shall eat and not be satisfied.  And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me but walk contrary unto me; then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.  And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.”  This did come upon the sinner and the ungodly, and it was “according to their sins.”  Moses, Jeremiah, and Jesus spake particularly of the sufferings of the Jews in the destruction of their city and they all agree in concluding their chapters.  Moses in conclusion says, “and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquities, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes; and yet for all that I will not cast them away neither will I abhor them to destroy them utterly and to break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God.”  And Jeremiah, after describing their sufferings in the 4th chapter of Lamentations concludes with these words—­“The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion,” &c.  And Jesus, after denouncing upon them the judgments of heaven in Matt. xxiii.  Concludes thus:  “For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”  Thus we see that they agree in testifying to the same fact, that the punishment of the ungodly and the sinner, which mean, no other than the Jewish nation in their overthrow and dispersion as we have already noticed, shall end.

I see therefore no arguments, that can be drawn from our text, to prove a future judgment or endless misery in the immortal world.  If the objector can see a shadow of evidence in this passage to support such a sentiment, yet I must frankly acknowledge that, for myself, I cannot.  There is certainly no word in the text, that has the most distant allusion to the final condition of man.  The judgment began at the apostles and christians.  But is the "last judgment" to begin at them?  Certainly not.  But admit that it is; we would further inquire, did the last judgment begin as early as the days of Peter?  Impossible.  Then he could certainly not have had any allusion to such a day, for he exclaims:  “the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.”  Here the judgment to which he refers had commenced, or at least the signs portending it had commenced, and it was to end upon the ungodly inhabitants of Jerusalem.  This fact is evident from the context—­“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing had happened unto you; but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”  From this quotation there can arise no misapprehension as to Peter’s application of the text, nor of the persons it involves.  They were the persecutors of the christians, and no one will dispute that these were the Jews.