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thought of the fallen apostle's punishment could not but present itself; and this drew from our divine instructor that alarming menace, which must have struck a chill of horror to the heart of every one that heard it, and the more because the particular application of it was not at the time understood. This was the effect intended. Our Lord meant to impress his audience with a just and affecting sense of the magnitude of those evils, the sharpness of those pains, which none but the ungodly shall ever feel, and from which none of the ungodly shall ever escape.

Nor in this passage only, but in every page of holy writ, are these terrors displayed, in expressions studiously adapted to lay hold of the imagination of mankind, and awaken the most thoughtless to such an habitual sense of danger as might be sufficient to overcome the most powerful allurements of vice. The wicked are to go into outer darkness; there is to be weeping and gnashing of teeth; they are to depart into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched; there they shall drink of the wrath of God, poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.' Whatever there may be of figure in some of these expressions, as much as this they certainly import, -that the future state of the wicked will be a state of exquisite torment, both of body and mind,-of torments, not only intense in degree, but incapable of intermission, cure, or end,-a condition of unmixed and perfect evil, not less deprived of future hope than of present enjoyment.

It is amazing, that a danger so strongly set forth should be disregarded; and this is the more amaz

ing, when we take a view of the particular casts and complexions of character among which this disregard is chiefly found. They may be reduced to three different classes, according to the three different passions by which they are severally overcome,-ambition, avarice, and sensuality. Personal consequence is the object of the first class; wealth, of the second; pleasure, of the third. Personal consequence is not to be acquired but by great undertakings, bold in the first conception, difficult in execution, extensive in consequence. Such undertakings demand great abilities. Accordingly, we commonly find in the ambitious man a superiority of parts, in some measure proportioned to the magnitude of his designs: it is his particular talent to weigh distant consequences, to provide against them, and to turn every thing, by a deep policy and forecast, to his own advantage. It might be expected, that this sagacity of understanding would restrain him from the desperate folly of sacrificing an unfading crown for that glory that must shortly pass away. cious money-getting man is generally a character of wonderful discretion. It might be expected that he would be exact to count his gains, and would be the last to barter possessions which he might hold for ever, for a wealth that shall be taken from him, and shall not profit him in the day of wrath. Then, for those servants of sin, the effeminate sons of sensual pleasure, these are a feeble, timid race. It might be expected that these, of all men, would want firmness to brave the danger. Yet so it is, the ambitious pursues a conduct which must end in shame; the miser, to be rich now, makes himself poor for ever; and the tender, delicate

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voluptuary shrinks not at the thought of endless burnings!

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These things could not be, but for one of these two reasons, either that there is some lurking incredulity in men, an evil heart of unbelief,' that admits not the gospel doctrine of punishment in its full extent; or, that their imaginations set the danger at a prodigious distance.

The Scriptures are not more explicit in the threatenings of wrath upon the impenitent, than in general assertions of God's forbearance and mercy. These assertions are confirmed by the voice of nature, which loudly proclaims the goodness as well as the power of the universal Lord. Man is frail and imperfect in his original constitution. This, too, is the doctrine of the Scriptures; and every man's experience unhappily confirms it. Human life, by the appointment of Providence, is short.

He hath made our days as it were a span long.' "Is it, then, to be supposed, that this good, this merciful, this long-suffering God, should doom his frail, imperfect creature, man, to endless punishment for the follies,—call them, if you please, the crimes, of a short life? Is he injured by our crimes, that he should seek this vast revenge; or does his nature delight in groans and lamentations? It cannot be supposed. What revelation declares of the future condition of the wicked, is prophecy; and prophecy, we know, deals in poetical and exaggerated expressions." Such, perhaps, is the language which the sinner holds within himself, when he is warned of the wrath to come; and such language he is taught to hold, in the writings and sermons of our modern sectaries. He is taught, that the punishment threatened is far more

heavy than will be executed: he is told, that the words which, in their literal meaning, denote endless duration, are, upon many occasions in Scripture, as in common speech, used figuratively or abusively, to denote very long, but yet definite, periods of time. These notions are inculcated in the writings, not of infidels, but of men who, with all their errors, must be numbered among the friends and advocates of virtue and religion;-but, while we willingly bear witness to their worth, we must not the less strenuously resist their dangerous innovations.

The question concerning the eternity of punishment (like some others, which, considered merely as questions of philosophy, may be of long and difficult discussion) might be brought to a speedy determination, if men, before they heat themselves with argument, would impartially consider how far reason, in her natural strength, may be competent to the inquiry. I do not mean to affirm generally that reason is not a judge in matters of religion but I do maintain, that there are certain points concerning the nature of the Deity and the schemes of Providence, upon which reason is dumb and revelation is explicit; and that, in these points, there is no certain guide but the plain, obvious meaning of the written word. The question concerning the eternal duration of the torments of the wicked is one of these. From any natural knowledge that we have of the Divine character, it never can be proved that the scheme of eternal punishment is unworthy of him.

It cannot be proved that this scheme is inconsistent with his natural perfections,-his essential goodness. What is essential goodness? It is

usually defined by a single property, the love of virtue for its own sake. The definition is good, as far as it goes; but is it complete? Does it comprehend the whole of the thing intended? Perhaps not. Virtue and vice are opposites: love and hate are opposites. A consistent character must bear opposite affections toward opposite things. To love virtue, therefore, for its own sake, and to hate vice for its own sake, may equally belong to the character of essential goodness; and thus, as virtue in itself, and for its own sake, must be the object of God's love and favour; so, incurable vice, in itself, and for its own sake, may be the object of his hatred and persecution.

Again, it cannot be proved that the scheme of eternal punishment is inconsistent with the relative perfections of the Deity-with those attributes which are displayed in his dealings with the rational part of his creation: for who is he that shall determine in what proportions the attributes of justice and mercy, forbearance and severity, ought to be mixed up in the character of the Supreme Governor of the universe?

Nor can it be proved that eternal punishment is inconsistent with the schemes of God's moral government for who can define the extent of that government? Who among the sons of men hath an exact understanding of its ends, a knowledge of its various parts, and of their mutual relations and dependencies? Who is he that shall explain by what motives the righteous are to be preserved from falling from their future state of glory? That they shall not fall, we have the comfortable assurance of God's word. But by what means is the security of their state to be effected? Un

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