cepted. But when the punishment to come is spoken of they must signify a duration infinite and without end, in order to a reconciliation with other passages, where future punishment is the subject. We read, "He whose fan in his hand will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." * And again, "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into Hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Is not this a clear and positive declaration of the Eternity of punishment? For although men may draw an argument against it from the limited use in many places of the terms, Eternal and for Ever, they can have no such refuge, without an extreme violence of interpretation, in the expressions, the never-dying Worm, and the Unquenchable Fire. This opinion of the termination of future punishments

*Matt. iii. 12.

Mark, ix. 43, 44.

after a limited period, though not so dangerous as that of annihilation, is highly prejudicial to the cause of virtue, and takes off from the mind those fears and restraints, which are so necessary to the good government of the world. It is evidently founded in error, and therefore not to be encouraged.

Besides, let us consider, that not only are everlasting punishments denounced against the wicked, but everlasting rewards also are promised to the righteous. Now if we dispute the eternity of the former by a limitation of the term Everlasting, must we not dispute upon the same ground the eternity of the latter? For, although I am ready to allow, that God might reward the righteous for ever, and at the same tiine punish the wicked only for a limited space, yet I am not to indulge in the excursions of my imagination, but to confine myself to the plain declarations of Scripture, which I find uttered in precisely the same expressions of endless duration. It is no where said in the Gospel, that the wicked after a sufficient portion of punishment shall

cease to suffer. It cannot, therefore, be safe to rest upon a speculation unsupported by any positive warrant; violating by a fanciful conceit a plain and decisive intelligence, and bringing into question by an abatement in favour of the wicked, the extent of the promise in favour of the righteous.

Did the habitual sinner now and then call home his wandering thoughts, and seriously reflect on the dreadful condition of the condemned of God, surely he would be awakened to a sense of his danger, and be deterred from going on still in his wickedness. By meditating on the sufferings of the whole man, sufferings without intermission, without alleviation, and without end, his mind would begin to see the folly of his past transgressions, his heart to feel compunctions at having been so long estranged from God, and his soul to gather benefit from the alarm, which a clearer prospect of torments would create.

How often have we to lament the infatuation of many, who, knowing and confessing the future consequences of their conduct, go on still in the ways of sin,

and act, as if condemnation were the object of their pursuit, and eternal suffering the desire of their hearts. Of how much pain and bitterness would they escape the experience, by seriously considering the imminent danger they are in, and by pursuing the appointed means of averting it before death arrives, and the woes are about to be poured out! For as surely as the righteous will never be dismissed from the mansions of Heaven, só surely the wicked will never be permitted to quit their abode of misery.

I come now to consider the Everlasting State of the Righteous.

The life of man may be made the subject of contemplation with reference to three states of being; his Present State, his Intermediate State, and his Future or Eternal State. In his Present State his soul and body are united, acting upon and in concert with each other, and co-operating in the exercise of good or evil. They are for a time confined to this world, and are placed here upon their probation with laws for the rule of their conduct, with menaces to deter them from the commis

sion of wickedness, and with promises to encourage them in the pursuit of righteousness. On the employment of Time depend the issues of Eternity. When death dissolves the connexion of soul and body, the one departs to the world of spirits, the other is consigned to its grave. In this Intermediate State the soul evidently exists in a state of separation from the body, either awaiting in miserable despair the judgment to come, or looking with joyful expectation for the consummation of its reward! At the last day when the Resurrection of the dead shall take place, there will be a re-union of soul and body. Then the judgment will be set, and the everlasting sentence passed upon all people, and nations, and languages. They, who have made this life a scene of wickedness, will, as we have seen, go away into eternal misery; but they, who have obeyed the commandments of God through faith in Christ, and under the influence of the Holy Spirit, will inherit eternal happiness. At the sound of the last trump the bodies of the Saints, bursting the fetters of the grave, will rise