Eternal perdition

“ Through thorns and snares our way we take,
And yet we mourn the blest!
For those who throng the eternal Throne
Lost are the tears we shed,—
They are the living,—they alone
Whom thus we call the dead. ”

“ All my nature—my intellect, my heart, my will, answer 'Yes.' But if a God died, and must die—cruelly, hideously, at the hands of His creatures—to satisfy eternal justice, what must that sin be that demands the Crucifixion? Of what revolt, what ruin is not the body capable? ”

“ Die, die, die, die, death comes to all." Destruction faces us wherever we turn. Destruction below and above, destruction behind and before. Change is the only Eternal,—why not as welcome Death as Life? ”

“ They live as if they thought never to die, and die as though they were never to live again. What grief and terror will overwhelm them on the day when the graves open and the dead come forth to receive the crown of glory or the sentence of eternal condemnation. ”

“ Is death to hold that prey? Is the grave to retain in gloomy custody that immaculate frame? Is the living temple to lie there an inglorious ruin, like other crumbling wrecks of mortality? The question of our eternal life or eternal death was suspended on the reply! If death succeeds in chaining down the illustrious Victim, our hopes of everlasting life are gone for ever. In vain can these dreary portals be ever again unbarred for the children of fallen humanity. He has gone there as their surety-Saviour. ”

“ But on the other hand, if we suffer our minds to linger here with fond attachment to the things of earth, we shall be lifted up by its joys, and thrown down by its sorrows; and when we are called to die, having devoted all our attention to the things of time, the soul will be forced away into eternity, with a weight of unrepented sins that must inevitably sink it into endless perdition. ”

“ If thou winnest, then heaven, yea, life eternal is thine; and if thou losest, then thy loss is heaven; besides, thou procurest eternal death, with the everlasting damnation of thy own soul. (2.) Death and damnation follow after thee' as hard as they can drive, and therefore, for the Lord's sake make haste. ”

“ Suppose you were now in ignorance respecting the doctrine of life and immortality through a resurrection. You know you must die, and sincerely think that death will terminate your existence forever. You see your children one after another laid upon their dying bed, and with distraction shake the farewell hand of eternal separation, and with the most solemn melancholy and wo, look forward to the period when you must follow them down to the chambers of eternal silence, and cease to be. ”

“ It buries our bodies, burns the present world, triumphs over death by a general resurrection, and opens all into an eternal state.
It never considers us in any other respect than as fallen spirits, it disregards worldly distinctions, and proposes nothing to our fears but eternal misery, nothing to our hopes but an endless enjoyment of God. ”

“ We ought, with our whole mind, despise the present world, especially since we see it already [pg 623] passing away. We ought to immolate to God the daily sacrifice of our tears, the daily offerings of His flesh and blood. For this offering peculiarly preserves the soul from eternal death, and it renews to us in a mystery the death of the Only begotten, who, although being risen from the dead, dieth no more, and death hath no more dominion over Him (Rom. 6:9) ; yet, while in Himself He liveth immortal and incorruptible, for us He is immolated again in this mystery of the sacred oblation. ”

“ Those whose names are not written in the book of life are condemned, body and soul, to eternal torments which is the second death. Hence death and hell (the wicked) are cast into the pool of fire to be tormented for ever with the beast and his prophet. ”

“ I have sworn that nothing should come between us—nothing, be it mortal or immortal—honor or dishonor—death or perdition. And now I swear—here on the brink of death, where a false step or unguarded movement is utter ruin—that if follies and fancies are to sunder us again, if there is no hope for us together here, then the only thing left is a sudden death for both. ”

“ Some wander at such an awful distance, that the voice of mercy which once came home to them with power, now, dies away in whispers upon their obdurate hearts. They wander, until they "stumble" at last "upon the dark mountains," and plunge headlong, into the whirlpool of endless perdition. ”

“ How else could there be everlasting torment for those sinners cast down by God into the Pit on the Last Day to burn for ever and for ever through all eternity? Oh, my friends, your minds are small—too small to grasp eternity. ”

“ If you were dying—and die you must—you would rather have the bright visions of immortality and eternal life flitting before your imagination, than die as infidels generally do, in dread uncertainty, or in the agony of self-reproach for neglecting the great salvation. ”

“ Hence, the whole world still groans under the sad effects of the original transgression. Sorrow, mourning, and death, still prevail—the aged, middle-aged, and infant still feel the force of these evils—all are made partakers in a greater or less degree of the wretchedness and miseries of the fall—none escape—none can proclaim themselves immortal, or free from these direful effects. ”

“ Resurrection, will be no privilege to them, but immortality itself their everlasting curse--Would they not bless the grave, that land! where all things are forgotten, and wish to lie eternally hid in its deepest gloom ”

“ Wherefore I deem this last to be the ruin and destruction not only of the body, but of the soul and reputation, by which we become in a certain sense immortal. But to die speaking and acting in your behalf I regard as equivalent to immortality. ”

“ If the horrible burden and plague of all men, death, still presses on me, from which I am not secure for one instant, but go in fear of it, of hell and the wrath of God, and tremble and shiver at the prospect, and this without any hope of its coming to an end, but continuing for all eternity? ”

“ That when it stands as a demigod in the midst of the ruins of the temple of the body, the blow of death may prostrate it forever, that nothing shall remain from the corpse-veiled, the mourning and mantled immeasurable universe, but the eternally sowing, never harvesting, solitary spirit of the world! One eternity looking despairingly at the other; and in the whole spiritual universe no end, no aim! ”

“ Die, days, and rot like aged men,
Nights, vanish like a gamester’s vow!
Hope, on in front, seeks out the way,
Doubt stays behind and scoffs at all,
Trust walks with calm all through the day,
Faith brightly shines through night’s deep pall.
Life in the ever present hour,
Art in the prison of life’s pain,
Love in the torture of its power;
Death shares with sleep what joy should gain.
{67} ABSENCE
There is no anguish like the mourning heart,
That mourns for its lost love and mourns in vain;
That is the anguish which defies all pain—
Torture at which Prometheus’ soul would start! ”

“ And what is death but release? We who have seen our faith insulted, our gods denied, our dreams shattered—what is death to us? Each one of us has his own bitter wrong. Let him avenge it under my banner. ”

“ Immortal powers, that ought to have been ennobled and consecrated to His service, alienated, degraded, destroyed!—immortal beings spurning from them the day of grace and the hopes of heaven! Bitter as may have been the wail of mourning and sorrowing hearts that may then have reached His ear from future ages, more agonising and dismal far must have been the wailing cry which, beyond the limits of time, came floating up from a dark and dreary eternity; those who might have believed and lived, but who blasphemed or trifled, neglected and procrastinated, and finally perished! ”

“ Thy ransom paid, which Man from death redeems,
His death for Man, as many as offered life
Neglect not, and the benefit embrace
By faith not void of works: This God-like act
Annuls thy doom, the death thou shouldest have died,
In sin for ever lost from life; this act
Shall bruise the head of Satan, crush his strength,
Defeating Sin and Death, his two main arms;
And fix far deeper in his head their stings
Than temporal death shall bruise the victor’s heel,
Or theirs whom he redeems; a death, like sleep,
A gentle wafting to immortal life. ”

“ Yet a few struggles, yet the throat-rattle, and the leaden hand of death choked the wounded man's last sigh, imprinted on his brow the seal of the last grief; gathering whole years of repentance into one rapid moment, in which the soul, tearing itself from the body, fears equally the tortures of life and of nothingness, feels at once all the gnawing of the past and all the agony of the future. ”

“ One plunge, one struggle with mortality, and the world, with its petty, though maddening miseries, is lost forever. Oh, if it be a sin for the soul to resume its immortality, yet surely it were better thus to die, having some hope of forgiveness, than starving, die. ”

“ O grave, where is thy victory?' For then the power of death is utterly annulled and destroyed, no longer working in us, but for the future there is given unto men immortality and incorruption for evermore. ”

“ It had lived and died, even as human beings die, as everything dies. If he knelt, cried, prayed that it come to life again—if he threatened, gnashed his teeth—the enormous emptiness would have remained silent, for it will never give up that which has fallen into its hands. Did ever tears or sobs bring a dead man back to life? There is no forgiveness, no mercy, no return—such is the law of cruel death. ”

“ How canst thou hold from weeping floods of tears?
Yea, tears of blood, I might almost have said,
If such-like tears could from thine eyes be shed.
To gain the world what will it profit thee,
And lose thy soul and self eternally?
Eternity on one small point dependeth;
The man is lost that this short life misspendeth.
For as the Tree doth fall, right so it lies,
And man continues in what state he dies.
Who happy die shall happy rise again;
Who curséd die shall curséd still remain.
If under Sin and Wrath Death leaves thee bound,
At Judgment under Wrath thou shalt be found ”

“ When the stunned soul can first lift tired eyes On her changed world of ruin, waste and wrack, Ah, what a pang of aching sharp surprise Brings all sweet memories of the lost past back, With wild self-pitying grief of one betrayed, Duped in a land of dreams where Truth is dead! ”

“ It was but breath Of life that sinned; what dies but what had life And sin? The body properly had neither, All of me then shall die: let this appease The doubt, since human reach no further knows. For though the Lord of all be infinite, Is his wrath also? Be it, Man is not so, But mortal doomed. How can he exercise Wrath without end on Man, whom death must end? Can he make deathless death? ”

“ In Time we wear our fetters, and heavy though they be, and painfully riveted on, seldom do we welcome Death coming to strike them off—but groan at sight of the executioner. In eternity we believe that all is spiritual—and in that belief, which doubt sometimes shakes but to prove that its foundation lies rooted far down below all earthquakes, endurable is the sound of dust to dust. ”

“ But, my friends, Death never comes to those who wickedly seek him. The Lord withholds destruction from the hands that are madly outstretched to grasp it, and forces His pity and forgiveness on the unwilling soul. ”

“ An eternity of endless agony, of endless bodily and spiritual torment, without one ray of hope, without one moment of cessation, of agony limitless in intensity, of torment infinitely varied, of torture that sustains eternally that which it eternally devours, of anguish that everlastingly preys upon the spirit while it racks the flesh, an eternity, every instant of which is itself an eternity of woe. Such is the terrible punishment decreed for those who die in mortal sin by an almighty and a just God. ”

“ Saints have conquered death's destruction,
Shewed Thy path to gods and men!
Whoso seeks Thee not in worship,
Shunned by dearest kith and kin,
Lives a life of vain illusion,
Dies a death of woe and sin ”

“ But the gate of life immortal.' Death as it has borne upon sinful man has been the sad ending of hopes, the rending of his heart-strings, the collapse of his plans, the overshadowing fear, the horrible gulf, the black destruction. ”

“ Part I. — In vain do we repel the image of death: every day brings it nearer. Youth glides away; years hurry on; and, like water, says the scripture, spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, we rapidly course toward the abyss of eternity, where, for ever swallowed up, we can never return upon our steps to appear once more upon the earth. ”

“ Whilst the angel of the last hour was employed on fields of battle steeped in blood and tears, gathering souls trembling on the brink of life, his compassionate eye melted in sorrow, and he said, "I will for once die like a human being, and experience the last pang, that I may learn to mitigate it, when I release an immortal spirit from the bonds of life. ”

“ After long and patient waiting the heavens did not open, no clarion voice trumpeted the dead from their graves or welcomed saints into paradise; the sordid, sin-stained earth remained their polluted dwelling-place. The illusion of the millennium faded away and disappointment frosted their early hopes, yet bravely they held on and died in the faith. ”

“ Is it nothing to such a sufferer to believe that, after a few more months or years of agonizing and torturous endurance, the dark night of her mourning will pass away in the dawn of the bright and serene morning of immortality, whose sun will rise without a cloud, never to go down or pass under a momentary eclipse? ”