"everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power." It declares "that the wages of sin is death." What are we to understand by this language?

I. It does not mean annihilation. Those who tell us that the loss of the soul consists in its ceasing to be, take upon them to make an assertion without reason and against Scripture. The visible appearances which follow in the train of death, might favor the presumption that death is the end of man. "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." To the eye of sense his path terminates at the grave, and his plans come to an end. Some have supposed death as threatened to our first parents to be annihilation, and that man by sinning forfeited his existence, beyond this world. This supposition is founded on a superficial observation, and a false interpretation of Scripture.

It requires but little reflection to convince any one that death is not the destruction of anything-it is a dissolution of parts. But not a particle of the dying body ceases to be. The noble ship, which once rode proudly on the ocean, the glory of her builders, the hope of her owners, freighted with a precious cargo, may be wrecked and scattered in broken pieces over the waters, and parts of it sunk in the depths of the sea. We say that it is lost. But it is not annihilated; not a particle of it has passed out of existence. So death is the separation of the body and soul. The body goes to decay; it may be reduced to ashes; it may mingle with the earth; it may be dissipated in the air, but not a particle of it is annihilated. It rests, awaiting "the voice of the Son of man," at "the resurrection both of the just and of the unjust." The soul leaves the body at death. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." The soul like its eternal Author, is indestructible. No sword can touch it; no weapon of death can reach it. Our Saviour exhorts us to "fear not them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; but rather fear him, who after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell." After the body has been killed, there yet remains a living soul-a simple, spiritual, immaterial being. It is capable of existing in a perfectly disembodied state, as Abraham, Moses and Paul now exist, "absent from the body," and as "the spirits in prison" now exist. It is this which, after he hath killed the body, God hath power to cast into hell."

It is equally evident that the sentence to the second death, which is to be pronounced upon the wicked at the resurrection, does not imply a return to non-existence. Nothing short of Omnipotence has power to extinguish the conscious existence of a living soul; and God has never signified to us that he intends to exercise his power in such a way. He has foretold the destruction of the

wicked, he has declared that "the soul that sinneth, it shall die." But he has not intimated, that the end of a life of sin is the extinction of consciousness in a sleep that shall "know no waking." There is a force in the terms, "destruction," "death," and kindred expressions of Scripture, which is not exhausted by the idea of the cessation of existence. This was not the

purport of the threatening to Adam. It was not comprehended in the execution of the threatening. The declaration to Adam, "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," was to take effect at once. It was fulfilled in its true intent: its import in this respect was plain, and cannot be mistaken. He did die that day; any other doctrine impeaches the truth of the Bible. But his death was not a "return to blank nothingness." In the very day of his transgression, Adam died. Man died in the import of the threatening, and that death in effect, includes the sentence," dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,"and all the other specific evils, which God in his infinite justice shall ever see proper to inflict upon the transgressor. The threatening did not preclude a remedy. It was such a death as created an exigency for redemption. "For we thus judge," says the apostle Paul, "that if Christ died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again." It is such a death, as they who neglect the great salvation will be dying forever, under a forfeiture of all claim to the favor of God, and subjection to his displeasure.

The loss of the soul, therefore, is not the extinction of its conscious existence. It lends no countenance to that "Christianized Materialism," which teaches with reverential speech, the seductive error that the soul sleeps with the body at death in an unconcious state, and that the wicked at the resurrection will be annihilated; thus denying the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. No, the soul is immortal. Its state and mode of existence may be changed from time to time, but it will continue to exist evermore; it cannot by extinction, perish; the material tenement is its tabernacle. When it is taken down, the soul enters a new abode.

II. The loss of the soul does not imply any suspension or diminution of its powers and capabilities. We behold among mankind the same tokens of a moral nature, but very different grades on the scale of endowment. The soul that is lost, continues to possess forever all its faculties and susceptibilities, and carries with it all its knowledge and culture. In the future world, it is the same intelligent moral agent that it was here in the body. Wrecked as it may be as to its prospects on the shores of eternity, it will not lose its identity nor its properties. It is, consciously, the same soul that refused here when God called, which in eternity will call, and God will not hear-the same that here repulsed

Con

the Saviour's grace, will there be repulsed by "the wrath of the Lamb." The soul will forever think, and feel and desire; it will be forever capable of hope, though hope may never come into its prison of despair; it will forever be susceptible of joy, though sorrow may be its bed. The memory, which Bunyan has called "the register of the soul," will recal the sins which the man has heretofore committed, and recal also the word that forbade itSon, remember, will be the employment of the lost soul. There will be no forgetfulness; yet nothing will be thought of, but to the greater wounding of the spirit. The memory will let these thoughts down upon the conscience, and make it cry reproachfully, "You knew your Master's will, but you did it not." science will not sleep, nor be dull, nor be misled, in hell. The understanding will be employed in apprehending the depths of sin which the man has loved, the good nature of God, whom he has hated, and the blessings of eternity which he has despised. Every touch of the understanding upon the memory will be like the touch of "sharp arrows of the mighty, with burning coals of juniper." Imagination also will be active, with no less terror and perplexity, as a man, by fear bereft of his senses, starts and stares with fearful thoughts. There will be deep thoughts of the nature and occasions of sin, of God, of separation from him, and of the coming eternity;-thoughts which will clash with glory inaccessible, clash with justice, clash with law, clash with self, clash with hell-passions that will be galling and stinging and dropping their poison into the sore, wounded, fretted spirit.

The loss of the soul implies, therefore, no suspension nor diminution of its susceptibilities and faculties. If the memory, and conscience, and understanding of the soul were stupefied at death, or contracted and restricted, so that they could no longer recur to the deeds done in the body, the dreadfulness of the loss would seem to the unsanctified heart to be quite tolerable. But its essential powers admit of no such abridgement or slumber. The final loss of which we speak, will waken and enlarge and quicken all its powers. And it will be forever itself the exactest possible "daguerreotype picture of all its transient states and passing acts."

III. Let us attend to the positive representation of the subject. The loss of the soul is its loss of holiness, and the consequent loss of its usefulness and happiness forever under the deserved wrath of God. It is the endurance of the just punishment of its sins. We are assured by the Scriptures that the favor of God is life, and that the indispensable qualification for enjoying his favor is holiness. Being "dead in sin," the impenitent soul is already lost. It is kept for a season under a system of reclaiming measures and means of salvation. The Redeemer "came to seek and to save that which was lost." Under this

remedial system, the sinner enjoys a respite-the invitations of heavenly mercy beseech him to be reconciled to God; these sacred sabbaths, the sanctuary, the Bible, Christian friends, are cords of sweet influence, drawing him to the Saviour; the goodness of God on every side delights his senses; the twinging stripes of divine wrath, are for a time stayed. But soon the soul passes away from the world in its sins, and it is then completely and forever lost-lost in guilt and pollution, and abandoned to the elements of remorse and sorrow, which are within and around it.'

To its proper end and happiness in glorifying God, and in benefiting and blessing men, it is lost; lost, forever LOST. The darkness through which it wanders, the chains which hold it, the agonies and degradations that accumulate upon it, are such as strike the mind with fearful horror, and smite down hope with a fatal blow.

Lost is its opportunity of salvation. No inviting voice of an atoning Saviour is heard in hell; no gentle strivings of the Spirit are felt-no offer of pardoning mercy is ever made there.

Lost are its earthly comforts and means of gratification, which here mitigated the curse, and cheered the heart with joyous sensations and pleasant hopes.

Lost are its restraints which surrounded it in this world, and which operated as sweet and salutary forces, to hold its depravity in check, and kept it often from dashing downward in corruption and iniquity with reckless and impious haste. Now, set free from restraining influences, it rages wildly and blasphemes God, a terror to itself, and "a dread to even unsightly monsters of the pit."

The sacred writers generally set forth the loss of the soul in figurative language. The most fearful imagery is employed on this subject which the human mind can conceive. There is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth." There is "the smoke of the torment that ascendeth up forever and ever." There is "the everlasting fire," that never shall be quenched. There is "the worm" that gnaws and "never dies." There is the pit over which hangs "the blackness of darkness." There is "the resurrection of damnation," and the lifting up the eyes in torment, and the being cast away by Jehovah in his righteous indignation. Such language is used in the Bible, because it is best adapted to express and to awaken just conceptions of the evil to be endured. Some may attempt to relieve themselves of the painful apprehension of the soul's loss, by the idea that the terrific language of Scripture which describes it, is not to be understood literally. But a simple confidence in the veracity of the Word of God will assure us that the metaphors do not exaggerate the reality, nor mislead the child-like belief on this subject. No words used in their literal sense could adequately express the vivid conceptions

of the writers, or do justice to the awful subject. In the metaphorical language, derived from the most terrific objects in nature, there is a depth of meaning which we cannot fathom, but which is the more dreadful because it is inexpressible. None can know all that is implied in the loss of the soul, unless he shall be so unhappy as to learn it by experience.

We have no reason to doubt that there is a literal significance in the indignation and wrath of God, and in the positive punishments which God by his just judgment will render to his impenitent enemies. "He shall gather the good into his presence, and cast the bad away," and deliver them up to the torments of the devil and their own guilty consciences and deep thoughts, as on a burning rack-the due reward of their sins. In its nature, the loss of the soul is a peculiar loss. He that loses his soul, loses himself. "For what is a man advantaged," says Christ, "if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away." If by getting the world, he lose himself, the loss is without a parallel. It is a loss which he will not be able to consider quietly, and sit down patiently under the sense of it. There can be no such grace in hell as patient enduring. There will be no foundation for patience. The providence of God is the foundation of patience to the afflicted. "But men go not to hell by providence but by sin." And sin being the cause of his loss, he will justify God, and tear himself with self-tormenting thoughts, laying the fault upon himself. For we know that "there is nothing which will sooner work vexation of spirit in a man than a full conviction in his conscience that by his own folly and wrong action, persisted in against caution, and counsel, and reason, to the contrary, he has brought himself into extreme distress and misery." How much more will it make this fire burn when he shall see what kind report God gave him of sin, of his grace, and of hell, and yet, for a toy, for a bauble, he was so foolish and perverse as to neglect the door of hope, and voluntarily bring this loss upon himself. Verily we may ask, "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" There is a force in the expressions of Scripture on this subject which may well make us tremble, and inspire us with an active and abiding dread of the threatened evil. Had there been less of indefiniteness and awful mysteriousness in the inspired representations of this dreadful loss, the minute description might have given us a clearer conception of the nature and mode of the penal retribution, and made us more familiar with it, but it would not have been more effectual to persuade men to turn from the ways of sin, and make them obedient and holy. "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither would they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."

Some may doubt the justice of this terrible penalty. But we should remember that God is Judge. He will not be influ