
more interest in Hiim.  They render themselves
dead to Him, and His Cross dead to them.  They
render His death of no more efficacy for their salvathanl if they had never heard of it.  Nay, that is
not all. They invest it with a dreadful efficacy in
their own guilt, and for their own condemnation.
It is a savor of death unto death, instead of life
356 
TIE ULTIMATE WARNING.
unto life.  It shall be more tolerable for Tyre  and
Sidoln, for Sodom and Gomorrah, in the day of
judgment, than for such. This rejection of Christ
constitutes an impossibility of repentance and of
salvation, because, beyond Him, Iis sacrifice being
neglected, there is no way of removing guilt.
And this brings us to another profoundly solemn
commentary and paraphrase of our whole text, that
parallel passage in the same Epistle, which we have
purposely reserved to this point, because it lifts up
to a startling manifestation and preeminence both
the reason of the impossibility and the dreadfulness
of the sin.  "For if we sin wilfully after that we
have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain
fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.  He that
despised Moses' law died without mercy, under two
or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment
suppose ye shall he be thought worthy, who hath
trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath
counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he
was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?" See, adds the
Apostle afterwards, that ye refuse not itim that
speaketh. For if they escaped not, who refused
Him that spake on earth, much more shall not we
escape, if we turn away from Iim that speaketh
from Heaven. Truly, this is the last limit and degree of warning in the Word of God. It is the
last terror, even the terror of the Lord, the terror
of the guilt and condemnation of rejecting such au
357 
THE ULTIMATE WARNING.
thiority, such a Being, such an interposition, such a
Saviour.  The warning is clothed in language and
embodies ideas, that, rightly pondered, could not
fail to awaken every man from his insensibility, who
hath not yet fled to Christ Jesus from thie wrath to
come. And yet, terrible as this passage is, it is announced, in its very opening, as belonging to those
simply, it is dedicated to just simply those, who sin
wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth.
Now, who that has heard the gospel has not received
the knowledge of the trutih?  And who that turns
away from it does not reject it wilfully?  Who that
remains impenitent under the light of the gospel, is
not employed, every time that the offers of salvation
and the claims of Christ are passed before him, in
doing despite unto the Spirit of grace, and treating
with contempt the Cross, the sufferings, the death
of Christ, the blood -of the covenant, and the person
of the Son of God?  Last of all, He sent unto thiem
His Son, saying, they will reverence my Son.
Whlen this last of all expectations, hopes, efforts, interpositions, is proved in vain, there can be no other
possibility of salvation, thiere remainethi no more
sacrifice for sin.
Now, when this guilt of a despised and neglected
gospel is analyzed, as it has been in these passages
by the HIoly Spirit, and is presented as God's own
indictment against the sinner, in so many separate
and dreadful counts, and conscience begins to see a
little what it means, the expressions are terrible indeed; there is a lurid glare in them, a flashing of
the bottomless pit.  The drawing up of the accusa
358 
TiE ULTIMATE WARNING.
tion is terrible, the terms are terrible, the personality,
malignity, and wilfulness of the sin are terrible, and
the charging of it from God Himself as a treading
under foot of the Son of God is terrible. And men
would fain imagine that it is not their sin that is
meant in such an indictment, but some horrible,
gloomy, daring and desperate apostasy, like that of
Judas. They cannot see, they will not acknowl edge, they do not feel, that they themselves are thus
personally insulting the Son of God, and putting
Him to an open shame. And yet, the analysis of
this passage shows, and the demonstration of the
nature of unbelief shows, that it belongs to just
those who, under the light of the gospel, obey not
the gospel, those who, at the call of the Saviour,
come not to the Saviour, those who, at the invitation to the King's marriage supper for Hiis Son,
make light of it, and turn away from it to their
farms, their merchandize, their pleasures.
They could not well show contempt more clearly
than by such a course. And it is contempt that
touches the dignity, authority, and paternal throne
and government of God at a very tender and jealous point. It was said of old, Kiss the Son, lest
Hie be angry, and ye perish from the way, when
Hiis wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all
they that yet trust in Hiim And by the Son Hiimself it is said, "i He that believeth on the Son hath
everlasting life; he that believeth not the Son shall
not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him."
Hie that, after an intelligible and repeated manifestation of the claims of the Son of God upon his
359 
THE ULTIMATE WARNING.
faith, his gratitude, his affections, still withholds his
whole nature and will and heart from those claims,
and forms the habit of such reluctance and resistance, is under the whole of this fearful condemnation. There remaineth no more sacrifice for sin.
There is no sacrifice, there can be none, that, when
the offer of the one atoning sacrifice in the blood of
Christ is for the last time rejected, and its efficacy
despised, can atone for the sin of such wilful and deliberate rejection both of God's authority and mercy,
or prevent the consummation of such a choice of
everlasting destruction from the presence of the
Lord.
And therefore this whole subject shows, in a most
vivid light, the greatness of the sin of unbelief in
Christ, above all other sins, and the profound depth
and solemnity of meaning in the question of the
Apostle, iow shall we escape, if we neglect so great
salvation? It shows the necessity of immediate submission to Christ, and the hazard of remaining impenitent, always the guilt of unbelief increasing, as
well as the power, and always the gulf widening between the soul and heaven.  A  man living on in
sin under the gospel, lives under the malediction of
Hebrews, 6: 4, 5, 6; and every moment is in danger of being shot through with that tremendous impossibility of a renewal unto repentance. There is
no10 safety but in a decisive, hearty, humble prostration of the soul at the feet of the Redeemer.
And here we see how dangerous the habit of indecision, the habit of being half-moved, and yet not
changed, beneath the powers of the world to come.
360 
THE ULTIM-ATE WARNING.
There are multitudes in this undecided condition, up
to the last hour. They are always going to believe,
going to repent, going to prepare for death, going
to begin the work of faith and repentance. They
are always, as in the parable of the foolish virgins
represented, going to buy, till the great midnight
cry, Behold the Bridegroom cometh! Then comes
the end, wholly unexpected; death, with the sting of
sin in full power, arrests the soul for judgment, and
the door is shut, and it is too late forever. There
are those, whose whole probationary existence, under
the full light of the gospel, seems to be passed in this
way, oscillating, swinging, between heaven and hell;
raised under the power of Divine truth almost
periodically very near to heaven, and then retreating again, like the motion of the tides, swayed by
the heavenly bodies, but never lifted beyond a certain limit in their earthly sphere. Just so, there is
a certain degree of heavenly attraction experienced,
but it never reaches to the point of conversion, and
from every successive height to which it is carried,
the soul inevitably falls away. At length comes
the last power, the last effort, the last opportunity,
and then there is no more possibility of a renewal
of the soul to repentance.
Often it happens that men are disappointed of an
eternal good, and defraud their own souls of a salvation which was very near at hand, for want of a
little additional effort, or an earnest effort at decision
in a timely hour, at the moment of a merciful visitation. Hie smote thrice, and staid, is the record of
many a soul. And the man of God was wroth
16
361 
THE ULTIMATE WARNING.
with him and said, Thou shouldst have smitten five
or six times. For want of this decision and perse verance there is many a shipwreck, every week, of
bright hopes for eternity, bright promises.  Every
Sabbath day, the work of the last Sabbath, forgotten
and gone like the tracks upon the sea-shore, has all
to be done over again. With many persons, it is
just like raising a huge rock to the top of a decliv ity. You get it up by great toil and patience, al most to the summit, but there you have to leave it
for a season, with props to secure it, till you can return and finish your work. So is a serious soul, on
the verge of the kingdom of heaven.  Meantime,
the world, and the God of this world, are busy; IHe
comes, and gradually undermines your props, or
steals away the checks with which you sought to
keep the rock in its position, and down it comnes,
prostrating in a moment the toil perhaps of years.
Just so the spiritual work of the Sabbath is undone
by the Satan of the week.  The God of this world
is busy.  You think, on the Sabbath, your work is
almost accomplished; a lift more will set the rock
on a secure basis; if there could be another Sabbath following upon this, the Word of God and the
powers of the world to come, would not lose their
grapple; the soul might be saved. But Monday
morning the undermining work begins, and soon
again the rock falls, and by Saturday night it is
down lower than ever. Then the whole work has
to be done over again. Such is the process, repeated again and again, between God and the world,
heaven and hell, the conflict in and for the soul, the
362 
THE ULTIMIATE WARNING.
strife and the labor for it and against it.  And such
is the history of religious impressions ill many a
soul, especially amidst the worldliness  of great
cities; Sabbath evenings, near to heaven, but if not
decided for Christ, then from  Monday  morning,
launched again upon the tide of worldliness, whirled
iln the vortex of consuming earthly anxiety and
care.
At this stage of our investigation let us consider from how many quarters the artillery of
heaven's argument on this subject advances upon
us. What an overwhelming array of demonstration! The Word of God-the powers of the world
to come-the character of  Christ-the work of
atonement-the nature of the soul-the nature of
sin-our already experience of its power and its
misery-the activity of angels-the very joy of
heaven!  What could we ask, what could we conceive, in the way of added proof or demonstration!
From every direction, eternal truth marches in upon
us. By every avenue of logic and of feeling the
conclusion is forced upon the soul that the mighty
conflict which agitates the universe is a conflict for
eternity, a conflict between two eternities, a conflict
between the power of an endless life, and the power
of an endless death.  Nothing less than this could
put all worlds in motion. Nothing less than this
could range the Son of God incarnate on the one
side and Satan on the other. Nothing less than the
certainty and dreadfulness of an endless death,
could bring from heaven a Divine Redeemer, the
Lord of Eternity, to take upon Himself our flesh
363 
THE ULTIMIATE WARNING.
and blood, that through death He might destroy
il  thlat had the power of death, even the devil,
and deliver those, who through fear of death were
all their life-time subject to bondage.  Nothing but
this would permit that Divine Saviour, on any occasion, under any circumstances, to say of any sinner, even the most incredible, that it were good for
that man if he had never been born.
364 
Now, in view of all these revelations, demonstrations, and elements of excitement and of power, the
voice of the Lord our God speaks to His church,
His people, collectively as well as individually,
"Wherefore gavest not thou my money into the
bank, and then at my coming I might have required
mine own with usury?"
The true spiritual view of this text is one of
great solemnity, power, and glory. The grandest,
mightiest, and most responsible stewardship on
earth, is that with spiritual elements, spiritual possessions, spiritual agencies. The possession and the
use of truth is the greatest of all responsibilities.
What a man does with his wealth is of almost no
consequence, in comparison with what he does with
his knowledge. The houses, or lands or stocks he
holds, are dead lumber, and have no power of
usury, in comparison with the accumulating, energetic, vital power of truth. This is not the ordinary
conception; men feel very little responsibility for
their use of the truth with which they are entrusted; but when they stand in judgment before Gcod,
then will they see and know that their knowl]cd',
(,  tR (E  ng C 4t i      tb ROB t~ i'I. 
THE CHURCH'S STEWARDSHIP.
constituted the overwhelming preponderance in
their stewardship, that it was their use or abuse of
truth, that determined everything else in time and
eternity, and that where they wasted one talent of
silver, they misapplied, or buried, or laid away to
rust, ten thousand talents of truth, ten thousand
demonstrations of God, ten thousand convictions of
conscience. Truth for eternity has such vitality
and preciousness, that its stewardship is either of
death unto death, or life unto life. It may be held
in idleness and insensibility, and that is to bury it in
a napkin, and defraud both God and man. It may
be held in unrighteousness, and with a reprobate
mind, and that is to make it unfit even for the
world's dunghill. It may be held in distortion and
denial and deceit, and that is to make the world's
medicine the world's poison, as if a man could
make the rivers of a land run Prussic Acid, or the
clouds rain down arsenic.
We have been dwelling on the powers of the
world to come. We must consider now the responsibility and stewardship of the church as invested with them, and why it is that such mighty
agencies accomplish, after all, so small results.
God doth with us as we with torches do, not
light them for themselves. He created all things by
Jesus Christ, to the intent that unto principalities
and powers in heavenly places might be known by
the church the manifold wisdom of God.   The
church is a body of His stewards, the repository of
wealth for the universe, Hiis chosen and perpetual
company, the general assembly and church of the
366 
THE CHURCH'S STEWARDSHIP.
first-born, the commonwealth of' Israel, a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people, to
show forth the praises of Him who hath called them
out of darkness into His marvellous light. It is a
commonwealth having a life individual, and a life
social, public, mutual, confraternal, incorporate, in
Himself, to carry on the administration of the vast,
yea infinite estate, which He has committed to the
whole body, in trust not only for men on earth, but
principalities and powers in heaven. For the execultion of this trust He has prepared this living
spiritual body, which indeed is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. There is one
body, and one spirit, even as ye are called in one
hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all,
and through all, and in you all. The preparation
of this body for this stewardship is first of all individual, and "unto every one of us is given grace
according to the measure of the gift of Christ."
The church is called and composed first of all in its
members, not its officers, in Christ. After that He
saith, "when He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men. And He
gave some, apostles, and some, prophets, and some,
evangelists, and some, pastors and teachers, for the
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we
all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto
the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."
He has done all things on a mighty and glorious
367 
THE CIHURCHI'S STEWARDSHIP.
scale, and having so prepared the body, the steward ship with which He has invested it is inconceivably
costly and glorious.
What, then, are some of the elements of this ste ardship? WVhat have we to work with, and what
is it that we are to work, what agencies to set and
keep in vital operation, for the advancement of
God's kingdom, the accomplishment of God's pur poses? On a general view, we have the Idea of
God, and men's accountability to Him; his holiness
and justice, and men's sinfulness; death, and all
that may come after death; the undeniable inward
convictions of mankind; the whole range of their
natural theology of sin and misery; the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness,
and in their thoughts accusing or excusing one another; their sense of guilt and their knowledge of
retribution, experimental and foreboded. We have
the whole disclosures of revealed religion, Immortality, Eternity, the Judgment, ileaven, Hell, the
Second Death, Conscience acting withl reference to
these things, the Plan of Redemption, the Mystery
of the Incarnation, the Cross of Christ, Regeneration by the Holy Spirit and the vast law, immutable, unquestionable, a new creature in C/~rist Jesus,
or eternal condemnation; the thunder of the Law,
the mercy of the Gospel, the awakening WVorld,
sharper than any two-edged sword, and the convincing and illuminating Spirit, searching all thing:,
and revealing the character and ruin of the lost soul.
All these elements of knowledge and of power are
gathered together, natural and Divine, and concen
868 
THE CHURCH"S STEWARDSHIP.
trated, compacted, and illustrated, in the stupendous
mystery of tlie character, person, and work of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified.  Not to know anything
among men but Him, is to know all things.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of
the Spirit of God, but they are foolishness unto
him; neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned. He knows even his natural
theology only by guesses and terrors, and gloomy
doubts, fears, forebodings; and the best and most
certain of his knowledge, and the best expressed, is
but as the shadows of a fire upon the wall in a subterranean dungeon; but of things Divine he knoweth nothing as he ought to know, and receiveth
nothing with open understanding and belief. For
men in their native state in sin have the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God,
through the ignorance that is in them because of
the blindness of their hearts. And as it is written,
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things that God
hath prepared for those who love Him, so neither
the disclosures by which God demonstrates those
things, nor the revelations of the way by which
they are to be attained, nor the worth nor the reality
of them, are understood or appreciated by a mind
beneath the darkness of a sinful heart.  To prepare
for the teaching of these truths there must therefore
be an investiture of the soul with the spiritual life
and understanding of them; to render God's church
a teaching church, a living, and not mere speculative or technical intelligence, a church wielding these
I d.%
369 
THE CHIURCHi'S STEWARDSHIP.
elements and applying them in demonstration of
the spirit and of power, there must be a possession of
them, and of the life of them, and an understanding
of them, as Christ Himself possesses and under stands them.
These treasures are treasures in the ore, in the
quartz, in veins, in mountains, in precious impalpa ble dust of sacred truth, as countless as the sands.
It must be collected with great labor and skill, you
must go down into the mines, you must work at
quartz-crushing and sand-washing, you must prove
the metal, it must be assayed, and it must be coined
for circulation, and the mint is that of the Spirit of
God in our own hearts. It is a mint of life, and
not of stamp, form, impression merely.   There
might be the most orthodox die, cutting by rule
with metaphysical regularity, and yet the truth be
dead truth, dormitory truth, the respectable orthodox furniture of a heart dead in trespasses and
sins, instead of the fuel, and the fire, and the light,
that warms, irradiates, enlivens and rejoices, and
the pure air that refreshes, and the living water and
the bread of life. For all these emblems, and more
than all, are used, almost in rhetorical confusion,
yet with the rhetoric of loving truth, to set forth
these powers and responsibilities, and the office of
the heart by the Spirit, and the Spirit in the heart,
to keep them from mere form and death, and to
illustrate and enforce them. Your heart must be the
mint of life, or the truth in it is death unto death.
Your heart must be the mint of life, or your stewardship is a stewardship of guilt and condemnation.
370 
THE CHURCIH'S STEWARDSHIP.
If the stewardship appointed be the holding of
these truths, and thie illustrating, demonstrating
and enforcing them out of God's Word, there must
be a knowledge of them by experience, and a participation of the life of them; and for this God has
provided.  This is the baptism of His church with
power from on high as at Pentecost, and the turning of truth, otherwise merely speculative, into life
and fire in the heart.  "For  God hath revealed
them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth
all things, yea, the deep things of God.   And we
have received, not the spirit of the world, but the
Spirit whiich is of God, that we might know  the
things that are freely given to us of God.  Which
things also we speak, not in the words which man's
wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual." And
where this life is in the heart, this living spirit of
truth, it forms itself into tongues of fire for the
mind, and leaps from mind to mind, even in the
rudest and most unlettered shapes of language,
when informed by that Divine all-quickening spirit.
Thus God accompanies the investiture of His church
in this stewardship with the faculties for its control
and management, the spirit of love, and of power,
and of a sound mind.
There can be nothing more glorious than this
ministry.  It is a ministry of the church in general;
and then, as a ministry also in particular, in the
forms ordained of God, it grows out of the church,
out of Christ in and with the church, and is set in
the church, a part and parcel, a concentration and
371 
THE CHURCIT'S STEWVARDSHIP,
particular investment of the life of the church inl
Christ Jesus.  "For the manifestation of the Spirit is
given to every man to profit withal.  And  in all
varieties of gifts worketh that one and the self-same
Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.
For as the body is one, and hath many members,
and all the members of that one body, being many,
are one body, so also is Christ in the Church of
Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into
one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond
or free, and have all been made to drink into one
Spirit."  It is the ministry and stewardship of the
church.  And so Peter commands, "As every man
hath received the gift, even so, minister the same
one to another, as good stewards of the manifold
grace of God.  If any man speak, let him speak as
the oracles of God speak; if any man minister, let
him do it of the ability that God giveth; that God
in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ."
It is the ministry and stewardship of the churbch,
prepared and designated as the Sons of God in the
midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among
whom it is their work to shine as lights in the
world, holding forth the word of life.
It is also, as the ministry, more particularly, of
the Elders and appointed Shepherds in and of the
church, by the will of Christ, the same stewardship,
and an instrumentality prepared and established of
God for the fitilment of that stewardship.  " And
so," says the Apostle, "our sufficiency is of God,
who hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the
372 
THE CHUP.Ci'S S TEWARDSHiIP.
letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.  Now, the
Lord is that Spirit; and where the spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. And we all, beholding as in a
glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into tihe
same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of
the Lord.  For God, who commandeth the light to
shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts, to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. And Hle that hath
wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who also
hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. All
things are of God, who hath first reconciled us to
Himself by Jesus Christ, and thlen given to us the
ministry of reconciliation. And as we are allowed
of God to be put in trust with the Gospel even so
we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who trieth
our hearts. And as we have this treasure in earthen
vessels, it is that the excellency of the power may
be of God, and not of us, and that all gifts and
graces might redound to the glory of God."
Thus, then, the gift of the ministry itself to the
church of Christ is a gift for the fulfilment of its
great stewardship, the gift of an agency prepared
of God, and kept in vital activity, that the Word
of God itself may have free course and be glorified.
And the commonwealth of Israel are commanded to
take to their hearts, and bear upon their hearts, those
who thus labor among them, and are over them in
the Lord, and who admonish them, and to esteem
them very highly in love for their work's sake, and
to pray for them, that utterance may be given unto
them, and freedom and victory in preaching  the
3 73 
THE CHURCH'S STEWARDSHIP.
word. And all are exhorted and commanded, even
thie whole body of believers, to have the Word of
Christ dwelling in them richly in all wisdom, and
circulating from soul to soul in life and power. They
are commanded to walk in wisdom towards those that
are without, to walk as children of the light, to
walk in the wisdom of winning souls, and to put on
the whole armor of righteousness, and to use the
Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.
And there is a special and personal discipline, of
which we can only glance at the outline, but which
God bestows, and which it is the responsibility of
the Christian, the individual steward, to keep  up,
since thus only he can keep his talent out of the
earth and the napkin, and God's money in circulation and at usury. It is individual experience by
the Spirit of God, which alone can fit the believer
for the work of God.  Accordingly, this is vouchsafed, just according to the fervor of desire and
earnestness of prayer with which it is sought.  The
great prayer of Christ for the disciples was a consecrating prayer for the illumination and sanctification
of Htis  church  by  the spirit.   "Sanctify them
through thy truth; thy Word is truth.  As thou
hast sent me into the world, so have I sent them
into the world, and the glory which thou hast given
me, I have given them.  I have given unto them
the words which thou hast given unto me.  I have
manifested unto them thy name; keep them through
thy name."  " When the Comforter is come, whom
I will send unto you from the Father, even the
Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father,
374 
THE CHURCHI'S STEWARDSHIP.
He shall testify of me. He will guide you into all
truth.  He will show you things to come.  He shall
glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall
show it unto you.  And if ye abide in me, and my
words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and
it shall be done for you. These things have I
spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you,
and that your joy might be full."
Such joy in the Lord is a Christian's great strength
in this stewardship.  And  God's discipline by his
Spirit is kept up in the soul, that the truth of God
may be constantly realized by it. The soul is admitted to behold the Saviour's glory, and is baptized
with His constraining love, and is taught to rejoice in
Him with joy unspeakable and full of glory. What
the scene of the transfiguration was to Peter, James,
and John, what the entrancement into the third
heavens was to Paul, that the teaching and the discipline of the Holy Spirit with Divine truth is to
every believer. Christians are taken down into
hell, they are carried up into heaven, they are made
to feel and to know thiat the powers of the world to
come, and the scenes of redemption in this world,
are no cunningly-devised fables. They have the
earnest of the Spirit given to them, and the Spirit of
Adoption, and the witness of the Spirit in their
hearts, and the earnest of the inheritance of heavenly glory. They have not received the spirit of
bondage unto fear, but the Spirit of adoption, crying Abba, Father.  And the Spirit beareth witness
with theirs that they are the children of God, and
if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint heirs
3 7 -) 
THE CIIURCH'S STEWARDSHIP.
wvith Christ.  They have the spirit of hope, and the
spirit of patience, and the spirit of faith, and the
spirit of prayer, and the peace of God that passethi
alIl unlderstanding,, keeping heart and mind in Chlrist
Jesus. They have the Spirit helping their infirmities,
and inasmuchl as they know not what they should
pray for as they ought, they have the Spirit Himself
making intercession for them with groanings which
cannot be uttered.  Being chosen and sealed by
that Holy promised Spirit for God's work, they are
baptized with the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of Christ, the eyes of their understanding being enlightened, that they may know
what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches
of the glory of Hiis inheritance in the saints, and
what the exceeding greatness of Hiis power towards
us who believe, according to the Aworking of Hiis
mighty power which Hie wrought in Christ, when
He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His
own right hand in the heavenly world. According
to the riches of Christ's glory, they are strengthened
with might by Hiis Spirit in the inner man, that
Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith, that they,
being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to
comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and
length, and depth, and height, and to know the love
of Christ which passeth knowledge, and to be filled
with all the fulness of God. And all this is done
oni purpose that they may be good stewards of the
manifold grace of God, that they may be strong in
the Lord and in the power of His might, that they
may be no more children, tossed to and fro, and
7 6 
TIE CIURCH'S STEWARDSHIP.
carried about with every wind of doctrine, but
speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Hiim
in all things, who is the head, even Christ, from
whom the whole body, fitly joined together, and
compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectuul working in the measure of
every part, maketh increase of the body unto the
edifying of itself in love.
All this is done, that they may be filled with the
knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding, that they may walk worthy of the
Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good
work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto al] patience and long-suffering
with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father,
who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who hath delivered us
from the power of darkness, and hath translated us
into the kingdom of Hiis dear Son. From the experience of such a translation, as from the flying
chariot of Elijah, they can speak to a dying world.
It is the dispensation of God, not with Paul only,
but with the whole church of Christ, to fulfil the
word of God, which for that purpose is made manifest to Hiis saints, to whom God would make known
the riches of the glory of this Divine mystery of
salvation, even Christ in you, the hope of glory.
In addition to all that mighty range of truths and
influences, through which we have now rapidly
glanced, that go to make up the vast stewardship
of the church of Christ, God has also given those
377 
THIE CHIIURCHi'S STEWARDSHIP.
simple ordinances appointed in His word, and connected with it, of which  the Sacrament of the
Lord's Supper is most prominent and important. It
is a scene of solemn and affecting remembrance,
and a source of most impressive thought and feeling.  In it the wandering heart may meet the Saviour, and the tempted heart, as Peter's, behold His
reproving look, and the heart that has been mourning after Hlim may have Him again made known in
the breaking of bread.  It is the place of renewed vows, renewed mercies, renewed and renewing
grace, compassion and forgiving love on Christ's
part, and renewed penitence and faith on ours. It
is a landing place of rest, refreshment, survey, and
setting forth again upon the Christian journey.  It
is an ordinance for gratitude and love enkindled
and increased, and strength administered, as well as
sins deplored.  It is a mount of vision, where the
glass is held to the eye of faith, and we may take a
view of our fair and bright inheritance in heaven,
and for the joy set before us, be prepared to endure
the Cross, despising the shame, and in the light of
our Saviour's sufferings, be made willing to go forth
and work for Him, and suffer for Him, in behalf of
the salvation of a world of dying sinners.
Out of this stewardship, conducted from such experience, comes a great revenue of praise to God in
the salvation of dying men.  Preached out of this
living experience, in the majesty and life of all those
heavenly endowments  and  preparations  by the
spirit, the Word of God is irresistible, and the result
is described by Paul in the Thessalonians, "For our
378 
THIE CHURTCH' S STEWARDSHIP.
Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in
power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, and ye became followers of the Lord, having
received the word in much affliction, with joy o —
the Holy Ghost.  For this cause also thank we God
without ceasing, because, when  ye received the
word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it
not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the
word of God, which effectually worketh also, in
you that believe."
Now, the powers of the world to come, the truths
of God's word, and the ordinances appointed therein,
are elements of motive, energy, and influence, immeasurable, and capable of every increase and expansion; but yet they depend on the state of the
heart to be proved living or lifeless, to develop
strength or weakness. If the church were wholly
in a right state, with the vital electricity from the
Cross of Christ poured through it and around it,
and charging the heart of its individual members, it
would be a governing magnet upon this earth, and
a central spring, impelling the whole world's movements. And just let us consider, on the other
hand, how great the guilt, if such be at any time the
condition of the church of Christ, that all these
mighty elements shall be neutralized, fettered, palsied, shall be held in it as it were in weak solution,
and not in vital energetic composition, shall be held
invisible and powerless, instead of manifest and effective? Does not God justly demand, in reference
to any such hiding of His power, "Wherefore gavest
thou not my money into the bank, and then at my
879 
THE C-IURCI S STEWARDSHIP.
coming I might have  required mine own  with
usury." Is it possible to conceive of any so great
treachery as this?  Can there be any imagined
breach of trust that approximates to any comparison
with it? To have a power committed, on which
depends the advancing redemption of the world, to
have it mysteriously thrown upon the state of spirituality in the church of Christ, (and mysterious
alike the responsibility and the power,-the power
of mischief by indolence and delay, and the power
of good by wakefulness, and fervor, and activity)
to have this power committed and this trust betrayed,-suppose it be by worldliness, by indifference,
by neglect, by prayerlessness, by wealth, by all
seeking their own instead of the things that are
Jesus Christ's-what shall be said concerning so
vast a betrayal of our stewardship? Is it not incredible that such a thing should take place, could
be possible? WVhat would be thought of a corporation with only a million of dollars vested in trust
for only a thousand orphans, if through selfishness
and carelessness they kept it so tied up, or so wastefully expended, that nothing of it should ever come
to the use of the  absolutely needy?   Now, the
church of Jesus Christ are guardians in trust, and
the powers of the world to come are means put into
the hands of Christians, with which they may work
efficiently for the redemption of lost souls.  And
what shall be said of a church of Jesus Christ, what
of individual Christians, put in trust with these treasures for eternity, invested with these elements of glory
and of power, if they bury, or waste, or neglect, or
g3O0 
THE CHURCn'S STEWARDSHIP.
t'irowv away, such responsibilities, capacities, possessions?  And they do bury them, they prevent their
efficacy, they defraud God and the world, if they
neglect the means of realizing and improving them.
What  then are the means of realizing them?
THow may they be made accumulating and productive for God and eternity.  What are the peculiar
personal responsibilities of duty, withi which Christians are invested, or to which they are held, by the
nature of their stewardship?  They are bound to
fervent prayer.  They can do nothing without this.
Everything languishes and dies for want of this.
The insensibility of soul so prevalent, the indifference to eternal things, the apathy under the most
vivid disclosures from the world to come, are the
result just wholly of the neglect of secret prayer.
There can be no feeling, while that prevails; lukewarmness will grow upon the soul, till it settles in
the sluggishness, the torpidity, preparatory to the
horrors of an awakening in eternal death.
But fervent prayer can produce a resurrection
even from the death of winter.  It shall cover the
lifeless trees with new foliage, and then they shall
yield and move at every breath of God's spirit. It
shall clothe dead truths with beauty, and inspire
them with subduing persuasiveness  and life.  It
shall move  even upon  unconverted hearts  and
minds, with an influence of solemnity and power,
which they knew not, preparing them to be powerfully wrought upon by the truths of eternity.  And
the same presentation of truth, that before had no
effect, shall now, under the supplications of anxious,
3~i 
THE CHURCH'S STEWARDSHIP.
yearning, heaven-beseeching hearts, under the
united pleadings of a church awakened and at work,
prove irresistible, by God's grace, with those who
till then were heedless and insensible.  Except in
the atmosphere of prayer, spiritual truth cannot be
living truth; it may remain as a dry and dead
speculation; but it cannot live and give life, without
prayer.
But again, Christians are bound to an attendance
and sustaining of the social means of grace. Except Christ be in such means, there is indeed no life
in them. But the special promise of Christ is given
forth to just this duty, just this labor of social
prayer.  "Where two or three are gathered in my
name, thiere am I in the midst of them." Where
Christ is, there is life, there a blessing. The mere
form of a social gathering is indeed nothing; but
the disciples of Christ are bound to be there in
heart, bound to go there from the throne of grace,
carrying the spirit of prayer, and of compassion for
souls to the communion of saints.
How criminally regardless are Christians of the
element of power contained in that promise, "Where
two or three are." From the too frequent appearance
of the prayer meetings in our churches, one might
suppose that the promise meant and was understood
to prohibit the assembling of more than two or three
at any one time.  Let it be remembered that the
forsaking of the assembling of themselves together
was one of the earliest symptoms of declension and
decay in Apostolic churches, that at length died by
the visitation of God in their own corruption,
382 
THE CHURCH'S STEWARDSHIP.
spewed out by the indignation of the Saviour, for
their lukewarmness, being neither cold nor hot.
Let the members of our churches neglect their
prayer-meetings, and they ensure the abandonment
of God.
They are bound to keep their own hearts with all
diligence, for out of them are the issues of life.
There is no life anywhere, if it be not there. And
if they take no interest in the Redeemer's kingdom,
what evidence, either in heart or life, of an interest
in Jesus. There is no power but life-power. You
cannot move a dying world by speculation, by eloquence, by majestic thought, by argument, by persuasion, except it be kindled, inspired, and accompanied by the Holy Spirit, except it be set on fire of
love. This is that requisite which you must gain, if
you would fulfil your trust.  " Restore unto me the
joy of thy salvation, and uphold me by thy free spirit; then will I teach transgressors thy way, and sinners shall be converted unto thee." If we would
speak of Jesus to others, we must have been with Hirm
ourselves. If we would speak of heaven to others,
and of God, and of sin, and of hell, with the tone and
power of reality, with the vividness and fire of one
thoroughly in earnest, we must be much with Christ
in secret.  A Christian can no more be a fervent
messenger for God, while running on his own errands, with heart and mind absorbed in the things
of this world, than he can serve God and mammon.
We cannot interest others, except as we ourselves
have this living interest and experience. If a man
should undertake to lecture on Australia, to give us
383 
THE CHURCI'S STEWARDSHIP.
an account of the gold mines there, and of the manners and customs of the natives, he would scarcely
get an audience to pay for his lights of an evening.
But if a man should come from Australia, bringing
a great quantity of the gold in its virgin state, a man
who himself has worked in the mines and gained a
fortune, men would listen to him with eagerness;
the people would crowd to hear him; and the
plainest bare unadorned recital of facts, and from his
own experience, would be received with deeper interest than the most elaborate and perfect rhetoric
from the other. No exquisiteness of description
could equal the reality of life, or of truth the product
of life.
As the crowning work, Christians are bound, having thus prepared their issues of God's wealth, to go
forth distributing them through the community.
They are to put God's truth in circulation. They
are to be employed in conveying and applying it to
men's hearts and consciences.   This is the one
grand business for which God has entrusted iis
church with such grand and costly possessions.
THE END.
3388 
5b:
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS
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