- Introduction - To the American Reader
- Preface to the Fifth Edition
- Author's Preface
- CHAPTER 1. Future Punishment Is Eternal.
- CHAPTER 2. Eternal Death
- CHAPTER 3. Testimony Of The Old Testament.
- CHAPTER 4. Testimony Of The New Testament.
- CHAPTER 5. The Greek Of The New Testament.
- CHAPTER 6. The Primary Sense Of Terms Vindicated.
- CHAPTER 7. The Illustrations Of Scripture.
- CHAPTER 8. The Resurrection Of The Wicked.
- CHAPTER 9. The Divine Justice.
- CHAPTER 10. The Extinction Of Evil.
- CHAPTER 11. Examination Of Particular Texts.
- CHAPTER 12. Distinctions In Future Punishment.
- CHAPTER 13. Theories Of Punishment And Christian Missions.
- CHAPTER 14. Some Objections Answered.
- CHAPTER 15. The Apostolic Fathers. Clement Of Rome.
- CHAPTER 16. Justin Martyr.
- CHAPTER 17. Irenaeus, Martyr And Bishop Of Lyons.
- CHAPTER 18. Rise Of The Theory Of Eternal Life In Hell.
- CHAPTER 19. Tertullian.
- CHAPTER 20. Rise Of The Theory Of Universal Restoration Origen.
- CHAPTER 21. Conclusion.
The Duration And Nature Of Future Punishment
By HENRY CONSTABLE, A.M.
Prebendary of Cork
Fifth Edition - 1875
CHAPTER XII
Distinctions In Future Punishment
WHILE we see one universal result, death, to arise from future punishment, we are also told in Scripture of varying circumstances attendant on it, which are necessary to be considered, in order to enable us to form an adequate conception of its nature and variety.
2. Hell is not to all a sudden cessation of existence. There is life in that fearful prison, though it continues not for ever. This is shown by those numerous texts which speak of weeping and wailing, of regrets and anguish, on the part of the damned. As here life goes before death, and as here regrets and pains precede and produce death; so we find it to be, on the part of many, at least, in the scene of future doom. The children of the kingdom, cast into its outer darkness, gnash their teeth when they think of those who have come from east and west, and enjoy what they have lost. The unworthy guest at the marriage feast of Christ is in despair that he is not suffered to continue there. The despisers of the offers of redemption, be they Jews or Gentiles, behold their astounding folly, and marvel at its greatness. The unfaithful servant has time to bewail his want of fidelity, and the hypocrite to see that the part he has chosen is a bitter and a hard one, ere all—sooner or later—sink into that state where wonder and remorse and pain and shame are lulled in the unconscious sleep of the second death.1
3. And here we must remark that all the warnings of "weeping and gnashing of teeth" are addressed to the rejecters of proffered grace. Not one of them is addressed to such as the men of Sodom and Gomorrha, Nineveh and Babylon were in old times; to such as the men of Cabul and Bokhara, Teheran and Timbuctoo are at the present day. The same holds good, we believe, of every especial warning found in Scripture.
4. Now it is doubtless in these circumstances that we find room for that great distinction in guilt and consequent punishment which Scripture repeatedly insists on. Its cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida; its children of the kingdom; its refusers of an apostle's message; its hypocrites trading on a false profession; its men aware of their Master's will; are held up as exceeding in guilt the ignorant offender, the undesigning sinner, the rejecter of an unauthenticated messenger, the uncovenanted transgressor, the men of Tyre and Sidon.2 For the former are the many stripes: for the latter the few. Our theory affords ample room for that great distinction in punishment which God will hereafter make.
5. The circumstances of the first death show us plainly how this can be. This world is a world of death. All here are doomed to die, and all suffer death. In this there is no distinction. But in the circumstances of dying there is infinite variety. One man lives close upon a thousand years ere he yields to death: to another the first breath he breathes in the world is his last. Between Methuselah and the infant of a moment's life lies every variety of duration. Again, one dies as though he were going to rest in sleep; another is racked with pains, year after year, by day and by night, which make him curse the weary life that is so hardly parted from. Between these deaths lies every variety of comparative unconsciousness, uneasiness, weariness and anguish. A like distinction we are positively told will exist in the second death, and our theory affords for it perfect scope. To some, this death may be an instantaneous process, a momentary transition from one state to another, like the infant who opens his eyes on this world and then closes them for ever. Here may be the amount of conscious pain for the myriads upon myriads of young and old, who, in heathen and even in Christian countries, from the inevitable moral darkness with which their circumstances had surrounded them, scarce knew wrong from right. To others, the process of the second death may be more or less lengthened, until we arrive at the case of the greatest human offenders, or that more aggravated one of the angels who fell from heaven and drew weaker men along with them in their fall. Without presuming to say that such must be, or will be, the manner of God's dealing, we yet see how by our theory such a result may be arrived at: how, while stripes many and sore fall on some, on others they may fall so few and so light as scarcely to be felt at all.
6. It has doubtless been remarked from several expressions of ours that we hold that the ultimate fate of devils will be the same as that of the reprobate. We have no doubt that such is the case, and all Scripture tends to that end. They share in that judgment which awaits the ungodly. The everlasting fire which consumes the wicked is that which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. They themselves look forward to their being destroyed in hell. The pains which they dread are those which the ungodly will endure, and which result in death. The final extinction of evil to which God has pledged Himself in His Word compels us to hold their destruction. 3 Nor can one single reason be advanced why God should not do this. And we have thus in Scripture a far more satisfactory and reasonable view of the state of final retribution than is afforded us by popular theology or poetic imagination. Devils are not the tyrants of hell. Devils do not exercise there an endless power over the victims of their fraud. This were poor retributive justice on God's part. They are only punished in hell with a severity proportioned to their guilt. With fearful reason they look forward to it, not as a scene of fearful triumph, but of unmitigated woe. They see, in all probability, the world whom they had seduced from God—the greater part of it speedily, all of it at one time or other—reduced to the original unfeeling elements of their being, while their stronger nature retains that vigorous life which makes it but the more susceptible of pain. The last being that retains the misery of existence may be that arch-fiend, Satan, the leader in heaven's rebellion, the prime-mover in earth's falling away. When the last race of man has long ceased to feel; when his fellow angels have, one by one, been reduced to the state of death; he may still survive, longing for the time when he too shall lay aside a life which is only one of pain.
7. The view here advocated derives powerful confirmation from its being in complete analogy with nature, i.e. with God's ordinary working. While those who seek God find Him, and in finding Him find life, and through His gracious plan of redemption are advanced in place and glory, we also find, with regard to others, lives innumerable lost, and in the ease of angels an entire race blotted out of life. God and nature are not here at strife. 4 We find in nature that death and destruction are God's usual agents in removing from their place things animate and inanimate as soon as they cease to discharge the part for which they were intended. Throughout the wide domain of nature the law of death is in ceaseless operation. Of fifty seeds but one may bear fruit. Of the lower animals, death after life is the universal law. Whole races of' living things have long ceased to exist.
"From scarped cliff: no quarried stone,
She cries, a thousand lives are gone."
In our view, God does but apply to higher races for their sin that which He has applied to lower races who knew no sin. The grand distinction between them and us is, that we may see and know God who is life and the source of all human life. If we turn from Him, we turn from life. We deny and renounce our real distinction, and are treated as that which we have made ourselves to become. Mere life is not precious in God's sight. If He scatters it with a prodigal hand, He withdraws it with a hand that is just as free. In the myriads of human beings reduced in hell to death, in the extinction of the fallen angels, we do but find a particular application of a great natural law. Lower creatures know not God, and fade away out of life. Higher intelligences knew Him, turned from Him, made themselves like beasts, and like beasts are treated. Hell will add its fossil remains to those of the quarries of the earth.
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Footnotes
1. * Matt. 8:12, 22:13, 24:51; Luke 13:48; Acts 13:41.
2. † Matt 11:22, 8:12, 10:15; Luke 20:47, 12:48; John 9:41.
3. * 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude, 6; Matt. 25:41; Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34.
4. * TENNYSON, In Memoriam, liv.
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