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TOPIC: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Chapt 36 Hell
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“This doctrine is indeed awful and dreadful yet ’tis of God.”
In 1962 Clarence H. Faust wrote: “It is true that Edwards was much more than a sensational preacher of hell-fire sermons, but no fully rounded picture of the man can disregard that aspect of his work.” *1* It is evident that the present revival of interest in the “puritan sage” has not denied this aspect of Edwards but neither Faust nor the contemporary concern has done justice to Edwards’ emphasis on this theme.
Our age will not stand as much of hell as his own, and even it complained. Edwards wore himself out as he had said that Stoddard had done before him. In a 1747 sermon he laments:
And indeed when I went about preparing this discourse it was with considerable discouragement. I thought it was now some time since I had offered any discourse of this nature. But so many had been offered with so little apparent effect that I thought with myself I know not what to say further.
But however because I must warn you from God whether you will hear or whether you will forbear I have warned you again. It has now been told once more, whether you will yield to the power of God’s Word, to the force of the awful warnings and threatenings which the Word of God sets before you [or not]. If you will not hear now you may possibly solemnly lay these things to heart when you come to die. And if you continue in your stupidity to the last, being given up of God to a dreadful degree of hardness that is beyond the alarm of approaching death, which is the case with some, yet as soon as ever you are dead you will be fully sensible of all. *2*
Consider also this lament from an earlier sermon. There Edwards reminds his people that they have been “told from Sabbath to Sabbath of eternal misery.” Still, they would not be stirred up or think about it. He continues:
You’ll see it amongst many middle-aged persons and so it is still with many when advanced in years and they certainly draw near to the grave. . . . And yet those same persons will seem to acknowledge that the greater part of men go to hell and suffer eternal misery and that through their carelessness about it, but yet they’ll do the same. *3*
It was this great ever-present danger that drove Edwards to warn his generation so often. “’Tis a dreadful thing but yet a common thing for persons to go to hell.” *4* This will be among the laments of the damned. *5*
After the spiritual drought following the awakening of 1734-35, God was pleased to pour out his Spirit again in 1740. Edwards observed: “If it should always have continued as it has been for five or six years past almost all of you would surely have gone to hell. . . .” *6* Still, not everyone was being converted.
It is an awful thing to think of that there are now some persons in this very congregation, here and there, in one seat and another that will be the subjects of that very misery that we have now heard of as dreadful as it is though it be so intolerable and though it be eternal. *7*
The closing dirge: “tell ’em of hell as often as you will and set it out in as lively colours as you will, they will be slack and slothful.” *8*
Yet, we know that not all who heard Edwards were unconvinced. *9* Some were even converted. There were still others who were neither despisers nor converts. Of them, he says that “they were neither awakened, nor at ease.” *10*
Though it is virtually impossible to classify precisely Edwards’ overall distribution of sermons, I estimate that they run three to one in favor of minatory as opposed to comforting themes - a proportion reflecting the emphasis of the Bible itself. One must remember that Edwards does not use texts as pretexts, or even as mere points of departure for a topical development. He almost always begins with a contextual introduction and then proceeds to expound the meaning of his text, which he then states in the form of a “doctrine.” So when Edwards devotes these sermons to hell, he believes that the texts deal with that subject and that it is incumbent on him as a steward of the mysteries of God to do the same. With regard to his preaching in the gospels, in a rough sample check I found among the 140 sermons on Mat_13:1-58 devoted explicitly to heaven and 23 to hell. Of the 43 Mark sermons there were 7 on heaven and 4 on hell. Luke’s 111 sermons had 10 on heaven and 13 on hell. Many of Edwards’ Miscellanies deal directly or indirectly with this subject - Edwards, in his own table of contents, lists more than sixty.
The Nature of Hell
“’Tis the infinite almighty God that shall become the fire of the furnace.”
Hell is a spiritual and material furnace of fire, where its victims are exquisitely tortured, in their minds and in their bodies eternally, according to their various capacities, by God, the devils, and damned humans, including themselves, in their memories and consciences, as well as in their raging, unsatisfied lusts, from which place of death God’s saving grace, mercy, and pity are gone forever - never for a moment to return. Edwards nowhere gives such a comprehensive definition, but this is clearly his overall view of hell, as one may easily see from the fruit of his study and in his pulpit. Perhaps it should be recalled here that God had, according to Edwards, ordained many humans and devils to this awful destiny in accord with their own moral choices, and that fact had been viewed by him originally as “horrid” doctrine, his conversion occurring only when he experienced the beauty of its truth. *11*
Commenting on Mat_13:47-50 Edwards notes that “furnace of fire” is a common and most apt biblical representation of future punishment. *12* Many times in this sermon and elsewhere he uses the metaphor. In the Rom_2:8-9 message *13* he referred to the “deluge of fire,” preaching that when the day of judgment comes, the wicked shall rise to the resurrection of damnation. *14* “It will be a dreadful sight to them when they come to their bodies again, those bodies which were formerly approved by them as the organs and instruments of sin and wickedness . . . and they shall very unwillingly enter into them.” *15* Indeed, these bodies will be “loathsome and hideous.” *16* In this condition “they shall have nothing to do to spend away their eternity but to conflict with these torments.” *17*
In the Eze_22:14 (2) sermon Edwards speaks again of the great furnace of fire. *18* Using the “rhetoric of sensation” even more explicitly, he depicts the furnace as heated “by degrees” and describes the humans being eternally destroyed after the simile of the spider in the flame. In addition to the furnace metaphor Edwards frequently uses the expressions “lake of fire,” *19* “conflagration,” *20* “burnt in hell.” *21*
Is this furnace spiritual or material? It is both. In the same sermon which notes that “furnace of fire” is the most common biblical symbol, Edwards addresses the question whether the furnace is metaphorical or material. *22* It may be understood either literally or figuratively, he reasons. Figuratively speaking, the wrath of God is a consuming fire. Dives, in torment spiritually even before the resurrection of his body, was described as in fire, begging to have Lazarus wet his tongue to relieve the pain (Luk_16:19-31). The metaphor points to the all-over prevalence of the anguish and its intolerable severity. Divine wrath will be far more terrible than its symbol.
But the symbol is also “very probably” literal. Actually the furnace is figurative so far as the soul is concerned, literal as it pertains to the body. There is nothing impossible about its being literal, and Christ’s words in Mat_10:28 require it. After all, it takes real fire to burn the heavens and earth in the great conflagration, which is hell. Therefore that it will be literal fire is evident. *23* It will be more obviously literal after the day of judgment. The bodies of the wicked will be cast into a “lake of liquid fire.” *24* This doctrine is clear from reason as well as Scripture, and from the traditions of the heathen. Commenting on the brazen images heated to white heat in which ancient Israelites sometimes “passed” their children to the heathen god, Molech, Edwards surmises that these images were probably “not unlike” hell. *25* “’Tis probable that this earth after the conflagration shall be the place of the damned . . . many thousand times hotter than ordinary fire.” *26* “The Scripture is plain that that great fire will be that in which the wicked will suffer to all eternity.” *27* Later, Edwards calls the world after the conflagration a “universal wreck.” *28* It will be the wicked’s “fixed abode.”
Edwards finds much support for “literal” hell-fire. Comparing the suffering of hell to the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (which caused him to sweat great drops of blood), Edwards justifies the torments of the damned being “literally as great as they are represented by fire and brimstone. . . .” *29* The sermon on Mat_10:28 goes most particularly into the question of physical and spiritual torture in hell. “The bodies of wicked men as well as their souls will be punished forever in hell.” *30*
In a careful analysis, Edwards observes that pain is only in the soul. *31* What is meant by “bodily pain” is that which is conveyed by the organs of the body. *32* Spiritual pain refers to that which comes directly from the soul’s reflections. *33* It is fit that man should suffer in body and soul because he was created such and sinned in both. *34* In hell man is deprived of all pleasure derived through the sense: in fact, he is tormented through each sense (hearing, seeing, feeling). *35* Still the torments of the soul will be greater. The devils suffer only in soul, but, even so, more than men. The application of this sermon exhorts the wicked to give up seeking pleasure. The clothing which you so much covet now will be a cloak of fire in hell hereafter. A very practical direction follows the lament (“you have been told hundreds of times what you must do”): You must give yourself body and soul to Christ. *36*
The reason the great furnace is material and spiritual, and incomparably more than a furnace or a lake of fire or even a conflagration, is that it is really God himself. What are all these representations when we consider that “’tis the infinite almighty God himself that shall become the fire [of] the furnace exerting his infinite perfections that way.” *37* “The appearance of the presence of an angry God in them and everywhere round about them, can be represented by nothing better than by their being in the midst of an exceedingly hot and furious fires. . . .” All this will be aggravated by the remembrance that God once loved them so as to give his Son to invite them to the happiness of his love. *38* The “spiritual” fire consists largely in this sense of “their being perfectly hated of God.” *39* God feels this antagonism while the impenitent are in this world, but the stupidity which desensitizes them here is removed hereafter. *40* “In hell is inflicted the fierceness of the wrath of a being that is almighty” is the theme of the Rev_19:15 sermon. *41* How they are hated and loathed by God! *42* Even before you come under his wrath “it may be,” preached Edwards, that “God has appointed you to the slaughter.” *43*
The all-important feature of heaven and of hell is God Himself. He is the one who makes heaven, heaven. He is the one who makes hell, hell. Indeed, according to Edwards, He is hell and He is heaven. Eternity for sinner and saint will be spent “in the immediate presence and sight of God. . . .” *44* Preached Edwards: “God will be the hell of one and the heaven of the other.” *45*
It is because God is the fire which burns in hell that words can never convey - much less exaggerate - the terrors of the damned. “Who can know the power of his anger?” asked the psalmist. Edwards took this to be a rhetorical question. “The law and the gospel both,” he insisted, “agree that God intends an extraordinary manifestation of his terribleness.” *46* If this be so, it was inevitable that Edwards would assuredly advise: “Let not the sinner imagine that these things are bugbears.” Future punishment is contrary neither to Scripture nor reason. In fact, it is most reasonable to suppose it. *47*
In another sermon Edwards gives five arguments to prove that ministers have not “set it out [Hell] beyond what it really is.” *48* He then concludes confidently: “If I have set it [forth] too much then the Scripture has too which is blasphemous.” *49* It is interesting to hear the man whom all America and perhaps the world thinks so grossly overstated the anger of God against the sinners in his hand, confess: “After we have said our utmost and thought our utmost, all that we have said or thought is but a faint shadow of what really is.” *50*
Although God is the misery of hell as he is the joy of heaven, the damned souls contribute to their own misery and not to one another’s relief. They have no more friends in hell than they have in heaven. Instead of the damned being comforted in each other’s company, it is probable that they will be as coals or brands in the fire that heat and burn one another. This is spelled out in the sermon on Mat_13:30 in which Edwards says that so far from other wicked persons being a comfort, they will “greatly augment” each other’s misery and torment as they detest, hate, and condemn one another. *51* “They will perfectly and extremely hate one another.” *52* If, as George Bernard Shaw and others have claimed, all the interesting people will be in hell, they will have no interest in one another except to torture. Even Lewis’ Great Divorce, suggesting the loneliness of souls in hell, is understatement if, as Edwards represents it, they only add to the torment by their presence. In hell misery hates company.
The devils’ work is to inflict torture on the poor human sinners whom God hands over to them. One of the horrors Edwards drew for the congregations of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was that
The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him. They belong to him; he has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion. . . . The devils watch them; they are ever by them . . . they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions. . . . The old serpent is gaping for them; hell opens its mouth wide to receive them. . . . *53*
Torturing human sinners does not relieve the devils; in fact, it adds to their own torment. Notwithstanding, the malice of the devil is as steady as the flames. “No degree of misery though it be eternal will satisfy him so but that he would be glad to have it greater. How great is this cruelty and how great must all other wickedness be that is in proportion to it.” *54*
Sinners in hell also torture themselves. Their pain is a “mixture of sorrow and rage.” *55* Their lusts ever rage and there is never any satisfaction. In this world they gratified the sins by the non-gratification of which they are tortured in hell. *56*
We know that many modern criminals dread fellow prisoners more than the prison itself and ostracism from the rest of society. They have more to fear from inmates than guards. This will not be true in hell. That is not because the inmates will not be cruel enough but because they cannot possibly be as cruel as their satanic guards who, so far from being restrained, are to do their damnedest. But even their worst tortures are gentleness by comparison with the real tormenter of hell, who is none other than God himself. There will be no comforts or consideration or “rights” from any direction - least of all from the one who sends these criminals to this dungeon. And they will not come out until they have paid the “uttermost farthing.”
Edwards’ famous sermon, Sinners, had hearers hanging on to the pillars of the church and crying out for mercy. And this was merely a description of how God would deal with sinners and what he could do. The most terrifying preaching concerned what God is doing now in hell and will do forever. Edwards had said that no man could now see hell and live. It is a wonder that his people heard and lived. Edwards had written that the only way men can find peace is to deny the doctrine. It is not difficult to believe that Northampton sought peace by silencing the preacher of hell in 1750. I suspect that the “qualifications” controversy was the occasion; hell was the cause of the dismissal.
The Locality of Hell
“’Tis probable that this earth after the conflagration shall be the place of the damned.”
Even in their disembodied states, the wicked are taken at death to a local hell.
Departed spirits of wicked men are doubtless carried to some particular place in the universe, which God has prepared to be the receptacle of his wicked, rebellious, and miserable [subjects]: contrived a place of punishment; a place prepared on purpose to receive the filth of the creation and a place where the attributes of God’s revenging justice shall be glorified; a place, the prison, where devils and wicked men are reserved till the day of judgment. *57*
From the same sermon it would appear that hell after the resurrection and day of judgement will this world in conflagration. At least such would seem to be the implication of this description of the events following:
Immediately upon the finishing the judgment and the pronouncing that sentence will come the end of the world. Then the frame of this world shall be dissolved. The pronouncing of that sentence will probably be followed with amazing thunders that shall rend the heaven and shake the earth out of its place. 2Pe_3:10 . . . Then shall the sea and the waves roar and the rocks shall be thrown down and there shall be an universal wreck of this frame of the world. . . . *58*
This also is an expression of the wrath of God against sin. Then shall the heavens be dissolved and then the world shall be set on fire. As God in his wrath once destroyed the world by a flood of water so now shall he cause it to be all in a deluge of fire. And the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. “And that great company of devils and wicked men must then enter into those everlasting burnings to which they are sentenced. . . .” *59* Edwards wrote: “’Tis probable that this earth after the conflagration shall be the place of the damned.” *60*
Edwards presented a number of arguments for the locality of heaven, as we shall see. Those arguments apply here mutatis mutandi. For example, the resurrection of the body of the saints implies a place where they go, and this is paralleled by the fact of the resurrection of the bodies of the impenitent and where they must go. Again, man’s natural condition as a body-soul being applies here. He continues to be a man even in hell and therefore would have a spatial body. Also, all the arguments that the fire must be literal imply that these bodies are in a definite locality. If the lost are to be punished in body as well as soul, there must be a location for this to be done. Edwards uses the word “prison,” which would have to exist somewhere. *61*
Throughout our whole discussion of hell, implications for a locality will be obvious. To take but one example, the section dealing with hell’s viewing of heaven is clearly corporeal as well as spiritual.
The Degrees of Torment
“[T]he damned in hell would give the world to have the number of their sins one less.”
Most people unfamiliar with the doctrine of hell would suppose that the nature of hell, as thus far described, is so frightful that any thought of gradations would be superfluous and impertinent, if not silly. Not so for Edwards, who devotes major space to these cantos of hell.
“The punishment and misery of wicked men in another world will be in proportion to the sin that they are guilty of.” *62* The suffering for sins will be in relation to the heinousness and number of the sins and to the status of the sinner. The “second act of drunkenness . . . heats hell a great deal more than the first.” Sinners who have lapsed from an awakened state will be punished more severely, but, most of all, leaders in sin aggravate their guilt. *63* “Such as these will doubtless be some of the lowest in hell - they will have the hottest place in the furnace.” *64* Just as we punish ringleaders in crime most severely in this world, so too in the world to come. *65* The folly of augmenting future suffering by additional sins is driven home by the observation that we are not able to endure even an endless toothache, much less additional hell torments. *66*
Consequently, life in this world is the greatest punishment of all because its sinfulness leads to ever greater torment in hell. Thus the burden of the Rom_2:5 (1) sermon: The sinner spends all his time here gathering fuel for his own fire there. *67* Every continuance in sin adds to the heat of hell-fire. The longer sinners live, the more wrath they accumulate. Unlike worldly treasures these come easily and are never lost. *68* It would be far better for the unawakened to have spent the time in hell, than on earth; yea better for them to have spent ten thousand years in hell, instead of on earth. “You will curse the day that you were born,” Edwards warns the unawakened. *69* “Better were it for you if you met with nothing but sorrow and vexation in your ways. It would be better for you if your breath was taken from your nostrils, this day, and that you were nailed up in your coffin and that your soul should be amongst the damned this night.” *70* In fact, “the damned in hell would be ready to give the world if they could to have the number of their sins to have been one less.” *71*
The fact that hell has its degrees is part of the reason for Edwards’ pathetic pleading with children not to start sinning early but to be converted and use their days in the joyous service of their God. If the best doctrine to present to sinners is hell, the best time is childhood. The number of special meetings for children that Edwards held, as well as the diligent attention he gave to the salvation of his own family, show his persuasion of this point. His approach to children was basically the same as the approach to their parents. They too were in danger of judgment and must learn to flee from the wrath that is to come upon them as well as upon older sinners. They were “young serpents” who had not yet learned to bite, but were full of poison. *72* They were no different in nature from their parents. They too were “children of the devil.” Neither can they “bear hell among the devils,” and they must beware of this dread judgment to which they are exposed. “Supposing, children,” he exhorts, “you could now hear the cries of other wicked children that are gone to hell - Come therefore hearken to me - If you won’t hearken but will go to hell. . . .” *73*
“Many persons,” he warns the young people, “never get rid of the guilt of the sins of their youth, but it attends them to their graves and goes with them into eternity.” *74* Youth is the best period in which to serve God, but, in spite of this fact, it is usually spent in vanity. *75* God will not excuse children nor does he forget their sins and the aggravation that they have sinned away the best time for their conversion. Young people often quench motions of the Holy Spirit and as a result never have them again all their lives, for God may be provoked to remove the Spirit in the beginning of their days. And even if God does not act so drastically, they put themselves under great and permanent spiritual disadvantages because the habits that they early contract are difficult to change. “Ill company” is a special snare in which the devil takes young people and carries them away for life. *76* And God never forgets. *77* After showing what young people are missing, Edwards concludes: “So that you get nothing by spending your youth in sin, but are great losers for the present besides the danger that you incur of having your souls full of the sins of your youth when you die and then lying down with [them] in the grave and going with you to God’s judgment seat and into eternity.” *78*
Edwards used the death of young Billy Sheldon as the occasion for serious warning to the youth of his parish. *79* The boy died in the midst of the Great Awakening in February, 1740-41. He was cut off at such a time, the young people were told in a private meeting, to make you take full advantage of your opportunity. Very few of you, he continued, were more concerned for your souls than he was for his. He was not only deprived of further opportunity to seek salvation, but did not even have the use of his reason through much of his sickness. The exposition of the text is very brief, but the application is long and pleading: to exhort and beseech the young people “that are here present to get ready for death.” *80* Edwards used the same sermon, with an altered application, for the funeral of his own daughter Jerusha at a later date.
Greater degrees of torment for great light spurned is the reason greater light can be a liability to all. “A man had better be a heathen than to differ from ’em only in common light and profession.” *81* Some of the heathen, Edwards grants, “have been very moral and strict in their lives only that they have been heathen and have professed and practiced all the abominations of idolatry.” *82* Unbelief and lusts are characteristic of the heathen, and Sodom and Gomorrah actually burned with hell-fire while on earth. Nevertheless, the lukewarm or merely nominal Christians’ “guilt is much greater than that of the heathen because they sin under so much greater obligation to obedience.” *83*
The definitive treatment on degrees of punishment is found in the sermon on Mat_5:22, “That the punishment and misery of wicked men in another world will be in proportion to the sin that they are guilty of.” *84* All men partake “equally” of original sin, *85* but men do not partake “equally” of “actual sins.” *86* The score is proportionately increased *87* in God’s “debt book” although “he that commits one act of sin” (profanity, a breaking of the Sabbath, an intemperate act, etc.) “deserves capital punishment.” He has merited only by one sinful act the eternal ruin of soul and body. *88* By a second act - assuming it was no worse - "he now deserves twice so hot a place in hell fire. . . .” *89* Heinousness of sins is next described and weighed, *90* aggravations considered, *91* and finally the influence or prestige of the sinner put into the balance. *92* It is no wonder that Edwards concludes that the sooner the persevering sinner dies the better - if they go on in sin “they had better die early than later.” *93* If they do go on it is better they be “moral” whether “they are converted or not.” *94* This doctrine makes fools of those who would enjoy this world since they expect to go to hell. *95* Those who are wise seek salvation even if they do not find it. *96* Otherwise, they will regret in hell that they had not sought salvation, though vainly. *97*
Growth in Misery
“After they have endured misery a thousand years they may have a more dreadful sense of an eternity of misery than they had at first.”
Even in the sermon on “saints growing ripe for heaven” I suspected that I would find a clear statement on growing ripe for hell. I was not disappointed. Although Edwards gave an excellent development of his doctrine (as we will see in the next chapter) in the application, we read:
II. Let what has been said on this subject lead sinners to consider what they are ripening for. There are two kinds of persons that are here in this world in a preparatory state, elect and reprobates. Both are continued here in a state of preparation for an eternal state. Elect are here to be prepared [for heaven]. Reprobates are preparing [for hell]. They are ripening. And there are none [who] stand still, neither saints nor sinners. *98*
Then Edwards proceeds to a rather full outline of the way sinners grow in hell. *99*
So as sinners go on sinning they become more and more adapted to their new home - “more assimilated to the inhabitants of the infernal world.” *100* They are already, in this world, sinking into the bottomless pit.
We have seen that sinners in hell suffer in varying degrees. Alas, even that particular degree seems to increase in hell itself. There the wicked continue to rebel against the just punishment of God, and that brings more just punishment. So growth in misery in hell seems as inevitable as growth in blessedness in heaven is certain. The devil, for example, seems to get some satisfaction in accomplishing some of his evil designs, but it hurts when he laughs. “I believe the devil has sometimes a kind of a pleasedness, when he accomplishes a design . . . [but] his pleasedness is but in order to his greater torment.” *101*
The very realization of the wicked’s plight makes their plight the sadder. By their rebellion against their misery they only intensify it. “Hell torments may increase this way, viz. as the damned may have more and more of a sense of eternity after they have endured misery a thousand years, they may have a more dreadful sense of an eternity of misery than they had at first.” Another thing that makes the ineffable pain of hell more painful is the envy and resentment of heaven’s bliss. We will discuss this later. It is sufficient to note here that heaven’s bliss adds to the burden of hell’s present grief.
Finally, hell is masochistic. Why would anyone go there in the first place if he did not hate himself? Every sinner is in love with death. Edwards has often intoned that human dirge. Since hell changes nothing about the masochistic sinner he must go on destroying himself at an ever faster pace forever and forever. Edwards has observed that the devil is so incorrigibly malicious that hell’s increasing torments do not deter him. The implication is that “natural men are God’s enemies” *102* and become their own worst enemies. As men gather sticks in this world for their own fire they continue to do so even when they are actually engulfed in the flames!
Since M 258 is relatively short and at the same time the fullest and most comprehensive reflection of Edwards on this somber point, we quote in full:
Hell. I don’t think we have good ground to be assured that the sins of damned spirits that they commit after their damnation are no way liable to punishment, because they ben’t in a state of trial but in a state of punishment. However, I believe this in one sense is true and in another not. I believe all the misery, that ever they endure or shall endure to all eternity is a punishment of their sin while in a state of trial and every part of that misery a part of that punishment and all the deserved and justly due punishment of that sin. So that those that have sinned most in a state of trial shall be punished most to all eternity and in an exact proportion. And yet it shall be so ordered by the wisdom of God that various parts of their punishment shall be so timed and placed and circumstanced as to be punishment also for their several acts of pride, of malice, and spite against God and against his creatures that are not in a state of punishment. Thus God brings the punishment of the devils upon ’em for their proud rebellion in heaven in this way by making them the cause of their own vexation and torment to all eternity by their continually renewed acts of pride and spite. He gives them over forever to that same disposition which they exercised when they fell and by that means makes them forever a-procuring their own misery. And this is a misery they are plunged into as a punishment of their first rebellion. ’Tis certain by the word of God that the devils are thus punished. They are punished for their procuring the fall of mankind. God curses the serpent for it, and, without doubt, God, in that curse, had a principal reference to the devil, who is the old serpent; the seed of the woman breaking his head is in punishment for that act of his. By means of Christ the Redeemer, God renders all Satan’s incessant labours and endeavours for the overthrow of mankind and for defeating God’s design of glorifying himself in them, a means of his own confusion and vexation and of abundantly more brightly manifesting the glory of God and advancing the happiness of the elect. He is a means of one of mankind being his Judge, and so the event of his own great endeavours will prove every way exceeding contradiction and mortification of his own restless, proud, malicious, and revengeful spirit.
Hell Beholding This World
“Wicked men in hell will remember how things were with them here in this world.”
Edwards has a couplet of unpublished sermons which concern the theme of this and the next section. Luk_16:25 (1) develops this doctrine: “Wicked men in hell will remember how things were with them here in this world.” *103* The second in the little series on this text taught that “the wicked in hell will be sensible what a happy state the saints are in heaven.” *104* We will first consider nostalgia in hell.
This parable of Dives and Lazarus, though not to be taken literally (“we need not suppose that there ever was actually such a conversation”), *105* justifies the doctrine that hell remembers this world. The lost “remember what good things they enjoyed here in this world.” *106* While they enjoyed the good things, they “felt nothing of the fiery wrath of God.” *107* Now it is the reverse. They will remember the “bottle of liquor,” “friends,” “comfortable habitation,” and how they were “a great deal better off than many of the godly.” *108* Of particular poignancy will be their recollection of “opportunities” and means they had for obtaining salvation *109* when “God waited to be gracious unto them.” *110* They remember how they were warned “that if once they got into hell they should never get out.” *111* Especially, they will remember their sins, *112* including thinking that hell was a mere “dream.” *113*
“It will make their suffering the more heavy and sinking to think how things were with them in this world.” *114* So Edwards continues throughout the application. “How dreadful will it be to ’em to consider. . . .” *115* “And how will it aggravate. . . .” *116* “How will it torment ’em to think of. . . .” *117* Among other tortures hell will be the place of the eternal “I told you so.”
It is interesting that Edwards does not, in this sermon, reflect on Dives’ apparent compassion for his brother (still sinning in this world) and desire that he not make Dives’ fatal mistake (an interest in the Kingdom of God on the part of lost Dives?)
Edwards often studies the remorse which sinners feel when they look back upon their lives in this world. (We have seen that sorrow as well as rage make up their pain.) “Vicious persons when once they come to taste the bitter fruits of their evil courses, will greatly lament their folly in not hearkening to the counsels and warnings that were given them.” *118* Again, “convictions are terrible when they come too late for repentance.” *119* In a third sermon on the same text: “when wicked men come to hell they will believe what they heard in the preaching of the word. . . . They will see what fools they were.” *120*
“You'll curse and blaspheme” in hell, preached Edwards, and also “curse yourself” because “it will be terrible to be aware that you have been the cause of your own destruction . . . to know that you have undone yourself by your own folly and to know that tis too late to correct your error.” *121*
In other words, it is remembering the folly committed in this world that heightens the suffering for it in the next.
Hell Beholding Heaven
“The songs of the blessed will give them a more clear sense of the greatness of their own misery.”
We have noted that the sermons on Luk_16:25 deal with the wicked in hell remembering how things were with them in this world and being “sensible what a happy state the saints are in heaven.” *122* We have noted the first sermon. Now, the second.
Edwards seems to think this text is a counterpart of Rev_18:20, on which he preached the famous sermon in which the saints in glory are made happy as they see the smoke of hell ascend. Here, the rich man is represented as seeing Lazarus the wretched beggar “comforted” in Abraham’s bosom while “thou art tormented.” *123* Not only will the “goats” see the “sheep” on Christ’s right hand at the day of judgment, but “the Scriptures seem to speak as though the world of misery would be in sight of the world of happiness” (Isa_66:24), *124* though it is “far off and though there was a great gulf fixed between.” *125* “Though they see the majesty and greatness of God and that the saints are happy in heaven, they can never understand what it is that gives them pleasure.” *126* They will have “no relish for any such kind of happiness.” *127* If admitted to heaven, they “would be out of their element.” *128*
Yet they will know enough to be miserable. “How will you bear to hear them singing for joy of heart, when your work day and night will be nothing but to cry for sorrow of heart and howl. . . .” *129*
The two-way formula that applies to hell contemplating heaven as well as heaven contemplating hell is succinctly stated. “[W]e have a more lively apprehension of any good we enjoy by comparing it with the contrary evil, so on the other hand, we have a more sensible apprehension of any evil that we suffer by our seeing the contrary good.” *130* The greatest sting for the wicked will be realizing that all this loss and all this pain was “through their own sottish negligence, and because they would not do what they could do.” *131*
Edwards takes this theme from the beginning of the Luk_13:28 f. sermon. “Wicked men will hereafter have this to aggravate their woe that they shall see many of all kinds and nations admitted into glory when they themselves are thrust out.” *132* The very outline shows the building up to this climax:
Proposition 1: “Wicked men shall see others admitted into glory”
Proposition 2: “They shall see many of all sorts and nations. . . .”
Proposition 3: “This shall be when they themselves are thrust out”
Proposition 4: “This will aggravate their grief and woe.” *133*
Edwards is not certain of the exact location at the confrontation but only that the two parties will see each other.
We know not how far the two worlds, the world of happiness and the world of misery, may be within each other’s view. It seems as though the glorified in heaven should some way or other have an apprehension of the damned in hell and also the damned an apprehension of the glory of the saints in heaven as though they had a view of each other’s state. *134*
He cites Rev_14:10 and the parable of Dives and Lazarus in support. However all this may be, Edwards is certain that at the day of judgment “the wicked shall see others glorified.” *135* They will see them mount up to meet the Lord in the air, be received, seated at his right hand, and crowned. “Those things will be transacted most publicly in open sight of all wicked men.” *136* The lost will see the redeemed “floating to Christ from every region of the earth” - among them those whom the wicked had despised in this world. *137*
Apparently all this will only surprise the sinful spectators who are still expecting to join the universal throng. But when they try to enter they are “thrust out.” When they “strive” to enter (because they recognize Abraham and others they thought to be their friends) they are “thrust back violently.” *138* The grim fact settles in and becomes ever grimmer as they continue to behold the contrasting felicity of the heavenly company - “seeing of their blessedness will give them a more lively sense of the greatness of their own misery.” *139* As the hallelujahs continue, “the songs of the blessed will make their wailing and moans the louder and more bitter.” *140*
Our most comprehensive Edwardsean sermonic survey, Rom_2:8-9 (which together with Rom_2:10 constitutes a veritable Baedecker of heaven and hell), shows that this “aggravation” goes on forever. This sermon mentions only briefly that while the sins of the wicked are being exposed at the day of judgment, “then shall they stand at the left hand in these circumstances while they see others that they have known sitting at the right hand of Christ in glory.” *141* Then “will be the most dreadful . . .words to them that ever were heard” (their sentence). *142* It will be “aggravated by their hearing of the blessed sentence pronounced on those that shall be at the right.” *143*
he Eternality of Hell
“[A]s sure as God is true there will absolutely be no end to the misery of hell.”
“The torments of hell will be eternal” is the title of the most complete couplet of sermons Edwards ever preached on this subject. *144* Endlessness is the aspect of hell that most “prevents peace.” There is nothing that so “damps the pleasures of the ungodly” *145* Consequently, men’s theories oppose it. “Eternity is the sting of the doctrine of hell torments whereby chiefly it is that it stings the consciences of wicked men and there is no other way to avoid the torment of it but to deny it.” *146* Edwards will “clear up” the meaning of eternality, though he reminds us that “the infinite cannot be perfectly comprehended by that which is finite.” *147*
We have no positive idea of the eternality of hell. “It is that duration that has no end.” *148* Since Edwards cannot define, he lists some of eternity’s properties, negatively and positively. Negatively: first, it cannot be divided into integral parts; *149* there is no half of eternity. Second, it cannot be distinguished by periods, such as youth or old age. Third, a great period has no more proportion to it than a short one; a thousand ages is as much less as a minute. *150* Fourth, the eternality of hell cannot be made more or less by addition or subtraction. *151* Fifth, it will be forever only beginning. “The wicked after they have suffered many millions of ages, will be as it were . . . only setting out in torment.” *152*
“Eternal” means that there will be “no end.” *153* Then follows Edwards’ attack on annihilation which we will develop below. Not only will there be no annihilation, but not even “alteration.” *154* God’s veracity is at stake. *155* After this survey of scriptural doctrine Edwards concludes that “except God’s word passes away and falls to the ground we may be assured that the torments of hell will be eternal.” *156*
The major part of the second sermon on Mar_9:44 is concerned with why hell’s torments are eternal. For one thing, those in hell “deserve it.” *157* Secondly, God has many good ends in the endlessness of punishment, *158* such as the glorification of his majesty, his justice, and his grace. And lastly the sight of hell torments will make the happiness of the saints greater. *159*
Perhaps, Edwards’ deepest cry to his age was: “This doctrine is indeed awful and dreadful. It is dreadful to think of it, but yet ’tis what God the eternal God who made us and who has us soul and body in his hands has abundantly declared unto us, so that so sure as God is true there will absolutely be no end to the misery of hell.” *160* Such express and deliberate “reasoned reflections” on the quantitative endlessness of hell makes the following comment of Haroutunian puzzling, to say the least. He supposes that this punishment is infinite more in quality than in duration.
Edwards, in his appeals to the wicked of the day, however, falls back upon descriptions of the “future life” which are commensurate with the minds of his audiences; and one is irresistibly led to believe that he was thoroughly sincere in these popular presentations, in spite of his more reasoned reflections on time and eternity. *161*
This is bowdlerizing Edwards theology. It may well be the besetting sin of this century as was bowdlerizing his style in the nineteenth century - a classic case of straining the gnat and swallowing the camel.
In still more “reasoned reflections on time and eternity,” Edwards argues from Mat_25:46 for the endlessness of hell. *162* The expressions used in that context for eternal things are also used for perdition. They are the same words used for eternal happiness (which concept is never questioned). The “uttermost farthing” of Mat_5:26 and the absoluteness of Mar_9:44 are again cited in evidence of the eternity of hell’s torments.
Furthermore, Edwards annihilates annihilation. The wicked in the world to come will beg for annihilation, but Edwards will not allow this hope. He destroys it with a battery of arguments. First, the Bible teaches eternal punishment. It is eternal, for the very word used for eternal life is used for eternal death. And this punishment implies pain, which annihilation is not. Annihilation is the relief which the wicked, begging for, will never receive. As the sermon on Rev_6:15-16 poignantly describes, “Wicked men will hereafter earnestly wish to be turned to nothing and forever cease to be that they may escape the wrath of God.” *163* Second, it is also clear that the wicked “shall be sensible of the punishment they are under.” *164* Third, degrees of punishment preclude annihilation. *165* Fourth, “the Scripture is very express and abundant in this matter that the eternal punishment is in sensible misery and torment and not annihilation.” *166* Furthermore, annihilation is no state at all and is therefore inconsistent with a man’s soul, which is never destroyed. *167* Sixth, men would never know their judgment if annihilation were their punishment. Instead of God repaying them face to face they would never have to face God at all. *168* But, in the seventh place, wicked men are still alive in hell now, fearing the resurrection of their bodies, *169* as the devils are now dreading the further punishment which is awaiting them. Again, it could not be said that it was better for the wicked not to have been born if they have no judgment awaiting them. *170* In fact, the righteous generally suffer more in this world than the wicked, which would make the latter’s annihilation unfair. Ninth, what is the meaning of a burning furnace heated to different degrees if none were ever to be cast into it? *171* Moreover, if the judgment of God begins in the house of God it surely will not spare the unrighteous, and if it was done in a green tree (the innocent Christ) what will happen to the dry? *172* Finally, how could Christ have had to die for us when no punishment threatened? *173*
A kind of empirical argument for eternality is also found. Sinners after death will continue to hate God, as we have seen, and will, therefore, continue endlessly to incur his wrath. If it was imagined that human guilt was only finite, men would sin endlessly in hell, and that would bring endless pains, anyway. *174* If one asked whether men would not stop sinning when they saw, in hell, the immediate and inescapable punishment that followed, we assume that Edwards would say they would not and could not stop. Their nature being unchanged, they would never cease sinning in hell any more than in this world. Punishment never prevents sin but only the expression of it. In hell nothing is gained, as here, by curbing expression. There is no hope of salvation or use in “seeking” it. But, we persist, could it not be argued that lost souls would see an advantage in less expression of malice and therefore, while hating God still, express it less and thereby prevent hell from becoming more hellish? No, ineradicable malice would always increase with exercise. And, it may be so great as to be incapable of non-expression, as is the case with the devils, who do actually find some “pleasedness” in the accomplishments of their malice. At least their malice continues “even in the midst of extreme pain.”
That raises another problem with which Edwards wrestles. Are men punished for their sins committed in a state of punishment as well as in a state of trial? His answer is yes and no. Punishment is based on the trial period, but “if we should suppose that the punishment that the sins of this life deserve is but finite; that it deserves only temporary misery, yet while they are suffering that they continue sinning still and so contract a new debt, and again while they are paying that they contract another and so in infinitum.” *175*
Ultimately, the eternality of hell is based on the nature of God. If God is the inflictor of hell’s tortures and his word, nature, justice, and wrath are eternal and immutable, hell must be eternal. “God,” Edwards tells us, “will never weary.” The sermon on Mat_24:35 has this theme: “That God never fails of his word.” *176* The main burden of this message is the assurance to God’s people that he fulfills his promises. Nevertheless, it is also true that God’s Word also includes threats, and he is just as faithful to them as he is to his promises. God threatens that hell is eternal. Therefore
there is no room for any secret hope that after they have lain in the flames for a great many ages that God will be satisfied with their punishment and take pity upon ’em and so release ’em. God won’t be any more inclined to pity them after they have lain there millions of ages than he will the first moment. . . . God’s Word that cannot pass away is engaged to make them miserable to all eternity. *177*
The very climax of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is that the awful wrath to which sinners are now exposed in the hands of an angry God is that, “’tis everlasting wrath.” It would be dreadful to suffer the fierceness and the wrath of almighty God one moment; but some must suffer it to all eternity.
When you look forward, you shall see a long forever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul: and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all; you will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite. Oh who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; tis inexpressible and inconceivable. For, who knows the power of God’s anger? *178*
Probably nowhere does Edwards face up more feelingly to the problem of hell and the nature of God than in the sermon on Rev_19:2, “’Tis not inconsistent with the attributes of God to punish ungodly men with a misery that is eternal.” *179* In a massive understatement he says that men find it difficult to reconcile endless punishment with those perfections which the Scripture attributes to God, such as his being most just and righteous and also merciful. Men picture God as a God of great tenderness and compassion who is far from being cruel; He is love itself and is not willing that any should perish. Men cannot conceive how it should be consistent with the nature of such a God to make a creature so extremely miserable perpetually, without a moment’s rest, and to continue to inflict such torments forever. But God will make them wear out the visible world. When the sun is grown old and the heavens wax old as a garment, still God will not abate at all their misery. Edwards, as he describes the feelings of the profane, seems almost to sympathize with the “wicked with their blasphemous thought.”
After pages of this he comes to the solemn, crushing conclusion that however dreadful the punishment be and however terrible to think of it, yet if it is no more than proportionate to the crime, it is just. “If the crime and punishment do but keep a proportion then justice is safe; let the punishment go never so far.” Therefore if there is such a thing as an infinitely heinous crime, it will follow that the punishment may be infinitely dreadful. Though that infinite punishment be amazing to think of, that is no argument against justice. He then proceeds to show that sin against God is, indeed, infinitely heinous.