NO. V. ON FUTURE PUNISHMENT.

I HAVE hesitated about introducing this subject in the present course of observations, because there is no question upon it that does, accurately speaking, divide Orthodox and Liberal Christians. The great question, about the duration of future punishment, has been brought very little into debate between the parties, and it has no particular connexion with any of the speculative questions that are in debate. If Universalism, considered as a denial of all future punishment, has more affinity with any one theological system than another, it undoubtedly is Calvinism; and it is a well known fact, that it originally sprung from Calvinism, and existed in the closest connexion with it.

Still, however, since it is latterly urged, by the Orthodox, that there is a great difference between them and their opponents, on this subject, and since, as I apprehend, a difference does exist in their general views and speculations, and one that deserves to be discussed, I 15

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have thought proper to bring it into the course of my remarks.

As the subject has been very little discussed among us, I shall treat it, not so much in the form of controversy, as with that calm and dispassionate disquisition, which more properly belongs to a theme so solemn and weighty. 1. The retribution of guilt is serious in the contemplation, and must be severe in the endurance. The penal suffering of a guilty mind, wherever, and whenever it comes, must be great. This, to me, is the first and clearest of all truths, with regard to the punishment of sin. Even experience teaches us this; and Scripture, with many words of awful warning, confirms the darkest admonitions of experience. If sin is not repented of, in this life, then its punishment must take place in a future world.

Of the miseries of that future state, I do not need the idea of a direct infliction from God, to give me a fearful impression. Of all the unveiled horrors of that world, nothing seems so terriffic as the self-inflicted torture of a guilty conscience. It will be enough to fill the measure of his wo, that the sinner shall be left to himself—that he shall be left to the natural consequences of wickedness. In the universe, there are no agents to work out the misery of the soul, like its own fell passions; not the fire, the darkness, the flood, or the tempest. Nothing, within the range of our conceptions, can equal the dread silence of conscience, the calm desperation of remorse, the corroding of ungratified desire, the gnawing worm of envy, the bitter cup of disappointment, the blighting curse of hatred. These, pushed to their extremity, may be enough to destroy the soul-as lesser sufferings, in this world, are sometimes found to destroy the reason.

But whatever that future calamity will be, I believe it is the highest idea we can form of it, to suppose that it is of the sinner's own procuring; that the burthen of his transgressions will fall upon him, by its own weight; not to be hurled upon him, as a thunder-bolt from heaven. If we should suppose a wicked man, to live always on earth, and to proceed in his career of iniquity; adding sin to sin; arming conscience with new terrors; gathering and enhancing all horrible diseases and distempers ; and increasing and accumulating the load of infamy and wo-this might give us some faint idea of the extent to which sin may go in another world.

This, then, is not a subject to be treated lightly, or with any heat or passion; but should be taken home to the most solemn contemplations and deep solicitude of every accountable being.

2. My second remark is that the scriptural representations of future punishment are not literal nor definite.

That they are not literal is manifest from the consideration that they are totally inconsistent, if taken literally. If there is a lake of fire, there cannot be a gnawing worm. If it is blackness of darkness, it cannot be a flaming deluge of fire. If it is death and destruction, literally, it cannot be sensible pain. If it is the loss of the soul, it cannot be the suffering of the soul. And yet all these representations are used to describe the future misery. It is plain, therefore, that all cannot be literally To suppose them literal indeed, would be to make the future world like the present; for they are all drawn from present objects. Neither are these representations definite. It is not a definite idea, but "a certain fearful looking for of judgment," that is given to us, in the pre

true.

sent state. We know nothing about the particular place, or the particular circumstances of a future punishment. If these things are not literally described, it follows, indeed, that they are not definitely. For, the moment these descriptions cease to be literal, they cease to furnish ideas of anything that is tangible—of anything that can belong to place or circumstance-of anything that has dimensions, shape, or elements. That is to say, they are figurative. They serve but to throw a deeper shadow over the dark abyss; and leave us not to pry into it, with curiosity, but to tremble with fear. Indeed, the very circumstance that the future wo is unknown, is, in itself, a most awful and appalling circumstance. It may be, that the revelation of it comes to us in general and ambiguous terms, for this very purpose. There is really something more alarming in a certain fearful looking for of judgment, than in the definite knowledge of it.

Neither, as I believe, are those terms which describe the duration of future misery, definite. Indeed, why should they be more definite than those which relate to place or circumstance? In passages where all else is figurative, and that in so very high a degree, why may it not be suspected that what relates to the time may be figurative? This suspicion drawn from the connected phraseology, may derive additional strength from the subject, about which the language in question is employed. It is the future, the indefinite, the unknown state. Whatever stretches into the vast futurity, is to us, eternal. We can grasp no thought of everlasting, but that it is indefinite. You may bring this argument home to your own feelings, if you suppose that you had been called to describe some future and awful calamity, which was vast,

indefinite, unknown, terrible-if you consider whether you would not, with these views, have adopted phraseology as strong, as unlimited, as you find in the Scriptures on this subject? If then, our idea of future punishment extends so far as to provide for the full strength of the language used-if our theory provide for the terms to be explained by it, is it not sufficient ?-does it not go far enough?

To these considerations relating to the language and the principles of interpretation that ought to be applied to it, let it be observed in addition, that the oriental style was habitually and very highly metaphorical, and is to be explained by the impression it would naturally make on those who were accustomed to it; and that even among us, with our cooler imaginations, the terms in question, such as "forever," &c. are used figuratively— are applied to limited periods, and this on the most common occasions and subjects:-further, that the ancients used the words describing number and time far more loosely than we do, as for instance, the numbers, three, seven, ten, a thousand, are indefinitely used throughout the Sacred Scriptures, for a greater or less period or amount, without marking any exact space or duration, and above all, that the strongest descriptions of the extent of future punishment, are also confessedly applied to things earthly and limited. To take one instance for all, as being the strongest of all: there is no higher or more unqualified description of the endurance of future misery, than that which says, "their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Now it has been very plausibly argued thus-that "if ever the time comes when their worm shall die; if ever there shall be a quenching of the 15*

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