CONTENTS OF VOL. III. TOPICAL INDEX. Aaron's Death-Life's Review; a Plea for Earnest Self-Examina- PAGE 44 Catholicity in Its Relationship to Protestantism and Romanism, Three Sermons (Rev. F. C. Ewer, S.T.D.)............. Concerning Jesus as a Poet (Thomas Armitage, D.D.) Two Sermons. 134, 269 Duties and Dignity of the Pastoral Office (S. D. Burchard, D. D.)..... 237 Failure of Infidelity; or, Opposition to Christ Unavailing (W. B. Faith, Prayer for Increase of (Samuel H. Weller, D.D.)........ False Light, The, A Reply to Canon Farrar's Sermon on Eternal Family in Heaven and Earth, The (William Ormiston)...... Fidelity and its Recompense (Rev. W. M. Punshon, LL.D.)... Gospel, The, of the Incarnation (Wm. Morley Punshon, LL.D.)...... John Morrissey; or, Is Romanism a Safe Guide? (Justin D. Ful- Judgment Day, The (H. P. Liddon, D.D.)........ 116 21 308 Misery, The, of Man and the Mercy of God-Part 1. (Adolphè 30 294 Possible, The, and the Impossible in Our Salvation (Enoch Pond, D.D.)... Prodigal Son, The (Joseph Parker, D.D.).... Second Advent, The (Rev. John G. Manly)...... Signs, The, of the Times-Is Christianity Failing? (Henry Ward Beecher). Sin, Self-Hurt of (C. N. Sims, D.D.)... Under Constraint (C. H. Spurgeon)..... Voice of God in Us, The (R. S. Storrs, D.D.).... What is Man? or, the Skepticism of Science Considered (R. W. Why Christians Believe the Doctrine of Future Everlasting Pun- Sermons in condensed form and other Homiletic matter.. TEXTUAL INDEX. PAGE 285 104 173 323 278 123 90 5 .307-344 THE COMPLETE PREACHER. VOL. 3. NEW YORK, APRIL, 1878. No. I Why Christians Believe the Doctrine of Future Everlasting Punishment. A SERMON PREACHED BY Henry J. Van Dyke, D.D., IN THE CLINTON STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, BROOKLYN. Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come . I said, therefore, unto you that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.— John viii: 21, 24. How do we account for the fact that the future everlasting punishment of those who die impenitent and unforgiven has been firmly held and strenuously defended by the great majority of Christians in every age? The doctrine is confessedly awful and repulsive. It has been assailed by every weapon of ridicule, of denunciation and of argument. It has been stigmatized as unreasonable, cruel and dishonoring to God. They who teach it have been held up to public scorn as "narrowminded bigots," "heartless theologians," "Pharasaic dogmatists." Christianity itself has often been rejected because of it. And yet after eighteen centuries of investigation, discussion and controversy, this confessedly offensive and horrible doctrine enters as an essential element into the creed of the whole Christian Church, of the Greek, of the Latin, and of all the great historical Protestant bodies. It underlies and pervades, in some form, the religious experience, the hymnology and the liturgies of the great mass of Christians. Its opponents among professing Christians belong exclusively to one of two classes-those who refuse to adopt any definite statements of religious belief, or those who are confessedly out of sympathy with the denominations to which they belong. The doctrine of future punishment is one of the points in regard to which there is no characteristic difference between Roman Catholics and Protestants. As it prevailed in the Church before the rise of the Romish hierarchy, so also it was not brought into question when the Reformation struck off the chains of priestly power, and led men in the free exercise of the right of private judgment to the study of the Scriptures. Upon this subject there is a unanimous and absolute agreement among all the Lutheran and Reformed creeds. While they reject the comparatively modern dogma of purgatory (which is nothing more nor less than the theory that God's wrath in the next world will purify some of those who are not sanctified and saved from sin by His grace in this), they reaffirm the ancient faith of the Church in future everlasting punishment. The popular notion that this doctrine has some peculiar connection with the Presbyterian Church, or at least with what is called the Calvinistic system, is utterly groundless. Two facts will demonstrate the truth of this remark. The Protestant Episcopal Church in this country and in England, while they reject our Presbyterian polity, declare their faith in this doctrine in unequivocal terms; every time they repeat the venerable Litany, which contains this solemn petition, "From wrath and everlasting damnation, good Lord deliver us." Do they play the hypocrite before God when they thus pray to Him? Certainly not. Does Canon Farrar use the Litany? We presume he does. On the other hand, the whole Methodist denomination, while they reject what are called Calvinistic doctrines, preach future punishment with their characteristic zeal. Now, how do we account for this tenacity of belief in a doctrine so unpopular and so repulsive to the human heart? Shall we attribute it, as one of the most eloquent of the modern opposers does, to" angry ignorance or raging prejudice?" Surely orthodox theologians are not a whit behind the chiefest of their opposers in the study of Biblical criticism, nor in their ability both to appreciate and to use whatever can move the heart and convince the understanding. Or, shall we accept the more telling and popular explanation, and believe that the great body of theologians and Christian people in all ages have been so blinded and hardened by hatred towards their fellow-men that the thought of the perdition of others enhances the anticipation of their own blindness, and that they "consign multitudes, with orthodox equanimity, to endless torments?" Does the strength of this doctrine consist in the delight it affords those who hold it? We are ashamed to ask such questions. We blush for those who make it when we repeat the suggestion that the great body of the fathers and of the reformers, the overwhelming majority of all who have ever preached the gospel since the days of the apostles-including the authors of the sweetest melodies that have ever embodied Christian love in songs, such as, "Jesus thou joy of loving hearts;" "Rock of ages cleft for me;" "Jesus lover of my soul;" "There is a fountain filled with blood;"-that all these were monsters of cruelty, to whose hearts the thought of another's suffering brought exquisite pleasure. If this were true, then, indeed, would Christianity be a failure, and Nero, when he sought to stamp it out of the world, would be a model of virtue com pared with its most honored saints. But let us have done with such senseless reviling; it is neither philosophic, nor charitable, nor truthful. As a joke, it is ghastly; as an argument, beneath contempt. They who believe the doctrine of future everlasting punishment are quite as loving in their spirit as they who reject it. The weakest of all ways to assail a doctrine is to impeach the motives and traduce the character of those who hold it. Let us have done with this slandering of the living and the dead-this trampling on the graves of our fathers. Let all-whatever be their views upon this subject -cease to make the wrath to come a theme for merriment. This world is full enough of subjects for innocent and wholesome laughter without turning the destinies of eternity or the opinions of men concerning them into ridicule. To do this is not only a profanity but an intellectual degradation. Let us acknowledge the sincerity of those from whom we are constrained to differ upon this as upon other subjects. There can be no reasonable doubt that, on all sides of this vexed question, it would bring an infinite relief and give universal satisfaction if we could be assured that all mankind will be ultimately and eternally blessed. It is no comfort to us to think with Paul, that, after having preached to others, we ourselves " may be a castaway," or that any to whom we have preached may "fail of the grace of God." Why then do we not all agree to reject the doctrine of future punishment and abolish it forever from our creed? There are two obstacles in the way, two insurmountable facts, which account for the prevalence of the doctrine, and make it just as impossible to eliminate it from Christian belief as it is to vote pain out of the world, or to abolish poverty and sickness by acts of Congress. In the first place the doctrine of future and everlasting punishment is in accordance with the suggestions of the human conscience, and with the constitution and course of nature which all Christians call divine Providence. Forbodings of wrath to come are as instinctive and as universal among men as a belief in God and in the immortality of the soul. It is a doctrine of natural as well as of revealed religion, and it is abundantly confirmed by the analogies between the two. It is not peculiar to the Christian system. It lies at the basis of all religion; and from its awful warnings and anticipations no relief has ever been found but in the Gospel of Jesus Christ; unless that may be called a relief which rejects all religion and lapses into the denial of both God and the human soul. If men suffer-and suffer remedilessly for sin in this life, under the government of a merciful and holy God, no satisfactory reason can be assigned why they may not so suffer in another state of existence, and in the face of existing facts, no speculation of uninspired men can argue out of the human soul |