That is an awful contrast between the Come! ye blessed,' and Depart! ye cursed.' That is a more awful parallel between eternal punishment' and eternal life.' It is futile to attempt to alleviate the awfulness by emptying the word eternal' of reference to duration. It no doubt connotes quality, but its first meaning is everduring. There is nothing here to suggest that the one condition is more terminable than the other. Rather, the emphatic repetition of the word brings the unending continuance of each into prominence, as the point in which these two states, so wofully unlike, are the same. In whatever other passages the doctrine of universal restoration may seem to find a foothold, there is not an inch of standing-room for it here. Reverently accepting Christ's words as those of perfect and infallible love, the present writer feels so strongly the difficulty of bringing all the New Testament declarations on this dread question into a harmonious whole, that he abjures for himself dogmatic certainty, and dreads lest, in the eagerness of discussing the duration (which will never be beyond the reach of discussion), the solemn reality of the fact of future retribution should be dimmed, and men should argue about the terror of the Lord' till they cease to feel it.
