the sentence. If any one, in short, should be disposed to wonder at my explanation, I can only wonder, in turn, at the difficulties which cruel system puts in our way. For is it really strange that a sinner should be regarded as one whose being is to end, and should yet, at the same time, be sent away for his punishment into a fire which is never to end? Is there anything in such a view to move either pity or contempt? Is there, in such a combination of ideas, anything really absurd ?—anything that is even peculiarly hard to receive?

And here, I must refer to a remarkable statement from one of those who had been conversant with our Lord upon earth, and had heard all that He had uttered on this subject of everlasting fire. Does not the statement involve that very principle for which I am pleading," Even as Sodom and Gomorrah are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire"? (Jude 7.) But how do they suffer such a vengeance? Did they not perish in the fire? Did not the fire even cease when its work was done ? And yet it is called 'eternal fire;' and they are said to be still subjected to the punishment of it. But how was this, except that the traces of the fire remained, and could be seen-as the monument of 'that vengeance which had come down upon the plain? May, then, Sodom and Gomorrah be thus spoken of by an apostle of Christ, as, in his own time, "suffering the vengeance of eternal fire?" And

may not the wicked be said in a similar-though unspeakably more awful sense-to go away into 'the everlasting fire'?

Or, suppose we take the words in the precise order of the original, and as some take them in the hope of evading such an argument-"Sodom and Gomorrah are set forth as an example of eternal fire,-suffering vengeance." Thus will the burnt up plain furnish to all the world an example of the eternal fire;-it will show what kind of thing that fire is-as a fire utterly consuming and destroying the transgressor, while yet leaving its own mark, and maintaining its own action, after its victims are no more. A faint image truly;-and yet, says the apostle, an example or illustration of that everlasting fire into which his Lord had said that the wicked should depart!

With this language we may compare another of those expressions, as found in the same epistle, frequently alleged in support of endless sufferings"For whom," says the apostle-speaking of the worst of transgressors-" is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever." Let it be freely admitted, then, that there is a darkness coeval with the threatened fire. But neither let us forget that a pall of everlasting darkness is an extremely different matter from the pain of everlasting burning.

LETTER X.

OF SOME EXPRESSIONS IN THE APOCALYPSE.

You will agree with me, I think, that we should have learned the doctrine of Scripture regarding future punishment, before coming to its closing book. And yet it would be serious indeed if anything in this should conflict with what seems so plainly taught in the preceding parts. But it would be strange also if-after the profound silence which, as I am deeply convinced, we have met with, whether in the Saviour or His apostles, on the subject of ENDLESS SUFFERINGS-we should now find that a revelation so awful had been reserved for the hard symbols and the dark visions of the Apocalypse.

Coming, then, to that wonderful book, does it not seem that we are carried back by a step, as it were, to the very first pages of the Bible? For, here again, it is “the tree of life" that represents the bliss of the redeemed,-while "the second death" is the lot of the unsaved. Let us take the passages as they

occur.

“To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the

tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of

God." (Ch. ii. 7.)

"He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death." (ii. 11.)

"The lake of fire-this is the second death." (xx. 14.)

"The lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." (xxi. 8.)

"In the midst of the street of it was there the tree of life." (xxii. 2.)

"Blessed are they that keep His commandments (or, have washed their robes), that they may have right to the tree of life." (xxii. 14.)

Such, then, is the doctrine of this last book of the Bible, in regard to the future state. And And you will allow that the reference is of the most direct kind, to the blessing on the one hand, and the curse on the other as proposed to our first father.

But, besides this, there occur other references to future punishment, with two of which we are specially concerned, as being supposed to fix the endlessness of suffering, in the most decisive manner. I say two (xix. 3, xx. 10)—for I am not prepared to allow that a third (xiv. 11), constantly urged in this connection, stands at all on the same footing. It is true that the mere language to which our ears have been accustomed sounds equally strong in that as in the other two cases;-"The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever." (xiv. 11.)

The argument, I need hardly say, is, that the expression "for ever and ever," as here employed, is the strongest ever used in Scripture to denote the most absolute eternity. This, however, is a mistake. The expression, as often so freely asserted, is not the same as in the cases where the Divine existence and glory is the theme; and, in fact, occurs only in this one place. "THE ages of THE ages," as in the other cases, is one thing; and "ages of ages," as in the present case, is another thing. It is upon idiom and usage that all depends in every such case. And the difference in this respect would entirely vitiate the analogy, even were the variation less serious than it is.1 The fuller of the two expressions we are bound to take as indicating a real eternity, because such is the constant application of it. Not being able, for the same reason, to regard the other expression in the same light, we may take it as equivalent to our phrase-ages upon ages.' But now this case, in

1 The expression εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων—“to the ages of the ages," occurs in Gal. i. 5; Phil. iv. 20; 1 Tim. i. 17; 2 Tim. iv. 18; Heb. xiii. 21; 1 Peter iv. 11; v. 11; Rev. i. 6, 18; iv. 9, 10; v. 13, 14; vii. 12; x. 6; xi. 15; xv. 7; xix. 3; xx. 10; xxii. 5. Besides this we have the kindred expression εἰς πάσας τὰς γενεὰς τοῦ αἰῶνος τῶν αἰώνων (Eph. iii. 21); and the various cases in which we read eiç rovs aivas only. (Luke i. 33; Rom. i. 25; ix. 5; xi. 36; xvi. 27; 2 Cor. xi. 31; Heb. xiii. 8.) There is also the form εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα separately, and with the addition of τοῦ αἰῶνος, Heb. i. 8; v. 6; vi. 20; vii. 17, 21, 24, 28; 1 Peter i. 23; 1 John ii. 17; 2 John 2. We may thus see how little reason there is for taking is alwvas aiwvwv in Rev. xiv. 11, as signifying-to eternity.'