with them, and in subserviency to them*. These evil dispositions our Lord had reproved, by appropriate and weighty observations : and then he proceeded to declare to them, that the exercise of such corrupt feelings would issue in the everlasting destruction of all who should indulge them, and would plunge them into " that fire of hell which never should be quenched0." After repeating, no less than five times, that " the fire into which they should be cast should never be quenched," he told them that he expected very different tempers from them. The terms which he used on this occasion you have just heard : they contain a solemn admonition, and suitable advice ; each of which we will consider in its order. Let us notice, then,
I. His solemn admonition —
This is somewhat difficult to be understood. Com- mentators, supposing that the word "for" with which my text is introduced, is to be taken as connecting the text with the words immediately preceding, ex- plain the first clause of our text thus : ' The fire, into which the persons before spoken of shall be cast, shall never be quenched : neither shall the persons that are cast into it be consumed : for every one of them shall be salted with fire : and, as salt preserves from putrefaction the things that are impregnated with it, so shall the fire preserve from dissolution those who shall be subjected to its power."
This interpretation is far from satisfactory; because it places two perfectly similar expressions, that which I have read, and that which follows it, in direct op- position to each other, (the one as referring to the destruction of the soul, and the other to the pre- servation of it,) when they are evidently intended to convey the same truth under two different figures.
To get rid of this difficulty, one commentator" would
translate the word thus : " Every one shall be salted
for the fire." But any one, who looks at the original,
will see that such a translation is utterly inadmissible.
h ver. 38 — 41. c ver. 42 — 48. d Macknight.
g2