G10 THF, ETERNAL DURATION of [DISC. XIII. The arguments which shall be employed to prove it are such as these Argument I. The express words ofChrist and his apos- tles pronounce the punishments eternal ; and surely these words aregiven to us to be the foundation ofour faith and practice, and the rules of our hope and fear. My text seems to carry plain and unanswerable evidence in it. "The worm diethnot, and the fire is not quenched." And it is many times repeated in this chapter, .. and that with a special accent on the eternal duration of it, to make that circumstance of it more observed, and to aggravate the terror. Such an awful repetition from the lips of the Son of God should make the sound of the vengeance dwell longer on the ear,. and the threatening sink deeper into the soul. Let us next observe the final sentence which Christ, as judge pronounces against impenitent sinners among the sons of men, as well as against fallen spirits, in Mat. xxv. 41. It is this, " Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels :" And as soon as the sentence is pronounced, it is immedi- ately executed, as our Saviour foretels in verse 46. " These shall go away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal." What he pronounces as judge, he foretels also as a prophet, that it shall be put in execution. The express word. of God, in describing the punish- ment of sinners by the pen of his two apostles Paul and John, declares the same thing ;" 2 Thess. i. 9. " They shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord." And the book of the Revelation gives us assurance, that these miseries shall have no end; Rev. xiv. 10, 11. " The antichristian idolaters, who worship the beast, shall drink of the wine of the -wrath of God, which is .poured out, without mixture, into the cup of his indignation, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever. Jude, the apostle, bears this testimony in the same manner, verse 6. " thedamned spirits, who kept not their first station, are said to be cast down into hell, and bound in chains of everlasting darkness." Now suppose a man plunged into a pit of thick darkness, by the coma
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