To these questions, so well-defined, so definite in their demands, and of such all-absorbing interest, where shall we look for an answer? Have we any means within our reach by which to solve these problems? We look abroad upon the earth and admire its multiplied forms of life and beauty; we mark the revolving seasons and the uniform and beneficent operations of nature; we look to the heavenly bodies and behold their glory, and the regularity of their mighty motions--do these answer our questions? They tell us something, but not all. They tell us of the great Creator and upholder of all things; for, as the apostle says, “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” They tell us upon whom our existence depends and to whom we are amenable.
But this only intensifies our anxiety a thousand fold. For now we want to know upon what conditions his favor is suspended. What must we do to meet his requirements? How may we secure his approbation? He surely is a being who will reward virtue and punish sin. Sometime our deeds must be compared with his requirements, and sentence be rendered in accordance therewith. How will this affect our future existence? Deriving it from him, does he suspend its continuance on our obedience? or has he made us self-existent beings, so that we must live forever, if not in his favor, then the conscious recipients of his wrath?
With what intense anxiety the mind turns to the future. What is to be the issue of this mysterious problem of life? Who can tell? Nature is silent. We appeal to those who are entering the dark valley. But who can reveal the mysteries of those hidden regions till he has explored them? and the “curtain of the tent into which they enter, never outward swings.” Sternly the grave closes its heavy portals against every attempt to catch a glimpse of the unknown beyond. Science proves itself a fool on this momentous question. The imagination breaks down; and the human mind, unaided, sinks into a melancholy, but well-grounded, despair.
God must tell us, or we can never know what lies beyond this state of existence, till we experience it for ourselves. He who has placed us here, must himself make known to us his purposes and his will, or we are forever in the dark. Of this, all reverent and thoughtful minds are well assured.
Professor Stuart, in his “Exegetical Essays on Several Words Relating to Future Punishment,” says:--
“The light of nature can never scatter the darkness in question. This light has never yet sufficed to make the question clear to any portion of our benighted race, whether the soul is immortal. Cicero, incomparably the most able defender of the soul’s immortality of which the heathen world can yet boast, very ingenuously confesses that, after all the arguments which he had adduced in order to confirm the doctrine in question, it so fell out that his mind was satisfied of it only when directly employed in contemplating the arguments adduced in its favor. At all other times he fell unconsciously into a state of doubt and darkness. It is notorious, also, that Socrates, the next most able advocate, among the heathen, of the same doctrine, has adduced arguments to establish the never-ceasing existence of the soul which will not bear the test of examination. If there be any satisfactory light, then, on the momentous question of a future state, it must be sought from the word of God.”
H. H. Dobney, Baptist minister, of England (Future Punishment, p. 107), says:--
“Reason cannot prove man to be immortal. We may devoutly enter the temple of nature, we may reverently tread her emerald floor, and gaze on her blue, ‘star-pictured ceiling,’ but to our anxious inquiry, though proposed with heart-breaking intensity, the oracle is dumb, or like those of Delphi and Dodona, mutters only an ambitious reply that leaves us in utter bewilderment.”
And what information have they been able to give us, who have either been ignorant of divine revelation, or, having the light, have turned their backs upon it? Listen to a little of what they have told us, which sufficiently indicates the character of the knowledge they possessed.
Socrates, when about to drink the fatal hemlock, said:--