Again, the Apostle Peter declares that "The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and _the elements_ shall _melt_ with fervent heat." A question, therefore, once more arises, what is meant by "the elements?" Literally, they signify the most simple forms of matter, fire, air, earth, and water. But how can these melt, or be melted?--Can _fire_ melt with fervent heat? It may be dispersed in its pure form, that of heat or caloric; but it is incapable of being melted. Can air, then, melt? It may be expanded, but it will not _melt_, in the literal meaning of the word. Can water melt? It may be raised in steam, and made to fly off in vapor: it may, by the application of heat, be resolved into air, its first principle; but it will not melt. There is, therefore, only one element out of the four which is capable of being literally melted; _earth may_, indeed, be vitrified, and rendered fluid. But how can _one element_ be denominated _the elements_? And besides, the apostle seems to exclude the _earth_ from the elements which are thus to melt; for he mentions _its_ destruction, as subsequent to that of the elements. "The elements shall melt with fervent heat, the _earth also_", that is, in addition to these, the earth and the works that are therein, shall be burned up.[3] Here again, the literal sense fails. We must either allow what is not true, namely, that _fire_, _air_, and _water_, can be melted by fire, or seek for an internal and figurative meaning. I might pass thus through the whole of the language on which this tenet is founded; and it would be easy to show that the circumstances are as impossible in their literal meaning, as that a man should eat "the flesh of his own arm," or that our Lord should literally be a _vine_ and a _door_.