tion of Christians, believe that the pains of
actual burning will be inflicted on a corporeal frame, susceptible of
suffering in the same way as the body which we at present inhabit, but
rendered indestructible. Others conceive that the Scripture language
which describes the wicked as tormented by fire is metaphorical, and
that it clearly refers, by way of allusion, to the valley of Hinnom,
where corrupt substances were devoured by worms, and where human
sacrifices were offered by fire to Moloch. Such imagine that the future
sufferings of the wicked will be purely mental, but not therefore the
less severe and awful. If it had been necessary to form clear
conceptions on this subject, a fuller light would have been cast upon
it; and as that fuller light is not granted, we may fairly suppose that
we cannot at present understand the exact nature of the evil of which
we are emphatically called on to beware. But of the duration of the
evil, we believe ourselves so far qualified to judge, as to anticipate
that it will not be eternal.

Our reasons for thus determining are various. It is, in the first place,
utterly inconceivable that God should appoint to any individual of his
creatures a lot in which misery predominates over happiness. Our belief
in the Divine prescience requires that we suppose the fate of every man
to be ordained from the beginning. Our faith in the Divine mercy
requires that we should expect an overbalance of good in the existence
of every being thus ordained; and that in no case can the punishment be
disproportionate to the offence. Our faith in the Divine benevolence
inspires a conviction that all evil is to be made subsidiary to good,
and that therefore all punishment must be corrective, all suffering
remedial. Thus far the light of nature teaches us to anticipate the
final restitution of sinners.

It is confirmed by revelation,--by every passage of the sacred records
which represents God as a tender Father to all the human race, as just
and good, as incapable of being 'angry for ever,' or of taking pleasure
in the punishment of the wicked, and as chastising in mercy, for
corrective purposes. It is confirmed by every passage which describes
the good brought into the world by Christ as overbalancing the evil
produced by the introduction of sin and death. It is confirmed by every
passage which prophetically announces the triumph of the Gospel over all
adverse powers,--death, sin, and sorrow. Above all, it