received no punishment in this world for his long career of sinfulness; and it will not be pretended that he received it after he arrived in heaven-he was therefore not punished at all! But how fares it with his brother Charles? He, poor fellow, must welter in unceasing flames for the crimes of his brief existence on earth! Has God rendered to these twins according to their works? The above, I think, is not a strained view of the subject; on the contrary, it corresponds to facts which, if the notion of endless misery be true, are constantly transpiring. Not only is it commonly supposed that a man may secure an exemption from just punishment by repentance, and after serving sin for the main part of his life, be prepared in a few days, or hours, or even moments, for heavenly bliss-but it is also supposed by Arminians, that if a christian be overtaken with sin at the last, and die unpardoned, although the whole of his former days may have been devoted to virtue, yet he shall sink to hell, and be lost past redemption! It is indeed impossible to avoid innumerable and most gross anomalies in connexion with that doctrine, and for the reason that it is essentially absurd in itself. In the theory of forgiveness and of punishment, as herein advocated, and which has been shown to be in striking agreement with scripture and fact, no such anomalies are involved: it seems to meet all the requirements of reason and justice-it reflects a glory and a praise upon the all-perfect Creator and Ruler of the universe-and it affords a guarantee that the great and benevolent ends of his government, (which can be nothing less than the promotion of the greatest possible amount of eventual good to the greatest possible number of his subjects,) shall be infallibly and triumphantly achieved.

"That be far from thee," said Abraham, when God had revealed to him his purpose of destroying the Sodomites, and the patriarch was remonstrating against the involving the good and the bad in a common destruction-"That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked; and that the righteous be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen. xviii. 25.) Here was a fitting occasiou for Jehovah to have informed the patriarch, (and through him the world,) that in his present dispensations he does not discriminate between persons of different characters, but treats all alike, deferring unto a future period the making of those disting

tions which justice seems to require. But no such information did Abraham obtain; on the contrary, the justness of his remonstrance was practically acknowledged. God did not slay the righteous with the wicked, but saved Lot and his family, whilst he overthrew with a judgment of fire the wicked inhabitants of the cities of the plain. Nevertheless, we are informed by modern theolo gists, in the face of this, and of a hundred kindred scriptural facts, and the experience of all ages and of every day, that a suitable distinction is not here made betwixt the righteous and the wicked; and therefore, that to satisfy the requirements of infinite justice, there must be a future dispensation for this special end. Such is the conclusion-you have seen, reader, that the premises are false, and, consequently, the conclusion is false also.

HELL PUNISHMENT EXAMINED.

Dr. Adam Clark, speaking of the English word hell, says, "It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon helan, which signifies, to cover, conceal, or hide, and hence the tiling, or covering of a house, and the covering of books are to this day called heling; and the phrase to hell is still used as synonymous with to cover, or hide, in several of the western counties of England. Thus the true and primitive meaning of the word hell, was perfectly accordant with the idea suggested by the Hebrew sheol, and the Greek hades, for, as- nouns, all three of these words imply something unseen, concealed, or invisible, and have, therefore, with propriety been employed to convey the notion of an unseen world, the grave, or the state of the dead in general.” Thus far the great Arminian

commentator.

The learned Archbishop Usher, has expressed the same opinion, as follows: “We have no word in the French or English language to express the idea conveyed by the Hebrew sheol, or the Greek hades. Our English word hell had anciently this meaning, being derived from the German hell, to hide. Hence, the ancient Irish used to say 'hell the head,' meaning to cover the head. So that our hell then answered to the Greek hades, which

signifies an unseen place." To this agree, also, Dr. Campbell, of Aberdeen, and many others.

Not only in regard to the literal sense of the Old Testament word rendered hell, are learned commentators agreed, but also in regard to the fact, that the idea of punishment beyond death was not entertained by the Jewish people, nor inculcated in their sacred oracles: this must surely be admitted a highly important concession. Look at it, reader. The Jewish economy continued down to the four thousandth year of the world, and after. For all this period, then, no revelation had been made to man concerning a hell beyond the grave. And although Jehovah had established a church on earth, and revealed to that church his character and his laws; although he addressed the human will by every motive likely to influence it; yet, for four thousand years and more, no disclosure was made relative to a fact the most awful that finite mind can contemplate; a fact (if true) which ought to have been traced in words of flame on every object in nature!!!

There was not in the Hebrew language a word denoting such a state or place as an ultra-mundane hell; for although in our version of the Old Testament, we occasionally meet the word hell, yet it is derived from a terin (sheol) which literally signifies the separate stale. The Jews evidently supposed that all the dead go to the same place. Their usual phraseology in regard to a deceased person was, (whatever might have been his character,) "he was gathered to his fathers." Nor did this relate merely to the body of such individual, for we find it used in reference to those who were interred in foreign lands, as well as to such as were buried in the family cemetery with their progenitors.

That the term sheol suggested no idea to the mind of a Jew answering to the modern signification of the word hell, must be extremely apparent to every candid student of the Old Testament; see for proof the following, among numerous similar instances of the application of this term.

When the patriarch Jacob supposed his son Jacob to be torn in pieces by a wild beast, he exclaimed, "I will go down unto [sheol] the grave unto my son, mourning." (Gen. xxxv. 37.) Job, in the midst of his troubles, supplicated his Maker as follows: "Oh, that thou wouldst hide me in [sheol] the grave, that thou wouldst keep me secret till thy wrath be past." (Job, xiii.

14.) David exclaims, on one occasion, "Oh Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from [sheol] the grave." (Ps. xxx. 3.) In another place the psalmist saith, "For thou wilt not leave my soul in [sheol] hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." (Ps. xvi. 10.) Peter represents him as having used this language in reference to Christ. (Acts xiii. 15.) "The Lord killeth, and maketh alive; he bringeth down to [sheol] the grave, and bringeth up." (1 Sam. ii. 6.)

"The grave [sheol] is my house." (Job.) This was no doubt said in allusion to the " long-home" of man" the house appointed for all the living." Jonah cried unto the Lord "out of the belly of [sheol] hell." This was while he was in the belly of the fish; he viewed himself as already cut off from the living, and included among the inhabitants of the separate state, and therefore he says "the earth with her bars closed against me forever." Yet he lived after this to preach to the Ninevites.

"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in sheol, whither thou goest." (Eccl. ix. 10.) People cannot well be tormented in flames, without knowing something about it, but Solomon says, "there is no knowledge in sheol!" consequently, sheol cannot be a place of torment.

The king of Babylon was threatened with being "brought down to [sheol] hell, to the sides of the pit," and that while there, the kings of the earth should see him, and taunt him with his former boasted greatness, saying, "Is this the man that made the earth to tremble? (Isa. xiv. 15, 16.) Hell [sheol] is confounded with "the nether parts of the earth." (Ezek. xxi. 22.) In Amos ix. the Lord threatens to bring the sword upon the Jewish nation, and he says, "Though they dig into [sheol] hell, thence shall my hand take them."

These must fully suffice to show that sheol, in Old Testament times, was not supposed a receptacle of damned spirits. Jacob surely did not imagine that his beloved Joseph had gone to a world of misery-nor did he expect that his own gray hairs would sink in sorrow to such a place-neither did David allud to a realm of fire when he said his soul should not be left in he -nor did Jonah mistake the whale's belly for such a realm-n?. did Peter think that Christ's soul went, at death, to a hell

modern description. No, no; no such spectre-peopled limbo as starts up in modern imaginations at the mention of that word, was ever associated with it in the minds of the inspired writers.

The same is on all hands, acknowledged true in regard to the Greek term hades; which, by the most eminent critics, is defined as signifying an unseen state; and is literally used to denote the state of the dead in general. This (even if we set aside the etymological evidence in the case,) is most satisfactorily proven by the fact, that the seventy Jews who translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, under Ptolemy Philadelphus, about 270 years before Christ, have employed hades as a corresponding word for sheol, and it so stands in their version, called the Septuagent, from which Christ and his apostles were in the habit of quoting. It is true, that of the eleven times it occurs in the New Testament, King James' translators have but once rendered it by the word grave; but it is exceedingly manifest that, in all its literal applications, grave or the separate state, would have better conveyed the sense of the original, than does the term hell.

Both sheol and hades are occasionally used in the scriptures in a figurative, or accommodated signification; between which and the primary idea, there is undoubtedly a close analogy. Previous to the introduction of christianity, the ideas of men respecting the future state were vague, dark, and uncertain; we must all remember that such were our own feelings, in our childhood, in relation to death and its consequences; an uneasinessa terror of an indefinable nature, is the natural state of the mind in relation to that undisclosed realm beyond the grave, until the light and hopes of the gospel have calmed the fears of the spirit, and composed its flutterings, It is then not to be won dered at, that the Jews, to whom the state of the dead was equally undefined, should occasionally accommodate the terms sheol, and hades, to express a condition of mental suffering and disquietude, proceeding from whatever cause, more especially from remorse of conscience. Such is unquestionably the meaning of these words in their figurative application.

David says, "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of [sheol] hell got hold of me. I found trouble and sorrow." (Ps. cxvi. 3.) Now all this occurred to him in this life; and intense as these hell-sufferings were, yet he survived them,