is, plainly, of no force. And as to the ad valorem punishment, if that alone were threatened, the consequences would obviously be, that petty sins would abound, that the heart and conscience would become cauterized by an indulgence in them, and thence pro ceed without a pang to the commission of greater crimes. The grand design of government is to prevent all crime; and if the apportioning of penalties to transgressions be not so properly a consideration of justice, as a matter of prudence and wisdom in the lawgiver, then justice cannot well be said to be concerned in any imagined disproportion between sins and sufferings. But justice is concerned in this, that the righteous and the wicked should not be treated alike, as well as that greater sins should have a heavier punishment; all which may evidently be adjusted in the degree and intenseness of suffering, without there being any difference in its duration.

7thly. However, it must be observed, "that the "primary end of all threatenings is not punishment, "but the prevention of it. For God does not threaten "that men may sin, and be punished; but that they

may not sin, and so escape the punishment threat❝ened. And therefore the higher the threatening

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runs, so much the more mercy and goodness there is "in it, because it is so much the more likely to "hinder men from incurring the penalty that is "threatened." (i)

II. Those who reject the doctrine of eternal punishment contend that the word which we translate to

(i) Tillotson's 35th Sermon.

punish is often used in a mitigated sense; and they farther bring forward many passages to show either that after a certain portion of suffering the criminal will be restored to favour, or that " eternal death" means annihilation.

Thus, in their note on Matt. xxv. 46, the recent Socinian translators (so frequently quoted in these letters) say, "the word here rendered punishment "properly signifies correction inflicted for the benefit "of the offender." To this it may be replied that the true signification of noλaris (the word adverted to) is punishment in general: my authorities are first Hesychius, who explains it by Topia: and, secondly, Scapula, who translates it punitio, item castigatio. But farther, in 1 John, iv. 18, we find the same word translated by torment even in the Socinian version; and it is not easy to trace there any reference to a torment for the benefit of the person tormented. again, in Acts, iv. 21, where the word is xoλaσWYTαι, we cannot perceive how the punishment, with which the apostles Peter and John were threatened, was calculated for their benefit. And once more, in 2 Peter, ii. 9, where we are told that "the Lord knoweth how "to deliver those that are godly out of trial, and to "reserve those that are unrighteous to the day of

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So

judgment to be punished (xoλatouevous);" the phrase surely cannot imply punishment for the benefit of the offender; because, if so, the worst offenders are singled out to experience that benefit: for, according to those very translators, they are "chiefly those who walk "after the flesh with polluted desires, and despise do

"minion: who are presumptuous, self-willed, and "not afraid to blaspheme dignities," &c. that are selected to undergo this beneficial process.

As to the passages usually adduced to prove that the punishment in a future world will be annihilation, it may be remarked, first, that a state of misery, which is as bad or worse than death, may without impropriety be called by that name, as indeed it often is by the best ancient Roman and Greek authors; and thus "the lake of fire" into which the wicked shall be cast, to be there tormented, is expressly called " the second death." (k) And secondly, if " eternal death" mean eternal annihilation, then all positive punishment and torment is excluded, contrary to the language of our Lord, who says "there shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth;" besides which, upon this hypothesis, the punishment of all sinners must be equal, because annihilation is not-being, in which there can be no degrees: but this is contrary to all ideas of justice.

The other notion, that is, of annihilation after a temporary punishment, has not the least foundation in Scripture, and is in itself too absurd to demand any specific reply: and with regard to all these speculations respecting mitigated suffering, it may be remarked, once for all, that if it be true, that not merely a single criminal act, but a single impure or even thoughtless expression, may transfer evil indefinitely to the end of time, by communication from a second to a third, from a third to a fourth, from an older to a younger, from him (k) Rev. xx. 14.

to one still younger, and so on in all varieties of direction; and if, moreover, the Divine Being intended his threatenings should have their full effect in deterring from crime, whether diffused deliberately or thoughtlessly, it cannot be conceived that in the same Revelation he should have given any intimations of his intention to mitigate their severity, or not to execute them at all. If it be wise to excite the strongest dread of future punishment, any other declarations, intended to weaken that impression, would be unwise.

III. But the grand current of the arguments against the eternal duration of future punishment flows from the affirmed limited meaning of the words awr, aviov, &c. which it, therefore, becomes necessary to examine rather particularly.

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"The word translated everlasting," (say the late Socinian translators,) (7) "is often used to express a "long but indefinite duration : Rom. xvi. 25; 2 Tim. "i. 9; Philemon, ver. 15. This text, therefore, so “far from giving countenance to the harsh doctrine of "eternal misery, is rather favourable to the more "pleasing and more probable hypothesis, of the ulti"mate restitution of the wicked to virtue and to happiness."

I certainly can trace no allusion to either ultimate virtue or happiness in the express declaration, "these "shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the

righteous into life eternal:" or at least, I must be permitted to think that if the wicked may extract a grain of hope from so strong a passage, the righteous (1) Note on Matt. xxv. 46, p. 62.

have at least equal reason to dread, that, after a similar duration, they may lapse from virtue and happiness into wickedness and misery; and thus the good and the bad may change places at the termination of that conian period, which is here alike placed before each class of persons. It can never, I conceive, be consistent with sound criticism, to interpret the same word used twice in the same sentence and connexion, and in both directly applicable to the soul, which is naturally immortal, so as to indicate eternity in the one instance, and terminable duration in the other.

But the word aiavos, we are told, is sometimes employed to express a limited but very long duration, and is three or four times (perhaps) so used in Scripture being indeed derived from awy, which denotes duration or continuance of time, but with great variety; and "therefore therefore" it can never mean eternity. I will not here argue from the probable derivation, as wv, always being; (m) but consider what is thus advanced in opposition to the more received opinions, as emanating from an established canon of criti

(m) That continued existence is the essential idea comprehended in the word we know upon the authority of Aristotle. Speaking of the celestial intelligences, he says, they are "without change or infirmity, "and, possessing a most excellent and satisfactory life, they continue “ through all eternity” (διατελεῖ τὸν ἀπαντα ΑΙΩ͂ΝΑ). Then follows this remarkable passage:-"For this word has been divinely "spoken by the ancients: For the consummation containing the time of every life not supernatural is called its age: (its period of duration). "For the same reason, the consummation of the whole heaven, and the "consummation containing the unlimited duration, and the immensity "of all things, is eternity, deriving its name from always being-im"mortal and divine." Lib. i. Col. c. 10.