A more cutting and solemn piece of irony than is
contained in this passage, is, perhaps, not to be found, either in or out of
the sacred volume. The wise man, in the first part of the verse, assumes the
character of a mirthful and thoughtless libertine; and in the true
spirit of a libertine, counsels the youth whom he is addressing, to give
himself up to an unrestrained course of amusement and dissipation. He bids
him abandon all serious thoughts of God, and eternity, and true religion. He
welcomes him to the joys of an irreligious and profligate life; and gives
him all the liberty which any sensualist could desire.
Having so far represented the wicked seducer and
destroyer of the young, he suddenly lays aside his assumed character, and
with all the solemnity of a preacher from the world of spirits, closes the
verse, in a style of the most impressive admonition. The same young person,
whom he had just before pointed into the path of forbidden pleasure, he now
points to the final judgment; and alludes, with solemn emphasis, to that
tremendous reckoning, which must follow such a life as he had recommended.
"Be happy, young man, while you are young, and let your heart give you joy
in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your
eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you to
judgment."
Our subject, at once, lays itself before you. In the
first part of the text, there is the ironic invitation to partake of
sinful pleasure: in the latter part, the solemn admonition to
remember the judgment. Let us endeavor, so far as we can, to enter into the
spirit of both parts of the passage.
contained in the closing part of the text. "But know that for all these
things, God will bring you into judgment." What an awful contrast is here
presented to the language of the libertine, to which we have just been
attending!
Reflect on the certainty of your being brought
into judgment. "Know!" says the wise man; that is, "be assured that the fact
of which I speak, shall take place, without the possibility of failure." God
has not left himself without witness on this subject, either in the
constitution of our nature, or in the dispensations of his providence. The
doctrine of a future judgment is written more or less legibly on the
conscience of every man; else, how will you account for that painful
restlessness which attends the remembrance of crimes long since committed,
and the record of which is kept only in the perpetrator's own bosom?
Moreover, the unequal distribution of rewards and punishments in the present
life, in connection with the immutable justice of God—seems to constitute a
ground of necessity for a future retribution; for in what other way shall
the divine character be vindicated from the charge of partiality? But if
reason has not spoken with sufficient distinctness on this subject, you
cannot say that of the lively oracles; for here the doctrine stands written
with God's own finger in letters of light. The text is decisive on this
subject—"For all these things, God will bring you into judgment." And
again: "God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret
thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." And again: "We must
all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive
the things done in his body, according to that he has done, whether it be
good or bad."
The evidence that you are to be brought into judgment,
then, is complete. Whether you take counsel of reason, or hold communion
with conscience, or open the volume of God's truth, this evidence glares
upon you. Forget it you may; trifle with it you may; but the solemn fact you
cannot change. I charge you then to remember, wherever you go, or whatever
you do—that there is a tremendous reckoning before you. Go, if you dare,
into the haunts of irreligious mirth, and hear God's name profaned, and join
in heaping scandal upon the cross; go and hear the scoffer ask, "Where is
the promise of his coming?" and let your heart overflow with sensual joy.
But remember that other scenes await you; remember that it has gone out of
the mouth of Him who is "the same yesterday, today, and forever"—that you
are yet to be brought into judgment!
Contemplate the purpose for which you are to be
brought into judgment—"For all these things," says the wise man; that
is, the things specified in the preceding part of the verse—giving yourself
up to a life of vanity and pleasure. You will be brought into judgment for
the waste of your time; for every hour and moment which shall have been
devoted to other purposes than those for which your time was given you. You
will be brought into judgment for all your profane and idle discourse, which
was fitted at once to affront your Maker, and to pollute your own mind, and
close it against serious reflection. You will be brought into judgment for
every scene of vain amusement; for every meeting for sensual excess; for
every effort to stifle conscience and forget God. You will be brought into
judgment for all that you have done in corrupting others; for the deadly
poison which has distilled from your lips, and from your example, operating
like the blast of death, wherever it has been communicated; for that fearful
amount of sin and wretchedness which will have resulted from the
accumulating influence of your life on many successive generations. In a
word, for all that belongs to a life of pleasure, whether it respect action
or enjoyment, its more immediate or more remote influences—you will be
brought into judgment.
How differently will a life of sinful pleasure appear to
you, when you come to view it in the light of the judgment, from what it
does now, while your heart cheers you in the days of your youth! What you
here plead for as innocent—will then be seen to have involved crimson guilt.
What you here regard as fraught with no danger—will there be felt to have
contained the elements of a heavy curse. What you here treat with levity as
though it were a dream or a fable—will there gather all the importance that
belongs to an appalling reality. How will your heart sicken, and your spirit
die within you, when the light of eternity reveals your mistake in respect
to the object of the present life! With what emotions will you realize
that the period which you have spent in trifling—was the only period given
you to escape hell and to obtain heaven!
Consider, farther, by WHOM you are to be brought
into judgment. The text asserts that "God will bring you into
judgment"—God, from whom came all the blessings which you have perverted to
purposes of sinful pleasure; and against whom every sin that you have
committed, has been an act of rebellion—God, whose heart-searching eye has
always been intent upon you, noticing the birth, and progress, and
accomplishment of every sinful purpose; who has been with you when you
supposed yourself alone; and who has kept an exact record of all that you
have thought, and spoken, and done—from the first moment of your
existence—God, who, though long-suffering and gracious, is yet just and
holy, and will by no means clear the guilty; who has all the means of
punishment in the universe at his command, and can execute with infinite
ease the penalty which his righteous authority ordains. And is this the
great and dreadful Being, who is to bring you into judgment? Say, whether it
will not be a fearful thing to fall into the hands of such a Judge?
Were your final retribution to be decided by a mere man,
or a mere creature, you might suppose it possible that you should escape the
woes which hang over your eternal destiny. You might hope something from his
limited knowledge. Possibly he might not be acquainted with all your
transgressions in all their aggravating circumstances; or he might form too
low an estimate of the punishment which you deserve on account of them. Or
you might hope something from his limited power. You might imagine that by
some combination of energy or influence which could be formed, you might
either resist the mandate which should summon you to judgment, or prevent
the execution of the final sentence. Or you might presume upon the triumph
of mercy over justice. You might hope that some appeal could be made to the
heart of the Judge, which should lead him at least to abate the severity of
your doom; even though such mitigation should tarnish his character, and
weaken his government.
But surely you can form no such imaginations in respect
to the infinite God! You cannot hope to evade the scrutiny of his eye, or to
resist the might of his arm, or to awaken a blind and indiscriminate
compassion in his heart. What though you may be courageous on every other
occasion, yet can your heart endure, or your hands be strong—when you shall
stand before the throne of Almighty power, beneath the searching look of
Omniscience, to receive a just recompense for a life wasted in sinful
pleasure?
Meditate on the time of your being brought into
judgment. It would seem that the day of judgment, appropriately so
called—the day which is to make a full revelation of the secrets of every
heart, and to pour the light of a complete vindication over the character of
God—is yet comparatively distant. There are purposes to be accomplished in
the scheme of providence, preparatory to that grand occasion, which may
require the lapse of ages. Nevertheless, there is an important sense in
which it may be said that the judgment is near. The world into which the
soul passes at death, is a world of retribution. Whatever means God intends
ever to employ to bring the sinner to repentance, have been employed
previous to that period: the first gleam of light from the eternal world
reveals to the soul its destiny, which, though not yet published to the
universe, is fixed by a decree which the whole creation could not change;
and whatever the soul experiences, whether of joy or of woe, subsequently to
that period, belongs to its everlasting retribution.
Dream not, then, my young friend, that the period of your
being brought into judgment is remote. Will you presume upon youth as a
security against it? So did that young man, who, the other day, was hurried
into eternity, in the fullness of youthful vigor, and the bloom of youthful
hope! Will you presume upon health as a security against it? Go, then, and
read a lesson from yonder tombstone; and there you will find that a
protracted sickness, and a lingering death-scene, are not the necessary
accompaniments of dissolution. You will find that death may overtake you,
while your hands are strung with vigor; and that your passage through the
dark valley of death, may be the passage of a moment.
Or do you presume on promising worldly prospects? I could
point you to many a father who would tell you weeping, that he once had a
son whose prospects were, in every respect, as bright as yours; but that
death had marked him as his victim, and he had sunk into an early grave.
Where, then, I ask, is your security against being
early brought into judgment? When you go into a scene of amusement, how do
you know, but that the summons may meet you there? When you mingle in the
midnight revel, can you be certain that you are not passing the last hour of
your probation? When you lay your head upon your pillow, without lifting
your heart to God—who has given you the assurance that that is not
the night in which your soul is to be required of you; that a voice from
eternity may not break upon your ear amidst the stillness of midnight,
calling you to judgment? But be it so that you should fill up seventy
years—it would still remain true that you are on the threshold of the
judgment. That period—long as it may now seem to you—is but as a
hand's-breadth; while you are dreaming of its continuance, it will be spent,
and your spirit will be rushing forth to meet its God.
And is it so, that the judgment is not only a reality—but
that its amazing scenes are so soon to burst upon you? Tell me, then, O
immortal soul, what account you are prepared to render of that wasted,
perverted life, when you enter the invisible world, and stand before the
dread tribunal?
Contemplate, moreover, the circumstances of your
being brought into judgment. If you consider this expression as referring to
the removal of the soul by death to a state of retribution, then the
circumstances of this event must, in a great measure, remain concealed,
until they are disclosed to you in experience. In respect to some of them,
however, you may form at least a probable opinion. By the power of a burning
fever, or the gradual inroads of some mysterious form of disease, you may
expect before long to be laid upon the bed of death. It may be that, in that
awful hour, you may be given up to delirium or insensibility, and may close
your eyes upon the objects of sense without knowing where you are, or
through what scenes you are passing. Or it may be that your rational powers
will be active and bright, so that you will be conscious of all that happens
to you in your passage through the dark valley. You may see around you
beloved friends, who will alternately fasten upon you a look of mingled
affection and agony, and turn away to smother the sobs which rise from a
bursting heart. You may be sensible that the cold damps of death are already
hanging upon your countenance; that the vital current is performing its last
passage through your heart; that you are undergoing the convulsive struggle
which is to dislodge the spirit from its clayey tabernacle.
And supposing that your life has been devoted to sinful
pleasure, how probable is it that conscience will pour its accusations into
your ears, and tell you of an offended Judge, and of coming wrath, and of
interminable woe! How probable that the ghosts of wasted hours, and days,
and years, will come up in frightful succession before you, as ministers of
wrath, when you need so much to be attended by angels of consolation! Amidst
some such assemblage of gloomy circumstances as I have now supposed, you may
expect that your spirit will take its flight for the eternal world. And
while your body is dressing for the grave, that spirit will be mingling in
scenes of new and awful interest; and though it will have done with the
agony attendant on the dissolution of the body, it will be convulsed by an
agony far more dreadful—the beginning of a never-dying death! Oh what a
moment will that be, when you shall first know by experience—the misery of
the lost!
But if you consider the text as referring immediately to
the great day of final decision; the circumstances which will attend your
being brought into judgment, will be of a far different character from those
which we have just described; and while, in the former case, we learn them
principally from observation, in the latter, we derive our knowledge solely
from the oracles of God. At the hour next previous to that in which the
immediate preparation for the judgment shall commence, your body, dissolved
into its original elements, will be slumbering with its kindred dust; and
your spirit will be mingling with other lost spirits in the region of
despair. Suddenly the skies will send forth a sound—it will be a blast of
the trumpet of God, which will echo from one end of the earth to the other,
bursting open the doors of every sepulcher, breaking up the slumbers of all
their inhabitants, and re-collecting from the earth, the ocean, the air—the
scattered dust of every child of Adam that shall have died since the
creation. The union between body and spirit is restored—the same body that
was laid in the dust, rises up to meet the same spirit which had animated
it. The Judge descends from heaven, in the glory of his Father, and with all
his holy angels; and around his throne are assembled all nations, and
kindreds, and tongues, and people.
The righteous are placed in open, distinguished honor, at
his right hand; the wicked, as a public proof of his indignation against
their character, are summoned to the left. In this latter class—you, who
have been devoted to sinful pleasure, will be found. There you will be
obliged to contemplate the picture of your life, drawn only in black,
without one bright stroke to relieve the eye from a uniform and sickening
gloom. There you will be obliged, with all others who have been "lovers of
pleasure more than lovers of God," to hear the appalling sentence, "Depart,
you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels!"
Oh, when that piercing sound shall enter into your ear—will it not rend your
heart with agony, and open your lips in wailing? For "who can stand before
his indignation? And who can abide in the fierceness of his anger?"
Meditate, finally, on the consequences of
your being brought into judgment. The consequence of your being summoned by
death into a world of retribution—will be an entire separation from all the
objects of sense, from all the means of grace, from all the hopes of
salvation. You will remember, indeed, how you once mingled in scenes of
unhallowed mirth and revelry; but with the remembrance of these scenes will
be associated the reflection that they have gone by forever; while the
effect of them remains to be felt in an interminable scene of anguish. You
will think of sabbaths given you to prepare for heaven—but perverted to
purposes of mere amusement: of invitations and warnings a thousand times
pressed upon you—but as often treated with indifference or contempt; of
friends who had come with the tenderest concern to speak to you of the
things that belonged to your peace—but who returned to their closets
mourning that they could gain no access to your heart. But you will be
obliged also to reflect that there are no more sabbaths for you; that the
last invitation of mercy, the last warning to repent, has died away upon
your ear; that no Christian friend can come where you are, to unburden a
full heart in prayers, and tears, and expostulations, for the salvation of
your soul.
You may remember too, how, in all your mad pursuit of
pleasure, you still clung to the hope of future repentance: but the delusion
is broken up; even the atoning blood of Jesus can now no longer reach you.
And while you are an exile from all the good, real or imaginary, which you
once enjoyed—you will be subject to the corrosion of a guilty conscience,
will be a companion of fiends and reprobates, and as you look forward into
eternity, will see one woe rising after another, like the billows of the
ocean, in a train that will never end!
The consequence of your being brought before the last
tribunal, and of receiving a formal and final sentence from the lips of the
Judge—will be still more tremendous. At the close of this dreadful
transaction, you will behold, with a bewildered look of agony, all above,
beneath, around—vaulted with the funereal fires of this great world! And
when amidst this final wreck of nature, you look out for a refuge from the
fiery storm, no refuge in the universe will be open for you, except that
dungeon of woe, in which the wrath of God is to have its perpetual
operation. Into that prison of the universe, that grave of lost but living
souls, you will immediately enter; and there, in the hopelessness of
unavailing anguish—there, amidst the curses and wailings of the lost—there,
where the eye can fasten upon no object upon which the wrath of God has not
fastened before it—you must run the dreary round of everlasting ages!
The sentence was, "Depart, you cursed, into
everlasting fire." And is it so, that this prison is built for
eternity—that these flames are kindled for eternity—that these bolts, and
bars, and chains, bespeak an eternal residence in these vaults of despair?
Will not some messenger come hither from yonder blissful regions, though it
be ten thousand millions of ages hence—to tell you that this long night of
suffering will yet be succeeded by a morning of peace and joy? No, sinner!
There are no such tidings in store for you! You were sentenced there for a
period as unlimited as the duration of God; and your sentence is
irreversible!
I inquire now of the conscience of every youth present,
who is devoted to sinful pleasure, whether these meditations upon the
judgment, do not throw an aspect of terror over the course which he is
pursuing; and whether he dare persist any longer in a course which must so
certainly lead to such a dreadful result? If this life of vanity and
pleasure had no connection with eternity—or if it were itself to be eternal,
however pitiful a portion you might find in it—we might consent, with less
reluctance, to leave you to your wretched choice. But connected as it is
with a course of illimitable and unutterable suffering—do not wonder that we
call upon you with pressing importunity to abandon it!
Do you ask whether you must abandon all the amusements of
the world? I answer—Abandon all upon which you dare not ask the blessing of
God—all which crowd out of your thoughts the realities of eternity—all which
you are unwilling to think of in connection with the prospect of dying—all
for which you would dread that God should bring you into judgment. Do you
ask, again, what those amusements are in which you may safely indulge, while
you are yet unreconciled to God? I reply—by asking what amusement you would
choose if you were just ready to be enveloped in the flames of a burning
house; or if you were under sentence of death, and had but one hour more,
before you should ascend the scaffold? Do you spurn at the suggestion of
trifling in circumstances like these? Then say not that we are superstitious
when we tell you that you have no time to waste in amusement, while yet your
whole work for eternity is before you, and for anything you can tell, each
passing hour may be your last!
Do you plead for a single indulgence? Do you say, let me
go into one more scene of vain recreation, and cheer my heart once more in
these days of my youth, and then I will abandon the vanities of the world
forever? My young friend, the very resolution is a cheat: but even if it
were not, who has told you that that one scene of recreation may not occupy
the whole period given you to prepare for eternity; and that you are not
subjected to the alternative of turning your back upon it, or of certainly
losing heaven? Is it rational—rather is it not the height of madness—to
waste a single moment, while you are suspended between an eternal heaven and
an eternal hell?
I leave this solemn subject, beloved youth, with your
consciences. I entreat you to make a serious and practical application of
it. I pray the God of all grace to bring it seasonably to your remembrance,
and give it its legitimate influence over your feelings and conduct. But if
all which has been said shall appear to you as an idle tale; if, after
having been warned of the solemnities of the judgment, you are prepared to
rush back to a course of sinful pleasure—then I must leave you with the same
awful irony, and the same solemn admonition, with which I began this
discourse. "Be happy, young man, while you are young, and let your heart
give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and
whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring
you to judgment."