destruction, a state of everlasting punish ment "from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." *

Were this opinion of the annihilation of the wicked to be generally embraced and encouraged, what a license would be taken for all manner of iniquity! how wide would the flood-gates of evil be thrown open in the world! Man, no longer restrained by the fear of punishment, would give the loose reins to his passions, and intemperately rush into whatsoever course his corrupt inclinations might urge him to pursue. Under this delusion, he would sacrifice his hopes of everlasting happiness to the pleasures and enjoyments of the present moment, and be careless of reward, so long as he was persuaded that he should escape punishment. In short, all fear of future suffering being removed from the mind, the earth would be overrun with wickedness, as it was before the deluge. Religion would be despised, and Profaneness encouraged. Virtue would be outraged in every way, and Vice would ride shamelessly and triumphantly through the world.

Others again have imagined, with less offence, but not with less fallacy, that there will be a punishment hereafter for the wicked, but that it will not last for ever. They think that God will in his justice punish them according to the degrees of their guilt; degrees, which in their estimation include duration as well as proportion of suffering, and that the period will come, when in his mercy he will cause their punishment wholly to cease. Could we, consistently with Scripture, fall in with this opinion, we would; as it would be gratifying to indulge a hope, were there any grounds for it, that the sufferings of our fellow-creatures were to have a termination. But we cannot close with this notion without violating the express and positive declarations of the Gospel. The terms, Eternal and for Ever, do, no doubt, frequently denote in Scripture a limited duration; the sense of the several passages where they occur plainly shows, that they must be so ac

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,