angels, and in the presence of

the Lamb:

God only in "the future world." See, melting fire burneth, the fire causeth also, 2 Kings xiii. 23; xxiv. 20. To the waters to boil, to make thy name worship God was to come into his pres- known to thine adversaries, that the ence; his presence was in the temple; nations may tremble at thy presence! Psa. xcv. 2; c. 2. So when the judg- When thou didst terrible things which ments of God came triumphantly, his we looked not for, thou camest down, presence is said to be with them; Isa. the mountains flowed down at thy xix. 1. When men seek to flee away presence;" Isa. lxiv. 1—3. Here, from responsibility, and from the dis- again, God's presence accompanies charge of their duty, they are said to his judgments; these judgments were flee away from the presence of the evidently in the present world, on the Lord. "Jonah rose up to flee unto earth. God is said to come, that is, to Tarshish from the presence of the be present, when his enemies are punLord." "The men knew that he ished. This is also true of the Lord [Jonah] fled from the presence of the Jesus Christ. How frequently do we Lord because he had told them;" read in the New Testament of his Jonah i. 3, 10. These are but a few coming to judge and punish his eneout of the multitude of texts that mies. He comes too, with his angels; might be quoted to illustrate the Matt. xiii. 39, 41, 49; xvi. 27; xxv. phraseology of the sacred writers in 31; Mark viii. 38; Luke ix. 36; 2 regard to the divine presence. And Thess. i. 7. Jesus and his angels are there is one fact to which we desire present in the judgment—i. e., such to call special attention, viz., the di- is the figurative language of the Scripvine judgments, above all things else, tures. Although Jesus is represented are said to take place in the divine under the metaphor of the Lamb to presence, even in cases where it is show his meekness; Acts viii. 32; and known and acknowledged of all men to shadow forth the sacrificial characthat the judgments are in the present ter of his death; John i. 29; 1 Peter i. life. How strictly in agreement is it, 19; still he is present also in his judgthen, with the style of the sacred wri- ments in that character. Hence we ters, to represent the punishment of read of "the wrath of the Lamb;" the Roman persecutors in fire and Rev. vi. 16. Why should we be surbrimstone, as being "in the presence prised, then, to be told, that the temof the holy angels and in the presence poral judgments of his enemies are of the Lamb." We are confident that inflicted "in the presence of the holy Professor Stuart, if he had looked into angels, and in the presence of the this subject as impartially and as fully Lamb?" Things manifestly belongas he has into many others, could noting to this world are said to be done have regarded this phraseology as in the presence of Jesus and the proof that the punishment must be in angels. "We are made a spectacle the future world. "Behold, the Lord unto the world, and to angels, and to rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall men ;" 1 Cor. iv. 9. Paul to Timocome into Egypt: and the idols of thy said: "I charge thee before God, Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the and the heart of Egypt shall melt in elect angels, that thou observe these the midst of it;" Isa. xix. 1. Here things without preferring one before the presence of the Lord is said another, doing nothing by partiality;" to accompany his fiery judgments. 1 Epis. v. 21. "For what is our Again: Oh that thou wouldst rend hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? the heavens, that thou wouldst come Are not even ye in the presence of down, that the mountains might flow our Lord Jesus Christ at his com. down at thy presence, as when the ing?" 1 Thess. i. 19. Thus we see

and ever: and they have no

rest day nor night, who wor

The above argument seems to us con- not be that of endless duration, that clusive; and therefore we add nothing we shall hardly do justice to the whole further in this place; but as to the by the few references we shall make. fact that aion in all its forms is used It is applied to the Jewish possession to describe the continuance of tempo- of the land of Canaan; Gen. xiii. 15; ral judgments, we might, if necessary, Exod. xxxii. 13; Josh. xiv. 9- to the extend the proofs and illustrations to Mosaic ordinances; Exod. xii. 14, 24; great length. So far was the argu- Numbers x. 8-to the bondage of ment extended, in the form in which the Hebrew slaves; Exod. xxi. 6; our Commentary on the Apocalypse Lev. xxv. 46; Deut. xv. 17 to the was first published. But we esteem ownership of a house; Lev. xxv. 30 it proper here, where we have more -to a structure of stones, a monuroom, to extend it. Any person who mental memorial; Josh. iv. 7 — to the looks at the common version alone, continuance of the disease of leprosy must be satisfied that no dependence in a family; 2 Kings v. 27, &c. &c. can be placed on the phrase "forever &c. What can be more plain, than and ever" to prove the endless dura- that the Jews were accustomed to tion of punishment. We do not deny use the phrase forever in application that it is sometimes used to signify to things of known and undeniable endless duration; it is equally appar- earthly character that long ago had an ent that it is also used in cases where end? If, then, both the phrases, ever it cannot have that sense. The force and forever, are unquestionably used to be given to the phrase must there- separately in numerous instances, fore depend, in all cases, on the sub- in cases where only earthly or limitject to which it is applied. That it is ed duration could have been intended, frequently used in the limited sense can it be possible that when they will be made certain to the mind of are combined, they invariably signievery person who will carefully con- fy endless duration? On the consider the following facts. We will ana- trary, it is certain that forever and ever lyze the expression, and consider the is used where nothing but earthly or Scriptural use, 1st of Ever, 2d of For- limited duration is intended. See the ever, and 3d of Forever and ever. And, following: 3d, FOREVER AND EVER: 1st, EVER: The fire was ever burning This phrase is applied by the sacred on the altar; Lev. vi. 13; David ever writers to earthly life, or "length of had a sense of his sins; Psa. li. 3; the days;" Psa. xxi. 4-to the duration word is applied to the threshing of of a book; Isa. xxx. 8- to the resicorn; Isa. xxviii. 28; to the continu-dence of the Jews in Canaan ; Jer. vii. ance of the bounds of Zion, xxxiii. 20; 7; xxv. 5; out of which they were the brother of the prodigal was ever long ago expelled; and also to the with his father; Luke xv. 31; Jesus temporal punishment of Idumea, the ever taught in the synagogue; John streams of which were turned into xviii. 20-which could not have been pitch, the dust thereof into brimstone, longer than his life at the most; and and the land thereof was made "burnsome were ever learning and never ing pitch." This judgment is decoming to the knowledge of the truth; scribed as having been by fire and 2 Tim. iii. 7. From these quotations it brimstone; and yet the merest tyro must be evident to every person, that in Scripture criticism would know, the word ever is frequently used in the that it was simply a highly wrought common version in cases where end- metaphor to describe the desolation less duration was not intended. 2d, produced in the land by the judgments FOREVER: This word is used in so of God. "It shall not be quenched many instances where the sense can- night nor day; the smoke thereof

ship the beast and his image, mark of his name. and whosoever receiveth the

shall go up forever; from generation to generation it shall lie waste: none shall pass through it forever and ever. But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness. They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be a habitation of dragons, and a court for owls;" Isa. xxxiv. 10-13. This punishment, although it was said to endure forever and ever, we know cannot be in the future and immortal world; but was a temporal judgment on a section of the sinful earth. "It would be very unreasonable (say the editors of the Improved Version) to infer the gloomy doctrine of eternal misery from the loose and figurative language of a prophetic vision, in opposition to the plainest dictates of reason and justice, and to the whole tenor of divine revelation. But if any one is disposed to lay undue stress upon this text, it may be sufficient to remark, that it is not here asserted that the torment continues, but that the smoke of it ascends forever and ever. The smoke of a pile in which a criminal has been condemned may continue to ascend long after the wretched victim has ceased to suffer. And a memorial of the punishment which has been inflicted on vice may remain long after vice itself has been utterly exterminated. After all, as the prophecy relates wholly to the states of things in the present world, the punishments threatened ought, in all reason, to be understood of temporal punishments, and not of the sufferings of a future life. So in Jude, ver. 7, Sodom and Gomorrah are represented as suffering the vengeance

12 Here is the patience of

of eternal fire, i. e., of a temporal
calamity, a fire which completely
destroyed them." Note on Rev. xiv.
11. As the case of Sodom and
Gomorrah is here referred to, and as
it is a similar case to that of the
Roman persecutors spoken of in the
Apocalypse, we give the opinion of
the learned Dr. Whitby, himself a
strong believer in endless misery, as
to the extent of the torment intended
by the phrase "eternal fire." "That
this is spoken not of the cities them-
selves, but of the inhabitants which
dwelt in them, that is, of them
who had given themselves over to forni-
cation, and gone after strange flesh,
is evident; but yet I conceive they
are said to suffer the vengeance of
eternal fire, not because their souls are
at present punished in hell fire, but
because they, and their cities, per-
ished from that fire from heaven,
which brought a perpetual and irrep-
arable destruction on them and their
cities." "To deigma, an example,
is to be taken from something visible
to, or knowable by, all who were to
be terrified by it, especially when it is
an example manifested and proposed.
Now such was not the punishment
of their souls in hell fire; but noth-
ing was more known and celebrated
among authors, sacred and profane,
Jewish, Christian, and heathen wri-
ters, than the fire that fell down upon
Pentapolis, or the five cities of Sodom,
they being mentioned still in Scrip-
ture as the cities which God over-
threw with a perpetual desolation."
- See Whitby's Com. on Jude, ver. 7.
12. Here is the patience of the saints.
-That is, the worshippers of the
beast are put down; they are de-
stroyed; they can aid in the persecu-
tion of the Christians no more; this
is the cause of the patience of the
saints, and of those who keep the
commandments of God, and the faith
of Jesus. In xiii. 10, we found sim-
ilar words: "Here is the patience