tioned as the subjects of it, can we have, or can we ask for clearer evidence than is contained in the last quoted passage that this judgment is long since passed? If Christ did come and "reward every man according to his works' at the time when he said he would come, then we see at once, that the common application of this parable is incorrect; and that it affords no evidence of endless, or even of future punish

ment.

Paul's words to the Thessalonians will next claim our attention. Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.' (2 Thess. 1: 6-9,) In considering this passage, three particulars must be noticed. 1. Those to whom God would recompense rest with the apostles. 2. Those to whom he would recompense tribulation, and punish with everlasting destruction; and 3. The time when this recompense should be administered.

1. Believing Thessolonians, or those who constituted the church at that place, are the persons addressed in this epistle; and the apostle represents them as enduring persecutions and tribulations' for the gospel's sake; and as suffering for the kingdom of God.' These

were unquestionably the persons who should receive a recompense of rest.

2. We are to ascertain who troubled these believers, and were to be punished for so doing. By consulting Acts 17th, from the 5th to the 10th verse, we find that "the Jews who believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city in an uproar ;' and we are also informed that they troubled the people,' and did all in their power to destroy Paul and Silas, and to prevent the people from hearing and embracing the gospel. From the disposition always manifested by the unbelieving Jews, we conclude that it was these same persons who continued to trouble the Thessalonian believers, and who were the cause of the persecutions and tribulations they endured at the time Paul andressed them.

3. The time when they were in their turn to suffer tribulation, and be punished with everlasting destruction,' was when the Lord Jesus should be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,' We have already ascertained this time, if the express declarations of our Saviour are sufficient to fix it; and it is worthy of remark, that after the destruction of the Jewish polity, and the abolition of the Mosaic dispensation, the Jews, wherever they were, lost all the respectability and influence they had previously maintained; and from that time they have been as Moses predicted, a bye-word among all nations.'

I had intended to notice some other passages

which are supposed to teach the doctrine of interminable punishment; but as those which have been considered have always been deemed as conclusive as any in the scriptures on this point, and as time, and I fear the patience of my hearers, is wearing away, I must proceed to a consideration of those passages which have been thought to teach the sentiment of condemnation and punishment in connection with the resurrection.

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Rev. 20: 12, 13, 15 is the first passage which I shall notice. 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. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.' On this passage, a very few remarks must suffice.

It is acknowl

edged by all that the language of this book is highly figurative; and the most learned and able commentators readily acknowledge that they do not understand it. From the first ages of Christianity, there have always been great doubts, not only as to the meaning of its language, but also respecting the author of it; and this circumstance should caution us not to predicate any important principle of doctrine entirely on its testimony. But admitting it to be genu

ine, and to possess equal authority with the other parts of the scriptures, I conceive that the impropriety of referring this or any other prediction contained in it to events yet future, can easily be shown from the language of the book itself. In the introduction, contained in the first three verses, we have these words;- The revelation of Jesus Christ; which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein; for the time is at hand;' and the opinion that the events predicted in the whole book were then shortly to come to pass' is confirmed by the language of the Revelator in the last Chapter. 'And he saith unto me, seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand; and again, behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.'Connecting and comparing these expressions with the language of our Saviour quoted from Matt. 16: 27, 28, it must be obvious, I think, that all the predictions contained in the book of Revelation, to whatever subjects they might allude, had their accomplishment during the generation then existing on the earth; and consequently, that the passage under consideration can have no allusion to any event yet future.

But the passage on which the greatest reliance is placed to support the doctrine af punishment or condemnation in the resurrection state

is found in John, 5: 28, 29. Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.' These words are supposed to afford incontestible proof, that when the long sleep of death shall be broken by the loud trump of the Archangel; and when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality,' a part of mankind will be raised to a state of interminable condemnation and woe; but this, as I shall now show, would be a plain contradiction, not only of the language of the apostle Paul, but of the assertion of Christ himself.

When the Sadducees, for the purpose of tempting and ensnaring our Saviour proposed to him a question relative to the woman who had been the wife of seven husbands, he replied to them,—'ye do err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God; for in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.'

This answer as recorded by Luke, is of the same import, but a little varied in form. 'They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage; neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.' These words very clearly point out the condition of

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