Chapter 10

This cannot be! Such a heaven has not been prepared for man. Arguing from analogy, the presumption is that those mental and moral habits which have been acquired with so much difficulty, and at so much expense in this present world, will not be cast away as useless in the next, but find there such scope for their exercise as cannot possibly be afforded to them within their present limited sphere of action. But this presumption is immensely strengthened by what we know of the life of the angels, to which I have more than once alluded, as it bears so much upon the several topics discussed by us. These angels "excel in strength;" and they "do His commandments, and hearken to the voice of His word." As "ministers of His," they "do His pleasure." They are represented to us as ever actively employed as messengers of peace or of woe. They have destroyed armies and cities; delivered captives; comforted the disconsolate; and are represented as the future reapers of the earth's harvest. All this proves, at least, that the sinless perfection and happiness of heaven are not inconsistent with a life of busy labour; and that though God can dispense with the services of either men or angels, yet, as they cannot be happy without rendering such services to Him, He, in accordance with His untiring, ungrudging benevolence, satisfies this desire of their nature as created by Himself. Let it be remembered also, that men have acquired a wider experience than even angels, by reason of that very sin which might be supposed to render them less fit for the exalted services of heaven. For the very storms and vicissitudes of earth have given a form and a strength to those "trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord," that could not have been acquired amidst the sunny skies and balmy air of the heavenly paradise. The saints of God have learned lessons here of patience, endurance, self-denial, and faith, that could not have been learned there. Like old soldiers, they have been trained by long campaigns and terrible combats with the enemy. On earth and not in heaven are Marthas and Maries with whom we can weep; and prodigals whom we can receive back; and saints in sickness, in prison, or in nakedness, whom we can visit, soothe, and clothe. And therefore is earth a noble school by reason of its very sins and sorrows. It is asked, indeed, in triumph, What employments can there be in heaven for saints? This question I cannot answer. The _how_ employed, and _where_, must be as yet mere conjecture. But who will be so bold as to deny, that in the new heavens and in the new earth, there may be employment for even those powers--such as inventive genius--which might seem to be necessarily confined to this our temporary scene? If we are through a bodily organisation to be for ever united to matter, why may not science and art be called into exercise then as well as now, in order to make it minister to our wants or desires? And even as regards the noble creations of artistic genius, why should the supposition be deemed as unworthy of the most exalted and spiritual views of heaven, that man may for ever be a fellow-worker with the Divine Artist who fills the universe with His own endless creations of beauty and magnificence? And can it be that our moral habits and Christian graces shall never be called into exercise in works and labours of love among orders of beings of whom as yet we know nothing? Countless worlds may be teeming with immense populations, and who knows but such worlds may be continually added to the great family of God. And if throughout the endless ages of eternity, or in any province of God's boundless empire, there should ever be found some responsible beings who are tempted to depart from God by the machinations of wicked men or evil spirits,--permitted, then, it may be, as well as now, to use all their powers in the service of sin and against the kingdom of God,--and who being thus tempted shall require warning or support to retain them in their allegiance;--or if there be found others who are struggling in an existence, which, however glorious, demands patience, fortitude, and faith in Jehovah; if there are now in other worlds, or ever shall appear any persons who need such ministrations as can be afforded only by those educated in the wonderful school of Christ's Church;--then can I imagine how God's saints from earth may have glorious labours given them throughout eternity, which they alone, of all the creatures of God, will be able to accomplish, when every holy habit acquired here can be put to noble uses there. I can conceive patience needed to overcome difficulties; and faith to trust the living God amidst evolutions of His providence that baffle the understanding; and indomitable courage, untiring zeal, gentle love, heavenly serenity and intense sympathy, yea, even the peculiar gifts and characteristics of each individual;--all having their appropriate and fitting work given them. "Now _abideth_ faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." And what immense joy will be experienced in each saint thus finding an outlet for his love, and exercise for his knowledge, and full play for his every faculty, in that "house of many mansions," with all God's universe around and eternity before him! I borrow the language of the great and good Isaac Taylor, who has written so eloquently and convincingly on this subject:--"There labour shall be without fatigue, ceaseless activity without the necessity of repose, high enterprise without disappointment, and mighty achievements which leave behind no weariness or decay;--where 'they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; shall walk, and not faint.'"

Let this thought teach us to labour in harmony with the will of God; so that we may never run counter to His wishes or His laws, but, both in the material and spiritual world, ever seek to be "fellow-workers" with Himself.

Let it also comfort us when we see "such a one as Paul the aged" fall asleep after his day of toil: and strengthen us to bow our heads in meekness when we hear of the young man full of zeal and ardour, apparently fully equipped for God's service, suddenly cut down; or the self-sacrificing missionary, who seems to have spent his strength in vain, perish with no one in the wilderness to give him burial. Oh, think not that the work of the old saint who loved it so well, till the last hour of his existence, is ended for ever; or that the labours of younger brethren so unfinished here, shall never be resumed hereafter, and that all this preparation of years has been a mere abortion, a mockery and delusion! Believe it not! No day of conscientious study for Christ's sake has been spent in vain; no habit of industry or self-denial acquired for Christ's sake has been acquired in vain; nor will the burning zeal to do something for Him who died for them be ever lost in darkness or put to shame. Soul, spirit, and body, will yet do their work for which they have been so exquisitely adapted, and so carefully trained. He who has been "faithful over a few things will be made ruler over many things;" and "he who has been faithful in _a very little_, shall have authority over ten cities!"

Finally, this future life in heaven will be expressed in _praise_. What are the ordinary ideas entertained by many excellent Christians of this heavenly work, or the manner in which it is to be performed, would be painful to describe. But perhaps it is not too much to say that the heaven of many is little more than a grand, eternal act of worship by singing psalms of praise. No doubt the chief work of heaven is praise; for praise is but the necessary expression of love, admiration, joy. In what way this praise is to be expressed I know not: whether in the spontaneous exercise of individual souls, "singing as they shine" with hymned voice, and fashioned instrument of golden harp or angelic trump; or only by the rapt gaze of a spirit absorbed in "still communion;"--and whether in heaven as on earth there may be great days of the Lord on which the sons of God, gathered from afar, will come specially before the exalted Redeemer, when their joy, uttered by outbursts of harmony, shall wake the amphitheatre of the skies with impassioned hallelujahs,--who can as yet tell! But it _must_ be that each soul in heaven being for ever full of love, will for ever be full of praise. Every new sight of grandeur or of beauty, and every new contrivance of the Creator's wisdom or power, will but prompt the beholder to praise the wondrous Creator. Every intellectual height reached in the infinite progress of the soul, onward and upward, must awe it into a profounder sense of the glory of the great Intelligence. Every active pursuit will swell the tide of gratitude and praise to Him the ceaseless worker, in whom all persons and things "live, move, and have their being;"--while the loving and holy soul, ever consciously dwelling in Him who is everywhere present, must derive from increasing knowledge of, and communion with the infinite and glorious One, a source of exulting, endless praise--praise which will be intensified by the sympathy and song of the great minds and great hearts of the "innumerable company of angels," and of "just men made perfect!" But if in that voiceful temple any one song of praise will, more than any other, issue from a deeper love, or express a deeper joy, that must be the song of the redeemed! For that is a "new song" never heard before by the angels in the amplitudes of creation, and which the strange race of mankind alone can sing; for there are peculiar notes of joy in that song which they alone can utter; and in their memories alone can echo old notes of sadness that have died away in the far distance. And what shall be their feelings, what their song, as they gaze backwards on the horrible kingdom of darkness, from whose chains and dungeons they have been delivered; and trace all the mysterious steps by which their merciful and wise Saviour led them safely through danger, temptation, and trial, and through the valley of death, until He bid them welcome with exceeding joy! What their feelings, what their song, as they look around and contemplate the new scene and the exalted society into which He has brought them, and meet the responsive gaze of radiant saints and of old familiar friends! What their feelings, and what their song, as they gaze forward, and with "far-stretching views into eternity" see no limit to their "fulness of joy;" knowing that nothing can lessen it, but that everything must increase it through eternal ages;--that the body can never more suffer pain, or be weakened by decay;--that the intellect can never more be dimmed by age, nor marred by ignorance;--that the spirit can never more be darkened by even a passing shadow from the body of sin;--that the will can never for a moment be mastered, nor even biased by temptation;--that the heart can never be chilled by unreturned kindness;--that the blessed society can never be diminished by death, nor divided in spirit, but that, along with saints and angels, all God's works shall be seen, all His ways known, all His plans and purposes fulfilled, all His commands perfectly obeyed, and Himself perfectly enjoyed for ever and ever! And then, at what might seem to be the very climax of their joy, to behold Jesus! And, seeing Him, to remember the lowly home in Bethlehem; the once humble artisan of Nazareth; and the sufferer, "who was despised and rejected of men," "the man of sorrows, who was acquainted with grief;" and the tempted one, who for forty days was with the devil in the wilderness;--seeing Him, to remember Gethsemane with its trembling hand and cup of agony; the judgment-hall and Calvary with their horrors of blood, of blasphemy, and mystery of woe;--seeing Him, to see all this history of immeasurable love not only recorded in the glory of every saint above, but embodied in the very person of that Saviour, and in that human form which was "wounded and bruised for our iniquities," and in that human soul that was sorrowful unto death, in order that He might be able to pour into the hearts of lost and ruined men all the fulness of His own blessedness and joy! What shall be the feelings, what the song of the redeemed, as all this bursts on their enraptured gaze! Oh, blind discoursers are we of such ineffable glory! Children-dreamers are we about this as yet unrevealed vision! What are all our thoughts but "fallings from us, vanishings" from "creatures walking among worlds not realised!" But let us pray more and more that the "God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; the eyes of our understanding being enlightened; that we may _know_ what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints;" for though "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him," yet "_God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit!_"

FUTURE PUNISHMENT.

The subject of future punishment is one the consideration of which gives mental pain. We naturally shrink from it, would prefer to leave it alone, and to think, as we say, of something else.

But the question won't leave us alone, and we must think about it. It forces itself on our notice, and that, too, in our most thoughtful and sober moments. We cannot read the Scriptures without the dark vision passing before our eyes with more or less gloom. Conscience whispers to us about it. It recurs to our thoughts amidst the penitential confessions and earnest prayers of public worship. The theme is constantly discussed in works and periodicals widely read, and not even professedly theological.

There are few, we presume, who will assert that every man, whatever his character may be when he leaves the world, shall after death immediately pass into glory, and be received into fellowship with God and His saints. With such a belief earnestly entertained, suicide would cease to be an evidence of insanity, and murder would become philanthropy.

Most men are prepared rather to believe, apart altogether from any Scripture statements on this momentous subject, that punishment of some kind or other must be awarded to crime at last, and in some degree proportionate to the character of the criminal,--that somewhere or other, by some means or other, not yet discovered or revealed, reformation if at all possible must necessarily be effected in order that peace and happiness may be secured. Man's undying sense of righteousness, and what _ought_ to be, is not satisfied by the prosperity which, in spite of every drawback, so frequently attends the most selfish and unprincipled villain to his grave. Like the Psalmist, we all are disposed to exclaim when contemplating such histories, "As for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well-nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death, and their strength is firm; neither are they plagued like other men.... Their eyes stand out with fatness; they have more than their heart can wish.... And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge with the Most High?"

But when we open the Word of God, it is impossible for any honest man to deny, that whether its teaching be true or false, the fact of future punishment is an essential portion of what is taught. By no conceivable perversion of the words of Christ, so often repeated on this subject, and by no interpretation of His parables, can it be denied that it was His intention to give the very impression which the universal Church has received, that there is a "wrath to come," and a state of being which to some is "cursed," and so very dreadful that, with reference to one of His own disciples, who is called "the son of perdition," the Saviour said that it would have "been good for that man had he never been born."

I must presume that this general statement regarding the teaching of Christ himself, not to speak of that of His apostles, requires no proof to any one who has ever read the Gospels. Punishment of some kind awaits the wicked after death. Yet if this much is admitted, we have surely already reached a conclusion which ought to fill with the most solemn awe the mind of every man who has any reverence for the Divine authority of Jesus Christ; or who even believes that He who represented Himself as saying, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels,"--"Depart from me, I know you not, all ye workers of iniquity," and who narrated such a parable as that of the rich man and Lazarus, was one incapable of all exaggeration or evil passion, and one who possessed the only perfect love which was ever manifested in humanity. The apostles, who express in language as strong and unhesitating the certainty and dread nature of future punishment, were men also who, more than any who have ever lived, loved their fellow-men, wept like their Divine Master for their sins, and devoted their lives, with untiring unselfishness, to rescue them from present evil and future woe. Now, if this be so far a true, if not a full, representation of the teaching of Christ and His apostles on this momentous theme, I may be permitted to put two questions of a practical and personal kind to my reader. One is,--Whether the knowledge of the character, apart from the authority, of Jesus and His apostles, who spoke in such language of the future history of some men in another world, ought not to make us pause with becoming self-distrust and reverence, if disposed to exclaim against the possibility of so terrible an ending as a thing "unjust," "revengeful," and "revolting to benevolence?" Who are we, what have we been, or what have we done for our fellow-men, that we should thus presume to have a more tender regard for their well-being than the Lord Jesus Christ or His apostles had, and to be incapable of entertaining or of uttering such "harsh thoughts" as they did about their future state?

The other question which I would humbly suggest for consideration is this:--What is your real belief in reference to man's future state? Have you any faith in our Lord's teaching? Any firm practical conviction in the fact of future punishment? After you have made every possible deduction from the weight of Scripture testimony, and explained away every metaphor, parable, and dogmatic statement to the lowest possible point short of absolute denial of their truth in any fair sense of their meaning,--may I beg of you to consider what, or how much, remains to be firmly believed as the truth of God? For it does appear to me that there exists a wide-spread callousness and indifference, an ease of mind, with reference to the fate hereafter of ungodly men, which cannot be accounted for except on the supposition that all earnest faith is lost in either the dread possibilities of future sin or of its future punishment. Men seem to have made up their minds that they have nothing to fear in the next world, whatever they believe, whatever they are, or whatever they do in this. We are, verily, not incapable of experiencing fear, but in a vast number of cases we are great cowards, in spite of all our bravery,--cowards when there is nothing actually present to alarm us; and each one of us seeks to his very utmost to keep danger or suffering far away from himself or from those he loves. Accordingly, the possible or near approach of mere bodily pain, or of domestic sorrow, or the anticipated loss of money--not to speak of such horrors as public disgrace from loss of character, imprisonment, transportation as a felon, or execution as a criminal--would induce thoughtfulness, anxiety, wretchedness. Yet, strange to say, the very same persons who would tremble for such calamities as these, treat with indifference a coming punishment, which cannot, even in their own estimation, be less terrible, and which, as sure as Christ's words are true, they may themselves, because of their present character, be liable at any hour to enter upon and endure.

But many of those readers, who, up to this point, may heartily sympathise with me in my feeble efforts to quicken a more earnest thoughtfulness on this subject, will be disposed to avoid its further consideration. I would not blame them for so feeling. God knoweth I have no wish to "dogmatise" on this subject, but to approach it with real sympathy for the difficulties, the pains, the perplexities, which the noblest, the truest, and the most reverential have experienced when they have attempted really to believe in it What chiefly induces me to submit a few thoughts upon a theme so solemn, is the "dogmatism" and unworthy views of God which are attributed to all of us who cannot discover sunrise beyond the gloom; and the conviction also that a more thorough belief in the clanger of sin, as well as its inherent vileness, and a wholesome "terror of the Lord," would tend to "persuade men" to entertain with more earnestness the deliverance promised in the gospel.

The idea which many have formed of punishment is that of a mere arbitrary annexation of a certain amount of suffering in the next world to a certain amount of crime committed in this--so many stripes for so many sins; and, as if obvious injustice were inflicted on men, by threatening them with coming woe for present wickedness, they exclaim, "Surely such sins as these do not deserve such punishment as that!" But if sin itself, by an eternal moral necessity, carries with it its own punishment, even as the shadow accompanies the substance, then the real question in regard to the possible ending of future suffering is merged in the deeper one of the possible ending of future sin. And if so, what evidence have we from any one source to inspire the hope, that the man who enters the next world loving sin, and therefore suffering punishment as its necessary result, will ever cease to sin, and thereby cease to suffer? It must, remember, be admitted as an indisputable fact, that life eternal can only co-exist with a right state of the soul. "This _is_ life eternal, to know thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." Up to the moment in which the spirit turns with filial confidence and obedience to God, there cannot be a cessation either in the curse that must rest upon enmity and disobedience, or in the pain which must be produced by so terrible a malady. Some time or other, be it near or remote, in one year or in a million, there must be repentance in the sinner, a turning away _from_ sin and _to_ God, as the only possible means of bridging over the otherwise impassable gulf that separates the bad from the good, or hell from heaven. There is no salvation for man but from sin; there is no restoration for him but to love.

But if this change in the sinner is not accomplished in this world, what evidence have we that it can be accomplished in any place of even limited punishment? In what conceivable way, we ask with deepest awe, is a moral and responsible being, who ends this life and begins another at enmity to God, rejecting Christ, disbelieving the gospel, dead in trespasses and in sins, hateful and hating, selfish and vile,--in what way is he to be made holy after death, and before entering heaven, by a temporary discipline of mere suffering?