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TO CORRESPONDENTS

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Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 17, 1860

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 15, No. 26.

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TO CORRESPONDENTS.

By Editor

B. F. R., of Ohio. We think the Scriptures plainly teach degrees of punishment to be inflicted on the wicked. The texts you refer to, seem clearly to prove this. We know that the objector to our views, asks, in seeming astonishment, what degrees there can be in a state of death; and if death is the punishment for sin, and all suffer it alike, how one can suffer more than another? We are, however, unable to make this appear, in our own mind, anything like an objection; for it will be admitted by all that death may be to some a far more terrible event than to others. The prospect of being blotted from conscious existence may strike some souls with deeper dread than others, and consequently be to them a far greater punishment. The duration and intensity, also, of the suffering by which their dissolution is accomplished, may be proportioned to the difference of their deserts. We see therefore no lack of harmony between the views that death is the punishment for sin, and yet that there will be degrees in the punishment of sinners, according to the degrees of their guilt. To quote the sentiment, though not the exact language of Scripture, "Every man shall be rewarded according as his work shall be."
G. P. W., of Me. If the "tribulation such as never was," spoken of in Matt. xxiv, &c., refers, as has been generally supposed, to tribulation to come upon the Christian church, it could not have reference to scenes connected with the destruction of Jerusalem. And the Christian church has probably endured no tribulation at all comparable to that it suffered during the time it was given into the hands of the "little horn" to be "worn out" by that persecuting power. The supremacy of the little horn commenced A. D. 538, where, consequently, the commencement of the days of tribulation is placed.
In reference to Acts xx, 7, the word "morrow" evidently refers to the next period of daylight succeeding the evening on which the meeting was held. This is shown by verse 11, which says that as soon as it was break of day Paul departed.
In regard to John xx, 19, the Jews reckoned two evenings : one constituting the close of one day, and another the beginning of the next. The evening of the verse in question, must have been the evening which closed the first day of the week.