heaven? My dear brethren, who shall answer it but God? What has the God of heaven said on this momentous subject? How readest thou? I find in the Bible such declarations as these: "These shall go away into everlasting punishment:" they shall awake to "shame and everlasting contempt:" they shall be "punished with everlasting destruction:" they shall be consigned to "the bottomless pit :" "the smoke of their torment shall ascend for ever and ever:" "The worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Now if language can express the never-ending misery of the wicked, is it not here expressed? If God can reveal this truth, it is here revealed. These and such like declarations determine with certainty, that the miseries of the wicked will run parallel and be coeval with the happiness of the good. An impartial examination of the Scriptures will convince every reflecting mind, that they furnish the same evidence of the unalterable allotments of the wicked, as they do of the unalterable allotments of the righteous. Our text presents us with nothing but a gulf equally impassable to both. But this is not all. According to our selfish views, we very naturally suppose that, while the inhabitants of heaven will never wish to go to hell, the inhabitants of hell may wish to go to heaven. No doubt the wicked will earnestly desire to be delivered from their pains, but will they desire the holy happiness of heaven? What is there in heaven to make it desirable to an unholy mind? Nothing: rather every thing which to a wicked man would render it the object of revulsion and disgust. Nor is there any reason to expect-as has often been said amongst them as well as amongst us—that the punishment of the damned will ever change their disposition, or soften and purify their hearts, so as to prepare them for the bliss of heaven. Suffering never leads men to God and holiness; punishment will not lead a bad man to love the punisher. Besides where do you find the least intimation in the Bible, that God punishes the wicked in a future world for their benefit? No where it is the delusion of the depraved heart. On the contrary, he declares that he punishes them, not in kindness to reclaim them, but in anger to curse them—not in mercy to save them, but in wrath to destroy them. Satan and Beelzebub are no more meet for the enjoyment of heaven, than when they entered the world of woe. In defiance of all their sufferings, the wicked in hell will remain the avowed enemies of God; and being thus eternally unqualified for heaven, wil. never find access across the gulf to those immortal regions of bliss. Further there is not the least intimation in the Word of God that he will devise (as has been sometimes thought) any mode by which his enemies will be hereafter restored to his favour. Who can be so infatuated as to indulge the thought that after a preparation of thousands of years for a day of final decision, and after the decisions of that day shall have been finally pronounced, that there shall be another day of grace, another Saviour, other offers of mercy-that God will pour out his Spirit upon the tenants of the pit, and revive his work in the regions of despair? Do we not know, have we not heard, that at the close of that day it shall be said with awful emphasis-" He that is filthy let him be filthy still ?" Do we not know that " God spared not his only Son," and that "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin ?" Besides there will be no opportunity for the wicked inhabitants of hell to be saved by Jesus Christ, because they have been condemned for rejecting him and moreover, he will have given up the kingdom to God, even the Father. When the Lord Jesus shall return from heaven to pronounce the sentence and fix the allotments of the assembled universe, the restitution of all things spoken of by the prophet since the world began will be accomplished, and the mediatorial kingdom will be closed; the day of heaven and of hope will be closed; there will be no possibility of reconciliation with God, for there will be no mediator; the great gulf will be fixed: heaven and hell shall remain for ever, and the impassable gulf eternally remain. Are these, beloved hearers, mere words, and empty speculation? or are they truths in which you and I have no concern? As you reflect on what has been said, allow me to remind you, in the first place, that every man who hears me will find at last his unalterable allotment in heaven or hell. While here in this house of prayer each one possesses the character of the righteous or the wicked: one of these characters you will possess as long as you remain in the present world: one of them you will possess when you come to die, and when you rise up from the dead, and when you appear before God in judgment: and the character you then possess will determine your residence in heaven or in hell. This will prove true not merely of those who lived before the flood-not merely of those who lived during the prophetical and apostolical ages-but for their children, and their children's children; of no people more than this, and of no living men, dear hearers, more than you. You may not realize it, but it is not on that account the less true: nay, perhaps some of you may think it all an idle tale; but it will not for this reason prove the less true: you may be thoughtless and unconcerned about it, but it will not on this account prove the less true or the less interesting, the less important, the less amazing and stupendous. Men are very apt to feel-and it is one of the delusions of the adversary over the human mind-men are very apt to think there is no such thing as hell, simply because they do not believe it; just as though its existence depended on their belief. You will not believe there is a hell. Well, what of that? Does this prove there is none? You do not believe there is a hell: what does this prove but that you are in the broad way that conducts to that dark abode ? There is a class of men, dear hearers, that will never believe there is a hell till they have plunged into it. Ah! if you could blot hell out of the universe as easily as you can disbelieve it, I would not thus alarm you; I would not thus stand here wasting my breath, entreating you to escape the coming wrath. Remember God can send you to hell without your believing it. He does not ask leave of your wishes, nor of your opinion. No, no: there is not an individual in this assembly that will not at last find his unalterable allotment in heaven or hell: O, how inexpressibly solemn the thought! Heaven or hell! Not one of this assembly that will not, in a very few years, find his residence in heaven or hell! Secondly, we learn from our subject that all may know before they leave this world what will be their future and final condition. This is a subject on which men may well exercise deep thought, painful solicitude: What will become of us? Dear hearers, the question is easily answered. Who went to Abraham's bosom? Who sunk to that tormenting flame? It matters not whether you are old or young, rich or poor, wise or unwise, honourable or despised, in order to know whether you go to heaven or hell. It was no crime in Dives to be rich, and it was no virtue in Lazarus to be poor but the one was the friend, and the other was the enemy of Jesus Christ: the one forsook and the other persevered in his course of iniquity; the one accepted and the other rejected the great salvation: the one was born of God -justified, sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Holy Spirit, and made meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light; the other remained dead in sin, and thoughtless, and condemned, and unholy, and a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction. This is the time, the infallible time. You have only to determine whether you are the friend or the enemy of God, in order to tell whether you are prepared to enjoy his favour or suffer his wrath. If you love God (cold as your love has been), if you accept his salvation, if you love his cause, if you love his truth, and if you do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God through the rich grace in Jesus Christ-though your iniquities are like mountains, they shall be pardoned and blotted out, and you will at last be awarded to eternal life. But if you remain unconcerned, and thoughtless, and dead in sin, and contentious, and disobedient to the truth, and reject the Saviour, what else can await you but indignation and wrath? The question for eternity is a simple but an amazing one: the question for eternity is decided in time, and usually within the short compass of a very few years. It is in the present world, and in these days of mercy, that you are forming your character for an everlasting existence beyond the grave; and you are forming them with inconceivable rapidity. Life is the seed-time; eternity is the harvest. "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption: but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." Permit me to add once more, in view of this subject, how solemn and affecting the responsibility of the present hour! Human life is but a moment; and yet within this short term are crowded all the momentous concerns of an interminable existence. With ineffably tender interest, therefore, does our subject say to every individual in this assembly, "Behold now is the accepted time! behold now is the day of salvation!" I stand in this sacred place, dear brethren, with no expectation of seeing your faces again till I see you at the bar of God: and I am concerned to ask myself which of this large assembly will be numbered with the righteous, and who will be gathered with the wicked? Awful question -enough to make an angel tremble! And yet it is rushing on our minds with inconceivable force in view of such a subject as this. O what child of Gospel mercy is there here who must at last find an allotment less tolerable than that of Sodom and Gomorrah? What man in advanced age, or in middle life, will then be seen to have gained the world at the expense of his soul? What youth whose way to the pit has been hedged up by counsels, and prayers, and tears, will at last be doomed to misery? Who, of all that hear me, will become more and more obdurate in their impiety-will still rush on the thick bosses of Jehovah's buckler, and in defiance of all the protestations of judgment and of conscience, and with all the sturdiness of devils, force their way to the furnace of God's wrath? It will be a glorious life that the righteous shall attain-a dreadful death that the wicked die. When the angels shall come to bind the tares in bundles, and to gather the wheat into the garner of the great and to burn them, Husbandman, how wide the difference that may be made between some who occupy these pews! One may be taken and another left: Two women shall be grinding at the mill; one shall be taken and the other left: two may occupy the same seat; the one shall be taken, and the other left: two may sleep in the same bed; the one shall be taken, and the other left: and between them there shall be a great and eternal gulf: there shall be no intercourse, no change of condition: no, no-none: after death every thing remains unaltered; it is an unalterable eternity! I am sure there is not a mightier truth in the Bible than this; there is not a mightier truth in the whole circle of the universe than this. O the tremendous thought—an unalterable eternity! How shall I speak of it? How shall I magnify it? How shall I represent it to your mind or my own? I have sometimes thought of the amazing responsibilities of the preacher's office; and they can be appreciated only in view of an unalterable eternity. I have sometimes inquired of myself when called to the chamber of sickness, How shall I address the immortal, dying man, who in a few hours will become an inhabitant of an unalterable eternity? I have sometimes thought of my own hopes in Jesus Christ, and ventured to cherish and rejoice in the confidence of a holier world, and rest with God. But when I have recollected that the decisions of the judgment are unalterable, and that once shut up in hell there shall be no escape-O! I tremble to the very core lest after all I should become a castaway. Tell me, beloved hearers, which of you will go up with Lazarus to Abraham's bosom? Which of you will accept the Lord Jesus, and inhabit that unalterable heaven? Which of you will go down with Dives to the tormenting flame? Which of you will reject this great salvation, and inhabit that unalterable hell? Tell me, O tell me, are the destinies beyond the grave unalterable; and is there one of you that will persevere in sin? Are they unalterable, and is there one of you that will continue impenitent and without Christ, and without God, and without hope? Are they unalterable, and can you any more reject an offered Saviour? O! this is the thought that oppresses my bosom, my dear hearers, when I contemplate another world—that the destinies of immortal beings once fixed cannot be altered; no, never, never, never: it is an eternal heaven; and O! it is an eternal hell! THE GOSPEL HARVEST. REV. B. GODWIN, SURREY CHAPEL, JUNE 17, 1835 *. "Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest." THAT part of the evangelical history from which the words of our text arc taken informs us, that our Lord Jesus Christ having, in the course of his travels, occasion to pass through Samaria, sat down upon a well, exhausted with fatigue, about the hour of noon: that a woman of Samaria coming about that time to draw water, our Lord Jesus Christ entered into conversation with her; and at once her mind was deeply impressed, first that he was a prophet, and subsequently, it appears, that he was the Messiah. The woman, anxious to impart these tidings to her countrymen, went into the city to call them to come and see this wonderful person. His disciples, in the mean time, had gone away to purchase food, and when they returned, and found that he had been conversing with the woman of Samaria, they were exceedingly surprised: and when he had further entered into conversation with them, they, supposing that some one had brought him meat to eat, received from him the assurance, that "his meat was to do the will of him that sent him, and to finish his work." His disciples entreating him to eat, he said, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of." In their simplicity they took these words in their literal acceptation; and this led to the answer which we have already stated: "Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." (O for more of this spirit to animate the whole of the Christian church! May this be the meat of each of us; such the spirit in which we all act !) Our Lord Jesus Christ proceeds to intimate to them, that the time was now approaching when they would have to enter upon their work in a far more extended and energetic manner, "Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest ?"—alluding, according to the opinion of some, to the usual time that elapsed between the seed-time and the harvest; according to others, to the season of the year: "Look around on the fields; you see indications that four months must elapse before the reaper enters into the harvest field. Not so with the work which is before us; I say unto you, the time is now at hand. Consider the prophecies; mark the providence of God; look on the impression already made on the minds of the Samaritans. Compare all these things together, and see that there are sufficient indications that the time is approaching, when we must, in a more energetic and efficient manner, enter upon the great work which is before us." So our Lord Jesus Christ says, on another occasion: "The harvest," said he, alluding to the inga Anniversary Sermon for the Baptist Missionary Society. |