in the context of these passages which imperiously demands a departure from the ordinary sense, which he proves to be "grave" or "place of the dead," by a usage of fifty-nine examples out of sixty-four? Nothing at all-nor does he show that there is.

In Psalm ix. 17, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God," Sheol has its ordinary sense, the grave or underworld. And "the wicked" referred to are "the heathen," or, as David calls them in verse 3, "mine enemies," "the nations that forget God," as the context abundantly proves. It is of the neighboring wicked nations, and not of wicked individuals, that he is speaking. And the meaning is, that they will be destroyed, perhaps by some special judgment, and turned into the grave, or the realm of the dead, Sheol. Dr. Alexander, Professor at Princeton, gives the following as the "The wicked shall turn back, even to hell, to death, or to the grave; all nations forgetful of God. The enemies of God and of his people, shall not only be thwarted and repulsed, but driven to destruction, and that not merely individuals, but nations."

sense:

Thus our examination shows that Hell, in the words of Dr. Whitby, "throughout the Old Testament signifies the grave only, or the place of death." And this fact will be confirmed beyond dispute, when it is remembered that the doctrine of endless punishment, the doctrine even of a future state of retribution, is not taught, nor alluded to, in the Mosaic Law. Archbishop Whately says, "As for a future state of retribution in another world, Moses said nothing to the Israelites about that." Milman, the author of the "History of the Jews," "History of Christianity," "Latin Christianity," &c., says, Moses "maintains a

profound silence on the rewards and punishments of another life." Bishop Warburton testifies that, "In 'the Jewish Republic, both the rewards and punishments promised by Heaven were temporal only— such as health, long life, peace, plenty and dominion, &c.; Diseases, premature death, war, famine, want, subjections, captivity, &c. And in no one place of the Mosaic Institutes is there the least mention, or any intelligible hint, of the rewards and punishments of another life." Paley declares that the Mosaic dispensation "dealt in temporal rewards and punishments. The blessings consisted altogether of worldly benefits, and the curses of worldly punishments." Prof. Mayer says, that "the rewards promised the righteous, and the punishments threatened the wicked, are such only as are awarded in the present state of being." Jahn, whose work is the text-book of the Andover Theological Seminary, says, "We have no authority, therefore, decidedly to say, that any other motives were held out to the ancient Hebrews to pursue good and avoid evil, than those which were derived from the rewards and punishments of this life." To the same important fact testify Prof. Wines, Bush, Arnauld, and other distinguished Theologians and scholars. Of course, then, if the doctrine of

Encyc. Britan., vol. i. Dis. 3. WHATELEY'S "Peculiarities of the Christian Religion," p. 44, 2d edition, and his " Scripture Revelations of a Future State," pp. 18, 19, American edition. MILMAN'S "Hist. of Jews," vol. i. 117. " Divine Legation," vol. iii. pp. 1, 2, &c. 10th London edition. PALEY's works, vol. v. p. 110, Sermon xiii. JAHN's "Archæology," § 314. LEE, in his "Eschatology," says: "It should be remembered that the rewards and punishments of the Mosaic Institutes were exclusively temporal. Not an allusion is found, in the case of either individuals or communities, in which reference is Inade to the good or evil of a future state as motive to obedience." p.144. The reader will note that all these are orthodox authorities.

future endless punishment is not revealed in the Mosaic Dispensation, Sheol cannot mean any such thing. If, therefore, such a place of torment exists, as some Christians believe in, it has no name in the Old Testament! Leigh, in his "Critica Sacra," says, frankly, "All learned Hebrew scholars know that the Hebrews have no word proper for hell, as we take hell."1 But surely, if God had revealed such a place to Moses or the prophets, he would have revealed it with a name.

Let the reader then seriously, and with a prayer for divine direction, consider these important factsfacts forced upon the biblical scholars and theologians named; and, though directly in conflict with their creeds, ingenuously and honestly confessed. There is no word for hell, as believed by certain Christian sects, in all the Old Testament. The doctrine of a future state of endless torment for the wicked, is not in the Hebrew Scriptures, which cover two thirds of the whole period of Man's life and history on this earth!

And it is at this point that the argument presses with tremendous weight. If the doctrine of endless punishment be true, then for four thousand years God made no revelation of it! From Moses to Malachi the Scriptures are entirely silent on the subject. What shall we say of that justice which could see the millions of earth through all this time, in utter ignorance of their fate, plunging into the gulf of endless torment and despair-without one word of

' EDWARD LEIGH was, according to HORNE," one of the most learned men of his time, and his work is a valuable help to the understanding of the original languages of the Scriptures."-Intro. vol ii. 705.

warning? Think of this for a moment-that God should suffer the world to go on for forty centuries, with not the slightest hint of danger to those who were daily and hourly sinking into the flaming abyss! Is it possible to believe such monstrous blasphemy against that God who is Love?

1 HANS ANDERSEN, the poet of Denmark, and one of the most instructive and pleasing authors of the day, says: "I received gladly, both with feeling and understanding, the doctrine that God is Love; everything which opposes this-a burning hell, therefore, whose fire endured forever I could not recognise."-" Story of my Life," p. 77. The same aversion to the revolting dogma, and the same recognition of the final triumph of good and God, glow through the pages of half the popular writers of the day, as HOLMES, WINTHROP, FRONDE, KINGSLEY, Dr. GEORGE Moore (author of“ Body and Mind," "Soul and Body," &c., in Harper's Miscellany,) Mrs. SHERWOOD, the BRONTES, WILLIAM and MARY HOWITT—and especially of the poets, as Leigh Hunt, BaileY, in" Festus," (the very plot of which is universal redemption,) THOMPSON, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, TENNYSON, WORDSWORTH, WHIT TIER, CHARLES LAMB, SOUTHEY, &c. As an example, take the following from the last named:

"What though at birth we bring with us the seed
Of sin and mortal taint-yet are we still

The children of the All-Merciful; and ill

They teach, who tell us that from hence must flow
God's wrath; and then, His justice to fulfil,
Death everlasting, never-ending wo!

O miserable lot of man, if it were so!
Falsely and impiously they teach who thus
Our heavenly Father's will misread!

In bounty hath the Lord created us,

In love redeemed. From this authentic creed

Let no bewildering sophistry impede
The heart's entire assent; for God is good.
Hold firm this faith, and in whatever need,
Doubt not but thou wilt find thy soul endued
With all-sufficient strength and fortitude."

SECTION II.

HADES- ITS SCRIPTURAL IMPORT AND USAGE.

"" AND LAZARUS.

"THE RICH MAN

Aons-Hades is found eleven times only in the New Testament, and is rendered by the word Hell ten times, and once by the word Grave. 1 Cor. xv. 55. It is universally allowed by critics that Hades corresponds in meaning with Sheol; and this is confirmed by the fact that the Septuagint,' which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, made in part about three hundred years before Christ, has rendered Sheol by the word Hades sixty times out of sixty-four instances where it occurs. However, with regard to the meaning of the word, in the New Testament, it may be well to have independent testimony.

§ I. Meaning and usage of Hades. A theologian, equally learned as a scholar, judicious as a critic, and impartial as a commentator, says of Hades,

"In my judgment, it ought never in Scripture to be rendered Hell, at least in the sense wherein that word is universally understood by Christians. It is very plain that neither in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, nor in the New, does the word Hades convey the meaning which the present English word Hell, in the Christian usage, always conveys to our minds. The attempt to illustrate this would be unnecessary, as it is hardly now pretended by any

'The Septuagint, or Seventy, sometimes written the LXX., is so called from the fact or tradition of its being the joint labor of seventy learned Jews in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus. It was in use in our Saviour's time.