I turn now to the reverse side of Christ's teaching concerning the future. And let us not seek to hide from ourselves the fact that there is a reverse side. For, ignore it as we may, the fact remains: those same holy lips which spoke of a place, "where neither moth nor rust doth consume," spoke likewise of another place, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

In considering this solemn matter we must learn to keep wholly separate from it a number of difficult questions which have really nothing to do with it--with which, indeed, we have nothing to do--and the introduction of which can only lead to mischievous confusion and error. What is to become of the countless multitudes in heathen lands who die without having so much as heard of Christ? How will God deal with those even in our own Christian land to whom, at least as it seems to us, this life has brought no adequate opportunity of salvation? What will happen in that dim twilight land betwixt death and judgment which men call "the intermediate state"? Will they be few or many who at last will be for ever outcasts from the presence of God? These are questions men will persist in asking, but the answer to which no man knows. Strictly speaking, they are matters with which we have nothing to do, which we must be content to leave with God, confident that the Judge of all the earth will do right, even though He does not show us how. What we have to do with, what does concern us, is the warning of Jesus, emphatic and reiterated, that sin will be visited with punishment, that retribution, just, awful, inexorable, will fall on all them that love and work iniquity.

"But why," it may be asked, "why dwell upon these things? Is there not something coarse and vulgar in this appeal to men's fears? And, after all, to what purpose is it? If men are not won by the love of God, of what avail is it to speak to them of His wrath?" But fear is as real an element in human nature as love, and when our aim is by all means to save men, it is surely legitimate to make our appeal to the whole man, to lay our fingers on every note--the lower notes no less than the higher--in the wide gamut of human life. The preacher of the gospel, moreover, is left without choice in the matter. It is no part of his business to ask what is the use of this or of that in the message given to him to deliver; it is for him to declare "the whole counsel of God," to keep back nothing that has been revealed. And the really decisive consideration is this--that this is a matter on which Christ Himself has spoken, and spoken with unmistakable clearness and emphasis. Shall, then, the ambassador hesitate when the will of the King is made known? More often--five times more often, it is said^[61]--than Jesus spoke of future blessedness did He speak of future retribution. The New Testament is a very tender book; but it is also a very stern book, and its sternest words are words of Jesus. "For the sins of the miserable, the forlorn, the friendless, He has pity and compassion; but for the sins of the well-taught, the high-placed, the rich, the self-indulgent, for obstinate and malignant sin, the sin of those who hate, and deceive, and corrupt, and betray, His wrath is terrible, its expression is unrestrained."^[62] "Jesu, Thou art all compassion," we sometimes sing; but is it really so? St. Paul writes of "the meekness and gentleness of Christ"; and for many of the chapters of Christ's life that is the right headline; but there are other chapters which by no possible manipulation can be brought under that heading, and they also are part of the story. It was Jesus who said that in the day of judgment it should be more tolerable for even Tyre and Sidon than for Bethsaida and Chorazin; it was Jesus who uttered that terrible twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, with its seven times repeated "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" it was Jesus who spoke of the shut door and the outer darkness, of the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched, of the sin which hath never forgiveness, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come, and of that day when He who wept over Jerusalem and prayed for His murderers and died for the world will say unto them on His left hand, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels." These are His words, and it is because they are His they make us tremble. He is "gentle Jesus, meek and mild"; that is why His sternness is so terrible.

These things are not said in order to defend any particular theory of future punishment--on that dread subject, indeed, the present writer has no "theory" to defend; he frankly confesses himself an agnostic--but rather to claim for the solemn fact of retribution a place in our minds akin to that which it held in the teaching of our Lord. We need have no further concern than to be loyal to Him. Does, then, such loyalty admit of a belief in universal salvation? Is it open to us to assert that in Christ the whole race is predestined to "glory, honour, and immortality"? The "larger hope" of the universalist--

"that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring"--

is, indeed, one to which no Christian heart can be a stranger; yearnings such as these spring up within us unbidden and uncondemned. But when it is definitely and positively asserted that "God has destined all men to eternal glory, irrespective of their faith and conduct," "that no antagonism to the Divine authority, no insensibility to the Divine love, can prevent the eternal decree from being accomplished," we shall do well to pause, and pause again. The old doctrine of an assured salvation for an elect few we reject without hesitation. But, as Dr. Dale has pointed out,^[63] the difference between the old doctrine and the new is merely an arithmetical, not a moral difference: where the old put "some," the new puts "all"; and the moral objections which are valid against the one are not less valid against the other also. I dare not say to myself, and therefore I dare not say to others, that, let a man live as he may, it yet shall be well with him in the end. The facts of experience are against it; the words of Christ are against it. "The very conception of human freedom involves the possibility of its permanent misuse, of what our Lord Himself calls 'eternal sin.'" If a man can go on successfully resisting Divine grace in this life, what reason have we for supposing that it would suddenly become irresistible in another life? Build what we may on the unrevealed mercies of the future for them that live and die in the darkness of ignorance, let us build nothing for ourselves who are shutting our eyes and closing our hearts to the Divine light and love which are already ours.

"Behold, then, the goodness and severity of God;" and may His goodness lead us to repentance, that His severity we may never know. This is, indeed, His will for every one of us: He has "appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." If we are lost we are suicides.

THE END

1. J. Stalker, The Christology of Jesus, p. 23, footnote.

2. "The sources for our knowledge of the actual teaching of Jesus do not lie merely in the Gospel accounts, but also in the literature of the apostolic age, especially in the Epistles of Paul.... Even had no direct accounts about Jesus been handed down to us, we should still possess, in the apostolic literature, a perfectly valid testimony to the historical existence and epoch-making significance of Jesus as a teacher."--H.H. Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, vol. i, p. 28.

3. What is Christianity? p. 20.

4. Three Essays on Religion, p. 253.

5. Literature and Dogma, p. 10.

6. See Harnack's What is Christianity? p. 4.

7. See A.S. Peake's Guide to Biblical Study, p. 244.

8. Thoughts on Religion, p. 157.

9. The Kingdom of God, p. 50.

10. "Christian apologists," says Dr. Sanday, "have often done scant justice to the intensity of this [monotheistic] faith, which was utterly disinterested and capable of magnificent self-sacrifice."--Art. "God," Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, vol. ii, p. 205.

11. See R.F. Horton's Teaching of Jesus, p. 59.

12. A.M. Fairbairn, Christ in Modern Theology, p. 244.

13. On the subject of this chapter see especially G.B. Stevens' Theology of the New Testament, chap. vi.

14. Christian Doctrine, p. 77.

15. Bishop Gore, Bampton Lectures, 1891, p. 13.

16. J. Denney, Studies in Theology, p. 25.

17. For an admirable statement of the argument of this paragraph see D.W. Forrest's Christ of History and experience, chap. i. and note 4, p. 385.

18. Cp. Denney's note on St. Paul's description of Christ, "Him who knew no sin," in 2 Cor. v. 21: "The Greek negative (mae), as Schmiedel remarks, implies that this is regarded as the verdict of some one else than the writer. It was Christ's own verdict upon Himself."

19. The Death of Christ, p. 28.

20. The Philosophy of the Christian Religion, p. 408.

21. John xii. 27, 28; xiii. 31; xvii. 1.

22. G.B. Stevens, Theology of the New Testament, p. 133.

23. I quote once more from Dr. Denney.

24. J. Denney, Studies in Theology, p. 154.

25. See W.N. Clarke's Outlines of Christian Theology, p. 373.

26. "It is the Holy Spirit who supplies the bodily presence of Christ, and by Him doth He accomplish all His promises to the Church. Hence, some of the ancients call Him 'Vicarium Christi,' 'The Vicar of Christ,' or Him who represents His person and dischargeth His promised work: Operam navat Christo vicariam."--Owen, Works, vol. iii. p. 193.

27. "Our sources with the utmost possible uniformity refer to the Spirit in terms implying personality."--Stevens, Theology of the New Testament (p. 215), where the whole question is discussed with great fullness and fairness.

28. John Watson, The Mind of the Master, p. 321. May we remind Dr. Watson of what he has himself written on the first page of his Doctrines of Grace: "It was the mission of St. Paul to declare the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to the nations, and none of his successors in this high office has spoken with such persuasive power. Any one differs from St. Paul at his intellectual peril, and every one may imitate him with spiritual profit."

29. See, in confirmation of the argument of this paragraph, Orr's Christian View of God and the World, p. 401 ff., and Art. "The Kingdom of God," in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible; Denney's Studies in Theology, Lect. VIII.

30. J. Watson, The Mind of the Master, p. 323.

31. F.G. Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question, pp. 88, 89.

32. Fellowship with Christ, p. 157.

33. See Trench's Study of Words, p. 100.

34. The chapter entitled "Christ's Doctrine of Man" is one of the most suggestive chapters in Dr. Bruce's admirable work The Kingdom of God.

35. Studies in Theology, p. 83.

36. See Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, Art. "Sin," vol. iii. p. 533.

37. This is the R.V. marginal rendering of Gen. iv. 13.

38. R.W. Dale, Evangelical Revival and other Sermons, p. 66 ff.

39. The Kingdom of God, p. 203.

40. In his famous sermon on the Pharisees, University Sermons, p. 32.

41. R.W. Church, Gifts of Civilisation, p. 71.

42. Prov. iv. 7: "Get wisdom; and with all thy getting get understanding," which does not mean simply, "Whatever else you get, be sure to get understanding." The marginal reference is to Matt. xiii. 44: wisdom, like the pearl of great price, is to be secured with, i.e. at the cost and sacrifice of, everything else that can be gotten. (See J.R. Lumby on "Shortcomings of Translation," Expositor, second series, vol. iii. p. 203.)

43. 2 Cor. v. 9 R.V. margin.

44. Laws of Christ for Common Life, p. 59.

45. Bible Characters: Stephen to Timothy, p. 95.

46. On the Authorized Version of the New Testament, p. 14.

47. I am indebted for these two quotations to Bishop Paget's Spirit of Discipline, p. 66.

48. P. Carnegie Simpson, The Fact of Christ, pp. 116, 117.

49. Time and Tide, p. 224.

50. F.G. Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Problem, p. 219.

51. Emerson had surely overlooked this nobler meaning of the word when he wrote, "They [the English] put up no Socratic prayer, much less any saintly prayer, for the queen's mind; ask neither for light nor right, but say bluntly, 'grant her in health and wealth long to live'" (English Traits).

52. To those who are interested in the subject of this chapter Prof. Peabody's book already referred to, and an article entitled "The Teaching of Christ concerning the Use of Money" (Expositor, third series, vol. viii. p. 100 ff.) may be recommended.

53. Studies in Theology, p. 239.

54. "There is no subject on which it is more difficult to ascertain the teaching of Christ than that which relates to the future of the kingdom."--A.B. Bruce, The Kingdom of God, p. 273.

55. J. Agar Beet, The Last Things, p. 46.

56. Marcus Dods, The Parables of our Lord (first series), p. 238.

57. Cathedral and University Sermons, p. 10.

58. John Watson, The Mind of the Master, pp. 203, 204.

59. See T.G. Selby's Imperfect Angel and other Sermons, p. 211. Cf. Zachariah Coleman in "Mark Rutherford's" Revolution in Tanners Lane: "That is a passage that I never could quite understand. I never hardly see a pure breed, either of goat or sheep. I never see anybody who deserves to go straight to heaven or who deserves to go straight to hell. When the Judgment Day comes it will be a difficult task."

60. See the very striking and beautiful chapter entitled "The Continuity of Life" in Watson's Mind of the Master.

61. See T.G. Selby's Ministry of the Lord Jesus, p. 279.

62. R.W. Church, Human Life and its Conditions, p. 103.

63. In a striking article entitled "The Old Antinomianism and the New" (Congregational Review, Jan. 1887).