vindicates his own holy character and the sanctity of his law; thus putting, not the sinner, but himself and his everlasting government right in the eyes of his intelligent creatures. Now it is a dictate of reason that the penalty should bear a just proportion to the offence. If the latter cannot be measured by any finite amount of penal suffering (which the author admits to be true), our reason cannot see why such suffering may not be unlimited; that is (since it must be at each successive moment finite in degree) without end. He brings forward, indeed, a distinction between the absolute and the infinite. Duty, he affirms, is absolute, but not infinite.1 This, if we understand him aright, is no other than the distinction which we have already made between the absolutely and the relatively infinite. If duty is absolute, then, compared with any finite measure, it is infinite. Though we cannot comprehend or feel infinite guilt in the absolute sense of the term, we can know ourselves to be guilty beyond measure, and therefore deserving of penalty beyond

measure.

Such, as it seems to us, is the argument from human reason and philosophy, although, as already remarked, we make nothing authoritative but the declarations of holy writ.

4. Natural immortality. The question of man's "natural immortality" the author discusses under the head of "the scriptural argument." But it is plainly extra-scriptural. There is a philosophy which, by ascribing everything to the immediate efficiency of God, virtually annihilates the distinction between the natural and the supernatural. By making everything supernatural, it makes everything natural. But the commonly received philosophy recognizes a true distinction between the two. Natural immortality we suppose to be that which can be destroyed by none of the powers which God has put into nature, but only by the same divine power which gave it being. Now whatever be true of the soul in this respect, it is a matter which lies outside of the

1 p. 92.

revelations of Scripture. Snow and frost and ice come by the powers of nature, yet the Psalmist ascribes them immediately to God. "He giveth snow like wool; he scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes; he casteth forth his ice like morsels." We can expect to find in the Bible only simple declarations concerning man's destiny, as coming from the will of God, and these we do find. Why the Scriptures insist so abundantly on the divine self-existence and immortality is manifest. God's being is the ground of all other being, and the belief of it underlies all religion. But man's destiny, as it respects the future world, though the knowledge of it is highly desirable, does not constitute the foundation of religion, and we know, as a matter of history, that, before the advent of our Lord, the inspired writers maintained a remarkable reserve respecting it. It is very surprising, therefore, that our author should put the doctrines of the divine existence and that of man's "natural immortality" (supposing it to be a truth) on an exact level, and say:

"If now these two are the cardinal truths of religion, we should expect them to receive similar treatment, in the Revelation of the divine character and of human destiny. If one of these doctrines is stated explicitly and categorically, we should expect the same of the other. If one of them is not directly stated, but is explicitly assumed, with frequent mention or allusion, we should expect the same of the other," etc. p. 162.

Upon this head we will only add that all believers in revelation admit, that, as a matter of fact, the death of the body does not destroy the soul. From this consideration, as well as from others of a philosophical nature which we omit, the natural immortality of the soul, in the sense above explained, is inferred with a high degree of probability. But on this point we wish to lay no stress. It is enough for us if we can ascertain the doctrine of Scripture as to the final destiny of the righteous and the wicked. We come next, therefore, to consider

1 Psalm 147: 16.

THE SCRIPTURAL, ARGUMENT.

Under this division we propose to state succinctly the scriptural doctrine, referring, as we proceed, to the erroneous positions and statements of the author.

I. On the usage of certain terms.

Various terms employed by the writers of the Old Tes tament in a lower and mostly physical sense, are, as is well known, transferred by the writers of the New Testament to a higher sense. Of these, such words as Paradise, Zion, Gehenna, are familiar examples. Even in the Old Testament, the term Zion is elevated by the prophets from its original geographical use to a high spiritual meaning; while, in the New Testament, Mount Zion becomes a symbol for the church universal. In all such cases to insist upon the original lower meaning against the obvious higher application, would be absurd. Because, for example, the original Zion was nothing but a hill in Jerusalem, this does not prove that the Mount Zion of the New Testament is a hill in any sense. It must be what the attributes ascribed to it make it. By the aid of this simple principle let us examine a few of these

terms.

1. Gehenna. This is the Hebrew, valley of Hinnom, or more fully,, valley of the son of Hinnom, lying south of Jerusalem, and infamous for the human sacrifices there offered to Moloch. Josiah defiled this place, probably with human bones; and, according to the common view, it became thenceforward the receptacle of all manner of filth, in which worms revelled, and to consume which a fire was kept constantly burning. Thus it is supposed that it came to be used as an image of the place of future punishment. This representation is not altogether certain. To

In the Greek yɛévva, always rendered in our version hell, and thus confounded with gỗng, which is (with a single exception, 1 Cor. 15: 55) rendered by the same word. The dons of the New Testament answers to the is of the Old.

us it seems more probable that, as Vitringa suggests, this usage comes from two passages in Isaiah (30: 33. 66: 24), both of which the Jewish interpreters referred to the punishment of the wicked in the world to come, and which must plainly be taken in a higher than the literal sense. In the former of these: "For Tophet" (, which they rightly understand to be the same as in the valley of Hinnom) "is prepared of old; also for the king is it made ready; he hath made it deep and broad; its pile is fire and wood in abundance; the breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it," they understood the prophet as representing, in the words of Jarchi, " Gehenna, into which every one who deceives himself by his lust falls." In the latter passage: "And they shall go forth," that is, the men who have come to Jerusalem to worship (ver. 23), "and look upon the carcasses of the men who have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched; and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh," they understand, in like manner, the fire and the worm as representing the punishment of the wicked in the world to come. For the very reason that the fire and the worm are symbolic, not literal, both can exist together; and, for the same reason, both can prey upon their victims without end. It would be the merest trifling to say that because, in the case of a literal carcass, fire and worms do not torment, but destroy, therefore the symbolical fire and worm of hell are instruments, not of pain, but of annihilation.4 Rather must we reverently inquire what God has revealed on this awful subject.

As to the Jewish doctors, they do not all hold the same

1 Com. on Isa. 66: 24.

2 Literally, from yesterday (s used here, as elsewhere, of past time indefinitely). Hence the Rabbinic conceit that the fire of Gehenna was created on the second day of creation, which had only a yesterday before it. This is a fair sample of the unspeakable puerility of their interpretations of Scripture.

. גיהנם שכל המתפתה ניכרו ניפל עם 8

4 The Rabbinic idea is altogether different. "R. Isaac said: The worm is as painful to the dead man as a needle to live flesh." Quoted by Wetstein on Mark 9: 44, 46, 48.

opinion concerning the punishment of the wicked in Ge henna. Some teach that the punishment of hell is inflicted upon the souls of the wicked in their separate state,1 and such seem to restrict the resurrection of the body to the righteous. With this agree the statements of Josephus respecting the doctrine of the Pharisees: "They also believe that souls have an immortal vigor; and that beneath the ground there are rewards and punishments to those who have practised virtue or wickedness in life; and that to those of one class an eternal prison is appointed, but to those of the other class the privileges of living again." And again : "that every soul indeed is incorruptible, but that the soul of the good alone passes into another body, while that of the wicked is punished with eternal penalty." 5

Another opinion is that the resurrection will include all men.6 These are divided, at the day of judgment, into three companies ()-the wholly righteous (1), the wholly wicked (1), and the middle (). "The wholly righteous are enrolled and sealed immediately for eternal life. The wholly wicked are enrolled and sealed immediately for Gehenna, according to that declaration : 'Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.'7 But the middle class shall descend into Gehenna wailing, and shall ascend [thence], as it is said: 'And I will bring the third part of thein through the

See in Meier's Annotations to the Seder Olam the statement of Abarbanel. pp. 1108, 1109.

2 But here also there are conflicting statements. See below.

8 paoróvny, which may be also rendered relief.

4 Antiq. B. XVIII. Chap. 1. 3.

5 Jewish War, B. II. Chap. 8. 14. The doctrine of the Essenes also was, according to Josephus, that souls, being immortal, endure forever, though they connected it with false Gnostic ideas. Jewish War, as above, Chap. 8. 11. The authority of Josephus on the main question, that of the immortality of souls and eternal rewards and punishments as held by the Pharisees, is unimpeachable. Our author has been able to allege nothing valid against it.

Found in the Talmud, Rosh hashshana. In the Sedar Olam, Chap. III., is a similar account.

7 Dan. 12: 2.