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aomie * into which the righteous au < l the wicked shall immediately enter . Tophet , or Gehenna . This topic has also been considered in the Number before mentioned . Calvin himself allows this allusion in a figurative
sense , 44 Wh&t 4 shall it profit a man , if be should gain the whole world and lose his own soul > " , Or , as in the parallel text , "lose himselfand . be cast away ?" This , at first view , may seem to imply an absolute and strictly eternal loss .
In a discussion of this kind , we cannot ftvoid sometimes repeating the leading arguments ; and must here remind the Reader , who hath had the patience to accompany the writer hitherto , of those strong hyperbolical expressions which our Lord frequently employs in
inculcating rejigious and moral truth ; such as cutting off a Tight hand , plucking out a right eye , hating our natural parents * ami our own lives , and so on ; all which , every man of plain sense knows how to qualify and understand without a tutor . What
wonder , then , that our Saviour , in order to alarm the careless and disobedient , and fully aware of their future danger * should employ this energetic language ? But let us consider
the argument upon which this discourse is grounded . " For the Son of Man shall come / ' &c , " and then shall he reward every man according * to his work * " Unless , therefore , we can prove that the wicked works of
men ,.. in their very nature , merit eternal punishment , we cannot prove it from this passage . But , in a scriptural sense , a man may be said to " lose his soul , " if he loses any considerable part of that genuine felicity , originally intended
for him by his All-gracious Creator . An heir loses his inheritance if , on account of his ill behaviour , the time of his enjoying it be protracted . A rebel loses his estate by forfeiting it to his prince ; but a gracious prince may restore it upon due submission
and a return to his allegiance . So Adam lost paradise , involving both himself and his posterity in the penalty -off death ; but " one greater Man " hath restored him , and put all his posterity likewise in a capacity of c < regaining the blissful seat . " Still ID any will prevaricate , and fail of the
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conditions ; some fcrfJ&eise , ^ pwk a . iar < an 4 H ^ gnmt ca&ea , $ i * r ^ rcj ^ c shall not be forgive % peitfeer ityfaig world nor , in the wQiM to eooie . " & , T f cuuvi / xfiXXdyri—that is , m the oext
aion , age or dispensation * They m \\ not bei the happy subjects of Xhntjim salvation , immediately to succeed the general j udgmeot . * Having neglected the opportunity of grace ija the , time of life , they must go the tang and tedious round in the painful and wiU derness way ^ and pay the uttermost
farthing required in the course of strict judgment and justice , which nevertheless does not require an infinite from a poor finite ^ but proportions their degrees and times of suffering and purgation , according to wise and just measures * suited to this severer way and process . " * €
C In like manner we , . are-to understand the case of those mentioned ^ H ebre ws vL , who having apostatized under the greatest advantages , are represented as under an impossibility of being restored j that is , humanly speaking , and by those means which
they have rejected ; but this excludes not their being restored in another way and course , after they have suffered the award of strict justice , and paid the debt required ; and the impossibility here mentioned , must admit of the same reserve with that of the
rich man's entering * into the kingdom of God / to whom ' all things are possible ;* who can , if he pleases , strike in with exception to the stated rules of courses and dispensations , or appoint others for the effecting that which the former did not or could not . " f
Dr , Hartley observes , that " there is nothing in all St . Paul ' s Epistles from whence the absolute eternity of future punishment can be at all inferred , except the passage * everlasting destruction , ' which , according to the original indefinite signification of similar terms , should be taken in a qualified sense . iSjor in St . Luke ' s Gospel , or in his c Acts / in St . John ' s Gospel , or in his Epistles , or in those of St . James , Peter and Jude . Nor does it appear from the works of the most ancient Fathers , that they
* Roach ' s Messiah Triumphant , 1724 . t ibid .
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664 A " Long-Lost Truth . "
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1825, page 664, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2542/page/24/
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