I leave the subject of eternity here, and pray that God may bless it to many souls. In conclusion, I offer to every one who reads this volume some food for thought, and matter for self-examination.
(1) First of all, how are you using your time? Life is short and very uncertain. You never know what a day may bring forth. Business and pleasure, money-getting and money-spending, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,—all, all will soon be over and done with for ever. And you, what are you doing for your immortal soul? Are you wasting time, or turning it to good account? Are you preparing to meet God?
(2) Secondly, where shall you be in eternity? It is coming, coming, coming very fast upon us. You are going, going, going very fast into it. But where will you be? On the right hand or on the left, in the day of judgment? Among the lost or among the saved? Oh, rest not, rest not till your soul is insured! Make sure work: leave nothing uncertain. It is a fearful thing to die unprepared, and fall into the hands of the living God.
(3) Thirdly, would you be safe for time and eternity? Then seek Christ, and believe in Him. Come to Him just as you are. Seek Him while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. There is still a throne of grace. It is not too late. Christ waits to be gracious: He invites you to come to Him. Before the door is shut and the judgment begins, repent, believe, and be saved.
(4) Lastly, would you be happy? Cling to Christ, and live the life of faith in Him. Abide in Him, and live near to Him. Follow Him with heart and soul and mind and strength, and seek to know Him better every day. So doing you shall have great peace while you pass through "things temporal," and in the midst of a dying world shall "never die." (John xi. 26.) So doing, you shall be able to look forward to "things eternal" with unfailing confidence, and to feel and "know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." (2 Cor. v. 1.)
P. S.
Since preaching the above Sermon I have read Canon Farrar's volume, "Eternal Hope." With much that this book contains I cannot at all agree. Anything that comes from the pen of such a well-known writer of course deserves respectful consideration. But I must honestly confess, after reading "Eternal Hope," that I see no reason to withdraw anything I have said in my Sermon on "Eternity," and that I laid down the volume with regret and dissatisfaction, unconvinced and unshaken in my opinions.
I can find nothing new in Canon Farrar's statements. He says hardly anything that has not been said before, and refuted before. To all who wish to examine fully the subject of the reality and eternity of future punishment, I venture to recommend some works which are far less known than they ought to be, and which appear to me far sounder, and more Scriptural, than "Eternal Hope." These are "Horbery's Enquiry into the Scripture Doctrine of the Duration of Future Punishment," "Girdlestone's Dies Iræ," the Rev. C. F. Childe's "Unsafe Anchor" and the Rev. Flavel Cook's "Righteous Judgment." "Bishop Pearson on the Creed," under the head "Resurrection," and "Hodge's Systematic Theology," vol. iii. p. 868. will also repay a careful perusal.
The plain truth is, that there are vast difficulties bound up with the subject of the future state of the wicked, which Canon Farrar seems to me to leave untouched. The amazing mercifulness of God, and the awfulness of supposing that many around us will be lost eternally, he has handled fully and with characteristic rhetoric. No doubt the compassions of God are unspeakable. He is "not willing that any should perish." He "would have all men to be saved." His love in sending Christ into the world to die for sinners is an inexhaustible subject.—But this is only one side of God's character, as we have it revealed in Scripture. His character and attributes need to be looked at all round. The infinite holiness and justice of an eternal God,—His hatred of evil, manifested in Noah's flood and at Sodom, and in the destruction of the seven nations of Canaan,—the unspeakable vileness and guilt of sin in God's sight,—the wide gulf between natural man and his perfect Maker,—the enormous spiritual change which every child of Adam must go through, if he is to dwell for ever in God's presence,—and the utter absence of any intimation in the Bible that this change can take place after death,—all, all these are points which seem to me comparatively put on one aside, or left alone, in Canon Farrar's volume. My mind demands satisfaction on these points before I can accept the views advocated in "Eternal Hope," and that satisfaction I fail to find in the book.