future destiny of the righteous and the wicked are often described in figurative language, of course we admit

also. But we maintain that the whole of that figurative language points not to endless misery but to destruction; and that if endless misery be the real doom of the lost, and death be only a figure to describe it, then both that figure, and every other similarly employed, are utterly misleading.

Let us look at it closely. It is admitted by all that the death, which is the wages of sin, and which when inflicted is called 'the second death,' means the death of the whole man-body and soul. Now we can only infer what is meant by the death of the soul from what we know of the death of the body. The second death must bear some analogy to the first death, or it would be simply a misleading term. What, then, happens to the body when it dies? It becomes utterly incapable of feeling, or acting, or performing any one of its appropriate functions. It is not that it performs them badly -that is disease--but that it does not perform them at all. When, then, death is said to be inflicted on the soul what are we to understand? Why surely that it will be reduced to the same condition. But the popular theory is that it will live for ever, performing all its functions, but performing them badly. In other words, that instead of being punished with death, it will be afflicted with a loathsome and painful disease, which can never be cured, and from which death will

never release it,-that it will be always dying, but never die.

The same thing holds good with regard to the share which the raised body is to have in the second death. The popular theory will not allow even it to die. It is to be kept alive in agony for ever. What a teacher the Bible must be, if this is the meaning of God being ' able to destroy both body and soul in hell!'

It may be said that after the first death, consciousness remains in the surviving soul; and that therefore consciousness may remain after the second death. So it might, if the second death were only another death of the body; but as both body and soul are to be destroyed by it, no remaining consciousness is possible.

This one word, therefore, the key-word to the whole subject, is amply sufficient to decide the question. It would be difficult to conceive a more violent perversion of the plainest possible teaching, than that which makes death to mean eternal life in misery. And this perversion is all the more inexcusable, on account of the earnestness with which the whole Bible labours to guard us against it. Every expression that human language can supply, and every metaphor that the material world can yield, to impress upon us that the wicked will wholly cease to exist, are piled one upon another, almost continuously, from Genesis to Revelation. They are said to perish-to pass away-to fadeto wither-to be destroyed-consumed-devoured→

burnt up-ground to powder-cut down-d[ by the roots-broken to shivers-put away like dross— besides other similar expressions. What dependence can be placed upon the teaching of Scripture, if all this means that they will live for ever, with all their powers and faculties of body and mind in full exercise, though at enmity with God, and consequently in a state of unmitigated suffering? *

"

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* They are to be as "chaff driven away before the wind," or burnt up; as "stubble before the wind;" as "thorns burned in the fire;" as "trees cut down," "rooted up," and "burned in fire." They are to be as "beasts taken and destroyed;" as "a light put out ;" as "waters melting away;" as "the whirlwind passing by;" as "the cloud consumed and vanishing away;" and as a “ dream" which "flees away." They are to be as "ashes under the feet;" as " powder" ground down; as a "vessel dashed in pieces;" as a "garment eaten by the moth," or "consumed in rottenness;" as grass withering away;" as " fat consumed into smoke;" and as "tow" and "tares" "burned in the fire.”—Rev. W. Ker.

'In exact conformity with our view will be found the illustrations of future punishment in the Old and New Testaments. These are some of the illustrations of the former. The wicked shall be dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel: they shall be like the beasts that perish: like the untimely birth of a woman: like a whirlwind that passeth away: like a waterless garden scorched by an eastern sun: like garments consumed by the moth. They shall consume like the fat of lambs in the fire: consume into smoke: melt like wax: burn like tow: consume like thorns: vanish away like exhausted waters. The illustrations of the New Testament are of the same character. The end of the wicked is there compared to fish cast away to corruption: to a house thrown down to its foundations: to the destruction of the old world by water, and that of the Sodomites by fire: to the death and destruction of natural brute beasts. They shall be like wood cast into quenchless flames: like chaff burnt up: like tares consumed: like a dry branch reduced to ashes. Every one of these images point-not to the preservation of life in any state of pain, but to the loss of life, the utter blotting out of being and existence.'-Rev. H. Constable.

But let us look at a few passages, and see if there is anything in them to suggest such a strange interpretation of the words.

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Matt. iii. 12. Whose fan is in his hand, and He will throughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.' Could any figure be employed more utterly repugnant to the idea of perpetual continuance in whatever is here represented by unquenchable fire'? or could any figure more forcibly depict utter destruction by its irresistible power? The only difficulty is to say anything that can make it plainer or more decisive than it appears in itself. We really can do nothing but ask anyone, who still feels a doubt, to try the experiment of throwing some chaff into an intensely hot fire, and see what becomes of it. The fallacy of the common idea lies in supposing that, if fire be unquenchable, what is put into it must be indestructible. But we shall have more to say upon this in the next sermon.

Matt. x. 28. 'And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.' We select this from a host of passages in which the destruction of the wicked is spoken of, because both body and soul are so emphatically specified, and because the contrast drawn between the power of man and the power of God, renders the meaning of 'destroy' so

perfectly clear. To This man cannot do. and very miserable.

destroy' the soul is to kill' it.

He can make the soul very wicked
What he is not able to do, is to

put it out of conscious existence. That power he does possess with regard to the body; not, as we explained in a former discourse, by putting out of existence its component atoms, but by causing such a disarrangement of them, or producing such an effect upon them, as leaves the body totally incapable of performing any one of its functions. The quibbling about annihilation' is wholly beside the mark.* No one contends for annihilation, but for destruction-which is quite another thing.

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Luke ix. 24. 'For whosoever will save his life shall lose it but whosoever will lose his life for My sake the same shall save it.' What is the 'it,' which he shall hereafter? Evidently 'his life.'

either save or lose

What else can it be? He may lose it hereafter in a much more awful manner than he can possibly lose it now; or he may save it hereafter for much higher

* The language commonly employed on this subject is instructive. Our opponents charge us with believing in 'annihilation,' and denying everlasting punishment;' both of which charges are absolutely groundless. We doubt whether God will ever annihilate a single particle of matter that He ever created, and we hold everlasting punishment as strongly as they do. But we understand the punishment to be ‘everlasting destruction,' and what we deny is eternal evil. From both of these terms our opponents shrink with instinctive dread; the one expresses too strongly what they do not believe, the other puts too clearly before them what they do believe.