I have one question more to suggest with reference to the duty of an unbeliever towards us as Christians, and it is this, Why should he disturb our faith, or, as he might term it, our superstition? If he retorts by asking why we should disturb his unbelief, our answer is ready—because we wish with our whole soul to share with him the blessings which God our common Father has for him as well as for us; because we truly lament the loss to our brother who refuses the eternal good which he may now enjoy with the whole family of God; because we love our God, and his God and Saviour, and desire our brother to know and to love them too; because it is so unjust, so selfish, so hateful, not to love and obey such a glorious Person as Jesus Christ, who knows us, loves us, and has died to gain our hearts! These are some of the reasons, rudely and roughly stated, why we desire, with all our heart, that every man should believe in Jesus Christ. But if any man, for any reason which may be beyond our understanding or sympathy, desires to destroy this faith in all that is most precious to us, then I ask, not in Christ's name,—for it is unnecessary to appeal to Him,—but in the name of common sense and common philanthropy, why he should not only labour to do this, but to do it without apparently any apprehension of the untold misery which he must occasion if he succeeds in his attempt? Do not tell us, with a boast, that "the truth must be spoken, come what may!" Be it so; but surely the kind of truth which must be spoken must ever regulate the manner in which it is spoken? Again, I bid you picture to yourselves a person entering a family whose members were rejoicing in the thought of a father's return, and announcing the intelligence of that father's death, with a smile of pity or a sneer of contempt at their ignorant happiness! Imagine such a one professing to be actuated by a mere love of truth! Oh! if the terrible duty has been laid upon any one with a human heart, of announcing to others intelligence which, if true, must leave a blank to them in the world that can never be filled up, what tender sympathy, what genuine sorrow becomes him who breaks the heavy tidings! And such ought to be the feelings of every man who, from whatever cause, feels called upon to announce that the Christian religion is false. If he must make known that terrible fact to believers in Jesus; if he must tell them that the supposed Source of all their life and joy has no existence, and that their faith in Him is vain, let this be done with the solemnity and the sorrow which a true brotherly sympathy would necessarily dictate. If the missionaries of Christianity are warranted in preaching their gospel with joy, the missionaries of an infidelity which professes only to destroy and not to build up, should go forth on their dreadful vocation with the feeling of martyrs, and with no other notes of triumph than sounds of lamentation and woe! For if Christianity is false, we are "yet in our sins, all who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished, and we are of all men most miserable!"
THOUGHTS UPON THE FINAL JUDGMENT.
There is no "fact of the future" more clearly revealed in Scripture, or more certainly believed in by the Christian Church, than that "God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead."
No doubt this fact is denied or explained away by many modern critics. But it would be difficult to say what revealed fact, from Genesis to Revelation, is admitted by them, or what things may now be "most surely believed among us." We retain our first faith in the future judgment, and shall endeavour to look at it in a practical rather than in a speculative light.
There is, indeed, among mankind a general anticipation of a coming time when the mystery of God's providence will be cleared up, and His righteousness displayed in the final judgment to be then passed on the evil and on the good. What the human race are led to anticipate, as likely to occur hereafter, from the many unsettled questions here between man and his brother, and between man and his God, Scripture reveals to us as certain.
While, however, every Christian believes in the coming of Jesus to judge the world as firmly as he does in the fact of His having risen from the dead, there seems to us to be very inadequate conceptions in the minds of many as to the designs of this day, or the ends which it is fitted to accomplish in the kingdom of God.
It is hastily assumed, for example, that the day of judgment will be short as the period included between an earthly sunrise and sunset; and that, during this brief interval, the dead shall rise, and be judged before the throne of Jesus Christ, along with fallen angels. It is accordingly asked, with doubt and wonder, what good can be gained, or what purpose served, by this summoning those whose doom has long been sealed to appear at the bar of Jesus, and there to receive a formal sentence? If Judas goes to his own place, and Stephen to the arms of his Redeemer; if the wicked rich man departs to the burning flame, and Lazarus to the bosom of Abraham; if Satan and his angels have long ago experienced the horrors of a state which they know to be unchangeable, because they are themselves unchanged; what conceivable reason can there be for appointing a day in which all the wicked and the righteous are to be assembled, only to receive their respective sentences of condemnation or acquittal?
I know not how such questions can be answered by those who suppose the day of judgment to be nothing more than one on which Jesus Christ will publicly declare what the eternal fate of His creatures is to be for ever; without any trial beyond that which has already taken place in the court of each man's conscience, and in the presence of the living God.
We at once admit that the difficulty, or impossibility even, of answering such questions, is no adequate reason for our denying any fact clearly revealed in Scripture which may suggest them. But if these belong, not to the fact itself, but to what appears to us to be a wrong interpretation of it; if a different view is freed from such difficulties, without others, more numerous and serious, being evolved; if the information afforded by Scripture is to be received as authentic; and if, moreover, while keeping strictly to the letter of Scripture, it is more in harmony with the grand ends to be accomplished by the kingdom of Christ, and discloses more of the glory of the great King, surely a presumption is thereby afforded in favour of its truth, though, perhaps, at first sight it may interfere with preconceived opinions.
Instead, then, of the day of judgment being a day of twenty-four hours merely for the passing of a righteous sentence upon the good or bad, it seems to us to be clearly revealed in Scripture that it will be a period of time long enough for the peaceful and orderly ongoing of all its august proceedings;—when Jesus Christ will summon to His immediate presence all who have been the subjects of His mediatorial kingdom, or have been placed under His authority for accomplishing the purposes of His reign;—when each person will be tried in the presence of the assembled universe, and his true relationship to his King must be proved upon evidence minute, sifting, and unquestionable;—in one word, when the whole government of the Mediator, from the beginning till the end of time, over men, angels, and devils, shall be fully disclosed, and its excellence manifested to the confusion of the wicked, the joy of the righteous, and the glory of the Triune God!