In considering this solemn matter we must learn to keep wholly separate from it a number of difficult questions which have really nothing to do with it—­with which, indeed, we have nothing to do—­and the introduction of which can only lead to mischievous confusion and error.  What is to become of the countless multitudes in heathen lands who die without having so much as heard of Christ?  How will God deal with those even in our own Christian land to whom, at least as it seems to us, this life has brought no adequate opportunity of salvation?  What will happen in that dim twilight land betwixt death and judgment which men call “the intermediate state”?  Will they be few or many who at last will be for ever outcasts from the presence of God?  These are questions men will persist in asking, but the answer to which no man knows.  Strictly speaking, they are matters with which we have nothing to do, which we must be content to leave with God, confident that the Judge of all the earth will do right, even though He does not show us how.  What we have to do with, what does concern us, is the warning of Jesus, emphatic and reiterated, that sin will be visited with punishment, that retribution, just, awful, inexorable, will fall on all them that love and work iniquity.

“But why,” it may be asked, “why dwell upon these things?  Is there not something coarse and vulgar in this appeal to men’s fears?  And, after all, to what purpose is it?  If men are not won by the love of God, of what avail is it to speak to them of His wrath?” But fear is as real an element in human nature as love, and when our aim is by all means to save men, it is surely legitimate to make our appeal to the whole man, to lay our fingers on every note—­the lower notes no less than the higher—­in the wide gamut of human life.  The preacher of the gospel, moreover, is left without choice in the matter.  It is no part of his business to ask what is the use of this or of that in the message given to him to deliver; it is for him to declare “the whole counsel of God,” to keep back nothing that has been revealed.  And the really decisive consideration is this—­that this is a matter on which Christ Himself has spoken, and spoken with unmistakable clearness and emphasis.  Shall, then, the ambassador hesitate when the will of the King is made known?  More often—­five times more often, it is said[61]—­than Jesus spoke of future blessedness did He speak of future retribution.  The New Testament is a very tender book; but it is also a very stern book, and its sternest words are words of Jesus.  “For the sins of the miserable, the forlorn, the friendless, He has pity and compassion; but for the sins of the well-taught, the high-placed, the rich, the self-indulgent, for obstinate and malignant sin, the sin of those who hate, and deceive, and corrupt, and betray, His wrath is terrible, its expression is unrestrained."[62] “Jesu, Thou art all compassion,” we sometimes sing; but is it really so?  St. Paul writes of