"made liable to all the miseries of this life." These miseries are numerous and grievous, but too obvious to need to be dwelt on. Alas! who can tell what anguish of mind, and what torments of body, any individual of our guilty race may suffer, during his mortal existence! All mental agony-all fear, gloom, melancholy, horror, and black despair, all bodily sicknesses and diseases, all famines and pestilences, all war and devastation, all poverty and privation, all the convulsions of nature which precipitate thousands to instant and inevitable death "When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep, All these are the effects of sin. It is sin which has produced all this misery. But for sin, it would never have been permitted to exist under the government of a just and gracious God. Such indeed has been the misery produced by sin, even while life continues, that the man may be accounted fortunate who does not suffer more than the pains of death before he dies-Death itself, with two exceptions only, has been, or will be, the lot of all the descendants of Adam, till those shall be changed who are alive at the sound of the last trumpet. Yet to the wicked, all the miseries of this life, and the death of the body itself, are but the beginning of sorrows. After death they suffer, says the catechism," the pains of hell forever." In what these pains will consist we cannot fully tell. The loss of all happiness and all hope; exclusion from God-total and final; the horrors of a guilty conscience; the keenest remorse and cutting self reproach, will, no doubt, constitute the chief ingredients. The punishment of hell is represented in scripture by the subjects of it being cast into a prison-into the bottomless pit-into outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth-into a lake of fire and brimstone, where the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever; by the worm that never dies, and the fire that never shall be quenched; by the second death; and by the blackness of darkness for ever. These are no doubt to be considered as figurative expressions; but, my young friends, they are figures full of horror. On the question whether there will be material fire, or any thing that is material in future punishment?-I do not think that the scripture representations are decisive. Let us only be careful not to flatter ourselves, in the sentiments we adopt on this point, that the sufferings of lost souls will receive any abatement, by construing as figurative the language of inspiration; for beyond a question, the sufferings of the soul itself are in their nature the most intolerable of all. What relates to the duration of future punishment, we have no reason to believe is figurative or hyperbolical-The punishment is certainly represented in scripture, as strictly endless-literally eternal. This is so evidently the doctrine of scripture, that all attempts to explain it away, I never could consider in any other light, than as utterly impotent, vain, and nugatory. Both in the Old Testament and in the New, the happiness of the righteous, and the misery of the wicked, are, as it were, weighed against each other, and declared, in point of duration, to be equal; so that you must deny or admit both-Here is the proof-Dan. xii. 2. "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting life, and some to shame, and everlasting contempt." Mat. xxv. 46. "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.” In this last passage, our translators, to vary the language, have called the punishment of the wicked everlasting, and the life of the righteous eternal. But in the original there. is no such variation-Precisely the same word is used in both cases. Literally it is-" These shall go away into eternal punishment, and the righteous into eternal life." Here you perceive, the word of God has contrasted the future states of the righteous and the wicked, and declared that, as to their duration, they are equal. None doubt that the rewards of the righteous will be endless; and none, therefore, ought to doubt, that the punishment of the wicked will be endless likewise. Receive this solemn, awful truth, my young friends, and hold it fast. That the disbelief of it has an injurious practical tendency, there can be no reasonable question. If the belief of endless punishment is insufficient fully to restrain the guilty, what must be the effect, when each individual is left to reduce it to such limits as his own self-flattery, and an inadequate sense of guilt, may dictate? Surely it cannot be the calculation of any rational mind to seek relief from fear, in any refuge but that which will yield a full security against "the wrath to come." Such a refuge, and such only, is the Lord Jesus Christ-" Knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men" to hasten their flight to him. To him therefore-0 to him-betake yourselves, without farther delay! United to him, you will be safe from the floods of interminable perdition, that will certainly overwhelm all who die in that state of sin and misery, in which we are placed by the primitive apostacy. Grant, O most merciful God! grant that none who now receive this warning, may neglect the great salvation, till the door of mercy be forever shut! Amen. LECTURE XIX. Did God leave all Mankind to perish in the state of sin and misery? WE are now to turn our view from the ruin to the redemption of man; from the covenant of works, to the covenant of grace. It is the twentieth answer of the catechism which introduces this subject, in the following words "God having, out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery; and to bring them into a state of salvation by a Redeemer." In treating this answer, I will lead you to consider I. The fact asserted, that some of the fallen human race were chosen, or elected by God, to eternal life; while some were left in their "estate of sin and misery." II. That this election is to be attributed solely to the "good pleasure of God," as its cause. III. That the election made was "from all eternity." IV. That a covenant of grace was "entered into" by God the Father with his eternal Son, as the head and Redeemer of the elect world. V. That by Christ all his people "are brought out of a state of sin and misery, into a state of salvation." You are not to expect a long discussion on each of these points. The subject of the decrees of God, of which the decree of election is one, has heretofore been considered; and for this reason the less needs to be said at present-The general argument having already been laid before you, it would be superfluous to repeat it. My chief view in the distribution I have made, is to show you the method I shall follow in speaking to the answer before us; and thus to assist your after recollection of what shall be said. I. Some of the human race were chosen, or elected, by God, to eternal life; while some were left in their "estate of sin and misery." This is a doctrine of our church, which we believe is explicitly and unequivocally taught in scripture; and perfectly consonant with reason and observation. Among a multitude of scripture passages which might be, as they often have been, adduced in support of this truth, let the following suffice: Ephes. i. 4, 9, 11.-" According as he hath chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:-Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself:-In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated, according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” Rom. viii. 30.-" Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” 2 Tim. i. 9.-"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began." These passages of scripture, my dear youth, are not perverted from the scope of the context as is too often done in quoting scripture. They are quoted in their genuine spirit and meaning, as used by the inspired writers. And if they do not clearly tell us, that all those who are saved, were particularly chosen to salvation by God-while others were not so chosen--I do not know how language can express this doctrine. And all the comments and expositions which go to exclude this doctrine from scripture, when these and similar passages are brought into view, appear to me-although I acquit the writers of a design to pervert the word of God-so strained, harsh, and unnatural, that they do, in fact, confirm the doctrine which they seek to invalidate, as the real doctrine of inspiration. They show that the most ingenious glosses cannot make the oracles of truth plausibly speak another language. And upon what principle of reason or observation is this doctrine to be rejected? Men do not seem to startle at it so much, when applied to the angels. Those of them who fell, are left without a Saviour and without hope. The doctrine of election contemplates all mankind as sinners, deserving to die. If all deserve it, God's showing mercy to some, certainly does no injury to others-They are not dealt with hardly. And from analogy, we have every reason to believe that as many are saved, as is consistent with the general purposes of God's moral government. II. Our second point is, that the good pleasure of God, is the only assignable ground of his electing some of the human family to eternal life. Those who know not how to deny this doctrine as a part of scripture, and who yet want a solution of it contrary, as we believe, to scripture, have said that God foresaw who would be disposed to repent and believe, and who would not; and that he chose, or elected, those who, as he foresaw, would believe-and left the rest. |