Great as these distresses may be, the separate spirits are dreading greater evils. “_Hast thou come to torment us before the time?_” When the judgment has passed, “_death_,” the bodies which had been dead, “_and hell_,” the spirits which had been in Hades, “_shall be cast into the lake of fire_.” If their bodies shall be raised spiritual, incorruptible, and immortal, which is affirmed of the righteous; and seems probable, because the earth will be destroyed, and they will be associated with spirits, yet the sense of the pain, which arises from burning, may be given and continued in them by the application of fire, or even without it. But that which imbitters all their distresses in the highest degree, is, that they shall be eternal. The original words of the scripture expressive of their perpetuity, being unrestrained by any implied or expressed limitation, should be understood as when applied to Deity, or the happiness of the saints. The same perpetual duration is also shown by negation, which is the strongest language. “_The worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched_;” it is “_unquenchable fire_,” and “_their end_,” (or final state,) “_is to be burned_.” We read of a sin which shall “_not be forgiven_.” “_Not every one—shall enter into the kingdom_;” and where Christ is, they “_cannot come_.” They will “_have judgment without mercy_.” None of these things are true, if all men shall be saved. Perhaps justice required that these evils should be disclosed; but if they be unjust, it was improper to threaten them. Our aversion to them springs from our ignorance of the evil of sin. Nevertheless, the sacrifice of Christ, and the warnings of scripture, speak their extent; and the continuance of the damned in sin, establishes their certainty. Quest. XXX. QUEST. XXX. _Doth God leave all mankind to perish in the state of sin and misery?_ ANSW. God will not leave all mankind to perish in the state of sin and misery, into which they fell by the breach of the first covenant, commonly called, the covenant of works; but of his mere love and mercy, delivereth his elect out of it, and bringeth them to an estate of salvation by the second covenant, commonly called the covenant of grace. Hitherto we have considered man as made upright, and having many blessings in possession, and more in expectation, according to the tenor of the covenant he was under. We have also observed the first entrance of sin into the world, with all those miseries that attended it; and we are now led to speak of that inestimable display of divine love and grace, which appears in our salvation, which is considered more generally in this answer; wherein there is,