In regard to the Creator, what may we suppose will be the feelings of such minds? If he is a benevolent, pure, and perfectly happy being, and his power is exerted to confine them from inflicting evil on the good, he will be the object of unmingled and tormenting envy, hatred, and spite. For when a selfish mind beholds a being with characteristics which exhibit its own vileness in painful contrast, and using his power to oppose its desires, what might in other circumstances give pleasure, will only be a cause of pain. If they behold also, the purity and happiness of that community of benevolent beings, from which they will be withdrawn, the same baleful passions will be awakened in view of their excellence and enjoyment.

There is no suffering of the mind more dreaded and avoided than that of shame. It is probable a guilty creature never writhes under keener burnings of spirit, than when all his course of meanness, baseness, ingratitude, and guilt is unveiled in the presence of dignified virtue, honour, and purity, and the withering glance of pity, contempt, and abhorrence, is encountered. This feeling must be experienced, to its full extent, by every member of such a wretched community. Each must feel himself an object of loathing and contempt to every pure and benevolent mind, as well as to all those who are equally debased.

Another cause of suffering, is ungratified desire. In this world, perfect misery and full happiness, is seldom contrasted. But in such circumstances, if we suppose that all the happiness of blessed minds will be witnessed and known, the keenest pangs of ungratified desire must torment. Every mind will know what is the pure delight of yielded and reciprocated affection, of animated activity in promoting the happiness of beings who are loved, of gaining knowledge for some engaging end, of sympathy in the happiness of others, of the sweet peace of conscious rectitude, and of the delightful consciousness of conferring bliss on others. Other minds

will be witnessed securing all this bliss, while the ceaseless cravings of hopeless desire, will agonize the spirit.

Another cause of suffering is found in the loss of enjoyment. In such a degraded and selfish community, all ties of country, kindred, friendship, and love, must cease. Yet all will know what were the endearments of home, the mild soothings of maternal love, the ties of fraternal sympathy, and all the trust and tenderness of friendship and love. What vanished blessing of earth will not rise up, with all the sweetness and freshness that agonizing memory can bring, to aggravate the loss of all.

But the mind is so made, that however wicked itself, guilt and selfishness in others is hated and despised. Such a company then, might be described as those who were "hateful and hating one another." It has been shown, that both suffering and selfishness, awaken the desire to torment others. This then, will be the detested purpose of every malignant mind. What one desired it would be the object of every one to destroy. Every action that could irritate, mortify, and enrage, would be deliberately practised; while disappointed hopes, and blasted desires, and agonizing misery would alone awaken the smile of horrible delight. And if we suppose such minds in a future state, reclothed in a body, with all the present susceptibilities of suffering, and surrounded by material elements that may be ministers of hate, what mind can conceive the terror and chaos of a world where every one is actuated by a desire to torment !

Suppose these beings had arrived at only such a degree of selfishness as has been witnessed in this world. Such, for example, as Jengis Khan, who caused unoffending prisoners to be pounded to death with bricks in a mortar; or Nero, who dressed the harmless Christians in flaming pitch, for his amusement; or Antiochus Epiphanes, and Mustapha, who spent their time in devising and executing the most excruciating tortures, on those who could do them no injury. What

malignity and baleful passions would actuate such minds, when themselves tormented by others around, bereft of all hope, and with nothing to interest them, but plans of torment and revenge! What refined systems of cruelty would be devised in such a world! What terrific combinations of the elements to terrify and distress! If such objects as "the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, and the worm that never dies," could be found, no Almighty hand would interfere to lead them to secure these methods of promoting their infernal schemes, while the "smoke of their torment" would arise from flames of their own kindling.

To fearful sufferings thus inflicted, would be added the pangs of agitating fear. For where all around were plotting misery, what relief by day or by night from its withering terrors. Then surely, "fear would come upon them like desolation, and destruction as a whirlwind."

Another cause of suffering, is inactivity of body and mind. It has been seen that the desire of good is what gives activity to the intellectual and moral powers. In such a world, no good could be hoped or sought, but the gratification of inflicting ill. And even a malignant mind must often weary in this pursuit, and sink under all the weight and misery of that awful death of the soul, when in torpid inactivity it has nothing to love, nothing to hope, nothing to desire!

Another cause of misery, is the consciousness of guilt. And such, even in this life, have been the agonies of remorse, that tearing the hair, bruising the body, and even gnawing the flesh, have been resorted to, as a temporary relief from its pangs. What then will be its agonizing throes, in bosoms that have forever ruined their own peace, and live but to torment, and to destroy all good to other minds.

In this life, where we can allow the mind to be engrossed by other pursuits, and where we can thus form a habit of suppressing and avoiding emotions of guilt, the conscience may be seared. But it cannot be thus, when all engaging and

cheerful pursuits have ended forever. Then the mind must view its folly, and shame, and guilt, in all their length and breadth, and can find no escape from the soul-harrowing gaze.

To these miseries must be added despair; the loss of all hope of good. Here hope comes to all. But then, in such a community, that fearful susceptibility of the soul-that terrific power of habit, will bind in chains, which will be felt to be stronger than brass, and heavier than iron. If the spirit is conscious that its powers are immortal, with this consciousness will come the despairing certainty of increasing and never ending woe.

One source of pain, indeed, must cease in such a world. Here, suffering to others is a cause of sympathizing woe ;— there, it will be the withering, the detested, the solitary joy!

This terrifying and heart rending picture, it must be remembered, is the deduction of reason, and who can point out its fallacy? Is not the mind of man selfish? Is not habit appalling in its power, and oft times even in this life, inveterate in its hold? Are not habits increased by perpetual repetition? Is not the mind of man immortal? May not a period arrive, when a total separation of selfish and benevolent minds will be their own voluntary choice? If all the comforts, the gentle endearments, and the enlivening hopes of this life; if all the restraints of self-interest, family, country, and laws; if the offers of Heaven, and the fearful predictions of eternal woe; if the offers of mercy and pardon, and all the love and pity of our Creator and Redeemer, neither by fear, nor by gratitude, nor by love, can turn a selfish mind, what hope of its recovery, when it goes a stranger into a world of spirits, to sojourn in that society, which according to its moral habits it must voluntarily seek. And if there exists a community of selfish beings together, can language portray, with any adequacy, the appalling results that must necessarily ensue?

On these clear, and terrific deductions of reason, Revela

tion stamps its irrevocable seal. Here again the unfailing law of language must hold its sway. The common and ordinary meaning is to be retained, unless contrary to reason or the other assertions of the writer. Reason teaches future, dreadful, and interminable misery, to all minds that are not restored to the right exercise of their powers. No declaration of Scripture can be found which opposes this idea. If, therefore, a state of eternal misery is predicted, as awaiting a part of the human race, there is nothing contrary to reason, or Scripture, to forbid the natural and common meaning of the language.

The following is the language of Scripture, in reference to · a future period when the human race will be divided into two distinct classes. "The heavens and the earth which are now, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. For the Lord Jesus Christ shall be revealed from Heaven 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."

And this is the description of the events of that predicted day: "The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and every mountain and island be removed out of their place. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, shall hide themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and shall say to the mountains, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?" " And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was no place for them. A fiery stream issued and came forth before