CHAPTER XLVIII.

ETERNAL JUDGMENT AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. THERE ARE BUT TWO PLACES AND STATES IN THE INVISIBLE WORLD, NAMELY, HEAVEN FOR BELIEVERS,

AND HELL FOR UNBELIEVERS.

Born in Sin, all are Children of Wrath, and Must be Born Again, in order to Enter God's Kingdom.-No Intervening "Purgatory" for the Purification of Imperfect Believers.-Deliverance through the Mediation and Grace of Christ, who Rendered Satisfaction to Divine Justice for the Sins of the World.-Value of the Church's Sacramental Offices, Creeds, Liturgies, Songs, etc.-The Bible the Source and Authority relied upon for Doctrinal Light and Truth.-Christ's Prophetic Revelation of the Last Judgment no Word-Picture or Poetic Description.-The Scriptural "Death of the Soul" is its State of Alienation from God.—Punishment, whether in the Constitution of Human or Divine Assizes, not Remedial or "Reformatory,” consequently there is no Restoration from Hell.-The Closing Act in the World's Tragic History, as Portrayed by Christ Himself, Declares the Irreversible and Endless Doom of Some, and there the Curtain Falls.-A New Enthusiasm, the "Enthusiasm of Rescue," Needed in the Church, emphasizing the Fact that Perdition is as Real as Salvation.

By Rev. WILLIAM J. R. TAYLOR, D.D., Pastor of Clinton Avenue Reformed Church, Newark, N. J.

"It is not to be denied that our age enters with an earnestness and intensity, such as no earlier one has done, into the eschatological examination, and presses forward in the complete development of this doctrine-one sign amongst many that we are hastening towards the great decision.”—Dr. Christian Frederick Kling.

THESE words of an eminent German scholar of our own generation indicate the present significance of the subject of this discussion. Its prominence is not due merely to the controversial habit, nor to the denials of opposers and the liberalism of the times; but, on the contrary, it has been forced to the front by the spirit of the age, and by its relation to personal conduct, public morals, social order, and the physical and moral government of God among the nations. The enormous wrongs, the ruin of character, the insurrec

tionary and destructive tendencies and outbreaks of lawless men, the atheism and anarchism of the period, compel modern thought towards questions of eternal judgment and eternal rewards and punishments. "Things not seen and eternal" break in upon "things seen and temporal," in proportion to the hasting on of the world's closing scenes.

In compliance with the request for the present contribution, and with the specific purposes of this book, it is the design of the writer to state clearly and briefly the teachings of the theological standards of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America, as to "retribution after death," and to illustrate these ancient deliverances as applied to present phases of the doctrine.

The reformers of the sixteenth century gave slight attention to this subject, because they regarded it as a settled belief; and it is as inseparable as the warp and the woof in the texture of their theology. Accordingly, as Dr. Schaff has briefly stated it, "The Reformed (as well as all other Protestant) symbols recognize but two places and states in the invisible world-heaven for believers, and hell for unbelievers, with different degrees of bliss and misery, according to the degrees of holiness and wickedness. They unanimously reject the medieval fiction of an intervening purgatory for imperfect believers, with its gross superstitions and abuses. The doctrine of the middle state of all departed spirits between death and resurrection, which is distinct from the question of purgatory, was left unsettled, and is to this day a matter of theological speculation rather than positive doctrine. It is characteristic that the Scriptural distinction between sheol or hades, and gehenna or hell, is obliterated in the Lutheran, the English, and other Protestant versions" (Harmony of the Reformed Confessions, pp. 30, 31).

The theological symbols of the Reformed Church in America leave no doubt of its position in relation to the reality, the nature, and the duration of the future punishment of the wicked. It is taught as one of the fundamental doctrines of the entire system of

redemption, and in perfect harmony with every other doctrine held by this branch of the family of the Reformed churches. We quote a few characteristic declarations.

1. The Heidelbergh Catechism (A. D. 1562) under the first head, "Of the Misery of Man," says :—

"Question 10. Will God then suffer such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished? A. By no means; but is terribly displeased with our original as well as actual sins: and will punish them in his just judgment, temporally and eternally, as he hath declared: 'Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.'

"Question 11. Is not God then also merciful? A. God is indeed merciful; but also just therefore his justice requires that sin, which is committed against the most high majesty of God, be also punished with extreme, that is everlasting, punishment, both of body and soul."

Under the second head, "Of Man's Deliverance," this basal fact and doctrine underlies all that is said of his salvation through the mediation of Jesus Christ, e. g. :

"Question 14. Can there be found anywhere one who is a mere creature able to satisfy for us? A. None: for, first, God will not punish any other creature for the sin which man hath committed; and, further, no mere creature can sustain the burden of God's eternal wrath against sin, so as to deliver others from it."

The same line of testimony runs through all the teachings of this venerable Christian Instructor, in relation to the Mediator and his qualifications; and the nature and object of his sufferings, "that he might redeem us from everlasting damnation, and obtain for us. the favor of God, righteousness, and eternal life" (Ques. 37).

So of the last judgment, and this is quoted as showing both sides of the question of the great assizes:

"Question 52. What comfort is it to thee that Christ shall come again to judge the quick and the dead'? A. That in all my sorrows and persecutions, with uplifted head, I look for the very same