Q. What is the punishment of the wicked in hell called?—A. Everlasting punishment.
Q. Will this punishment make them better?—A. No.
Q. Repeat “It is a fearful thing.”—A. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Q. What is God said to be to the wicked?—A. A consuming fire.
Q. What place should we strive to escape from above all others?—A. Hell.
The Rev. Alex. Glennie, rector of Allsaints parish, Waccamaw, South Carolina, has for several years been in the habit of preaching with express reference to slaves. In 1844 he published in Charleston a selection of these sermons, under the title of “Sermons preached on Plantations to Congregations of Negroes.” This book contains twenty-six sermons, and in twenty-two of them there is either a more or less extended account, or a reference to eternal misery in hell as a motive to duty. He thus describes the day of judgment (Sermon 15, p. 90):
When all people shall be gathered before him, “he shall separate them, one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on the right hand, but the goats on the left.” That, my brethren, will be an awful time, when this separation shall be going on; when the holy angels, at the command of the great Judge, shall be gathering together all the obedient followers of Christ, and be setting them on the right hand of the Judgment-seat, and shall place all the remainder on the left. Remember that each of you must be present; remember that the Great Judge can make no mistake; and that you shall be placed on one side or on the other, according as in this world you have believed in and obeyed him or not. How full of joy and thanksgiving will you be, if you shall find yourself placed on the right hand! but how full of misery and despair, if the left shall be appointed as your portion! * * * *
But what shall he say to the wicked on the left hand? To them he shall say, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” He will tell them to depart; they did not, while here, seek him by repentance and faith; they did not obey him, and now he will drive them from him. He will call them cursed.
(Sermon 1, p. 42.) The death which is the wages of sin is this everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. It is a fire which shall last forever; and the devil and his angels, and all people who will not love and serve God, shall there be punished forever. The Bible says, “The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.” The fire is not quenched, it never goes out, “their worm dieth not;” their punishment is spoken of as a worm always feeding upon but never consuming them; it never can stop.
Concerning the absolute authority of the master, take the following extract from Bishop Mead’s sermon. (Brooke’s Slavery, pp. 30, 31, 32.)