saiah 'everlasting burnings' was a symbolic designation of God. And,
passing by all other references, we remember that our Lord Himself used
the same emblem, as John does, with apparently the same meaning, when,
yearning for the fulfilment of His work, He said,' I am come to send
fire on earth--oh that it were already kindled!' The day of Pentecost
teaches the same lesson by its fiery tongues; and the Seer in Patmos
beheld, burning before the throne, the sevenfold lamps of fire which are
'the seven spirits of God.'

Thus, then, there is a continuous chain of symbolism according to which
some aspect of the divine nature, and especially of the Spirit of God,
is set forth for us by fire. The question, then, comes to be--what is
that aspect? In answer, I would remind you that the attributes and
offices of the Spirit of God are never in Scripture represented as being
destructive, and are only punitive, in so far as the convictions of sin,
which He works in the heart, may be regarded as being punishments. The
fire of God's _Spirit_, at all events, is not a wrathful energy,
working pain and death, but a merciful omnipotence, bringing light and
joy and peace. The Spirit which is fire is a Spirit which giveth life.
So the symbol, in the special reference in the text, has nothing of
terror or destruction but is full of hope and bright with promise.

Even in its more general application to the divine nature, the same
thing is to a large extent true. The common impression is the reverse of
this. The interpretation which most readers unconsciously supply to the
passages of Scripture where God is spoken of as flaming fire, is that
God's terrible wrath is revealed in them. I am very far from denying
that the punitive and destructive side of the divine character is in the
symbol, but certainly that is not its exclusive meaning, nor does it
seem to me to be its principal one. The emblem is employed over and over
again, in connections where it must mean chiefly the blessed and joyous
aspect of God's Name to men. It is unquestionably part of the felicity
of the symbol that there should be in it this double force--for so is it
the fitter to show forth Him who, by the very same attributes, is the
life of those who love Him and the death of those who turn from Him.
But, still, though it is true that the bright and the awful aspects of
that Name are in themselves one, and that their difference arises from
the difference of the eyes which beho