SECTION. I.

OF THE TERM EVERLASTING.

In favor of the doctrine of Endless Misery, the following passages are quoted, and are generally deemed decisive. Isaiah xxxiii. 14: "The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" Dan. xii. 2: "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Matt. xviii. S: "Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot cause thee to offend, cut them off and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire." Matt. xxv. 41: "Then shall he say also to them on the left hand, Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting-fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Ver. 46: "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." Mark iii. 29: "But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation." 2 Thess. i. 7-9: "The Lord

Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." Rev. xiv. 11: "The smoke of their torment goeth up for ever and ever." xix. 3: "The smoke goeth up for ever and ever." xx. 10: They (the beast and false prophet) shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." 2 Peter ii. 17, Jude 13: "To whom the blackness of darkness is reserved for ever." Jude 6, 7: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

These, I believe, are all the passages in the Bible in which the terms everlasting and eternal are used in relation to future punishment; and it is obvious, that they are very few compared with what is commonly supposed. From the frequency with which they are generally repeated, persons imagine that the Bible is full of expressions of this kind; yet they occur twice

only in the Old Testament. In the gospel of Luke they are not to be found, and they occur but once in that of Mark. St. John does not once employ them, either in his gospel or in his epistles, and they will be sought in vain in the account of the preaching of the apostles, in all their discourses which are put upon record, from the beginning to the end of the Acts. Though the writings of the apostle Paul form so large a portion of the New Testament, yet he never uses any language of this kind, except in one single instance, and then his expression is, everlasting destruction. Such words are no where to be found in the epistle of James, and they are totally absent from the epistles of Peter.

The truth of the doctrine cannot, however, be supposed to depend upon the frequency with which it is repeated. One decisive proof is sufficient. The preceding facts are mentioned only to remove the common error, that the application of the terms everlasting and eternal to future punishment is of constant recurrence.

All the proof which the above passages can afford in support of the endless duration of punishment, must depend upon the words everlasting and eternal, and presuppose that they denote duration without end: but in order to show this, it is necessary to prove both that this is their primitive meaning, and that they are invaribly used in this sense in Scripture. That they do not prima

rily denote endless duration, seems evident from the fact that they have a plural number. Had the primitive meaning of the substantive av, been eternity, and of the adjective avios, endless, they could scarcely have possessed a plural signification, since it would have involved the same absurdity as is manifest when, attaching to the term eternity the sense which it always bears in the English language, we speak of eternities.

That these words are not invariably used in the Scriptures to signify duration without end, is indisputable: yet they require to have this sense constantly and without exception, if their application to the subject of punishment be alone sufficient to prove its absolute eternity, for if they ever denote limited duration, they may do so in regard to future punishment.

In order to ascertain the exact meaning of these terms, and the length of duration they signify, it is necessary to consider how they are used respecting other subjects in the New Testament, and in the Greek translation of the Old.

The word av (æon) is used in Scripture in several different senses. Sometimes it signifies the term of human life; at other times the duration of the world, and at others an age or dispensation of Providence: in its plural form it denotes the age of the world, or any measurement of time, especially if its termination be hidden, but its most common signification is that of age

or dispensation. It has this sense in the follow

ing passages.

Matt. xiii. 22: He who received seed ,66 among thorns is he who heareth the word and the anxious care," e aos rare, of this æon, age or world, &c. Ver. 39: The harvest is the end," To avos, of the æon or age. Ver. 40: "So will it be in the end,” te duwvos tete, of this æon or age. Ver. 49: So will it be in the end," 8 avos, of the aon or age. Matt. xxviii. 20: "Lo I am with you always to the end," re alvos, of the æon or age. Luke xvi. 8: "For the SONS,” TE AIWYOS Tere, of this on or age are more prudent. Rom. xii. 2: “Be not conformed according," to asw TеT, to this æon or age. Tit. ii. 12" Live soberly, righteously, and piously," ev tæ voy atwy, in this present æon or age. And also in the following passages: Matt. xii. 32, Mark iv. 19, Luke xx. 34, 1 Cor. viii. 13, 1 Cor. x, 11, Galat. i. 4, 1 Tim. vi. 17, 2 Tim. iv. 10, Heb. ix. 26.

That the terms aw and alwas, often signify limited duration, is evident from the following passages.

Αιων.

Exod. xxi. 6: "Then his master shall bring, him unto the judges; he shall bring him to the door or the door-post, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve