lively emblem of the vengeance of eternal fire, having their lovely and fruitful country turned into a kind of hell upon earth."-Par. in loc.

The opinion of these learned and distinguished commentators, we think, are correct. Dr. Barnes, the eminent Presbyterian divine, here says, that that the passage cannot be used to prove the doctrine of endless punishment? Not the slightest allusion is made to suffering in the immortal world.

The fire which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, is called eternal because it brought, as Whitby says, a perpetual and irreparable destruction. Those cities were swept away forever. It was everlasting destruction. They were completely overthrown and destroyed. The fire was called eternal, not because it was to burn forever, but because of the complete annihilation of the place, the utter consumption of the cities by the fire. Moses frequently makes allusion to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but never in a single instance does he represent the inhabitants of those ill-fated cities as suffering after death. How can we account for this on the supposition that he believed they were to suffer endless torments? Peter also makes allusion to the same subject, (2 Peter ii. 48,) but says nothing concerning endless punishment. It is said that these cities are set forth as an example. The meaning is, that their destruction was an example to future ages, to show that God will punish the sinful, that divine judgments will overtake the workers of iniquity. Their overthrow is set forth

as an example to other nations. As they were punished, so God would punish other sinful people, hence those false teachers, referred to by Jude, who rose up to pervert the ways of the Lord, could not reasonably expect to escape. As an example of divine judgment coming upon the guilty, Sodom and Gomorrah are spoken of, so would those false teachers be overwhelmed and destroyed. The destruction of those cities is referred to as an example of temporal calamities, and not of endless punishment. They were an example of temporal ruin; or, as Peter has it, "an example unto those that after should live ungodly." As God punished the wicked people of those cities so he would punish those false teachers who turned the grace of God into lasciviousness. The destruction of the Sodomites was a case in point, furnishing a vivid example of the fate to which they should be doomed. Such are our views upon this controverted passage. We give the following from a valuable writer:

"By the phrase eternal fire, according to Rosenmuller, we may understand a destructive fire, such as lay waste and annihilated the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, or we may understand by it a fire perpetually smoking. Philo, the Jew, who wrote in the time of our Savior, says de vita Mosis, Lib. II. p. 662 A., that even then there were memorials to be seen in Syria of the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah; ruins, ashes, brimstone, smoke and lurid flames which was still emitted, indicative of abiding fire. With this agrees the Book of Wisdom, x. 7, which says: 'Of whose wickedness even

in this day the waste land that smoketh is a testimony.'

To the existence of some of those phenomena even to the present day, Dr. Shaw (see Clarke's Com. on Genesis xix. 24), bears witness. The appearance of smoke and fire of which he speaks, and to which Philo and the author of Wisdom allude, is undoubtedly to be explained by the well known existence of bituminous matter in the bed of the lake Asphaltites, which now occupies the site of those cities. These considerations are sufficient to justify the language of Jude, without resorting to the groundless supposition that he had reference to the future world."

Whitby has the following on aionios:

"Nor is there any thing more common and familiar in Scripture, than to represent a thorough and irreparable vastation, whose effects and signs should be still remaining, by the word aionios, which we here render eternal. I will set thee, eis eremon aionion, in places desolate of old. (Ezek. xxvi. 20.) I will destroy thee, and thou shalt be no more, eis ton aiona, forever. (Verse 21.) I will make thee, eremian aionion, a perpetual desolation, and thy cities shall be built no more. (Chap. xxxv. 9; see also Ezek. xxxvi. 2; Isa. lviii. 12.) They have caused them to stumble in their ways, to make their land desolate, and surigma aionion, a perpetual hissing. (Jer. xviii. 15, 16.) I will bring upon you oneidismon aionion, an everlasting reproach, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten. (Jer. xxiii. 40, and xxi. 9.) I will make the land of the Chaldeans a perpetual desolation, thesomai autous eis aphanismon aionion, they shall sleep, upnon aionion, a perpetual sleep. (Jer. li. 39).

WHO SHALL RISE FIRST!

"For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead ir. Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." -1 THESSALONIANS iv. 15-17.

As the meaning of this passage is not apparent to the English reader, different classes of religionists have urged it in support of conflicting theories. Much of its obscurity is doubtless attributable to the common translation which does not fully express the meaning of the original. Dr. Adam Clarke thinks that a better rendering of phthnao, here translated prevent, would be, "go before," or "anticipated," or "be before," though he adds, "we use it now in the sense of to hinder or obstruct." Macknight agrees in the main with this learned divine.

The context shows clearly that the author of these words referred to the time when Christ's kingdom should be established in the earth, and the world judged by the principles of his religion.

When Christ was upon the earth, he spoke of his coming again with power and great glory. He declared that some who listened to his instructions, should not taste of death till they saw the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. (Matt. xvi. 27, 28.) The meaning of this is, that he should come during the lifetime of some whom he addressed. In the preceding context, Paul refers to the persecutions which the early Christians were to suffer in behalf of the truth, and urges them to great fideli- . ty, and expresses a desire to see them that he might perfect that which was lacking in their faith, and prayed that they might be established unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all his saints. This evidently is the same coming as is spoken of in the passage under consideration, and the same that Christ spoke of and confined to the lifetime of some who heard him. After stating that Christ should descend from heaven, the apostle adds: "But of the times and seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you, for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and Safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them....and they shall not escape." This passage, which speaks of Christ's coming as a thief in the night, so clearly resembles that recorded in Matt. xxiv. 43, 44, that it is quite probable that the apostle had his eye upon these words of the Master: "If the good man of the