ishment, which will be inflicted until the wise, necessary and benevolent purposes of punishment are accomplished.

The same kind of observations may be applied to the phrases for ever, and for ever and ever. Eis alwva aiwvos, for ever, is used to denote a limited period of duration in the following passages.

Ps. xxxvii. 29: "The righteous shall dwell in the land for ever;" that is, from generation to generation. Ps. lxi. 8: "I will sing praise to thy name for ever," from one period of my life to another. Ps. cxxxii. 14: "This is my rest for ever;" that is from age to age.*

Εις τον αιώνα και εις τον αιώνα τε αιωνος, for ever and ever, is employed to express limited duration in the following texts.

"Ps. xlviii. 14: This God is our God for ever and ever,' that is, from age to age, for he has long ceased to be the God of the Jews in the sense here intended. Ps. cxix. 44: So shall I keep thy law continually, for ever and ever,' that is, through the several periods or ages of my life on earth. Ps. cxlv. 2: I will praise thy 'I name for ever and ever,' that is, through every period of my life. Ps. cxlv. 21: Let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever,' that is, from age to age, or through every age. Ps.

* See Simpson's Essay, pp. 17, 18,

cxlviii. 6: He hath established the heavens for ever and ever,' that is, through all ages."

"It is an observation of the utmost importance that when alloy, or avios, are applied to the future punishment of the wicked, they are never joined to life, immortality, incorruptibility, but are always connected with fire, or with that punishment, pain, destruction or second death, which is effected by means of fire. Now since fire, which consumes or decomposes other perishable bodies, is itself of a dissoluble or perishing nature, this intimates a limitation of the period of time." +

It is probable, also, that one chief reason why the future punishment of the wicked is often denoted by the metaphor of fire, is because it was the agent which was generally employed in purifying other bodies.‡ Allusions are continually made in Scripture to this property of fire. Malachi iii. 2, 3: "But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap; and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of

* Simpson's Essay, pp. 17, 18.

+ Ibid. p. 22.

It is true this metaphor is very frequently used to signify indignation and anger, as in Rev. xiv. 10, and Heb. x. 27, but the passages quoted above prove that it is also employed to denote the corrective nature of punishment.

silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." Isaiah xlviii. 10: "Behold, I have refined thee. I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." Mark ix. 49: "For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt." In this passage, which itself relates to future punishment, the double metaphor of salt and fire, appears to be used to signify the same thing, the corrective nature of punishment. 1 Peter i. 7: "That the trial of your faith being much. more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory, at the appearance of Jesus Christ." Allusion to this property of fire is also made in the following passages. Ps. xii. 6: "The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." Matt. iii. 11, 12: "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire; whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner: but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." The parellel passage in Luke iii. 17. Rev. iii. 18: "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear."

It appears, then, that since the terms av and aivios, are constantly applied to things which either have perished, or which must be destroyed, no argument can fairly be deduced from their use alone, in proof of the absolute eternity of future punishment, even although it should be allowed that some passages in which they occur denote duration without end.* Before their application to this subject can be conclusive, it must be shown that there is something in the nature of punishment which requires that whenever they are annexed to it, they must necessarily denote endless duration; a task which it is not easy to accomplish, and the very attempt at which seems absurd but even if it could be accomplished, it would prove, not that the nature of these terms gives the sense of eternity to punishment, but

*That they are sometimes connected with subjects which have an endless duration, must be admitted; for example, in some passages which relate to the glory of God. Rom. xvi. 27: "To the only wise God be glory, as tous aiavas, for ever." 1 Peter iv. 11: "That by Jesus Christ God may be glorified, to whom be glory and dominion, εις τες αιώνας των αιώνων, for ever and ever." 1 Tim. vi. 16: " To him who only hath immortality, be honor and dominion, auwvov, everlasting." And in some passages which relate to the nature of the Divine Being, Rom. xvi. 26: "According to the commandment, te avis Dee, of the everlasting God." But it is evident that in these passages these words do not give the sense of endless to, but receive it from the subject to which they are applied.

U

that the nature of punishment imparts it to these

terms.

This foundation, then, of the doctrine of Endless Misery, and of Limited Punishment terminated by Destruction, is unstable and insufficient. These terms cannot establish the doctrine, that future punishment will be followed by a total extinction of conscious existence, because the only way in which they could favor this opinion, would be by proving that the loss sustained by the wicked is truly everlasting, and that in this most important sense their punishment may be said to be without end; but it has been shown that these words do not prove the endless duration of punishment. Still less do they favor the doctrine of Endless Misery; for although the absolute eternity of punishment were fully established, it would by no means follow, that this punishment consists of unremitted and insupportable torments, because the substantive connected with the adjective, which is translated eternal, does not signify misery, but punishment. It is not said that the wicked shall go away into everlasting torment; and though the term everlasting is connected with the metaphor of fire, yet this metaphor may signify something else besides misery, as has already been shown; and at all events to attempt to establish such a tremendous doctrine, merely upon a figurative expres→ sion, is unwarrantable.