5. In such a state of things as this,
“Shall they fall and not arise? Shall he turn away and not
return?”
Jer. viii. 4. Why did the
virgin turn shamefully away, though she had heard Christ her bridegroom
saying through the mouth of Jeremiah, “And I said, after she had
done all these things (committed all these fornications, LXX.), turn
thou unto me, but she returned not?”
Jer. iii. 7. “Is there no balm in Gilead; is
there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the
daughter of my people recovered?”
Jer. viii.
22. You might indeed find many remedies
for evil in Scripture, many medicines to save from destruction and lead
to health; the mysteries of death and resurrection, the sentences of
terrible judgment and everlasting punishment; the doctrines of
repentance and of remission of sins; all the countless illustrations of
conversion, the piece of money, the sheep, the son who wasted his
substance with harlots, who was lost and was found, who was dead and
alive again. Let us not use these remedies for ill; by these
means let us heal our soul. Bethink you of your last day, for you
will surely not, unlike all other women, live for ever. The
distress, the gasping for breath, the hour of death, the imminent
sentence of God, the angels hastening on their way, the soul fearfully
dismayed, and lashed to agony by the consciousness of sin, turning
itself piteously to things of this life and to the inevitable necessity
of that long life to be lived elsewhere. Picture to me, as it
rises in your imagination, the conclusion of all human life, when the
Son of God shall come in His glory with His angels, “For he shall
come and shall not keep silence;”
Ps. l. 3.
when He shall come to judge the quick and dead, to render to every one
according to his work; when that terrible trumpet with its mighty voice
shall wake those that have slept through the ages, and they that have
done good shall come forth unto the resurrection of life, and they that
have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation. cf.
John v. 29. Remember the vision of Daniel, and how
he brings the judgment before us: “I beheld till the
thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment
was white as snow, and the hair of His head like the pure
wool;…and His wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued
and came forth before Him; thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and
ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him: the judgment
was set, and the books were opened,”
Dan. vii. 9,
10.
clearly disclosing in the hearing of all, angels and men, things good
and evil, things done openly and in secret, deeds, words, and thoughts
all at once. What then must those men be who have lived wicked
lives? Where then shall that soul hide which in the sight of all
these spectators shall suddenly be revealed in its fulness of
shame? With what kind of body shall it sustain those endless and
unbearable pangs in the place of fire unquenched, and of the worm that
perishes and never dies, and of depth of Hades, dark and horrible;
bitter wailings, loud lamenting, weeping and gnashing of teeth and
anguish without end? From all these woes there is no release
after death; no device, no means of coming forth from the chastisement
of pain.