MATTHEW xxv. 46.
_These shall go away into everlasting punishment._
THE excellency of the gospel dispensation, is greatly evidenced by those sanctions of rewards and punishments, which it offers to the choice of all its hearers, in order to engage them to be obedient to its precepts. For it promises no less than eternal happiness to the good, and denounces no slighter a punishment than everlasting misery against the wicked: On the one hand, “It is a savour of life unto life,” on the other, “A savour of death unto death.” And though one would imagine, the bare mentioning of the former would be sufficient to draw men to their duty, yet ministers in all ages have found it necessary, frequently to remind their people of the latter, and to set before them the terrors of the LORD, as so many powerful dissuasives from sin.
But whence is it that men are so disingenuous? The reason seems to be this: The promise of eternal happiness is so agreeable to the inclinations and wishes of mankind, that all who call themselves christians, universally and willingly subscribe to the belief of it: but then there is something so shocking in the consideration of eternal torments, and seemingly such an infinite disproportion between an endless duration of pain, and a short life spent in pleasure, that men (some at least of them) can scarcely be brought to confess it as an article of their faith, that an eternity of misery awaits the wicked in a future state.
I shall therefore at this time, beg leave to insist on the proof of this part of one of the Articles of our Creed; and endeavour to make good what our blessed LORD has here threatened in the words of the text, “These (that is, the wicked) shall go away into everlasting punishment.”
Accordingly, without considering the words as they stand in relation to the context, I shall resolve all I have to say, into this one general proposition, “That the torments reserved for the wicked hereafter, are eternal.”
But before I proceed to make good this, I must inform you that I take it for granted,
All present do stedfastly believe, They have something within them, which we call a soul, and which is capable of surviving the dissolution of the body, and of being miserable or happy to all eternity.
I take it for granted farther, That you believe a divine revelation; that those books, emphatically called the Scriptures, were written by the inspiration of GOD, and that the things therein contained, are founded upon eternal truth.
I take it for granted, That you believe, that the Son of GOD came down to die for sinners; and that there is but one Mediator between GOD and man, even the man CHRIST JESUS.
These things being granted, (and they were necessary to be premised) proceed we now to make good the one general proposition asserted in the text, That the torments reserved for the wicked hereafter are eternal. “These shall go away into everlasting punishment.” The
_First_ argument I shall advance to prove that the torments reserved for the wicked hereafter, are eternal, is, That the word of GOD himself assures us, in line upon line, that it will be so.
To quote all the texts that might be produced in proof of this, would be endless. Let it suffice to instance only in a few. In the Old Testament, in the book of _Daniel_, chapter xii. verse 2. we are told, that “some shall awake to everlasting life, and others to everlasting contempt.” In the book of _Isaiah_, it is said, that “the worm of those that have transgressed GOD’s law, and die impenitently, shall not die, nor their fire be quenched.” And in another place, the holy Prophet, struck, no doubt, with astonishment and horror at the prospect of the continuance of the torments of the damned, breaks out into this moving expostulation, “Who can dwell with everlasting burnings?”
The New Testament is still fuller as to this point, it being a revelation which brought this and such-like particulars to a clear light. The Apostle _Jude_ tells us of the profane despisers of dignities in his days, that “for them was reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.” And in the book of the _Revelations_, it is written, that “the smoke of the torments of the wicked ascendeth for ever and ever.” And if we believe the witness of men inspired, the witness of the Son of GOD, who had the Spirit given him, as Mediator, without measure, is still far greater: and in St. _Mark_’s gospel, He repeats this solemn declaration three several times, “It is better for thee to enter into life maimed;” that is, it is better to forego the gratification of thy lust, or incur the displeasure of a friend, which may be as dear to thee as a hand, or as useful as a foot, “than having two hands and feet, (that is, for indulging the one, or disobeying GOD to oblige the other) to be cast into hell, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”
And here again, in the words of the text, “These (the wicked) shall go away into everlasting punishment.”