Great as these distresses may be, the separate spirits are dreading greater evils. “Hast thou come to torment us before the time?” When the judgment has passed, “death,” the bodies which had been dead, “and hell,” the spirits which had been in Hades, “shall be cast into the lake of fire.” If their bodies shall be raised spiritual, incorruptible, and immortal, which is affirmed of the righteous; and seems probable, because the earth will be destroyed, and they will be associated with spirits, yet the sense of the pain, which arises from burning, may be given and continued in them by the application of fire, or even without it.
But that which imbitters all their distresses in the highest degree, is, that they shall be eternal. The original words of the scripture expressive of their perpetuity, being unrestrained by any implied or expressed limitation, should be understood as when applied to Deity, or the happiness of the saints. The same perpetual duration is also shown by negation, which is the strongest language. “The worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched;” it is “unquenchable fire,” and “their end,” (or final state,) “is to be burned.” We read of a sin which shall “not be forgiven.” “Not every one—shall enter into the kingdom;” and where Christ is, they “cannot come.” They will “have judgment without mercy.” None of these things are true, if all men shall be saved.
Perhaps justice required that these evils should be disclosed; but if they be unjust, it was improper to threaten them. Our aversion to them springs from our ignorance of the evil of sin. Nevertheless, the sacrifice of Christ, and the warnings of scripture, speak their extent; and the continuance of the damned in sin, establishes their certainty.
[87]. See Vol. I. Page 462.
[88]. See Quest. xx. Page 70. Ante.
[89]. ברית.
[90]. διαθηκη.
[91]. Rather, “ratified over a dead body,” an ancient mode of covenanting.
[92]. These style it, Testamento Foedus, or Foedus Testamentarium, or Testamentum Foederale.
[93]. The Hebrew word in this, and the two other scriptures above mentioned, is ערב which signifies, In fidem suam recipere; spondere pro aliquo; and it is used in several other scriptures, in the same sense, for a person’s undertaking to be a surety for another. See Gen. xliii. 6. chap. xliv. 32. Prov. xi. 15. Job xvii. 3. 2 Kings xviii. 32. and elsewhere.