04 - Hell
IV. HELL "Then they will go away to eternal punishment!"Mat 25:46 That punishment is reserved in another state of being, for guilt contracted in the present — an express revelation was hardly necessary to warn mankind. Had no Scripture been promulgated — had no inspired prophetic voice announced the woes which await the offending and unrepentant soul — conscience, the veiled prophet within — would have afforded at least some intimation, (indistinct indeed and imperfect, with respect to minuter details — yet as to the general fact,) sufficiently intelligible to convince, sufficiently dreadful to alarm.
Reason, too, calmly speculating on the divine attributes — and observing that transgression is, in the great majority of instances, permitted, without molestation — to revel in its forbidden pleasures.
Or, to speak more properly, observing that the stings of a disturbed conscience, which sin and self-love knows too well how to blunt — and whatever other minor distresses may here ensue, as the temporal consequences of guilt — are for the most part, inadequate as punishments to that guilt. Reason, I say, placing this view of life before its contemplation, could hardly fail to predict a future state of bodily or mental pain, wherein retributive justice would be more strictly executed.
Accordingly all people, of every age and climate — having formed a religion by the light of nature for themselves — have assigned to guilt a place of sorrow beyond the grave — and reinforcing the internal menaces of remorse, have taught the offender to tremble under the apprehension of a heavier punishment than it is in the power of man to inflict; or than can be inflicted within the compass of time:
The scourge of furies;
the gnawing vulture;
the thirsting lip, still parched but never moistened;
the labor ever fruitless, yet ever renewed;
intense heat or perpetual winter, and
various other descriptions of suffering, invented by different pagan nations, as their fears were severally molded by their local situation, their manners, or their passions — evince the punishment of wickedness in another world, to be one of those doctrines of which God — to point out their primary importance, and indisputable certainty, thought proper never to leave himself wholly without a witness.
While the voice of Scripture Revelation, wherever it has extended, having confirmed the forebodings of conscience and the inferences of reasoning — it has supplied the defective understanding of both, by unfolding much concerning the nature of the punishment reserved for evil-doers. To its information, expressed or implied, on this solemn subject, I purpose at present to direct your views. May the meditation, though for the moment displeasing and irksome, terminate in a joyous outcome! May the Omnipotent grant, in my weak efforts, that knowing, and setting forth the terrors of the Lord — I may persuade men, by timely repentance, to turn into the path of salvation.
1. Actual bodily suffering, then, seems unequivocally revealed, as one part of the sorrows to be sustained by the children of perdition. There are minds of sentimental feeling, or of selfish presumption — by which this is regarded as a hard saying — minds which refine too far on the expressions of Scripture, and construe its plain statements into metaphorical allusions. As the souls of men, however, are to be rejoined to their bodies — it cannot be believed that their future punishments will be exclusively mental. Our blessed Redeemer suffered intensified bodily torments, in ransoming mankind from destruction — and hence it seems to follow, that the unbelieving and unrepentant among mankind, should incur a similar punishment.
It is natural to suppose too, that deeds done in the body, should be expiated by bodily suffering — and however cruel it may seem in a minister of the gospel of love, to advance and to insist upon this supposition — it would be far more cruel to lull his people in a fallacious security, by inculcating unscriptural mitigations of punishment — by speaking smooth things, and prophesying deceits.
When, in short, I open the New Testament in various places — when I discover our Lord himself there declaring, that the angels shall sever the wicked from the godly, and cast them into a furnace of fire — when I read again, that the unprofitable servant shall be cast into outer darkness where shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth — when I read that the fearful and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone — and that the smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever — I cannot doubt that such passages are to be, in some measure, literally understood. Nor ought any human sentimentality to withhold from transgressors a representation of the suffering which they are doomed to feel . . .
when the eyes, that had communicated only impurity to the soul — shall be forever excluded from the cheerful light;
when the hand of robbery, of fraud, or of oppression — shall be bound with everlasting chains;
when the tongue, that was habitually exercised in falsehood, in calumny, in profanation, in blasphemy — shall call in vain for a drop of cold water to quench its burning fever;
when the whole body is tormented, but not consumed in the flames.
Some may call this interpretation too literal and harsh. Still, if there existed only the faintest probability — the chance of one against a thousand — that such, or nearly such, is the undisguised fact — shall we incur that hazard, on the strength of a perhaps? Or what is still weaker — of our own biased conclusions, drawn from a partial view of the gentler attributes of God, which overlooks the stricter qualities of his character, and the express declarations of his revealed will?
2. If, however, to suffer bodily pains be a punishment so dreadful in apprehension, as to induce transgressors to soften down, by lenient interpretations, the plain terms in which it has been predicted — we shall probably agree in the sequel, that it is the least severe woe denounced against the sons and daughters of disobedience — that it is nothing, absolutely nothing, when compared with those mental tortures which Scripture announces. Nay, which arise out of the situation of the condemned — out of the nature and constitution of the human soul. To rise from the lower to the more intense of these sufferings — a deep sense of SHAME is the first that demands our notice.
Shame can exist, even when there is no detection of the guilt by others. In this life, indeed, some of our less honorable acts, and perhaps all our unworthy thoughts, we are fortunate enough in concealing from others. And so strangely are we constituted, that, with respect to these, the multitude, with the exception of some holy minds, are at present sensible of but little compunction. But their deep sensibility to a more delicate shame, will, in another world, be roused from its long torpor. With a brow forever clouded, with an eye that cannot look up — will they own the self-humiliating nature of vice — and their cheek will burn with the perpetual crimson of the consciousness that they have fallen by their own sin, and forfeited the good opinion of God.
Like our first parents — in the hour of their disobedience, they will seek — but in vain, to hide themselves from the Searcher of hearts. They will cover themselves with their own confusion as with a mantle, and will call on the shadows of Hell to wrap them in friendly concealment. They will exclaim, "Why did we come forth out of the womb of the earth — only that our eternity should be consumed in shame?" But shame will derive its most pointed sting from that conscious sense of universal contempt, which results from full detection and exposure. When men have reason to believe that that tall measure which they take of their goodness, that proud opinion with which they regard their own merits, is not recognized by those around them — that the self-complacency, which is in great measure the essence of their happiness, is far from being warranted in the minds of the respectable — this sense of public disesteem is of itself sufficiently galling. But, if the internal monitor, the echoing voice of self-contempt, proclaims that they have earned no better opinion, that they deserve the scorn they suffer — if they find themselves pointed forth as wicked and evil; shunned, despised — a hissing and a byword, the outcasts and refuse of society, and can only, on introspection, find an acknowledgment that the scorn is just — then no bodily pain, perhaps, no mental anguish, can be compared with their internal dissatisfaction.
Let the wicked man, therefore, gather together in recollection, all that is . . .
base in his principles,
depraved in his thoughts,
faulty in his conduct —
whether already exposed or dexterously concealed — let him conceive it as proclaimed with the voice of a trumpet that shall be heard to the furthest ends of the earth — heard at once in his near neighborhood, and throughout the unexplored distances of the universe — heard by friends who once admired his imagined sincerity, and by foes, who will exult in his degradation — heard at once by angels and by fiends, in all the heights and depths of space — and while on all hands he looks round on countenances frowning abhorrence, and listens to the many voices and hootings of contempt, and reproach, and execration — that portion of his punishment now under consideration, will be conceived with some distinctness.
"Many of those who sleep in the dust shall awake, some to shame and everlasting contempt." And when the veil of self-delusion shall be thus torn away; when flattery shall no longer soothe the ear of pride; when the unrighteous shall read in every eye their own deformity, and hear their character from every tongue, well may they exclaim, "What fruit have we then of those things, whereof we are now ashamed?"
Truly, in this respect, the very best have reason to fear — to ask, "Who may abide the day of his Master’s coming?" Who may sustain the blazing eye of infinite purity? Whose conscience is so spotless as to look fearlessly forward to the unreserved exposure of all its secrets, and to own, like the woman of Samaria, "here is one who has told me all the things I have ever done in my life!"
Yet the faithful may be comforted when they add to this reflection, that in their case, the day of the Lord will bring to light many unnoticed good deeds, many secret struggles, many misgivings preceding their lapses — and the deep compunctions which followed them — their resolutions, their vows, their prayers, their deliberate preference of holiness — their earnest desire to fulfill their duties — their sincere zeal for the divine honor — their love and gratitude towards the Author of their salvation — the uniform soundness of their principles, and the general integrity of their lives. These, they may humbly hope, will abate much of the shame, which a knowledge of their errors will excite in that great assembly. But the wicked can promise themselves none of these stays: nothing to restore them to their own good opinion; nothing to compensate the scandal from without — nothing to banish the inward blush of the soul.
3. REMORSE, we are assured, will be experienced, in its extreme gnawings, by the reprobate, in a future state. Whatever differences of opinion may be entertained, as to the endurance of bodily pain in a place of punishment — of the certainty of remorse there can be no question, whether we confine attention to the speculations of reason, or look to the positive denunciations of Scripture.
If it is true that wicked men shall exist hereafter, and shall possess consciousness — the remembrance of their evil deeds must necessarily attend them — to pierce them to the soul; to bereave them of a moment’s ease. The worm that gnaws memory, and never dies — the fire that rages in the spirit, and is not quenched — intimate that the horrors of remorse will be co-existent with the duration of consciousness. On earth, indeed, an absorption in sensual pleasure — and the glosses of self-love, too often abate and deaden the pangs of a guilty conscience — so much, indeed, as to afford but little apprehension with regard to their future severity. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore is the heart of the sons of men fearlessly set in them to do evil. But be not deceived: whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. A time is at hand, when conscience will rouse from its slumber, will assume its rule of terror and of anguish, and will prey with devouring tooth on the sinful and impenitent heart!
Imagine to yourself the transgressor, sitting in woe and in solitude, wringing his hands, smiting his bosom — feeling himself to be alone worthy of reproach, yet willing to reproach Heaven; and blaspheming God. See him, as he wears, in fruitless remorses, the long, long night that knows no morn — poring over the story of his folly; bewailing his wasted, irrecoverable time; and vainly wishing it were in his power again — now awake to the utter vanity of those poor treasures, and those short-lived joys, for which he once bartered his immortal soul!
Imagine him looking upwards, and discerning no glimpse of day. Imagine him looking downwards — and not finding even a grave — groping all around in that darkness that may be felt, but arriving at no door, no exit, no escape! And then sitting down again to his melancholy musings, until he is worked up into the frenzy — or worn into the idiocy of despair; and (but that that too is impossible) he would gladly commit suicide of the soul — and escape out of misery into nothingness — and still the pendulum within swings and swings; and the laden wheels of the hours move heavily — and every minute is like an eternity; and every instant is a sword; and withal, the task of reflection is still to begin again anew.
Imagine this in a single captive — and only multiply the image throughout all the cells and regions of sorrow — and then, I think, we might waive the question about bodily torments, in their direct and literal import — and then, I think, we might concede its figurative construction — for here is more than the yelling demon, the triple-bolted dungeon, and the sulphurous pool — O! here is Hell enough!
4. But remorse, considered merely as anguish for past guilt, when its folly, its unprofitableness, its dismal outcome shall be manifested — will be inconceivably aggravated by the sense of its ingratitude to God. To contemplate — when no pleasure, no enterprise, no favorite pursuit will remain to divert attention from one sole object — the boundless and amazing beneficence of the Most High — the lavish profusion of his mercies displayed in creating, preserving, redeeming — and then to look inwards, on the wretched creature of his hands, which has made light of his bounties, grieved his Spirit, neglected his offered salvation — to behold in perspective a long futurity which must be passed in exclusion from the light of the countenance, and in exposure to the ever-enduring displeasure of a Being so good and gracious — will constitute a portion of the mental pain of another world — not inferior in severity to the very sorest that could afflict the body.
"The Lord Jesus shall be revealed in flaming fire, taking vengeance on every one that knows not God, and obeys not the gospel of his Son" — who shall be punished with the stings of conscious ingratitude to the kindness of Heaven, and shall ratify, in the approval of his own heart, the doom of everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power!
Convinced that he has sinned willfully, after having been blessed with a knowledge of the truth, how dreadful the thought, that there remains now no hope of ever being again pardoned, pitied or loved, by Him who was once all pardon, all pity, all love — no more sacrifice for sin, no sweet influences of a Comforter — but one protracted series of galling remembrances, that all these blessings were once within his grasp — of self-reproaches, for having wearied out the amazing mercy by which they were offered — and of reluctant vindications of the justice by which they have been withdrawn.
5. Heart-depressing and intolerable as will be all these reflections, how much more ample a source of anguish opens to our view, in the transgressor’s envy of the lot of the righteous, and consciousness of the high felicity which he himself has forfeited! It seems clear, from the parable of Dives and Lazarus, that in some manner the children of perdition will see, afar off — the Heaven from which they have excluded themselves. They will be cursed with a distant sight of joys, which they are doomed never to participate.
Again we are told, that it will be one source of the weeping and gnashing of teeth among the wicked — to see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God — and themselves thrust out. They will exclaim, "Happy, happy inheritors of glory — time was, when, in scorn, we deemed your life madness; when we conceived it folly to make sacrifice of present joys, for a futurity which we deemed precarious. Now you are comforted — and we are tormented. Time was, when we were situated in our state of trial, as you were. We were gifted with all your opportunities — entitled to all your hopes; like you, we were invited to enter in at the gate of Heaven. How have we turned aside from the path which was smoothed for us! Now our trampled on advantages that can never be restored! Now — while you are experiencing, in the presence of God, a fullness and a purity of joy — and at his right hand pleasures forevermore — ours, alas! by an irrevocable doom, is one long dreary night of protracted sorrow . . .
pangs without intermission;
regrets without avail;
a prison-house cheered by no beam of comfort!
6. Amidst these multiplied forms of tribulation and anguish, it might be some relief, some abatement of pain — could the tormented soul find but one virtuous bosom on which it might pillow its sorrows; where it might derive the balm of condolence, or taste the sweets of friendship. But on all sides it looks in vain. In that dismal abode, there is no society but that of fiends, or of evil men transformed into their similitude. No voice of gentleness,
no accent of solace,
no music of compassion,
no soft air of sympathy steals peaceful throughout the gloom. No sound is heard, but . . .
cursings and blasphemies;
the clanking of chains;
the yellings of unutterable anguish. The demons, who once seduced men by tempting descriptions of the forbidden fruit, and by the soothing promise, "You shall not surely die!" — now enjoy the infernal triumph of their power — now live to glut their appetite for vengeance; to heat the furnace seven times hotter; to knot their lash of scorpion remembrances; to hold up before the sinner the mirror of his deformity; and to roar in his ears the history of his crimes. Or if, perhaps, the rolling billows in the lake of fire, whether literal or figurative, shall toss him to an encounter with some partner of his shame, some unhappy being, who in the upper world of light, had been misled by his example, or seduced by his persuasion — he will only increase of torment, in the reproaches vented by the bitterness of a ruined soul — in the curses poured forth by the fury of a soul in tortures. "Wretch, it is you who has cast me into this gulf — but for you I would have kept the path of my innocence! May a ten-fold wrath from God befall you! May a thousand Hells be your portion!"
There are the assassin, the blasphemer, the traitor to his trust; who lived in rebellion, and perished in impenitence. There are the unbeliever, who industriously propagated unbelief — the self-destroyer, who rushing into the presence of his Judge, precluded of all power of repentance, and hope of pardon. "But the fearful, and the unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars — shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
7. To finish this dreadful picture (and whatever pain it may afford us — it is better to contemplate an irksome truth now, than hereafter to experience the woe of having neglected it) — it only remains that we stamp all these varied forms of suffering with the common character of PERPETUITY.
Eternal pain;
eternal shame;
eternal contempt;
eternal remorse;
eternal banishment from the presence of God;
eternal envying of the lot of the good;
eternal society of the devil, and his angels —
all protracted through the infinite ages of duration. The woe knows no limit;
the vial of fury knows no exhaustion;
the dungeon gate will no more expand. No hope of escape, however faint — no prospect of a termination of punishment, however distant — can visit the cheerless prison-house of despair.
Let some controvert this point of Christian doctrine — on the presumption of its irreconcilableness with the divine mercy; and of the disproportion they conceive to exist between the most flagrant or impenitent guilt — and tortures at once so exquisite and so protracted. But without entering at present into any minute disquisition, let it suffice to observe, that the justness of such an opinion is at least greatly to be suspected — as being evidently the suggestion of a heart wishing to soften down to itself the consequences of its deliberate iniquity.
We are to receive both the promises and threatenings of God — as they are set forth in Scripture — that a hope so precarious is, at the lowest estimate, is most unsafe. That to lay open a prospect of release from future punishment, at whatever distance of time, would be to harden guilt, and to prolong impenitence. It were to abate a wholesome dread of the power and wrath of God, who though merciful in the accepted time, is in the end, a consuming fire. It were to make the gift of redemption appear less valuable — and the necessity of fleeing from the wrath to come less urgent.
Since the happiness of the just is represented as everlasting — it were to destroy the analogy which demands the same belief, with respect to the punishment of the ungodly. For the same word is used in both clauses of the text, "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." Mat 25:46
It were to take from Hell, its most dreadful character — if it were not eternal. "The worm never dies;" "the banishment from the presence of God is everlasting;" "the chaff is burnt with unquenchable fire; the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever — these shall go away into everlasting punishment."
If these things are so — if, indeed, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God — then how deeply essential must it be to our well-being, that we arise and flee from the wrath to come!
O! what would many, who have now finished their course, and are reserved in chains and darkness, willingly give in exchange for permission to return but for a moment to the precincts of light, that they might enjoy and improve, though it were only a day — but one only of those days, which many of us who possess them, place too little value!
Since the night comes upon us, when no man can work — let us up and be doing, while it is happily called day. Although the minister is sometimes compelled to have recourse to the terrors of the Lord, it is infinitely more pleasing to him to draw forward his fellow servants, with the gentler cords of love unto Christ, and obedience to his gospel. Scripture revelation has disclosed the mysterious way, by which our sins may be blotted out. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." Transgressor! — turn quickly into this secure path, that your iniquities may be blotted out from the book of judgment, and that you may find rest to your endangered soul.