to be depraved?

How can they be released?

All

that for which they They cleave to it. custody is necessary to the well-being of the universe. It is the adaptation of sphere and circumstance to state and disposition. Another distribution would be an inversion of order and justice."

were condemned, abides in them. They persevere in it. Their

We are not moved by any taunt that this double reasoning implies dissatisfied conviction. When Scripture supplies more views than one, we are not only warranted, but bound, to argue upon all. We do not find, in its page, that eternal punishment is exclusively urged as reflective upon this life, but also as proportionate to character ever existing: we do not find the latter idea ever disjoined from the former. Both, we think, are plainly revealed. Why should we refuse their mutual aid in illustrating this fearful issue? Why should we break in pieces the common testimony? For here the facts, or truths, are not properly distinct. They are but one retribution did not strike until character was decided; character is the

principal weapon of retribution. They cannot be

a "Summo enim Deo cuncta bene administrante quæ fecit, nihil inordinatum in universo, nihilque injustum est, sive scientibus sive nescientibus nobis. Sed in parte offenditur anima peccatrix: tamen quia pro meritis ibi est ubi talem esse decet, et ea patitur quæ talem pati æquum est, universum regnum Dei nulla sua fœditate deformat. Quamobrem quoniam non omnia novimus quæ de nobis bene agit ordo divinus, in sola bona voluntate secundùm legem agimus, in cæteris autem secundùm legem agimur, cùm lex ipsa incommutabilis maneat, et omnia mutabilia pulcherrima gubernatione moderetur."Augustine. De Diver. Quæst. Octo-Trib.

considered but in union with each other. Neither can be understood but by their re-acting influence. We certainly are not ashamed to reach our conclusion by their commingled and concentrated light.

Where we cannot but expect difficulties, we confess to no small one touching the matter of degrees in punishment connected with an unvarying duration. It may be asked: Should not the graduation be of perpetuity as well as of kind? The difficulty, if confined to the argument, ceases upon firm reflection. The punishment, by the nature of him who suffers it, is eternal. Habit, character, consequence, necessitate this. Justice cannot owe it to him to subvert it. A violence must be done, nor can we see how there could be the counteraction. What could terminate unrepented sin ? The Scripture insists most frequently upon the cast and order of the lost. We find not in it the statements which never can convince. It tells us not that every sin alike deserves eternal death. It often touches lightly the demerit of particular sin. But it portrays the unworthiness, the incapacity, the degradation, which it has superinduced. "The wicked shall be turned into hell." "Know ye not that the unrighteous cannot inherit the kingdom of God?" The immortality of man is an independent fact. The lighter or more bitter degree of the retribution, arising out of the less or greater sinfulness, is likewise an independent fact. Man being immortal, it is no prejudice to his nature, it is only in agreement with the principles and stamina of his nature, that whatever be its chosen course, should be continued and prolonged as

himself. It, if left to its own tendency, will carry it forward and work it out. It by no means follows, even in this probationary state, that a man hates his sins because he deplores their consequences. Though the consequences will be so much more dreadly revealed to the lost, it does not follow that they will renounce their sins. Every known operation of the wicked mind points to the contrary. Even there no compulsion is upon them to be wicked. It is only of their own will that they do not love God. They are deprived of no moral power. They have chosen their own way. Whatever their malignity, it is their real and cherished disposition." We hesitate not, therefore, to admit, that, in all certainty, the endlessness of punishment destroys all distinction as to duration: but it does not affect the distinctions of guilt and its corresponding misery. This is the only moral branch of the inquiry. This alone is the question of government and retribution. We have nothing, in moral ques

"It was the opinion of many of the ancient Christians that with the close of probation after the final judgement, the existence of the human will ceased. Some of the Fathers assented to it. "For when," says Hilary, "we depart out of this life, we depart at the same time from the right of will. . . . For when the liberty of the will ceases, the effect also of the will, if there be any, will cease." Origen, however, differs. "I am of opinion that God so dispenses every one of the rational souls, that he regards their everlasting existence; for they always have free will." To suppose that the lost do not any longer exercise volition, is to destroy their most intimate nature; it alike takes away the source of depravity and the means of punishment. To assert that they will only sin, and therefore possess not liberty, equally militates against their present liberty what else do the wicked now will? This being their cherished affection, what else can they will?

tions, to do with duration of being. Immortality is not a business of right and wrong. It hangs by constituted tenure. It belongs not to any province of law. It is an established order of nature. It simply regards existence. We may well and deeply consider all moral rules and proportions. These researches concern man. They may be converted to his wellbeing. There we must stop. He is man. He is immortal. Over that he can have no control. It is

independent of him. He is not consulted on that arrangement. He is "made thus." made thus." It is a passive effect. But his conduct is the subject of responsibility. It may be what he will. That is his question. It is his only business. It is in his keeping and power. The question of duration is strictly detached from all that is moral, it is exclusively physical!

LECTURE VIII.

FOR THUS SAITH THE LORD; BEHOLD, THEY WHOSE JUDGEMENT WAS NOT TO DRINK OF THE CUP HAVE ASSUREDLY DRUNKEN; AND ART THOU HE THAT SHALL ALTOGETHER GO UNPUNISHED? THOU SHALT NOT GO UNPUNISHED, BUT THOU SHALT SURELY DRINK OF IT."

JEREMIAH xlix. 12.

It is an overpowering reflection !-but we have sometimes emboldened ourselves to inquire, What would bring relief and support to the lost in hell? What could allay the load of their despair ? What could dull the gnawing of that worm? What could soften the keenness of that flame? And two considerations have raised themselves in our mind as those which, could they be indulged, might yield the assuagement that we had ventured to suppose. Torment, under the influence of such considerations, would lose its sharpest severity: the worm would be unfanged, the fire would be appeased, and endurance might brave them!

The first consideration we should demand is, that the sufferer of the doom might feel that it was inevitable. The idea of fate sets us free from the sense of blame.