I. The certainty of future punishment.

1. It is said by some, that the wicked receive all their punishment in this life; and it must be acknowledged that a course of disobedience is frequently attended with much pain, and chastised with severe and repeated strokes of God's rod: but this is not always the case and in no instance do they receive the whole of their deserved punishment here. Nay, what they suffer in this world is not so properly punishment, as a course of discipline intended for their reformation. Some indeed forfeit their lives to the laws of their country, and die by the hand of the public executioner. But what shall we say of those who commit crimes of such a nature, or under such circumstances as to elude censure and punishment in this world, if there is no punishment in the next?

While the highwayman robs, perhaps to save himself from jail, and is punished with death for his crime, a tyrant at the head of an army ravages whole states; he pillages on the right and on the left; he violates the most sacred rights; the most solemn treaties, he knows neither religion nor good faith. Go, follow his footsteps, see countries desolated, plains covered with the bodies of the dead, palaces reduced to ashes, and thousands of miserable. inhabitants driven from their homes in despair! Inquire for the author of all these miseries. Will you find him, think you, confined in a dark dungeon, expiring on a wheel or a gallows? Lo! he sits upon a throne, he lives in a royal palace, fares sumptuously every day, is surrounded by a host of sycophants and idolaters who live upon his favour, and minister to his appetites and passions. But what is divine justice doing all this time? It is looking on, and reserves a terrible punishment for this offender in the future state. After death is the judgment, when all his iniquities shall be brought to light, and punished as they deserve.

How many have made themselves rich by a traffic in human beings, and by the unrewarded labours and sufferings of the children of Africa! Sunk in the sordid love of gain, and alike deaf to the cries of humanity and the denunciations of justice, they have torn these unfortunate creatures from their country and friends, carried them into foreign lands, sold them like cattle in the market, and thus subjected them to every indignity, privation and hardship, which their merciless masters saw fit to inflict upon them; and all this with the favour or connivance of human laws. But what is divine justice doing all this time? It is looking on, and reserves a terrible retribution for these offenders in the future state. "These_things_hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye who forget God, and imagine there is no future punishment, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.'

There cannot be a more odious vice than that of hypocrisy. A man makes profession of piety towards God, to deceive his fellow-creatures, to get himself a name, to advance his interest, that he may have an opportunity the better to practise the arts of detraction and persecution, and gratify his envy or his malice under pretence of zeal for the cause of God! Presumptuous wretch! Thou hast taken the opportunity which the imperfection of human laws afforded thee to defy the justice and the power of the Almighty. But though thou escape punishment here, yet God will bring thee into judgment, with every secret work, and then shalt thou receive according to thy wickedness.

Thus it appears that there are many sins committed, and many sinful desires and tempers indulged, against which no human laws are made, and which are not punished in this world; bat which, if God be just and true, shall be punished in the world to come. 2. We find an argument for future punishment in the conscience of man. Man finds himself in the world and in a state of dependence. He acknowledges a supreme law; for he has a sense of right and wrong independently of his own will. He is either innocent or guilty; and that not only in the judgment of men, when the eyes of his fellow-creatures are upon him, but in his own conscience in secret, when no eye beholds him but the all-seeing eye of Jehovah. Then it is that the sinner feels an inward sense or consciousness of guilt, and in spite of himself, trembles before his Lawgiver and Judge.

"Deputed conscience scales

The dread tribunal, and forestalls his doom;
Forestalls; and by forestalling, proves it sure.
Why on himself should man void judgment pass?
Is idle nature laughing at her sons?

Who conscience sent, her sentence will support,

And God above assert that God in man."YOUNG.

3. Another argument for the future punishment of the wicked is built upon those passages of scripture which teach us that men may die in their sins, and that if they die in their sins where Christ is gone they cannot come; upon those which inform us that some have actually died in their sins, as the rich man, and all those of whom the apostle Jude says, they perished in the gainsaying of Korah; upon those which inform us that the inhabitants of Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities about them, are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire; and that it shall be more tolerable for these in the day of Judgment than for Capernaum; upon those which assure us that mankind shall be judged according to the deeds done in the body; which prove that men may die in their sins, and that there is no repentance after death and finally, the certainty of future punishment is built upon all those passages of scripture which denounce damnation against the impenitent and unbelieving, and upon those which

describe that damnation as terrible in its nature, as it is fearful in its duration.

4. Having mentioned the future judgment it may be proper to observe, that it affords a most striking proof of the certainty of future punishment; for that is properly the time of retribution, when God shall render to every man according as his work shall be-tribulation upon every soul of man that doeth evil. Though a day of judgment be denied by some, we believe with the poet Young, that it was "the first in wisdom's thought," though "the last in nature's course." That there will be a day of judgment and retribution at some period after death, appears as certain as the express declaration of God's word can make any thing. It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, Heb. ix. 27. God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, Acts xvii. 31. I charge thee, therefore, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead, at his appearing, 2 Tim. iv. 1, And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God: and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works, Rev. xx. 11-15. But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men, 2 Pet. iii. 7.

but

Many other passages equally express might be produced; I would observe in the words of Mr. Saurin, that "we do not rest the whole weight of the argument on any particular passages, but on the general design and scope of religion. If this method be adopted, it will soon appear, that the doctrine of a future judgment is contained in a manner clear and convincing, not only in the writings of apostles and evangelists, but also in the revelations, with which God honoured the patriarchs, many years before he gave a written law, Jude 14, 15.

66 Yea, were we to allow, that we have no formal passages to produce, in which this truth was taught the ancient servants of God, (which we are very far from allowing,) we might still maintain, that it was included in the genius of those revelations which were addressed to them. Jesus Christ taught us to reason thus on the doctrine of future rewards, and we may fairly apply the same method to the doctrine of future punishments. The doctrine of future rewards is not contained in the formal terms, but in the general design of this promise, I am the God of Abraham, Matt. xxii. 32. How splendid soever the condition of Abraham might have been, however abundant his riches, however numerous his servants, this promise proceeding from the mouth of God, I am the God of Abraham, could not have been accomplished in the temporal prosperity of a man, who was dead, when the words

were spoken, and whom death should retain in durance. As God declared himself the God of Abraham, and as Abraham was dead, when he declared it, Abraham must necessarily rise again. And this is our Saviour's reasoning, God is not the God of the dead: but of the living.

"Let us say the same of those punishments, which God has denounced against sin, in regard to those ancient sinners, of whom God declared himself the Judge; God is not the Judge of the dead but of the living. The wicked, during this life, are often free from adversity; but were they even miserable all the time of their abiding on earth, their miseries would not sufficiently express God's hatred of sin. Asaph renders to divine justice only one part of its deserved homage, when he says, in order to justify it for tolerating some criminals, Surely thou didst set them in slippery places, thou castedst them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation as in a moment! They are consumed with terrors! As a dream, when one awaketh, so, Ò utterly Lord, thou shalt despise their image, Ps. lxxiii. 18-20. No! the unexpected vicissitudes, that sometimes confound the devices of the wicked, the fatal catastrophies, in which we sometimes see them enveloped, the signal reverses of fortune, by which they are often precipitated from the highest elevation to the deepest distress; all these are too imperfect to verify those reiterated threatenings, which the Judge of mankind denounced against primitive criminals, to teach them that he was a just avenger of sin. To display this fully there must be a resurrection and a judgment. In this manner, even supposing there were no formal passages in proof of future judgment, (which we do not allow,) the genius, the drift and scope of religion, would be sufficient to convince us of the truth of it.”*

To sum up the whole under this head, If there be a righteous Governor and Judge of mankind, he will make a just distinction between the righteous and the wicked. But this distinction is not made in this life. Here the wicked are often seen in prosperity. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men. But many are the afflictions of the righteous. As far as it relates to this life, the balance is frequently against them. But it shall not always be so. The time is coming when God shall deliver them out of all their afflictions.Then also shall the wicked be set in slippery places, they shall be cast down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors! As a dream, when one awaketh, so, O Lord, thou shalt despise their image. On the ground of future rewards and punishments we can justify the dispensations of Providence towards men in this life, and on no other. Give up this, and the divine dispensations

*Saurin's Sermons, Vol. iii. pp. 254, 255.

become inexplicable. We cannot tell whether our heavenly Father is more pleased with a life of piety, or irreligion. A future retribution both of the righteous and the wicked, alone can resolve the difficulty attending the dispensations of providence in this world.

II. What has been said is sufficient to show the certainty of future punishment, and I come, Secondly, to consider the duration of it. And this the Scriptures assert is everlasting, or eternal.

Thus the text, These shall go away into everlasting punishment. At the 41st verse of this chapter we are told that the Judge will say to those on his left hand, Depart ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Again: If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire, Matt. xviii. 8.And the devil that deceived them was cast in the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever, Rev. xx. 10, and xiv. 11. St. Mark tells us, that he who blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation, chap. iii. 29.

If, in these passages, the words everlasting, for ever, for ever and ever, and eternal, are to be taken literally, the future punishment of the wicked will be endless; and that they are thus to be taken will fully appear from the following considerations:

1. This is their native signification. It is allowed by compepetent judges on all sides, that the Greek word, from which these words are derived, signifies, in its true etymology, endless duration. The late Dr. Huntington, though a believer in Universal Salvation, understood it in this sense. His words are, "Does the Bible plainly say that sinners of mankind shall be damned to interminable punishment? It certainly does; as plainly as language can express, or any man, or even God himself can speak. It is quite strange to me, that some, who believe that all mankind shall in the end be saved, will trifle as they do with a few words, and most of all with the original words and its derivatives, translated for ever, &c. All the learned know that this word in the Greek, signifies an age, a long period, or interminable duration, according as the connected sense requires. They, therefore, who would deny that the endless damnation of sinners is fully ascertained in the word of God, are unfair in their reasonings and criticisms."*

2. These words are used, and they are the strongest the Bible employs, to express the proper eternity of God, and the endless happiness of the saints in glory; and we may as well say they

* Calvinism Improved, pp. 47, 48.