ONE of the most striking characteristics of the present age is an increase of infidelity as it regards the future eternal punishment of the wicked. This is undoubtedly an effort of the depraved heart, to throw off a sense of accountability to God, and to introduce a kind of practical atheism, which shall give to the wicked a license to trample under foot the law of God, unterrified by his threatenings of the wrath to come. This effect is undoubtedly increased by the increasing influence of divine truth upon the public sentiment of the community. As light increases, the wicked are compelled to involve themselves in a deeper shade of unbelief, lest the effulgence of truth should rebuke their ungodly deeds with intolerable severity, and fill their consciences with forebodings of coming woe, and urge their obligations to abandon their sins and escape without delay from impending wrath. But though these are the radical causes of this increase of unbelief, yet because numbers are guilty of the crime, and some of them men of learning, and even nominally ambassadors of Christ, some have been led to conclude that, after all, the certainty of the future endless punishment of the wicked is not so clear as has been supposed. It is possible, say they, that the Bible has been misinterpreted on this point. It may refer to a punishment in this life; or to a limited remedial punishment; or perhaps those texts which have been claimed as teaching the future redemption of all men, do teach it; or perhaps the Bible 17 VOL. III. is not true. In these and other forms, a secret poison of infidelity steals through the community, fatal to a firm belief of the certain execution of God's threatenings against the finally impenitent; and thus destroying that conviction of the absolute necessity of repentance and of faith in Christ in order to escape eternal death, without which the Gospel itself is of no effect. We need then to trace this infidelity to its true cause, and exhibit it in its appropriate colors. And this we take occasion to do, by referring to a people among whom the depravity of the human heart did produce a disregard of threatenings so clearly expressed, that to misunderstand them was impossible; and uttered in such circumstances, that there could be no possible reason to doubt that they would be fulfilled. By observing the operation of the human heart in a case so striking as this, we shall be enabled to discover and develop its operations in producing the infidelity of the present age. We propose to consider the threatenings addressed to the Jews. They were threatenings of temporal punishments. God has, in all ages, governed all men as a moral governor, in view of eternity, and so he did the Jewish nation. But to them he also sustained a peculiar relation, as a temporal governor. He redeemed them from Egypt, and entered into a solemn covenant with them to be their God and King; and he regulated all their civil, social, and religious duties, by numerous laws clearly and definitely expressed. And to these, temporal rewards and punishments were attached. These sanctions were not removed to a distant futurity. But reward here followed obedience, and punishment trod upon crime. God threatened to employ the elements of the natural world, and the surrounding nations, as the executioners of his vengeance. He has at all times an entire control of the natural world, and of the movements of nations. But he does not always exercise it for the purpose of inflicting temporal punishments. But with this nation he threatened to do it. He held over their head this rod of vengeance, and threatened to smite them in all their temporal interests, if they should violate their covenant and break his laws. He reminded them, that at any moment he could scourge them with famine, blasting, mildew, pestilence, and every form of disease; that all the springs of national prosperity were in his hand; that he was their only defender against surrounding nations; and that by a word he could bring upon them all the miseries of war, captivity, and death. And he threatened to use this power with the utmost severity, if they violated their national obligations to him. God had given such indications of his power and disposition to execute such threatenings, as removed all ground of unbelief. How had he summoned all the elements, and opened all his magazines of wrath, to chastise the haughty king of Egypt! How had he terrified the nations by his vengeance on this tyrant, when he buried him and his hosts in the same sea which he had divided by his almighty power for the redemption of his people! And what signs and wonders did he exhibit during their march through the wilderness! When they were obedient, how easily did he scatter their enemies. When disobedient, how severely did he punish them by pestilence, or fiery serpents, or earthquakes. Besides, in their hands were the records of God's ancient deeds of vengeance. The memory of the flood had not faded away, and the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah, still before their eyes, uttered a warning voice, and bade them beware of arousing again the dreadful justice of God. There was nothing obscure in the annunciation of any of the laws of God, or of the penalties annexed to them. The language used could not possibly have more than one meaning. There was no mode of explaining it away by figurative interpretation. When God forbade idolatry, and a participation in the licentious indulgences connected with the worship of heathen gods, and commanded his people to avoid all the abominations of the heathen, and to be a holy people unto himself, they could not misunderstand his meaning. And there could be no dispute about the meaning of famine, or pestilence, or defeat in war, or violent death, or miserable captivity among cruel and insulting enemies. There was no possible way of evading the plain and obvious meaning of the threatenings of God. The calamities threatened were very great. Probably there is not in the whole compass of language such a terrific array of temporal calamities, as is recorded in those parts of the book of Deuteronomy which contain the threatenings of God against his people in case of disobedience. The whole power of language seems to be exhausted. In the most intense colors, God exhibits his power to bless; and in shades of awful darkness, his power -- to curse. "If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law, that are written in this book, that thou mayst fear this glorious and fearful name THE LORD THY GOD; then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and among these nations shall thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind. And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see." No denunciations could be more plain or terrible. God used various and powerful means to infix deeply in the minds of his people the remembrance of those threatenings. He did not merely record them by Moses, and give them into the hands of the people. But he endeavored to impress them distinctly upon their minds. He commanded Moses before his death to assemble all the nation, and publicly rehearse all his dealings with them, and to strive to affect them with a sense of the value of his favor, and the awful consequences of his displeas ure. He required them, after entering the promised land, publicly to recite the blessings and curses of the law, on the mountains Ebal and Gerizim, and to call upon all the people to say Amen. He commanded Moses also to prepare a song to be handed down from generation to generation, rehearsing the benefits of God to that nation, and exhibiting with all the power of language, the terrors of his threatened vengeance upon the disobedient. He also warned them against false prophets, should they arise in future ages; and charged the whole nation, kings, rulers, priests, and prophets, never to forget the law of Moses, but to consult it in all cases of importance. He enjoined it on parents to teach these things to their children, and established public festivals, by which the males of the nation should three times a year be assembled at Jerusalem for his worship, and for instruction; and he provided for the public reading of the law at appointed times. In reviewing this account of the threatenings of God, one can hardly conceive it possible that any thing could be made more certain to the human mind, than it must have been to the Jewish nation, that God would without fail, visit every transgression and disobedience with a just recompense of reward. It might almost seem as if these threatenings would restrain. the nation by compulsive power, and as if unbelief could find no avenue of access to the mind. But it need not be told, that the fact was notoriously otherwise. The whole nation was ultimately ruined by unbelief, and was actually exposed to the unmitigated wrath of God, till they drank deep the cup of woe, and every threatening of the law was fulfilled. We now proceed to inquire into the causes of this astonishing unbelief. And here we need not delay long. For these radical causes are few, simple, and easily stated. The first was a dislike of the restraints imposed by the law of God, and a desire to enjoy unmolested, those sinful indulgences which were commonly enjoyed by the worshippers of idol gods. The true God is the only god who has ever required purity of heart and life in his worshippers, and forbidden all sinful indulgences on pain of his high displeasure. But all systems of idolatry throw off the restraints of holiness; and tolerate, and often sanction, the vilest crimes. Such was the case with the idolatrous Canaanites, and with the surrounding heathen nations. God speaks of these nations and of their practices in terms of the deepest detestation. But that which is abominable to God, is often attractive to a depraved heart. The sinful indulgences of the heathen were so to the unholy Jews. The holy requisitions of God were at war with all their corrupt feelings. Hence awoke a strong desire to cast off such hated restraints, and to conform to the manners of the heathen. But then those curses of the law! Could they endure to encounter them? Here the heart would waver. And no alternative would be left, but either to avoid the crimes on which the curses were denounced, or by unbelief to escape the fear of the curses themselves. They chose the latter. This operation of an evil heart is most graphically described: "Lest there should be among you man or woman, family or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood, and it come to pass when 17. VOL. III. |
