who will pay the penalty: eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might,
Seeing the fire in which the wicked are to be punished is called by our Lord, Matthew 25:41 "fire prepared for the devil and his angels,’ may it not be inferred that these malicious spirits also are to be burnt in the flames of the conflagration. Of this punishment they may be capable, if, as some suppose they are united to ethereal bodies of such a texture as to be affected by fire. The other particulars concerning the fallen angels, mentioned in scripture, seem to agree with this account of their punishment. For example, we are told, Ephesians 2:2 that they have their habitation at present in the air. And as the air is a dark abode, in comparison of the region "with chains of darkness in order to judgment.’ In like manner Jude tells us verse 6 that they are kept in everlasting chains under darkness,’the darkness of this world, Ephesians 6:12, ’unto the judgment of the great day.’ The devil, therefore, and his angels being imprisoned in our atmosphere, and the day of judgment being the time expressly fixed by Jude for their judgment and punishment, do not these circumstances authorize us to believe, that when the heavens or atmosphere of air surrounding this earth, is set of fire, these malicious spirits shall be burnt in their prison-house, even as the wicked shall be burnt on the earth, where they are to be left? So that our Lord’s sentence is to be understood literally of the devil and his angels, as well as of the wicked; and that the effect of this burning upon both will be the utter destruction of their bodies, without any hope of their ever regaining new bodies; while their spirits, surviving the destruction of their bodies as long as it shall please God, shall be made unspeakably miserable by their own thoughts, without any enjoyment whatever to alleviate the bitterness of the most melancholy state. These things are all so terrible, that the sound of them, though distant, should awaken even those who are most sunk in wickedness and insensibility (MacKnight 426).