Solemn Warnings by Henry Ward Beecher

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 21, 1865

Solemn Warnings.

By Henry Ward Beecher

SOMETIMES, in dark caves, men may have gone to the edge of unspeaking precipices, and, wondering what was the depth, have cast down fragments of rock, and listened for the report of their fall, that they might judge how deep that blackness was; and listening,—still listening,—no sound returns; no sullen plash, no clinking stroke, as of rock against rock,—nothing but silence, utter silence! And so I stand upon the precipice of life. I sound the depths of the other world with curious inquiries; but from it comes no echo, and no answer to my questions. No analogies can grapple and bring up from the depths of the darkness of the lost world the probable truths. No philosophy has line and plummet long enough to sound the depths. There remain for us only the few authoritative and solemn words of God. These declare that the bliss of the righteous is everlasting; and, with equal distinctness and simplicity, they declare that the doom of the wicked is everlasting.

Dear friend, I must be faithful to your soul. You and I will meet, before long, at the judgment-seat of God. You shall not be left in doubt as to whether I think sin is damnable, or whether I think damnation, once begun, is reversible. I stand here to speak the word of God to you. I stand here to declare to every one of you, that whatever hope there may have been for men who may have lived before the gospel was known upon earth, and whatever hope there may be for the heathen to whom the gospel has not been carried, there is no hope and reversion for you to whom Christ has been preached, and to whom all the avenues of salvation have been opened, if, having counted the blood of the atonement an unholy thing, and having trampled it under your feet, you die unbelieving!

Stop, then, now; and especially because it is so easy to stop. I surround you with the generosity of God. I take the sheeted robe of Christ's love, more glorious than the sun, and throw it about you. I surround you with divine gentleness and meekness and mercy. So stand in the presence of Christ, and not in your own filthy rags. May God help you, and bring you, finally, to the land of eternal truth and glory! Amen.—Henry Ward Beecher.