03b Rational Argument for Doctrine of Etern. Pun.

The finally lost are not to be conceived of as having faint desires and aspirations for a holy and heavenly state, and as feebly but really inclined to sorrow for their sin, but are kept in Hell contrary to their yearning and petition. They are sometimes so described by the opponent of the doctrine, or at least so thought of. There is not a single throb of godly sorrow, or a single pulsation of holy desire, in the lost spirit. The temper toward God in the lost is angry and defiant. They hate both Me and My father, says the Son of God, without a cause [John 15:24-25]. Satan and his followers love darkness rather than light, Hell rather than Heaven, because their deeds are evil [John 3:19]. Sin ultimately assumes a fiendish form, and degree. It is pure wickedness without regret or sorrow, and with a delight in evil for evil’s sake. There are some men who reach this state of depravity even before they die 49[That the perdition of some men seems to be settled in this life, is taught by Paul in 1 Timothy 5:24. Some men’s sins are evident beforehand (prodhloi), going before them to judgment]. They are seen in the callous and cruel voluptuaries portrayed by Tacitus, and the Heaven-defying atheists described by Simon. They are also depicted in Shakespeare’s Iago. The reader knows that Iago is past saving, and deserves everlasting damnation. Impulsively, he cries out with Lodovico: "Where is that viper? bring the villain forth." And then Othello’s calmer but deeper feeling becomes his own: "I look down towards his feet--but that’s a fable: If that you be’st a demon, I cannot kill you." The punishment is remitted to the retribution of God

*[It ought to be noticed, that the hatred of Himself, and of His Father, which Christ attributes to the world [John 15:18-19], and which is a distinguishing element in impenitence, does not necessarily imply sensuality and vice. Sin may be wholly intellectual--what Paul denominates spiritual wickedness (Ephesians 6:12). The most profound of Shakespearean critics calls attention to "the passionless character of Iago. It is all will in intellect" [Coleridge’s Works, IV. 180, Harper’s Ed.]. The carnal mind manifests itself in two ways. The proud spirit of the moralist is one phase of it; the self-indulgent spirit of the voluptuary is the other. The Pharisee represents the first; Dives the last. Both alike confess no sin, and implore no forgiveness. In illustration of the former, consider the temper of a certain class of intellectual men toward the cross of Christ. They are perhaps austerely moral. By temperament, taste, study, and occupation, they have even an antipathy to sensuality. They "scorn delights, and live laborious days." But present for their acceptance those truths of the New Testament which involve the broken and contrite heart, and their whole inward being rises in vehement recoil. Of the effect of the doctrine of election, Calvin remarks that "when the human mind hears of it, its irritation breaks all restraint, and it discovers as serious and violent agitation as if alarmed by the sound of a martial trumpet" [Institutes. III. xxii. 1]. So, too, when the authoritative demand of Jesus Christ, to confess sin, and beg remission through atoning blood, is made to David Hume, or David Strauss, or John Stuart Mill, none of whom were sensualists, it wakens intense mental hostility. Now without asserting which theory in religion is true, that of the New Testament, or that of the skeptic, is it not clear, that if there be another life, and if the teaching of the New Testament shall prove to be the absolute truth, the latter person must be classed with the "haters of God"? Will not the temper of this unsensual and intellectual man towards what is found, in the end, to be eternal verity, be as thoroughly of the nature of enmity, as that of the most immoral and hardened debauchee? 50[Muller alludes to unsensual and intellectual sin in the following terms : "That which makes sin to be sin, and which is the evil of evil, is the selfish isolation of the man which it involves. There are cases--with some it is the rule of life--where a man keeps himself free from wild ungovernable passions, and only seldom is guilty of overt acts which conscience recognizes as sins; yet in his inmost heart ’the I, that gloomy despot,’ rules supreme; he stands alone in the world, shut up within himself, and in a chaos of selfish endeavors, preferences, antipathies--without any true participation in the joys and sorrows of mankind--estranged from God. In such a state, the principle of sin, though shut up within, rules with no less real power than where its dominion is manifest in glaring wickedness and vice, and a wild disorder of the outward life" [Sin, I., 136]. He also notices that mere intellectuality is no certain preservative against sensuality and vice. "A superficial observation of life has led to the conclusion that immorality decreases in proportion as the growth of the intellectual nature increases, and the ’children of this generation’ pride themselves in no small degree upon the discovery that culture and not Christianity is the means of true freedom, and the panacea for all the disorders of the world. But a single unbiased and penetrating glance at life will suffice to dissipate these illusions. We oftentimes find the deepest moral degradation and disorder in the very highest stages of culture, a frivolity of mind resolving all relations of life into rottenness, an utter insensibility to every impulse of holy love, and a cold, calculating, self-conscious egotism, which puts from it the call to sacrifice anyone of its own interests as something altogether absurd--the men with whom it comes in contact being regarded merely as ciphers, by whose help its own aggrandizement may be attained. Mental culture does not eradicate a single tendency of moral depravity; it only veils and refines them all; and so far from redeeming the man, if it be not sanctified by a higher principle, it really confirms within him the dominion of sin" [Sin, I., 306, 307].

5. In the fifth place, that endless punishment is rational, is proved by the history of morals. In the records of human civilization and morality, it is found that that age which is most reckless of law, and most vicious in practice, is the age that has the loosest conception of penalty, and is the most inimical to the doctrine of endless retribution. A virtuous and religious generation adopts sound ethics, and reverently believes that the Judge of all the Earth will do right [Genesis 18:25]; that God will not call evil good, and good evil, nor put darkness for light and light for darkness [ISA 5:20]; and that it is a deadly error to assert with the sated and worn-out sensualist: All things come alike to all; there is one event to the righteous and the wicked [Ecclesiastes 9:2]. The French people, at the close of the last century, were a very demoralized and vicious generation, and there was a very general disbelief and denial of the doctrines of the Divine existence, the immortality of the soul, the freedom of the will, and future retribution. And upon a smaller scale, the same fact is continually repeating itself. Any little circle of business men who are known to deny future rewards and punishments are shunned by those who desire safe investments. The recent uncommon energy of opposition to endless punishment, which started about ten years ago in this country, synchronized with great embezzlements and breaches of trust, uncommon corruption in mercantile and political life, and great distrust between man and man. Luxury deadens the moral sense, and luxurious populations do not have the fear of God before their eyes. Hence luxurious ages, and luxurious men, refuse to obey Hell, and kick against the goads. No theological tenet is more important than eternal retribution to those modern nations which, like England, Germany, and the United States, are growing, rapidly in riches, luxury, and earthly power. Without it, they, will infallibly go down in that vortex of sensuality and wickedness that swallowed up Babylon and Rome. The bestial and shameless vice of the dissolute rich, that has recently been uncovered in the commercial metropolis of the world, is a powerful argument for the necessity and reality of the lake which burns with fire and brimstone [Revelation 21:8].

[The following two paragraphs are wishful thinking and certainly not Biblical–see Matthew 7:13-14 –aal]. A single remark remains to be made respecting the extent and scope of Hell. It is only a spot in the universe of God. Compared with Heaven, Hell is narrow and limited. The kingdom of Satan is insignificant in contrast with the Kingdom of Christ. In the immense range of God’s dominion, good is the rule, and evil is the exception. Sin is a speck upon the infinite azure of eternity; a spot on the sun. Hell is only a corner of the universe. The Gothic etymon (Hohle, Hölle) denotes a covered-up hole. In Scripture, Hell is a pit, a lake; not an ocean.. It is bottomless, but not boundless. The Gnostic and Dualistic theories, which make God, and Satan, or the Demiurge, nearly equal in power and dominion, find no support in Revelation. The Bible teaches that there will always be some sin, and some death, in the universe. Some angels and men will forever be the enemies of God. ["There is this certainty," says Hooker [Polity, V., xlix], "that life and death divide between them the whole body of mankind. What portion either of the two has, God Himself knows; for us he has left no sufficient means to comprehend, and for that cause has not given any leave to search in particular who are infallibly the heirs of the Kingdom of God, and who are castaways. Howbeit, concerning the state of all men with whom we live, we may till the world’s end always presume that as far as in us there is power to discern what others are, and as far as any duty of ours depends upon the notice of their condition in respect to God, the safest axioms for charity to rest itself upon are these: ’He who believes, already is the child of God; and he who believes not as yet, may become the child of God.’ It becomes not us, during life, altogether to condemn any man, seeing that for anything we know there is hope of every man’s forgiveness, the possibility of whose repentance is not cut off by death. And therefore charity which ’hopes all things,’ prays also for all men"]. But their number, compared with that of unfallen angels and redeemed men, is small [SEE Matthew 7:13-14 -- aal]. They are not described in the glowing language and metaphors by which the immensity of the holy and blessed is delineated. The chariots of God are twenty thousand, and thousands of angels [Psalms 68:17]. The Lord came from Sinai, and shined forth from mount Paran, and He came with ten thousands of His saints [Deuteronomy 22:2]. The Lord has prepared His throne in the Heavens, and His Kingdom rules over all [Psalms 103:21]. Yours is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory [Matthew 6:13]. The Lord Christ must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet [1 Corinthians 15:25]. St. John heard a voice from Heaven as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder [Revelation 14:1]. The New Jerusalem lies four square, the length is as large as the breadth; the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day; the kings of the Earth do bring their honor into it [Revelation 21:16, Revelation 21:24-25]. The number of the lost spirits is never thus emphasized, and enlarged upon. The brief, stern statement is, that the fearful and unbelieving shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone [Revelation 21:8]. No metaphors and amplifications are added, to make the impression of an immense multitude which no man can number

*Calvin, explaining the elect seven thousand, in Romans 11:4, remarks, that "though this stands for an indefinite number, it was the Lord’s design to specify a great multitude. Since, then, the grace of God prevails so much in an extreme state of things, let us not lightly give over to the Devil all those whose piety does not openly appear to us." Zuingle thought that all who died in early childhood are regenerated and saved. Edwards [Against Chauncy, Chap. XIV] denies that it is an article of his faith, that "only a small part of the human race will finally be saved." Hopkins [Future State, Section V] asserts that "there is reason to believe that many more of mankind will be saved than lost; yea, it may be many thousands to one." Hodge [Theology III. 879] says that "we have reason to believe that the number of the finally lost, in comparison with the whole number of the saved, will be very inconsiderable".

We have thus briefly presented the rational argument for the most severe and unwelcome of all the tenets of the Christian religion. It must have a foothold in the human reason, or it could not have maintained itself against all the recoil and opposition which it elicits from the human heart. Founded in ethics, in law, and in judicial reason, as well as unquestionably taught by the Author of Christianity, it is no wonder that the doctrine of Eternal Retribution, in spite of selfish prejudices and appeals to human sentiment, has always been a belief of Christendom. From theology and philosophy it has passed into human literature, and is wrought into its finest structures. It makes the solemn substance of the Iliad and the Greek Drama. It pours a somber light into the brightness and grace of the Aeneid. It is the theme of the Inferno, and is presupposed by both of the other parts of the Divine Comedy. The epic of Milton derives from it its awful grandeur. And the greatest of the Shakespearean tragedies sound and stir the depths of the human soul, by their delineation of guilt intrinsic and eternal. In this discussion, we have purposely brought into view only the righteousness of Almighty God, as related to the voluntary and responsible action of man. We have set holy justice and disobedient free-will face to face, and drawn the conclusions. This is all that the defender of the doctrine of retribution is strictly concerned with. If he can demonstrate that the principles of eternal rectitude are not in the least degree infringed upon, but are fully maintained, when sin is endlessly punished, he has done all that his problem requires. Whatever is just is beyond all rational attack. But with the Christian Gospel in his hands, the defender of the Divine justice finds it difficult to be entirely reticent, and say not a word concerning the Divine mercy. Over against God’s infinite antagonism and righteous severity toward moral evil, there stands God’s infinite pity and desire to forgive. This is realized, not by the high-handed and unprincipled method of pardoning without legal satisfaction of any kind, but by the strange and stupendous method of putting the Eternal Judge in the place of the human criminal; of substituting God’s own satisfaction for that due from man. In this vicarious atonement for sin, the Triune God relinquishes no claims of law, and waives no rights of justice. The sinner’s Divine Substitute, in his hour of voluntary agony and death, drinks the cup of punitive and inexorable justice to the dregs. Any man who, in penitent faith, avails himself of this vicarious method of setting himself right with the Eternal Nemesis, will find that it succeeds; but he who rejects it, must through endless cycles grapple with the dread problem of human guilt in his own person, and alone. The Christian Gospel--the universal offer of pardon through the self-sacrifice of one of the Divine Persons–should silence every objection to the doctrine of Endless Punishment. For as the case now stands, there is no necessity, so far as the action of God is concerned, that a single human being should ever be the subject of future punishment. The necessity of Hell is founded in the action of the creature, not of the Creator. Had there been no sin, there would have been no Hell; and sin is the product of man’s free will. And after the entrance of sin, and the provision of redemption from it, had there been universal repentance in this life, there would have been no hell for man in the next life. The only necessitating reason, therefore, for endless retribution, that now exists, is the sinner’s impenitence. Should every human individual, before he dies, sorrow for sin, and humbly confess it, Hades and Gehenna would disappear. For the Scriptures everywhere describe God as naturally and spontaneously merciful, and declare that all the legal obstacles to the exercise of this great attribute have been removed by the death of the Son of God for the sins of the whole world [1 John 2:2]. In the very midst of the holy revelations of Sinai, Jehovah proclaimed it to be his inherent and intrinsic disposition to be merciful and gracious, long suffering, forgiving iniquity and transgression [Exodus 34:6-7]. Nehemiah, after the exile, repeats the doctrine of the Pentateuch: You are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, and of great kindness [Nehemiah 9:17]. The Psalmist declares that the Lord is ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all that call upon Him [Psalms 86:5]. The Bible, throughout, teaches that the Supreme Being is tenderly sensitive to penitence, and is moved with compassion and paternal yearning whenever He perceives any sincere spiritual grief. He notices and welcomes the slightest indication of repentance. The eye of the Lord is upon those who fear Him, upon those who hope in His mercy [Psalms 33:18]. The Heavenly Father sees the prodigal when he is yet a great way off. He never breaks the bruised reed, nor quenches the smoking flax [Matthew 12:20; Isaiah 42:3]. If there be in any human creature the broken and contrite heart, the Divine Pity immediately speaks the word of forgiveness and absolution. The humble confession of unworthiness operates almost magically upon the Eternal. Incarnate Mercy said to the heathen woman of Canaan who asked for only the dog’s crumbs, O woman, great is your faith; be it unto you even as you wish [Matthew 15:28]. The Omnipotent is overcome, whenever He sees lowly penitential sorrow. As the foolishness of God is wiser than man [1 Corinthians 1:21], so the self-despairing helplessness of man is stronger than God. When Jacob says to the Infinite One, I am not worthy of the least of all Your mercies," yet wrestles with him until the breaking of the day, he becomes Israel, and as a prince has power with God [Genesis 32:10, Genesis 32:24, Genesis 32:28]. When Jehovah hears Ephraim bemoaning himself, and saying, Turn me, and I shall be turned, He answers, Ephraim is My dear son. I will surely have mercy upon him" [Jeremiah 31:18, Jeremiah 31:20].

Now the only obstruction, and it is a fatal one, to the exercise of this natural and spontaneous mercy of God, is the sinner’s hardness of heart. The existing necessity for Hell-punishment is not chargeable upon God. It is the proud and obstinate man who makes Hell. It is his impenitence that feeds its perpetual fires. For so long as the transgressor does not grieve for sin, and does not even acknowledge it, it cannot be pardoned. Almightiness itself cannot forgive impenitence, any more than it can make a square circle

*[Impenitence after sinning is a more determined form of sin, than sinning is in and of itself. For it is a tacit defense and justification of sin. If after transgression the person acknowledges that he has transgressed, and asks forgiveness for so doing, he evinces that he does not excuse his act, or defend it. On the contrary, he renounces his act, condemns it, and mourns over it. But if after transgression the person makes no acknowledgment, and asks no forgiveness, he is really repeating and intensifying his sin. He virtually justifies himself in his act of rebellion against authority, and thus aggravates the original fault. It is for this reason, that impenitence for sin is more dreadful than sin itself. A penitent sinner can be forgiven; but an impenitent sinner cannot be. The former God pities, and extends the offer of mercy to him. To the latter God holds out no hope, because He cannot]. This is what gives to human existence here upon Earth its dark outlook. Men are impenitent. They pay no heed to the voice of conscience; know little of remorse, nothing of genuine sorrow. They are stolid and lethargic in sin; or else angrily deny the fact. They bend no knee in self-abasement before the All-Holy; they do not cry, "O Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, grant me Your peace." Human life is gloomy and despairing, not because there is no mercy in the sweet Heavens, but because there is no relenting, no softening, in the human heart. One is weary of hearing the incessant wail of the agnostic, and the cynic, over the "mystery" of this existence; the monotonous moan of the pessimist, that life is not worth living. One sincere confession of what the immediate consciousness of every man will tell him is the absolute truth respecting his character and conduct, when tried by a spiritual and perfect standard, would drive away this false view of earthly existence as the miasmatic fog is blown by the winds. But instead of confessing sin, and imploring its forgiveness, men stand complaining of its punishment, or employing their ingenuity in endeavoring to prove that there is none; and then wonder that the Heavens are black and thunderous over their heads. Not by this method, will the sky be made clear and sunny. Whoever will cast himself upon the Divine Compassion will find life to be worth living; but he who quarrels with the Divine Justice will discover that he had better not have been born.

What the human race needs is--to go to the Divine Confessional. The utterance of the Prodigal should be that of every man: Father, I have sinned [Luke 15:21]. The utterance of the Psalmist should be that of every man: O You Who hear prayer, unto You shall all flesh come. Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, You shall purge them away [Psalms 65:2-3]. So long as man glosses over, or conceals, the cardinal fact in his history, he must live under a cloud, and look with anxiety and fear into the deep darkness beyond. It is useless to contend with the stubborn fact of moral evil by the ostrich-method of ignoring, and denying. The sin is here, in self-consciousness, terrible and real, the lancinating sting of pain and the deadly sting of death, in this generation and in all generations. Kant, the ethical and the metaphysical, is right when he affirms that the noumenon of sin is the dark ground under the phenomenon of life. Confession, therefore, is the only way to light and mental peace. The suppression of any fundamental form of human consciousness necessarily results in unrest. Man’s words about himself must agree with his true character and condition; otherwise he becomes insincere, miserable, and false. The denial of moral evil is the secret of the discontent and melancholy with which so much of modern letters is filled. Rousseau made a confession, but not truthful, not humble; and hence it brought him no repose. Augustine made a confession, genuine, simple, thoroughly accordant with the facts of human nature; and the outpouring of his confidences into the ear of Eternal Purity and Mercy brought the peace that passes all understanding, and the immortal life that knows no melancholy, and no dissatisfaction. These historic persons are types of the two classes into which all men fall--the penitent and the impenitent. The king in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, writhing with selfish remorse but destitute of unselfish sorrow, in his soliloquy exclaims:

Try what repentance can: what can it not? Yet what can it, when one cannot repent? O wretched state! O bosom black as death! O limed soul; that struggling to be free Art more engaged!

Bunyan’s man of Despair, in the iron cage, when assured by Christian that "the Son of the Blessed is very pitiful," replies: "I have so hardened my heart, that I cannot repent." In these powerful delineations, these profound psychologists of sin bring to view a peril that environs free will. Pardon may be proffered by God, but penitence may become impossible through the action, of man. "There are some sins," says Augustine, "that follow of necessity, from fore-going sins that occurred without necessity." The adoption of atheism is a sin without necessity. It is the voluntary action of man. But the hardness of heart that results from it, results of necessity. No man is forced to be an infidel; but if he is one, he must be an impenitent man. A luxurious and skeptical age should remember this. That man cannot repent, who drowns himself in pleasure, and never seriously reflects upon his accountability to his Maker. That man cannot repent, who expends the energy of his mind in the endeavor to prove that all human action is irresponsible, and the threatenings of Revelation an idle tale. They who have eyes full of adultery cannot cease from sin [2 Peter 2:14]. Absorption in worldliness, and adoption of infidel opinions, make repentance an impossibility. Sensuality and atheism harden the human heart, and render it impervious to the Christian Religion.