THE LIFE EVERLASTING - Chapter Third- Bible Eschatology Sections I the IV by J. H. Pettingell-

WHAT SAITH THE SCRIPTURE

Introductory Remarks.

The Bible is not an argument: it is a Revelation. It utters truths. It states facts and principles. It does not undertake to prove them. We may exercise our reasoning faculties upon its utterances, and endeavor to formulate them into a rational system; we may attempt to bring proofs of what it says from other sources; but whether we can do this or not — if we honor the Scriptures as the Word of God — we are supposed to accept its plain and unequivocal declarations as a sufficient and ultimate authority for our belief.

If on any point its utterances are vague, or appear to be inconsistent with each other, or in conflict with other known facts, we must, indeed, exercise our reason in solving the difficulty. For it is evident that all truth, whether natural or supernatural, must be self-consistent and harmonious; and so it will be found when cleared of human errors and misconceptions.

But so far as its teachings are plain and explicit, and especially in regard to those truths that are beyond the reach of unaided reason, we have nothing to do but to receive them with implicit faith. Surely, no human philosophy or scheme of doctrine, however plausible it may seem, is to be brought into antagonism with the Oracles of God, or to be made a test by which to judge of their trust worthiness.

Our simple inquiry should be, and shall be in this discussion, as to the nature and destiny of men, What saith the Scripture? not, what ought Scripture to say, nor, what, by a forced construction can it be made to appear to say? But, what does it actually say? And whatever it shall be found clearly, unequivocally, and uniformly to say, on this question, as on all others, we shall hold to be the truth of God, and accept it as such, and insist on its acceptance by all who acknowledge the Divine authority of the Scriptures — human philosophy, or traditional theology or popular sentiment, to the contrary notwithstanding.

It is not proposed to argue, in this place, the question of the inspiration of the Scriptures. We assume it. For we address what we have to say to those who, with us, admit their Divine authority, whatever theory of inspiration they may have adopted. Nor is it a question of this or that translation or revision that especially concerns us.

One version may express the idea of the original text more clearly and correctly than another. The new Revision, a portion of which has just been given to the public, should be, and is, in many respects, an improvement on the old version ; and we are thankful for it; for it fully sustains our criticisms on the text in the forgoing chapter on Bible Terminology, which were in type before this revision was published. Indeed, all of the changes in the text relating to this question, so far as they go, are in the direction of the views we maintain, and tend greatly to enforce and confirm them, as will be seen as we proceed.

But our main inquiry is, not how shall this word or that word or clause in the original be rendered into English, but in what sense is it to be taken whether translated or not. Our controversy with our Christian brethren does not so much turn on translations or renderings, as on the interpretation of the text itself, and the sense in which it is to be taken. Are the Scriptures to be read and interpreted like other books, according to the ordinary laws of language, or in a .sense that is unusual and peculiar to themselves? Are the historical, descriptive, and didactic portions of the Bible — its commands and exhortations ; its threatenings and promises — to be understood as meaning what they seem to mean, according to the ordinary use of language ; what they actually say, or in some ideal and mystical sense? Are its parables and poetic figures — for it abounds in such — to be explained in harmony with its didactic and sober utterances, or in a way to contradict them and to reverse their meaning? In short, how are we to receive the Word of God ? Was it intended for the instruction and edification of the common people, or only for the diversion of speculating theorists, and poets, and philosophers? Was it meant that the masses should read and believe what it says, or was it given only to delude, bewilder and mislead them?

Here, then, is our real difficulty in discussing this question. We complain — and with reason, we think — of the manner in which the Word of God has been treated by its professed friends. Philosophers have brought their speculations; metaphysicians their ideal theories; poets their fancies; and theological partisans of every name, their multiform hobbies to this Sacred Book, and have sought to find support for their various notions in its teachings. They have read, or tried to read, their own ideas into its language, and have twisted its words to suit their purpose. The result has been to divide the Christian world into a great variety of parties, each differing from the others in almost every possible way, and yet all appealing to the Scriptures in confirmation of their own peculiar doctrines. And unbelievers have had great occasion to say, that the Bible is a very uncertain guide; it can be made, like the oracles of the heathen, to say nothing, or anything, or everything that men may wish.

This is especially true as regards the question now be fore us. That Grecian system of philosophy, usually accredited to Plato as its chief expounder, which claims for man an ever-living, indestructible nature, early found its way into the Christian Church, and gradually corrupted and modified its teachings — as we have shown in a previous chapter — and finally controled them entirely, and was installed as the chief corner-stone of the Christian religion. The doctrines of the Word of God were modified to accord with this system of philosophy. Indeed, the philosophy itself, so far as relates to the eternal pre-existence of all souls, and on some other minor points, was modified, so as to conform to a Christian theism; but the conclusion which was based on the assumption of man's eternal pre-existence; namely, that the nature of man is indestructible, and that he will necessarily live forever, was insisted on as an axiomatic truth. The language of the Scriptures was changed, if not in form, in the construction put upon it — which amounts to the same thing — so as to teach and sustain this dogma. A new meaning was put into all the words of Scripture relating to the nature and destiny of man. The people were taught to understand them, not in their ordinary and natural sense, but in a new, mystical, religious sense. This sort of instruction has been perpetuated by scholastic reasoning, persistent theological teaching, and ecclesiastical authority, to the present time. And now, throughout Christendom — with occasional protests, which are happily becoming more and more frequent and emphatic — the principle of interpreting the Scriptures, not according to the laws of ordinary language, but according to the behests of this heathen philosophy, is accepted and practiced as the proper thing to do. And those of us who insist on treating the Word of God honestly, and who believe that He meant what He said, when He threatened death and destruction as the sure and final end of all persistent sinners, and promised eternal life through Jesus Christ the Savior and through Him alone, are looked upon as heretics and disturbers of the peace of the Church!

It must be evident to every one, that, if the language of the Bible is to be understood in its ordinary sense, the doctrine for which we are contending is sustained beyond all controversy. Our opponents have no ground to stand on. For it declares most explicitly, and emphatically, and repeatedly, that all sinners who are not saved shall die; shall perish; shall be utterly destroyed; that the time is coming when they shall not be, etc., etc. And it declares, with equal emphasis and reiteration, that eternal life is the portion of the righteous; and that they and they only shall live forever.

What can be more direct and positive than such declarations as these, which abound throughout the Scripture ? "The soul that sinneth it shall die;" "Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death;" "The wicked is reserved for the day of destruction;" "Whose end is destruction;" "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction;" "They shall be destroyed forever;" "They shall utterly perish in their own corruption ;" etc., etc. ? or such texts as these ? "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord ;" " For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life;" " This is the record (witness) that God hath given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son." “He that hath the Son hath (the) life, and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not (the) life."

We all know what these words, life, death, destruction, etc., mean in common usage, when predicated of all other creatures and things. Every scholar knows that they have the same meaning in the original language. It is well known and acknowledged, that Plato used them in their ordinary sense when treating of the nature and destiny of man; when he declared that the soul of man could not die, could not perish, could not be destroyed, that it would naturally and necessarily live forever. But now that the Bible declares most positively that it shall die, shall perish, shall be destroyed, unless it be recovered from the power of sin, and that an endless life is the portion only of those who are in Christ, it would seem that these adherents of Plato must give up either their philosophy, or their Bible which so flatly contradicts their philosophy: but they have shown themselves equal to the exigency, by changing the meaning of all these crucial terms. They have given to them a new meaning, which is peculiar to the Scriptures. They attempt to justify and sanctify this new sense, by calling it the religious or theological or spiritual sense of these words. Now we are told, and taught to believe, and educated from infancy into the habit of thinking and believing, that death, in the Bible, when predicated of man, does not mean actual death as it does when predicated of any other living creature. It means only the separation of the soul from the body; or the separation of the sinner from God; or a state of sin and misery; or a kind of spiritual paralysis, in which the sinner lives on to sin and suffer forever; or, indeed, almost anything but just death itself, which puts an end to all conscious life. So also with the words, to perish, to be destroyed; the radical and primary meaning is taken out of them, and another meaning, which will save their philosophy, is put into them. They mean the loss of well-being, and not of being itself; the destruction of happiness, and not of life or personality; or, indeed, anything and every thing fearful, but just what they do actually say.

So the word life, which is everywhere promised, as the peculiar portion of the redeemed, is emptied of its essential signification, and made to mean purity and blessedness. It is allowed to mean everything good and desirable but just life itself; but, as for life, it is Recording to this philosophy, equally the attribute of all men. With the righteous, it is eternally perpetuated in joy and blessedness, and with the wicked, it is also eternally perpetuated in sin and wretchedness: for, according to this philosophy, the essential principle of life, conscious, sensitive, active life, is the inalienable attribute of all men alike.

Origen, and his followers, revolting at the idea of endless sin and suffering, carried this method of accommodation so far, as to make the Scriptures predicate death and destruction, not of the individual sinners themselves; but only of their sins, and hence, they arrived at the comforting conclusion, that this better life — the eternal life which is promised to believers only — will eventually be the portion of all men.

This practice of accommodating the language of the Word of God to the popular philosophy of the day, of "spiritualizing" its terms, has become so common and thoroughly established, that the great body of the Christian world accept it as a matter of course. It seems to be the proper thing to do, in studying the Scriptures. Hence, the great need of commentaries, and Biblical notes and expositions, to tell the people what is the spiritual and Scriptural sense of the words they are reading. Hence, the testimony of the Word of God on this question, and indeed on other points, when opposed to the popular theology, is nullified, or completely reversed. As in the time of Christ : " It is made of none effect through their traditions." The people read it with little or no conception of the real nature of the doctrine it teaches.

This practice of spiritualizing away the substance of God's Word, is having a remarkable revival in our day. Not only those doctrines that have their foundation in the literal interpretation of the term "life" and "death" are deprived of their real significance and force, but all the other correlated doctrines of the Gospel are spiritualized away in the same manner. If there be no actual death, there can be no actual resurrection ; nothing but the body perishes in death; the real man who had been dwelling therein from his birth, is now released and rises at once into greater freedom and activity. And even this change — which is called a resurrection in order to make some use of Scripture terms — is not due to Christ, but is a natural process, which is common to all the children of Adam.

In the same way the great and glorious doctrine of the Second Coming of Our Lord, upon which the early Christians rested all their hopes of any life beyond the present, is explained away. These early disciples were entertaining delusive hopes, and the Apostles themselves were mistaken, when they encouraged this expectation. Even the two angels did not mean what their words seem to mean, when they said: "This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner, as ye have seen him go into heaven." He shall not so come. His coming is spiritual and invisible. Indeed, He has come already, and is coming more and more every day, and this is all the coming these angels meant. As for a future judgment, when the destinies of the righteous and the wicked shall be fixed, and definitely declared, of which the Word of God speaks so plainly ; there is to be actually no such day. "God hath not appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained." All days are judgment days. It is a continuous process which is now going on, and will continue, till the consummation of all things. [See the Gospel of the Resurrection by James M. Whiton, Ph. D] Our religious teachers — men who are ordained to preach the Gospel — are proclaiming such doctrines as this. Their orthodoxy is unchallenged ; their preaching is very popular ; their books are highly praised by the religious papers, and eagerly sought after and read with pleasure.

But we protest against this method of Scriptural interpretation as subversive of all true doctrine. "If the foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do?" If men are to be allowed, without rebuke, to "accommodate the language of Scripture," to suit their own fanciful notions, we have no certain standard of Divine Truth; no defence against error; no credible authority for any doctrine what ever. We are liable to be "tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, and by the slight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive." We might as well, yea, better, throw aside the Scriptures entirely, and every man adopt that scheme of doctrine which pleases him best. It is but a solemn mockery to prate about the " Sacred Scriptures," and to talk of their "inspiration," and to call them the " Oracles of God," if they are not allowed to speak for themselves, and are not to be accepted as meaning what they say. It is bad enough to bribe a human witness to testify falsely; but what shall we say of the crime of extorting a false testimony from the Divine Word, and claiming its testimony in behalf of errors it denounces?

"Behold I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues and say He saith. Behold I am against them that prophesy- false dreams, and do cause my people to err by their lies and their lightness. They speak a vision out of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord. The prophet that hath a dream let him tell a dream, and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully."

We have, in the foregoing chapter on Bible Terminology, considered somewhat in detail, all the principal words of the Bible relating to the nature and destiny of man, such as, Soul; Spirit; Life; Death; Hell; The Second Death; Punishment; Everlasting Destruction; The Life Everlasting; The Great Salvation; The Unspeakable Gift, etc. We have insisted that these words should be accepted and understood, in all ordinary cases in the Bible, as in other books; that their plain, usual, literal sense should be given to them, unless some good reason can be shown why they should be taken in some tropical or extraordinary sense. We have shown, also, that no good reason can be given for changing and reversing their meaning in the great majority of cases where they occur, as traditional theology insists upon doing, nor, indeed, any other reason at all, but just this: that it is demanded by the popular psychology of the world, which is essentially pagan and anti-Scriptural, which, though attributed to the Grecian philosophers, had its origin in the tempter's lie, " Ye shall not surely die." The grand Gospel distinction between the righteous and the wicked, that of Life, Eternal Life through Christ, and Him only, is acceptable neither to the moral philosopher, nor the infidel scientist. The one asserts that all the children of Adam are endowed with the power of an endless life in their own right; the other asserts that we all perish at death. But here they join hands in rejecting Christ as the only source of life from the dead, as did the Pharisees and Sadducees, and Herod and Pilate, and cry, "All men are immortal or none! all or none! As for this Christ, away with Him, crucify Him. Not this man, but Barabbas." And alas, the Church of Christ, so-called, has learned to reiterate their cry. "All men are immortal or none. All or none. Not this man, but Adam; he, if any one, is the source of eternal life — not Christ." And so this Christ, who gave His own life to redeem us from death, comes to His own, and His own receive Him not. But as many as receive Him, to them He gives power to become the sons of God, and heirs of Eternal Life.

It is our special object in this chapter to review the testimony of the Word of God, not the testimony of men, as to this question of the Life Everlasting; to inquire, " What saith the Scripture?" not what saith philosophy or science, or scholasticism, or tradition, or orthodox theology, so-called; but, What saith the Scripture — the Word of God? not what men have thought it should say, nor what they have tried to make it say; but what does it say?

We are well aware how useless this labor may be, as regards those who may read the passages which we shall cite, with a determination to make them favor their own psychological views, whatever they may be; or to harmonize with the traditional, or popular theology, in which they have been educated; who insist on giving to the language of Scripture, what is called its "spiritual sense," whenever its literal import does not please them; for in this way the force of any words, however explicit, may be turned, and they may even be made to mean anything whatever the partisan may choose to make them mean. No array of passages, however emphatic and explicit, or, however numerous, would avail to convince such a reader of his error, "neither would they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." Nothing but the Almighty power of the Spirit of God is able to persuade an unwilling mind to receive the truth.

But, we trust that there are not a few sincere, honest inquirers after the truth, who are endeavoring to bring, so far as they know how, an unprejudiced and teachable mind to the study of the Scriptures; who are anxiously longing to find their way out of the mists and fogs, in which tradition, scholasticism, and human conceit have involved them; who do not care so much to know what is popular, or what the schoolmen of the dark ages have taught, or the Church has decreed, or the Pharisees and Rulers of the present day believe, as what the Scriptures say, To such we address ourselves; fully satisfied that the doctrine for which we contend is none other than the doctrine of the Word of God, plainly, explicitly, fully, and uniformly set forth in every portion of the Sacred volume, from Genesis to Revelation; and with the assurance, that this will be made evident to every willing mind.

It is proposed to show in the following sections of this chapter that the Word of God teaches, directly and indirectly, positively and negatively, implicitly and explicitly, that:

1. Holiness is the fundamental law of God's moral government; all creature life must be, and continue to be, in union and harmony with God Himself, the great source of all Life, or it cannot be perpetuated; it must sooner or later, if not recovered to holiness, either by its own irregular working or the positive infliction of Divine wrath, come to an end.

2. When man fell under the power of sin, he necessarily incurred the doom of mortality, from which there was no possible way of escape but by Divine interposition, and a supernatural regeneration of a new life— a spiritual life— which is the only life that is pure and everlasting ; for it is the peculiar life of God Himself, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light.

3. The special object of the incarnation and death of Christ the Savior, was to redeem mortal man from the power of sin and death, and to immortalize him by imparting to him His own peculiar life, and bringing him into union with God, who liveth forever. "And this is the life eternal that they might know thee the only true God, even Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."

4. This is the great alternative presented in the Gospel; Death or Life Everlasting through Jesus Christ the Savior, and this is the outcome or issue of the probation through which God is taking men in this life, and this is the grand, distinguishing difference between natural men and spiritual men. The former, as children of Adam, are mortal and going down to Death; the latter, begotten of God, are heirs of the Life Everlasting. "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is His Son. He that hath the Son hath the life, and he that hath not the Son hath not the life."

5. The conflict now waging between good and evil, or holiness and sin, will finally issue in the complete triumph of the good, and the utter discomfiture and extinguishment of all evil of every sort: "And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. For the former things are passed away."

SECTION I. The Fundamental Law.

1. Holiness is the Fundamental Law of God's moral government; all creature life must be, and continue to be, in union and harmony with God Himself, the Great Source of all Life, or it cannot be perpetuated; it must sooner or later, if not recovered to holiness, either by its own irregular working, or by the positive infliction of Divine wrath, come to an end.

If, as we believe, God be pure and good, we might reasonably suppose that whatever He should create would, at the outset be pure and good, and that if He should create living intelligences capable of knowing and loving and obeying Him, He would create them in His own image and likeness; that is, pure and good, and that He would place them under a law of holy obedience, and insist on their continuing to live in harmony with Himself and with each other, and in obedience to His holy will, as a condition, not merely of His favor, but of their continued life. That if any of them should rebel against His righteous government, oppose His will and bring discord into His otherwise holy and happy family, He would not merely punish them according to their deserts, but that, if they could not be reclaimed to obedience and love, He would withdraw from them His sustaining hand, and let them drop out of existence, and give place to others, who would live in harmony with Himself and each other.

If created with free wills, they would, of course, be capable of sinning against Him; but it would not seem to comport with infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, for Him to give to them freedom of choice and action, and, at the same time, to place Himself under the necessity of sustaining them in all the wretchedness of rebellion and sin and strife forever. We cannot conceive it possible, that He should even be able to create beings whose existence should be independent of His sustaining power; much less, that He should guarantee to any a continued and perpetual existence in rebellion and sin; nor that, if He were able to put an end to their miserable, forfeited lives, He would content Himself with surrendering a portion of His otherwise holy and happy universe to their perpetual occupancy, where they might continue to rage and suffer and curse Him and each other forever and ever. If He were able to create a universe of holy and happy subjects, it seems reasonable to suppose Him to be able to maintain its integrity; and if sin should come in through the exercise of the free agency of His subjects, He would, in someway, be able, not merely to confine it within certain limits, but to eliminate and eradicate it entirely, so as to preserve the integrity, unity, and blessedness of His universal kingdom. We can readily believe that, in the infinity of His wisdom and power, He would be able, not merely to subdue any outbreak of rebellion, but that He would be able to cause it to redound to the enhancement of His own glory and the security of His loyal subjects.

Indeed, it seems reasonable to suppose, that He would not only guarantee to the obedient His favor, and the perpetuation of their lives, so long as they should persevere in holiness, but that He would make holiness pleasurable in itself, and the means of perpetual enjoyment, as a motive to its continuance; and that He would also make sin, not merely destructive of happiness, and the source of pain and sorrow while persisted in, but self-destructive and actually ruinous in the end; that, not merely the loss of His favor, and the loss of happiness, but the loss of life itself would be the final result of sin persisted in. But we can not reconcile it with our ideas of a God of infinite wisdom, justice, goodness, and power, that He should make holiness and happiness, sin and misery equally stable and* enduring; that He should, willingly or unwillingly, perpetuate them both alike and forever; that He should create all things very good in the beginning, and then suffer a disturbing evil to come in, which should continue forever, because He could not, or would not, extirpate it.

The old Manichsean philosophers held that good and evil are both eternal principles — eternal in the past, and that they will be eternal in the future; that they have always been struggling with each other, and that the struggle will go on forever without any decisive victory on either side.

The Word of God teaches us that all things were very good in the beginning, and that they will be very good in the future; that evil has come in as an episode; that it is transient in its very nature; that it cannot successfully defy the power of the Almighty, but that "He will cause the wrath of man to praise Him and the remainder of wrath He will restrain" and that He is able to make it accomplish His own wise and benevolent purposes of good, and then to extirpate it root and branch, and that He will do this in His own good time and way; that by the very, constitution of God's righteous government, if not in the very nature of things, good only has the elements of stability and perpetuity; that evil has not the elements of stability and perpetuity within itself; it is disorganizing, self-destructive and ruinous, and cannot endure forever.

But our traditional, so-called Christian theology teaches neither the one thing nor the other, but a mixture of both. It is Christian so far as it teaches that God created all things good in the beginning; but it is essentially heathen in its doctrine of evil. It allows that evil is an interloper, but now that it has come into God's holy and happy universe — whether by the Divine will or in opposition to it —there is no way to get rid of it. It has so become an integral part of this universe that, so far from extinguishing and exterminating it, God proposes to set apart one realm at least, of His otherwise universal kingdom, where His enemies shall have their own way, and live on, and rage, and defy His wrath, which is powerless to silence or destroy them, and that they will be able to do this so long as He Himself shall live and reign. For, while Christianity does not allow its advocate to believe, with the heathen philosophers, that evil is eternal in the past, or that man is an uncreated being, it has so far come under the influence of their philosophy as to adopt their conclusions as to the future. Hence we have a mongrel theodicy, which is neither honorable to God, nor just to His creatures, nor consistent with pagan philosophy, or true Christianity, or with itself. If man is an absolutely immortal being, as Plato taught, then, whether holy or sinful, whether happy or miserable, he must be continued forever in being; if he cannot be preserved forever in holiness, nor restored after he has sinned, then nothing remains but to let him sin and suffer the wrath of God forever. This is the sort of theology which a paganized scholasticism has undertaken to read into the Word of God, and which the traditions of the Papal Church have handed down to the present day.

This doctrine brings such evident reproach upon the wisdom, justice, and goodness of God, that many thoughtful Christian men, at the present day, are endeavoring to find relief, as Origen did, by hoping for the utter extinction of evil in the final restoration of all men to holiness and Divine favor; and others, in the equally unscriptural doctrine of the pre-existence of man and the eternity of evil, both in the past and the future. A clerical friend writes us from London, that he himself heard Rev. Joseph Cook, in one of his recent "audacious lectures," in Bradford, England, argue the doctrine of eternal sin and suffering in the future, on the ground that evil, for aught we know to the contrary, always did exist. "Who can show," says he, "that evil ever had a beginning?" This is downright Manichseism!

But we do not so read the Scriptures. We understand them to teach explicitly and uniformly, that holiness, or in other words perfection, is the law of God's moral government. It is the law of perpetuated existence; whatever shall lose that pure nature which is given to it in the beginning, if it cannot be restored, must eventually perish; that sinners cannot have their lives forever perpetuated in sin; that sin brings, not merely punishment and suffering, but in the end — if persisted in — absolute destruction.

Why! scientists, and even ordinary observers, have discovered this same law in the natural world. It is the law of the "Survival of the fittest." The inferior races, whether of men or of animals; if they cannot be brought up to the level of the higher, gradually die out, and give place to those which are more fit to live. Hybrid natures have not the power of continuous propagation. Plants and fruits which are bruised, or worm eaten, or otherwise injured, hasten to decay; it is only those that are sound that come to a perfect maturity. Disease, or disorder in any organized structure, if it cannot be removed, will sooner or later, bring it to ruin. It not only works disaster, while it continues, but it works actual destruction at last. The pains which we suffer from physical disease are not the full fruit of the disease; they are symptomatic, and prophetic of the death that must ensue in the end, unless some remedy shall be found.

That most fearful and incurable of all diseases, leprosy, which, when it has once seized hold of its victim, however gradual its working, never releases its grasp, till it has actually devoured him, and taken life itself, has been divinely selected and appointed to represent the sure and fatal working of sin, as its most fitting type.

The animals themselves, as though taught by their Maker, know how to prey upon their weaker fellows, and especially to destroy those of their own number that are diseased, puny and weak. We have every reason to infer even from analogy, that this law of the Survival of the fittest would obtain in the spiritual as well as in the natural world; that holiness, or perfection, would be the law of God's moral kingdom; that in the very constitution of things, as well as in His providence, He would give to it the elements of health, vigor, stability and persistency; and that He would cause sin to be essentially weak, disorganizing, and self-destructive, wherever it should be permitted to enter; so that sin might, in its own nature, be transitory, and holiness alone immortal.

Now, when we come to the Scriptures, we find that this is just what God has declared to be the law of His righteous government over man; that He endowed man, of all the creatures of earth, with both a physical and moral nature; the one He placed under such physical laws as are common to all earthly creatures, and the other under such moral laws as are common to all spiritual creatures: both natures united in one, both very good in the outset, and both under the same law of purity and perfection, with the alternative of death. Nothing, but this miserable figment of a heathen philosophy and of Satan's cunning, prevents the Christian world from seeing and accepting this truth.

This is the purport of the law under which man was placed in the beginning of his career, and of the alter native penalty.

Gen. 2 : 16, 17. "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

Thou shalt surely die— Or, as more literally rendered in the margin, Dying thou shalt die. His life was immediately forfeited; that very day, he was judicially dead; the process of death at once began, which would surely end in death. It does not read, Thy body shall die, and thy soul shall be separated from God, and so be miserable forever. This is human, or rather, satanic sophistry. It reads, thou thyself shall die. As for separation from God, this is, indeed, implied; for separation from the source of all life is death. It is impossible for any living creature to maintain his own life for a single moment, when completely separated from God, "seeing He giveth to all life, breath and all things." As for misery, this is the inevitable result of sin. Every sinner must be miserable, so long as he continues in sin; but "sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." This is just the sentence God pronounced upon Adam the very day he sinned.

Gen. 3 : 17-20. "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat of the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return."

Furthermore, in order to take from him the hope of any possibility of immortality in sin and misery, though he might be permitted to linger in his downward way to death, the very sign or pledge of immortality, or the means by which it could be secured or assured to him, was now withdrawn.

Gen. 3: 22—24. "And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil. And now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So He drove out the man ; and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden, Cherubim, and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life."

No other possible reason can be assigned for God's unwillingness to allow Adam to eat of the tree of life after he had sinned, than this, which lies on the surface of the narrative, that God was determined that he should not live forever in sin and misery. And here we see the great goodness and mercy of God, as well as His truth and justice. If this "tree of life" was intended to prefigure that new way of life yet to be revealed in the Gospel, as well as to serve as the pledge of life in the way of original holiness maintained, man could only have access to it again by a restoration to holiness. And so it was, as we shall see in the sequel. Hence the tree was not destroyed. It was permitted to stand till such time as he should be redeemed from death by the blood of Christ and made holy again by the "washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit," and then, he might again "have right to the tree of life," and enter in through the gates into the city, where nothing that is unholy is permitted to enter, and where there is no more pain nor sorrow nor death, for there is no more sin. So, in the very opening and closing portions of this Divine Revelation, we have the Tree of Life, as the symbol and pledge of immortality, of which man shall be permitted to eat only as he shall be holy as God originally formed him, or be restored to holiness through His grace.

No doubt, had it not not been for God's gracious purpose of redemption, faintly hinted at first, but afterwards more fully made known, Adam and Eve would have died at once and forever on the very day of their sin, as did Nadab and Abihu in their disobedience. But this plan of redemption began at once to operate, so far as to give them a temporary respite, and the opportunity to lay hold of the Salvation provided. It did not offer them exemption from death; for their lives had been forfeited by sin. It did not propose to save them from dying; for they had now already become mortal through sin. But it did propose to recover them from the power and dominion of death, and to give them a new life, a higher and better life, a life that should be purely spiritual, the Divine Life of their Ever-living Lord, which should never fail. And this is the life that is now offered in the Gospel, to all their posterity, if they will accept of it through Him. Having become mortal themselves, they became the progenitors of a mortal posterity. The stream can rise no higher than its source. This same doom of death has come upon the whole posterity of Adam. We are born to a mortal estate irrespective of our personal character. Even those who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, must die, and it is only as they are restored to life, and made holy and immortal through an ever-living Savior, that they can have the assurance of Eternal Life.

But this line of thought belongs to a subsequent section, and we pass on to observe that : —

This is the purport and burden of all the commands and exhortations and threatenings of God's Word. This is the real point of contrast between the holy and the unholy. The real issue that distinguishes them from each other is, not one of well-being or ill-being, but of life and death, of well-being forever, and of ill-being while life lingers, and of death, as the final result.

Lev. 19:2. "Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy."

Matt. 5:48. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as yonr Father which is in heaven is perfect."

Heb. 12:14. "Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord."

Psa. 36:9. "For with thee is the Fountain of life, and in thy light shall we see light."

Prov. 8:35, 36. "Whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favor of the Lord ; but he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul. All that hate me love death."

Prov. 29:1. "He that being often reproved, hardenth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."

Psa. 34:21. "Evil shall slay the wicked."

2 Tim. 3:3. "Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived."

2 Pet. 2:12. "And shall perish in their own corruption."

Phil. 3:19. "Whose end is destruction."

Matt. 25:29. "For unto every one that hath, shall be given, and he shall have abundance ; but from him that hath not [improved his talent] shall be taken away even that which he hath.''

James 1:15. "Lust when it hath conceived bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death."

Thousands of passages of like import are scattered all through the Word of God, asserting the holiness of God, and demanding holiness on the part of man as a condition, not merely of His favor, but of life; and reiterating in a great variety of forms, that sin not merely provokes God's anger, but that it is ruinous, destructive in its operation, and will sooner or later bring its victim to death. Righteousness is also called "the way of life," "the way ever lasting." Sin is also called "the way of death." By the promise so often repeated in the Old Testament, that "the righteous shall prolong their days," something more is evidently meant than that they shall live to an old age. It is endless perpetuity of life that is promised to them. It is the "life everlasting" that is more clearly revealed in the Gospel. There are numerous other portions of Scripture, in which the safety, stability and permanent existence of the righteous are contrasted with the sad, ruinous and transitory career of transgressors, as in the First and Thirty-seventh Psalms, and in our Lord's parable of the wise man who builded his house upon a rock, and the foolish man who builded it upon the sand.

This is the spirit of the prayers of the Bible, and of its many devotional utterances, "Arise, O God, judge the earth." " Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly." This is the real meaning of the vehement expressions of the imprecatory Psalms, such as,

"Let sinners be consumed out of the earth and let the wicked be no more."

"Let their name be blotted out of the book of the living."

"Let death seize upon them; let them go down quick into hell."

Believers in the doctrine of an eternal hell of sin and suffering for the wicked beyond this life, have interpreted these earnest utterances, as breathing a vindictive and merciless spirit — the same that they attribute to God — and they are obliged so to understand them, if their doctrine be true. But in the light of the truth, as we understand it, they are prayers, not for the eternal torment of the wicked, not for the eternal perpetuation of their sin and misery in a future hopeless state of unending woe; but for its speedy termination; for the establishment of truth and righteousness, and the ending of all sin and sorrow; for the full and final accomplishment of God's gracious purposes of love and mercy in the extinction of all evil, and in the complete establishment of His glorious kingdom of holiness, on the earth. Indeed, this is just what we all pray for when we say, as Christ has taught us: Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

This is our real ground of hope and confidence in our God; not that He is so much stronger than all his enemies, that He will at last succeed in defeating them, and getting them all into prison where He will be able to torment them forever to His heart's content; but that He is able to utterly exterminate them, "root and branch ;" not that He will at length sweep them off from the face of this earth, only to transfer their rage and their wretched hopeless struggle to another sphere, where it shall never, never end; but that He is able to crush them out entirely, so that they shall never more disturb the peace and harmony of His universal kingdom — so that, as the prophet Jeremiah says (51:39), "They shall sleep a perpetual (olam eternal) sleep and not wake."

There is a remarkable passage in point in the book of Proverbs(24:20),the full force of which is greatly weakened, and almost entirely lost in the translation. It reads thus: "For there shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out."

But this word acharith, which is rendered "reward," means "futurity," and the passage literally rendered should read, " For there shall be no futurity (or no hereafter) to the evil man, his light (ner) shall be put out." And this accords with the uniform voice of Scripture teaching. The time is coming when the wicked "shall not be," not merely, shall not be on this earth, but shall not be anywhere; they shall be extinguished. The strife which is now going on between good and evil, is no dubious strife. The victory which our glorious Leader will achieve is to be no partial victory. He will not share the spoils with His adversaries, even in ever so unequal proportions. His kingdom will be a universal kingdom, and He will rule over all. " There will be nothing to hurt or destroy in all his holy mountains ; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." " In the dispensation of the fulness of times he shall gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth." And " in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."

So we believe and pray, and work and wait, till the coming of that perfect day.

SECTION II- Death by Sin.

II. When man fell under the power of sin, he necessarily incurred the doom of mortality, from which there was no possible way of escape, but by Divine interposition and a supernatural regeneration of a new life — a spiritual life, which is the only life that is pure and everlasting, for it is the peculiar life of God Himself, who only hath immortality dwelling in the light.

There is nothing in the Divine record of man's creation to justify the assumption that he was originally endowed with an immortal life; nor anything to suggest the inference, to one who reads it unbiased by any theory of his own on this subject. That he was made capable of immortality by having uninterrupted access to the Tree of Life, or of being made immortal, if he should live without sin, and become confirmed in holiness, is evident. But whether this would have been under the physical conditions in which he was first formed, or whether, according to the intimation of Paul, as "that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural (psuchical), and afterward that which is spiritual, he would in due time have been changed and lifted up into that higher spiritual condition which is now promised us under the Gospel, it is not important for us to inquire. Even this possibility of exemption from death, was made expressly contingent on his perfect obedience, and his continued access to the Tree of Life; and when he violated the conditions under which he was placed, he forfeited the boon that was offered him, and became subject to death, as we are expressly told, and was debarred further access to the Tree of Life.

There was nothing in the nature of the material out of which he was formed, to constitute him immortal; for he was "formed out of the dust of the ground," like all other earthly creatures; nor was there anything in the peculiarity of his organization, however exquisitely formed, to constitute him an organism of perpetual motion, certainly not, unless its normal and regular working could be maintained. God breathed into him the breath of life, as He did into the lower orders of animals, and he, like them, "became a living soul," or animated creature. For, as we have abundantly shown, this same term nephesh chayah, though variously translated, is used to designate all living animals from the highest to the lowest.

Some have endeavored to find an irrevocable charter of immortality, in the fact that man is said to have been made in the " image and likeness " of his Creator. But surely this does not mean that He was constituted equal to God in any one of His attributes, and certainly not in the highest and most peculiar of all His attributes, that of in dependent existence.

We are told that, "He only hath immortality." We know that He has chosen this attribute of immortality as His special title, Jehovah, which means, The ever living one; the I am that I am. God gave to man power to a certain extent, intelligence, a free will, and a moral nature like His own; but He did not make him all-powerful, nor all-wise, nor everywhere present, nor ever-living. He in vested him, likewise, with a kind of sovereignty over all earthly creatures and things, somewhat like His own universal sovereignty ; for He gave him "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl, of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." But in all these tilings, he was dependent upon his Maker and subject to His will.

And perhaps we are to understand the phrase, "the image of God," in a yet higher sense, as some think, as indicating the actual, visible form in which the Divine One always manifests Himself; that corporeal form which is eternally peculiar to Him as the Son of God. For the word "image " implies a substantial visible form. If this be so, then man was most truly made in the image of God, and our Lord, whenever He has manifested Himself to man, has manifested Himself in His own peculiar form, as well as in that of man, and when He came to suffer and die, He came in the form of the Son of God, as well as that of the Son of Man, and now that He has ascended to glory, we may think of Him as still bearing that glorified personal form which belongs alike to Himself and His ransomed people, and which, purified and made entirely spiritual, they shall take on at the resurrection, to wear with Him forever. In this sense they construe the Eighth Psalm — not "What is man," but — "How great is man that thou art mindful of him? and the Son of Man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than (Elohim) the Son of God, and hast crowned him with glory and honor; thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet." etc.

And so there may be a literal truth in the poetic vision of man's future exultation and glory:

"Nearest the throne and first in song

"Shall man his Hallelujahs raise,

"While wondering angels round him throng,

"And swell the chorus of his praise."

This view may, indeed, enhance our idea of the dignity of man, and may help explain the mystery of redemption. But, while it lifts man to the very highest rank among all the creatures of God, he is still a creature, and subject to the law of his Creator, and even so much the more liable to the penalty of that law, if he shall fall from the high estate in which he was created.

Philosophy and Science, Poetry and Sentiment may speculate in regard to the origin, nature and destiny of man. They may set forth their various psychological systems, their hypotheses, and their fancies, which may seem to the world more or less reasonable, and which, indeed, may contain elements of truth ; but from the very nature of the case, they cannot penetrate the mystery of our being, or give us anything definite or authoritative upon which to rest our faith. This can only be given us by a Revelation from our Creator Himself. This was shown in our opening chapter, and will be made yet more evident in the one that is to follow ; but our attention at this time is especially directed to the Revelation He has given us. For we hold that God has not only given us such a Revelation in the Holy Scriptures, but that it has been given us expressly for this very purpose ; to teach those great truths, respecting our being and destiny that we most need to know. As honest inquirers, and more especially as Christian believers, we must rest our faith on the declaration of God's Word, and make it the test by which to try the philosophies of men. If human investigations, apart from His Word, serve to throw any light on* this Word, we accept their aid. Whenever they offer us conclusions that are in apparent conflict with that Word, we endeavor by careful inquiry and honest dealing with that Word to reconcile these differences as best we can. But whenever the express teachings of God's Word are flatly contradicted by the teachings of scientific speculation, or the traditions of men, however popular and attractive they may be, we have nothing to do but to take our stand upon the Word of God, and abide by its teachings.

And here we do take our stand, and boldly declare, without fear of successful contradiction, that, so far from teaching or sanctioning in any way this popular traditional dogma of the natural immortality of man, which has taken such fast hold of the world and the Church, the Word of God explicitly and uniformly, and in every way possible from beginning to end, sets forth just the contrary doctrine, and assures us that there is no possibility of immortality for any child of Adam, but by a new birth, and a Divine Savior. This is seen:

1. In the utter silence of the Scripture, respecting the natural immortality of man.

We must distinguish between a nature that is endowed with an actual and indefeasible immortality, which cannot be lost or forfeited by any mischance whatsoever, and a nature that is made capable of immortality under certain conditions; between a boon that is offered to the hopes of man as a motive to holy obedience, and one that-is already secured and pledged beyond the possibility of forfeiture.

It is by overlooking this distinction that man has come to claim an actual and indefeasible immortality for himself as a natural and inalienable endowment. It is not so strange that those who have no revelation to instruct them, by misinterpreting those 'sentiments and longings which God has given to us all, as a motive to strive to secure this prize, should fall into this error of supposing it to be already secured to them by natural inheritance ; but it is astonishing that any one with the Word of God in his hands should be able to come to any such conclusion. For— not to speak now of its most positive declarations to the contrary which we will consider hereafter — there is no hint, in all the Word of God from beginning to end, of any such nature in man. We are, indeed, told how man might have become immortal by persevering in holiness; and surely it will not be inferred that he made himself immortal by sin: for we are expressly informed, that he became actually subject to death by sin. We are also told how, by God's grace and mercy, he may yet attain to the life everlasting through Christ ; but only by a new birth and a resurrection from the dead. But the Scriptures contain no hint of any other immortality for man.

Our popular theology teaches that we are all " immortal beings," destined to live in happiness or misery, as long as God Himself shall live; that every infant that is born into the world has "an immortal soul," "a soul that never dies." This is the stereotyped phraseology of the pulpit and the Sabbath School, and of our religious literature. Our ears have become so familiar with this kind of teaching, that it seems right and true. But we find nothing of this sort in the Bible. It comes not from the Bible, but from the philosophy which tradition has tried to read into the Bible.

We do not fear to challenge those who use this sort of language to find one single text or phrase, or word, in all the Scriptures that will warrant it. They cannot do it. The doctrine of the natural immortality of man is not to be found in the Word of God. We mistake — there is one text that asserts it, see Genesis 3:4, " Ye shall not surely die." But if we read the context we shall find it was the Tempter that said this in direct contradiction of God's Word. But he was a liar from the beginning. None of God's prophets or faithful messengers can be quoted as saying any such thing.

This is so obvious that those who insist on teaching this doctrine of the deathless nature of man, as a religious truth not to be questioned, are accustomed to account for this silence by saying that it is sufficiently taught by nature itself, and so evident that it needs not to be set forth in the Word of God. Dr. Bartlett says this in his Life and Death Eternal (see p. 191 et al.). But the Scriptures are not silent in this way with respect to the deathless nature of God Himself. His immortality is continually asserted. "The Lord shall endure forever;" "Whose years have no end;" "He only hath immortality;" "I lift my hand to heaven and say I live forever," etc. This is made His distinguishing attribute, — His special title — "Jehovah," "The ever-living One." If it is needful to assert the immortality of God with such emphasis and reiteration, it is incredible that the Scriptures Would be utterly silent in regard to the immortality of man, if he has any such nature. The natural immortality of the creature cannot be so much more evident than that of the Creator, as to need not one word to set it forth.

But it is said to be assumed and implied, instead of being directly taught in the Scriptures. This is, indeed, a facile method of proof. But is it honest? In this way any doctrine which one may please to thrust into the Scriptures, may be said to be there. What right or reason have men to say that the Scriptures teach a doctrine concerning which they are utterly silent? Our religious teachers at the present day, who assume this doctrine, are not thus silent in regard to it. Nay, they are constantly proclaiming it, and insisting on it as one of the fundamental truths of our holy religion. Why, then, should not Moses and the prophets of the Old Dispensation, and Christ and His disciples of the New, have said something about this all-important doctrine? Was it not as true and as important then as now? But not one word or hint of it, can be found.

Let us not be misunderstood. A Resurrection from the dead; a Judgment to come; the Destruction of the wicked in the Second Death, and the Life Everlasting of the Righteous are indeed revealed. But these are not natural, but supernatural events; they are a part of the system of Redemption, which is but imperfectly revealed in the Law, and only fully brought to light in the Gospel. But whether perfectly or imperfectly revealed, it is only and every where, because of redemption, that man lives again ; and not because he is naturally immortal; and only by a restoration to holiness, that he may hope to prolong his days " or " to have everlasting life."

2. This same truth is taught in the Sacrificial System.

The practice of offering animal sacrifices to God, of which so much is said in the Old Testament, and which we know came early to prevail throughout the whole heathen world, was not of human, but of Divine origin. We have reason to believe, it was God's first appointment after the fall, for immediately after the sentence of death was pronounced upon our first parents, and the promise of a Savior, in the then mysterious assurance that the seed of the woman should crush the serpent's head, the very next thing that God did, as we are told, even before driving them out of the garden, was to clothe them in the skins of animals (Gen. 3:21) — animals, which we may well suppose, they had been directed to offer in sacrifice, as typical of the great sacrifice that was yet to be offered for their redemption.

We are confirmed in this view, when we see how (4:4) "the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering; but unto Cain and his offering He bad not respect." And no other reason is given, or is apparent for this distinction, but that Abel offered the life of an animal in sacrifice, and Cain only brought of the natural "fruit of the ground."

Still further, no one can fail to notice what remarkable prominence is given to this rite in the worship of the early patriarchs, and in the worship of His ancient people under the ceremonial law, and that too, by the special direction of God Himself. It took precedence of all other rites and ceremonies. They all, indeed, centered in this. No acceptable worship could be offered without killing an animal, pouring out his blood and extinguishing his life, and then the humble offerer could hope for the forgiveness and blessing of God. We are astonished at the multitude of these animal victims, and at the vast expenditure of property and of life which these numerous sacrifices made necessary. It is not enough to assure us that they were typical of that great sacrifice yet to be offered on Calvary, to which they all pointed the faith and the hope of the worshiper. This is evident enough. But why was this great sacrifice offered? Why must the Lamb of God be put to death, His blood be poured out, His very life be extinguished ? There is but one answer that can solve the mystery. Our lives have been forfeited by sin. We are condemned to die by the holy law of God. The Son of God laid down His life (His psuehe, not His Zoe) to redeem us from death. He died with us, and for us, and rose again, that we too, though dying according to the law, might rise again and live with Him forever more.

Let it be distinctly observed that these animal victims were not maimed, nor tormented, nor imprisoned, but were put to death; and so was Christ the great Antitype. He laid down His life for us. It was not by His sufferings, but by His death, that we are redeemed from death. Had it not been for His death, there could have been no adequate atonement. He did, indeed, suffer in the manner of His death; but His sufferings were comparatively brief. It was not from these that He shrank, but from the death to which they led. It was only by His death that man could be redeemed from death. All sin brings suffering, but it also brings death in the end, and this is pre-eminently the penalty of sin. In this view, these animal sacrifices, and this great atoning sacrifice of the Son of God are full of meaning;* they are eminently significant, luminous, and radiant with Gospel truth. But to those who insist that there has been no forfeiture of life and being, but only of well-being, because we are naturally and necessarily immortal, these sacrifices must be full of darkness and mystery, and subject to the vain and unsatisfactory speculations which this false theology, in.striving to sustain itself, has put upon them.

3. The same doctrine, of death to the wicked, is taught yet more emphatically and positively, if it were possible in the sanctions of the moral law.

Whether we view the sanctions of the Mosaic law as applicable to the individual in this life, or to the Jewish people collectively in their national capacity, or as having a deeper application to the life beyond, the rewards and penalties are one and the same; the same words Life and Death are employed to express them. It is not always easy to tell in which of the three senses to apply them; nor does it seem to be intended that we should apply them exclusively in one sense. The mass of these ancient people, in their darkness and ignorance, gave to them, at first no doubt, a temporal application; but under the instruction of Moses and the prophets and God's inspired teachers, they came gradually to see and feel that they had a broader and deeper signification than lay on the surface. These words, "life" and "death," which were constantly uttered in their hearing, became pregnant with meaning. They seemed to reach beyond this present world, and were full of hope and cheer to the righteous, and equally full of fearful forebodings and of terror to the wicked.

(1) If we look at the Mosaic law in its temporal and physical aspects only, we cannot fail to notice how prominently this penalty of death is set forth. Imprisonment, torture, or other methods of punishment common to other nations, are hardly known, or if known at all, are reserved for trivial offenses. But for all the more flagrant crimes, and, indeed, for some that are hardly punishable at all at the present day, death was the penalty. Death was the penalty for Adultery; Death was the penalty for Blasphemy; Death was the penalty for Bearing false witness; Death was the penalty for Idolatry; Death was the penalty for Incest; Death was the penalty for Man-stealing; Death was the penalty for Sabbath-breaking; Death was the penalty for Rape; Death was the penalty for Unchastity; Death was the penalty for Witchcraft. Death was such an almost universal penalty, that this code is regarded by those who do not consider its significance, as unreasonable and barbarous. The mystery can only be explained by the fact, that Jehovah was not simply their temporal; but their spiritual Ruler; and that the penalty of death had a double significance, and was meant to have an application to both the life of this world and the life of the world to come.

(2) The same is true when we contemplate the fearful penalty of sin in its national application. While the blessings of continued life and prosperity under the favor of God were promised to the Jewish people, so long as they should be loyal and obedient to Him, the severest curses, ending in national death and utter extinction, were threatened in case they should turn away from Him, and reject His righteous authority, and government. These curses, calamities, and miseries that should come upon them, and continue until they should be utterly destroyed and extinguished as a nation, are set forth in fearful array, in the closing chapters of the book of Deuteronomy. The catalogue is too long to be transferred to these pages. We have room for only a few citations:

"But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly. The LORD shall smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish. The LORD shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust from heaven; from heaven shalt it come down upon thee until thou be destroyed. It shall come to pass that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nought."

Let it be distinctly noticed that the awful calamities and miseries that should come upon these disobedient people were not the full measure of their punishment; they were but the preludes, the means by which their destruction should be accomplished. They all pointed and led to that final result, which was to be utter ruin, and extermination, and extinction.

(3) But many of the threatenings of the Bible, both of the Old and the New Testament, are too broad and inclusive to admit of any mere physical or temporal application. They are directed to the sinning individual in the totality of his being. They include, most evidently, all that he has or is, both corporeal and spiritual, both for this life and the life to come. But the same language is employed, in any and in every case. Death is the penalty of God's law, whether we regard it as a civil, a natural, or a spiritual law; whether we regard it as applying to this world, or the world to come.

In the interpreting of these passages, one thing should be insisted on; that, as life and death are antithetical terms; death must be the loss or ending or destruction of whatever life is in question. If mere physical life is spoken of; then death must mean the ending of all physical life. If national life is spoken of; then death must be the loss of national life. If psychical or spiritual life is spoken of; then death must mean the destruction of all psychical or spiritual life. If the life of this world is spoken of; then death must be the loss of an earthly life. If the life of the world to come is spoken of; then death must mean the loss of the life of the world to come.

All this is so reasonable and evident, that it would seem quite unnecessary to say it; but we are obliged to insist on it with particular emphasis, because this is just where the advocates of the deathless nature of man endeavor to break the force of these passages, and escape from the conclusion to which, if honestly accepted, they would inevitably bring them. They cannot but admit that death, when predicated of the body, implies the complete loss of all sensitive animal life. But when the very same thing is predicated of what is called the human soul, and the very same word is used, it cannot mean the same thing, they say; and why? Simply because they have a theory of the deathless nature of the soul, which forbids them to understand it in this sense. It compels them to put some other meaning upon this word. It means "loss of Divine favor;" "irregular functional action;" "devitalizedness;" "a state of sin and misery," etc., etc.; anything and everything that is bad, but just what it does mean — Death — the end of whatever voluntary, conscious, sensitive life the soul naturally possesses.

In the name of truth and honesty, we protest against such wresting of the Sacred Scriptures to accommodate a pagan philosophy, which is so evidently opposed in its spirit and teaching to the true Word of God— though it be, alas! so popular and common.

Let us look at some of the many passages of Scripture, scattered along everywhere throughout the Sacred volume, in proof of the mortality and transitory nature of sinful man.

Such utterances as these are found in the book of Job: "The candle of the wicked is put out." "They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carrieth away." "They shall lie down alike in the dust and the worms shall cover them." "The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction." "By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of His nostrils are they consumed." "He shall perish forever like his own dung." " He shall fly away as a dream and shall not be found, yea he shall be chased away as a vision of the night." If He set his heart upon man, if He gather unto Himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh shall perish together and man shall turn again unto dust." "He cometh forth as a flower and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not." "There is hope of a tree if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, — but man dieth and wasteth away, yea, man giveth up the ghost and where is he?" "As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up, so man lieth down and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep." "If a man die shall he live again?"

Without a revelation from God, which alone brings life and immortality to light through Jesus Christ, there is no ground of hope of living again, or of any life at all after death, for this is not a natural, but altogether a super natural event.

We find many such passages as the following in the Psalms: "The way of the ungodly shall perish." "They are like the chaff, which the wind driveth away." "Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing." "The wicked shall be turned into (sheol) hell, and all the nations that forget God." "The wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume; into smoke, shall they consume away." "As wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God." "For lo, they that are far from thee shall perish. When the wicked do spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed forever." "For lo! thine enemies, O Lord! for lo! thine enemies shall perish." "For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be." "His breath goeth forth; he returneth to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." " The redemption of their (nephesh, life) soul is precious and it [whether "it" refers to the nephesh or to the redemption the thought is the same] ceaseth forever." "None of them can by any means redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for him, that he should still live forever and not see corruption." "For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue forever and their dwelling places to all generations; nevertheless, man being in honor abideth not; he is like the beasts that perish." "Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning." [It is possible that there may be a hint here, as in other places in the Old Testament, of a resurrection and of an eternal life for the righteous, but surely, of no such life for the wicked, for the Psalmist goes on to say:] "He shall go to the generations of his fathers, they shall never see light." "Man that is in honor and understandeth not is like the beasts that perish." "Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more."

Solomon says in the book of Proverbs: "The lamp of the wicked shall be put out." " His destruction cometh as a whirlwind." "He that speaketh lies shall perish." "He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." "The expectation (tikvah, the thread of life) of the wicked shall be cut off." " There shall be no reward (or literally acharith, no hereafter, no futurity) to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out."

The Prophets tell us: "The soul that sinneth it shall die." "The destruction of transgressors and of sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed." "Tbey shall be as though they had not been." "They shall be as nothing. They that strive against thee shall perish." "For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch."

Some of these threatenings may be understood as having a mere temporal application; but it is impossible to interpret them all in this superficial way. We who are accustomed to read the Old Testament in the light of the New can see a deeper meaning in them than those, perhaps, to whom they were immediately addressed; but even they must have known and felt that their meaning was not exhausted this side of the grave.

When the law of God was revealed to them in such awful terrors from Mount Sinai, and Life and Death were set before them, and Moses exhorted them to choose life that they might live: when, again, the twelve tribes were set over against each other, half of them on Mount Ebal, and half on Mount Gerizim, and the one party was made to utter the blessings, and the other, the curses of this law, and each to respond to the other, Amen: when Jeremiah the prophet, solemnly exhorts and warns them, in the name of the Lord, and says: "Behold I have set before you the way of life, and the way of death;" when again Ezekiel expostulates with them, saying, by Divine command, "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye; turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?" and when on numerous other occasions, substantially the same language was addressed to them; they must have known and felt that something more than mere temporal life and temporal death was meant. In that case, such words would have been mere mockery, for none of them could hope to avoid this death; but there was a death beyond, which they could escape. Something more than mere national death was meant, for they are expressly told that they are addressed as individuals, and that every one would be held responsible for his own sins. So that under the ministry of God's ancient messengers, even before the coming of Christ, through whom life and immortality were brought to light, the righteous came to anticipate that "some better thing" — that blessed life beyond, yet to be more fully revealed to them; and sinners to tremble in view of a judgment beyond this life, and another death — called the second death in the book of Revelation — which would extinguish their every hope.

It is certainly only in this fuller, deeper sense that these threatenings under the Gospel can be construed as exhausting their meaning.

Matt. 3:10-12. "Now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees; therefore, every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and casi into the fire. Whose fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly purge [cleanse] his floor and gather his wheat into the garner ; but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire." [This fire is not a preserving element, but it is an unquenchable fire, one that cannot be arrested or put out; but will surely do its work. It is evidently for the very purpose of utter consumption and not preservation, that these useless trees, this vile chaff is cast into it.]

Matt. 10:28. "Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the (psuche) soul, but rather fear Him which is able to destroy (apolesai) both soul and body in (Gehenna) hell." [This gehenna, as we have shown, is the synonym of complete destruction. It was the place into which the offal of the city, and the bodies of dead animals, and of criminals were cast, not to be tormented, but to be consumed; the idea of torment is one that has been read into it by a heathen philosophy.]

Mark 8:55. " For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own (psuch, life) soul ?" [In Luke 9 : 24, this same word is translated "life," in verse 25 the word is rendered "lose himself or be cast away," and in the new version more properly, "lose or forfeit his own self." This cannot mean to forfeit one's happiness or well-being, but one's own very self.]

Luke 13:1-5. " There were present at that season, some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them: Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all (osautos apoleisthe) likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them; think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all (omoios apoleisthe) like wise perish." [This cannot mean the loss of life by the cruelty of Pilate, or by the falling of another tower, for in this case the threat was not fulfilled. Something more than ordinary natural death is also evidently meant. It cannot mean anything but literal destruction.]

Luke 9:56. "For the Son of Man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." [Not to save them from dying an ordinary natural death, but from the loss of the life hereafter.]

Acts 8:20. "Thy money perish with thee." [The same expression, eie eis apoleian is applied to both Simon the sorcerer and his money, and with the same literal meaning.]

Rom. 212. "For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law." [Not, "shall be punished without law," as Dr. Bartlett quotes it, but shall perish. We are not punished for being the children of Adam, nor for unavoidable ignorance of God's law. We are to be punished only for our individual sins; but we all come under the doom of death, we all, as children of Adam, must die — must perish, excepting as we have salvation through Christ.]

1 Cor. 15:17. "If Christ be not raised — (even) they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." [This is the common lot of all men, and it is only because Christ died and rose again that any; even the righteous, are saved from utter death.]

2 Cor. 4:3. "But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." [Or, in other words, They from whom this Gospel is hidden are lost or perishing.]

Phil. 3:19. " Whose end (telos) is destruction." [What can be more final than the end? Whatever miseries come upon sinners in the pathway of sin, the end of it is destruction.]

James 1:15. "Sin, when it is finished bringeth forth death." [Not simply misery; this is its more immediate effect, but, like a fatal disease, it leads down to death, and this is its final result.]

James 5:20. "Let him know, that he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and hide a multitude of sins." [If unconverted souls are exposed to death, they cannot be immortal.]

Heb. 10:26. "For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries."

Heb. 12:19. " For our God is a consuming fire." [Pur katanaliskon: this is as strong an expression as could possibly be used to signify utter and complete destruction. It does not mean torment, but absolute consumption by fire."]

2 Pet. 2:12. " But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, shall utterly perish in their own corruption."

2 Pet. 3:7. " But 'the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men."

1 John 3:15. " No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." [There is no immortality for him; he must die.]

Rev. 20:12. "And I saw the dead small and great stand before God: and the books were opened, and another book was opened which is the book of Life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell (hades) delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell (hades) were cast into the lake of fire. This is the Second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of Life was east into the lake of fire." [Even were we to suppose the Hadean state to be a state of conscious suffering for the wicked — here is the end even of death and hades; and all are cast together into this all-consuming lake of fire. And then to assure us that this is the meaning, we are told in the verses immediately following,! that there is "no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away."]

The above are but a few of the many passages of Scripture in point, that might be cited. The doom of the wicked is very frequently spoken of in contrast with the lot of the righteous; to some of these passages we will call attention in a subsequent section. But in whatever connection, and whether in the Old Testament or the New, it is one and the same — Death and extinction.

4. That this is the meaning of these texts is still more evident, from the images and figures that are employed to set forth this doctrine. They are quite inconsistent with any other interpretation but that of complete and utter destruction. The wicked are not only said to die, to be destroyed, to perish, etc. ; but also to be burned up like chaff, or like stubble; to be utterly consumed root and branch; to be dashed in pieces as a potter's vessel; to be ground to powder; to wither like a branch that has been cut off; to be thrown down like a house without foundation; to consume away into smoke like the fat of rams; to perish like brutes in their own corruption; to become as ashes under the feet of the righteous; to be devoured; to be as nothing; to be as though they had not been; to be no more; not to be, etc., etc. While these fearful figures may express pain, suffering, extreme anguish, as was doubtless intended, and, in some cases, perhaps, prolonged agony, they express more than this; they express death, and utter destruction as the end and grand consummation of all these inflictions of Divine wrath.

It is impossible to limit them to the expression of the doctrine of the eternal preservation of the wicked, in a state of sin and suffering, without destroying all their force and appropriateness, and actually reversing their true signification. And no one would ever have thought of trying to do this, were it not for this inexorable anti-Scriptural doctrine of the natural and necessary immortality of the wicked. But with such a theory to sustain at all hazards, the ingenuity of man is capable of devising any sort of interpretation he may need. These passages of Scripture, however formidable they appear to others, or however numerous, are nothing more to him — as a friend suggests — than the paper-covered hoops to the equestrians in the circus ring; they fearlessly jump through them, and come down again upon the back of their steeds, as before.

SECTION III. Life Eternal Through Christ.

III. The special object of ihe incarnation and death of Christ, the Savior, was to redeem mortal man from the power of sin and death, and to immortalize him, by imparting to him His own peculiar life, and bringing him into union with God, who liveth forever: "And this is the life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and (even) Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."

In the foregoing section we have been considering the destructive effect of sin, and the necessary mortality of sinful man; not because this is our main theme, but as a kind of background to our main theme, which is, that of Life Eternal through Christ. This was the more important, in asmuch as the great traditional error of immortality for all men without a Savior, has painted this background in such false and lurid colors, as greatly to damage and obscure the Gospel picture, which rests on it, and to depreciate the work of Christ in our behalf, and almost obliterate the real distinction between the lot of the holy and the unholy, which is pre-eminently one of Life — Life without end, a Life of purity and blessedness through Christ, and with Christ, in His everlasting kingdom.

It is only as we come to recognize the true condition of sinful man, and his consequent destiny, as one, not simply of suffering, but of death and destruction, that the Gospel of our Salvation, which is a proclamation of Life through a crucified Savior, stands out in its real brightness, and glory.

Hence, the Word of God spreads before us, in the very beginning, an account of the fall of our first parents from their original holiness, and the sad, sorrowful and mortal doom, which they brought upon themselves and their posterity, as a kind of background upon which the glorious Gospel of Our Salvation is to be painted. First, we have the law with its fearful penalty of death, and then, the Gospel with its offer of Life.

But even in the sentence of condemnation, there were intimations of mercy. Behind the dark cloud, there were streaks of light; and voices of hope and cheer were heard mingling with the thunders of Sinai. The darkness of the long night that preceded the dawning of the day was relieved by the shining of the stars, in the firmament; and long before the rising of the Sun, there were many who waited and watched for his appearing. But his real effulgence is only seen in contrast with the darkness he alone could dissipate.

The New Testament is not simply a fuller and clearer revelation of Divine truth than the Old. It is all this, but more. It is a New Revelation. As in Nature, we find one stage following another in the work of creation, each higher than the one to which it succeeds; so is it in the revelation of Divine truth. And as in Nature, each grade, while it includes all that is in the grades beneath, and exhibits it in greater perfection, contains something more, that especially distinguishes it from them so the New Testament, while it embraces all the truths of the Old, and reveals them more clearly, contains other arid higher truths which distinguish it as a New Revelation.

And still further; as every inferior grade overlaps that which is to follow, and foreshadows its peculiar characteristics, and, perhaps, contains them all in a rudimental state; so the Old Testament contains in an undeveloped form, in its types and symbols, in its prophecies and promises, hints more or less clear, of the truths yet to be revealed in the New. But these two Revelations are separated from each other by a line, as broad and distinct, as that which separates any two grades in nature.

If it be asked, What is that "something more," that higher truth, which is peculiar to the New Testament and which gives it pre-eminence over the Old? We reply without hesitation: It is the revelation of Life and Immortality for mortal man, by a new birth and a resurrection from the dead; and the destruction of all evil through the almighty power of the Son of God our Savior.

This is The Gospel. It is not only a new and higher revelation, but the Life itself that it reveals is a new and higher life; and those who are the subjects of it are new creatures; " If any man be in Christ he is a new creature" — not new in some metaphorical sense, as denoting simply that he is a reformed man, and that he now forsakes his old way of sin, and begins to regulate his life by a higher standard of morality, and to seek and find his enjoyment in higher things. It means all this, but vastly more. He is actually a new creature.

The beginning of a new life, which is spiritual and undying, is begotten within him by the Spirit of God. His old Adamic life is natural, or rather psuchical, and hastens to death. "That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural (psuchical) and afterwards that which is spiritual." This new life may be faint and feeble at first, like the life of an unborn infant, but when this body of corruption shall be cast off, it will take to itself a new spiritual body, and rise to a life of immortal blessedness in the kingdom of heaven.

There are many hints of this life scattered all through the Old Testament. The hope of it sustained and encouraged the faith of the patriarchs ; Moses and the prophets exhorted to obedience and trust in view of it ; David and the other psalmists made it the theme of their songs and praises and prayers. Take for example the LXXIII Psalm.

"Thou wilt guide me with thy counsel

And afterward receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but Thee?

And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.

My flesh and my heart faileth,

But God is the strength of my heart,

And my portion forever."

"But in no single instance do we discover in the book of Psalms, or in the poetical books, or in the books of collected Proverbs or weighty sayings of the wise, or in the prophets, the expression of the Socratic hope of eternal life, founded on man's essential nature as eternal. The hope of Life is restricted to righteous men; to the true servants of God. There is not one ray of hope of an eternal future which shines on the head of a rebel in the' Old Testament. The immortality of the nephesh was a speculation unknown to the saints and prophets. 'All the wicked will he destroy.' ' When the wicked do spring as the grass, and all the workers of iniquity flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed forever.' No man lives forever but in God." (Life in Christ.)

It is not important for us now to consider the many intimations, more or less distinct in the OT of this glorious truth which was yet to be revealed in the Gospel, when we have the Gospel itself to refer to. It is this life, as it is revealed in the Gospel that claims our special attention.

Christ came, not merely to reveal this Life, but to communicate it to us by the spirit dwelling in Him, and proceeding from Him. He came, not as John, to exhort to repentance and newness of life, but, as "the Way, the Truth and the Life," the very source and Fountain of this Life. "In Him was Life and (the) Life was the Light of Men." Adam was, at best, but a creature, a mere living soul. "His breath was in his nostrils." As our progenitor, he could give us only a natural life; but our spiritual progenitor was the Ever-living Creator Himself; and we who are begotten by Him, and live in Him, must live forever. "Because He lives ye shall live also." " The first man

Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam a quickening (life giving) spirit."

This is the doctrine our Lord would have taught Nicodemus in the very beginning of His ministry.

John 3: " Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have.eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

Nicodemus had, like the Pharisees generally, vague notions of a life beyond the present, but it was only the prolongation of man's natural life into another state, not a new life, but the old life of the soul after it had escaped from the body; such a kind of ghostly life as the philosophy which they had imbibed from the heathen world had taught them to believe in, and such as this same philosophy teaches at the present day. But he had no conception of that new spiritual life, which comes only by a new spiritual birth, and which is the only foundation of any good hope of immortality. He was destitute of that spiritual principle by which he could conceive of it ; and so are the great mass of men, and even many of our so-called "masters in Israel" at the present day. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God because they are spiritually discerned. For they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them."

This is the doctrine our Lord taught to the woman of Samaria at the well. But her carnal mind, unillumined by the Spirit of God, could not rise to the apprehension of these spiritual and eternal verities. She could understand the figures .by which Christ would represent it, only in their literal sense, or in some such mystical^ unreal sense, as all carnal minds now put upon them. But these figures of Scripture are employed to represent realities and not other figures, and this spiritual life of which Christ spoke in a figure, is not an unreal life, but an actual life, and even more real and substantial than the natural life of the body.

John 4: "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee,' Give me to drink,' thou wouldst have asked Him, and He would have given thee living water. Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again ; but whosoever drinketh of the water that sh give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

It was of this Life that Christ spoke in His discourse with the Hebrews, after healing the man at the pool of Bethesda ; but their minds were too dark and gross to apprehend His meaning.

John 5 : "For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickenth whom He will. Verily, verily I say unto you, He that heareth my words, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath Everlasting Life, and shall not come into condemnation ; but is passed from death unto life. For as the Father hath Life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have Life in Himself. Marvel not at this : for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of Life, arid they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation [or of condemnation to death]. Search the Scriptures ; for in them ye think y« have eternal life [or rather the assurance of eternal life, but you will find no assurance of it there excepting through me as your Savior from death] for they are they which testify of Me ; and ye will not come unto me that ye might have Life."

We desire to call especial attention to the passage just quoted, as 'absolutely conclusive of the doctrine for which we are contending, Eternal Life only in Christ. The doctrine of a future life was not unknown to the ancient Hebrews. It was so far revealed in their Scriptures that they all came to accept it ; but, under the influence of the Grecian philosophy, by which their own religion had become corrupted, they had come to accept it as a philosophical doctrine of the natural inheritance of all men by their physical birth — a doctrine which has always been popular — or if in any special sense, as their peculiar inheritance through Abraham, and not as the special gift of God's grace through Jesus Christ, and only to be received by a new birth. Hence, when Christ showed them how false were their hopes of immortality excepting through Himself; and that there was nothing in their own Scriptures, the Divine authority of which they conceded, to justify their hopes, they were offended ; as men now are offended ; bu if they will search the Scriptures they will find no doctrine of immortality for man but through Christ, neither in the Old, nor in the New Testament.

The same truth He preached after the miracle of the loaves and the fishes.

John 6 : "Labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for the meat which endureth unto Everlasting Life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you. I am the bread of Life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. And this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have Everlasting Life; and I will raise him up at the last day. Verily, verily I say fcnto you, He that believeth on me hath Everlasting Life. I am the Bread of Life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven; if a man eat of this bread he shall live forever. And the bread that I shall give, is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Verily, verily I say unto you, except ye eat the. flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood ye have no life (zoen) in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath Eternal Life, and I will raise him up at the last day. As the Living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is the bread which came down from heaven ; not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth of this bread shall live forever. It is the Spirit that quickeneth'; (giveth life ;) the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you ; they are Spirit, and they are Life."

Our Lord is not here speaking of happiness and misery hereafter, nor of holiness and sin, but of Life (zoen) and Death. As the life of the body is sustained by natural food, so that higher spiritual life which He offers to them must have its spiritual food. But this natural life cannot always be maintained even by food supernaturally given to them as was the manna in the wilderness. They must die if they have not a higher principle of Life ingenerated within them. This life is received from Him and maintained only by the closest union with Him. To such a life there is no end. This whole chapter is remarkable for the constant reiteration of this one great truth. But, alas, they could not, or would not receive it. The idea of a natural immortality had taken such firm hold upon their minds, as to close them utterly to this great Gospel truth of Life and Immortality through a Divine Savior. Not merely the Scribes and Pharisees were offended, but many even of, His followers were offended at His doctrine.

"From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with Him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered Him, Lord to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of Eternal Life." How many there are of Christ's so-called disciples even now, alas! and of those who profess to preach His Gospel, who cannot, or will not accept of this teaching. It is too humiliating to their natural pride. It is too directly in conflict with their psychological notions of the nature of man; it is too much opposed to the popular traditions of the world, and the Church, to be accepted by them. They are quite willing to receive Christ as a great teacher sent from God; as a Savior from eternal sin and miser ; as a giver of purity and joy and blessedness forever to immortal man; but not as a Savior from actual and eternal death; not as the giver of Eternal Life. How shall they be made to understand, or rather, to receive this great and glorious truth excepting by the Spirit of God? May it please God so to bless our humble efforts to this end, that with us they may be able to say, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth we know Him (so) no more."

John 8 : "Then said Jesus unto them again, I go my way, andye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins. Whither I go, ye cannot come. Ye are from beneath, I am from above; ye are of this world, I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, ye shall die in your sins; for if ye believe not that I am He ye shall die in your sins. Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my sayings he shall never see death." [That is death eis ton aidna — death forever more, the second death from which there is no resurrection.]

Again He teaches the same truth under the allegory of the good Shepherd and the door:

John 10. "I am the door; by me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life (psuehe life, not zoe life) for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one Shepherd. My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them Eternal Life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand."

This was the burden o£ His instruction to Mary and Martha at the grave of Lazarus. They were not entirely ignorant of the great doctrines of the Resurrection, the Judgment, and the Life to come: for they had been under the direct teaching of the Master; but their notions were very imperfect and confused. They had no true under standing of these doctrines. So when Jesus said to Martha, "Thy brother shall rise again," Martha said unto Him, "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus said unto her, "I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth shall never die." [Shall not die eis ton aidna forever.] Both those who are dead, and those who are alive at the second coming of Christ, shall live again and have forever. "On such the second death hath no power."

The same doctrine is expressed in His intercessory prayer.

John 17. "These words spake Jesus and lifted up His eyes to heaven and said: Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son may also glorify thee. As thou hast given Him power over all flesh that He should give Eternal Life to as many as thou hast given Him. And this is Eternal Life, that they might know thee and (even) Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."

The above citations are from the Gospel of John. There are still others that we might give from this Gospel, and from the other three Evangelists, but John is more full on this subject. This is the prominent theme of his Gospel, and, indeed, of his Epistles also. In the first six chapters of his Gospel, he repeats it over and over, no less than twenty-eight times, and more than fifty times in all his writings, that Christ is the source, the only source of Eternal Life. If these citations already given do not suffice, no array of texts would be sufficient to prove our doctrine that there is no Eternal Life out of Christ the Savior.

Is it possible that this Eternal Life — of which our Lord speaks so earnestly, and with such constant reiteration, as the boon He came to bring to dying men, to provide which, He gave up His own life, and which He so freely offers to all who will believe on Him— is not after all truly Eternal Life, but only a certain condition of life — a pure and blissful condition it is true, — but, as for the life itself, it is equally the portion of all men? Can it be that He meant no more by these high sounding words, than that He would engraft upon the immortal life of His people, a condition of purity and blessedness that should endure for ever, while those who refused to believe on Him would have to spend their immortal life in sin and misery? Can it be possible that any true believer in Christ, or any one who accepts His words as true, should claim as his own natural inalienable prerogative this immortahty, which He "who only hath immortality," purchased for them by His own precious blood?

This doctrine of Life and Immortality through Christ, which illuminates every page of God's Word, is, indeed, humiliating to the pride of man; but it is full of honor, and glory to Christ, and full of comfort and joy to those who receive it, and full of hope for dying man.

0, my brethren in Christ! why will you any longer agree with the enemies of your Lord to rob Him of His peculiar glory as the giver of Eternal Life to His people? You, indeed, love and cherish Him, as you well may, as your Savior from sin and misery; but He is infinitely more; He gives you Immortality, His own immortality: an Eternal Life of purity and blessedness in His Everlasting Kingdom. "Give unto the Lord, O ! ye His people! Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name." And you whose privilege it is to preach His Gospel, preach it in no meager, stinted way; but in all its fulness, as the Gospel of Salvation; not from sin and misery merely, but Salvation from death itself; preach as did the Apostle, "The wages of Sin is Death, but the gift of God is Eternal Life, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

It was not until after the Holy Spirit had been poured out with power upon the Apostles and early disciples of our Lord, that their minds were opened to receive this truth; but when they did receive it, and "knew the power of His resurrection," they were lifted completely out of their former condition, and filled with a zeal and energy, which nothing could withstand. This was "the unspeakable gift of God," which they burned to make known to their fellow men.

This is what the Angel told the Apostles to preach, when he had released them from the prison at Jerusalem.

"Go! stand and speak in the temple to the people, all the words of this Life." And they gladly obeyed. This is what Paul and Barnabas preached at Antioch, first to the Jews, and when they refused to accept of Jesus as the giver of "this Life," they turned to the Gentiles, saying:

Acts 13:46. " It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of Everlasting Life, lo! we turn to the Gentiles. For lo! so hath the Lord commanded us, 'I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles that thou shouldst be for Salvation unto the ends of the earth.' And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the Word of the Lord; and as many as were ordained to Eternal Life believed."

This is what Paul preached to the Athenians; but, with their minds full of the fanciful notions of their poets and philosophers, concerning the spirit world, and the immortality of all men, they scouted the idea of a resurrection from the dead, and of Eternal Life through Jesus Christ alone. Had he preached to them the doctrine of an after life, of future rewards and penalties, and the endless life of all men, either in blessedess or misery, they would not have called him "a setter forth of strange gods;" for this was just what they believed.

But the doctrine of "Jesus and the resurrection," and of Eternal Life through Him only, was no more popular with them than it is with the Platonists of the present age.

This is the leading truth that runs through all the Epistles of this great Apostle, and the string upon which all the other doctrines of the Gospel are hung.

To the Romans he preached that all, whether Jews or Gentiles, were under one common sentence of death, for all had sinned and come short of the glory of God. Those who had sinned without law, must perish (not be punished as Dr. Bartlett quotes the passage — not be condemned to sin and suffer forever, but perish) without law, and those who had sinned under the law, should be judged by the law; that death reigned over all the children of Adam by nature. But by the grace of God there was hope. The Gospel which he preached was the power of God unto Salvation to every one that believeth in Christ.

To those who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, [God would render] Eternal Life.

"That as sin hath reigned unto death even so might grace reign through righteousness unto Eternal Life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed ? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin and become the servants of God, ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end, Everlasting Life. For the wages of ain is death, but the gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

God is a Sovereign both in the natural and in the spirtual world, in the bestowment of spiritual as well as natural life. As natural generation is not spontaneous, self-effected, neither is regeneration. They were begotten by God Himself. The new life which they received from Him is a spiritual life. It concerns itself, not with carnal and perishable things, but with Spiritual and Eternal realities. They who possess it are led by the Spirit of God. They will not come into condemnation to death. Nothing will be able to separate them from the love of God, in whom and to whom they are henceforth to live, as the chosen of God and the heirs of Eternal Life.

This great truth is equally prominent in his Epistles to the Corinthians. In the first, he shows how impossible it is for human reason to attain to any true knowledge of the Gospel; how foolish the truth it reveals, of Eternal Life through a crucified Savior, seems to natural men;

"For the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." But he was "determined to know nothing among them but Christ and Him crucified." "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." "The fashion of this world passeth away"; the prizes that natural men seek, are corruptible, but theirs is incorruptible. And finally, coming to the great and glorious doctrine of the Resurrection, he dwells upon it more at length, and shows how it is assured to them by the death and resurrection of Christ. If this assurance were taken away, they would be the most miserable of all men, for then they would have no hope of any life beyond the grave ; all those who had fallen asleep in Him had perished — not gone to a state of endless sin and misery — but perished — become extinct. He attempted to explain, or illustrate the nature of the spiritual bodies, which they will take on at the resurrection — how glorious and incorruptible they will be ; how entirely different from those gross fleshly bodies which are fitted only for carnal souls, and which could not possibly inherit the kingdom of God, and how, simultaneously, with the resurrection of the dead, the bodies of those who are alive at Christ's coming will be changed.

"In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality — and death be swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory?"

The Second Epistle is equally full of Christ and Him crucified ; the source of Life, Eternal Life to all who believe. He is determined to know nothing else among them; waiting anxiously for the time when his mortality shall be swallowed up of Life. And so is it in all his other Epistles — our quotations from which must be cut short. This is. his chief central theme:

Christ our Life. "In hope of Eternal Life." " Lay hold of Eternal Life." " Your Life is hid with Christ in God." "When Christ who is our Life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in glory."

Peter, James and Jude follow in the same track, "Holding forth this word of Life " — exhorting all to "Fight the good fight of faith and to lay hold on Eternal Life" — "The Crown of Life which the Lord hath promised to all that love Him."

The Epistles of John, like his Gospel, are full of the same theme, His first Epistle opens with these words:

"That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of Life — for the Life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that Eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us."

2:25. "And this is the promise that He hath promised us even Eternal Life."

3:14. "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a -murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath Eternal Life abiding in him."

What could be more explicit and conclusive than the following passage?

1 John 5:10. " He that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us Eternal Life and this Life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hatb the life, and he that hath not the Son hath not the life."

How is it possible for any stronger assertion of the doctrine for which we contend, to be framed than this, or how is it possible to bring any better or more trustworthy authority for it ? The only way in which its force can be turned is to deny that Life means life. And this is just what those who hold to the natural immortality of all men without a Savior are doing. Life here is made to mean "true functional action," and the passage should read, they say, "He that hath the Son hath true functional action," and he that hath not the Son hath not true functional action." But if one shall be at liberty to change the meaning of God's Words to make them conform to his own philosophy, nothing can be proved from Scripture. This is the end of all argument. His controversy is with God, and not with us. But let him remember that this passage is introduced with this remarkable utterance, "He that believeth not God hath made Him a Liar, because he believeth not the record (or witness, as it is more properly rendered) of His Son."

Finally, in the Apocalypse, there is given a panoramic view of the struggle between the great Life giver, and him that "hath the power of death," on this earth, to the end of the age. We are permitted to see Christ as "the Lamb of God that was slain," victorious over all His foes; and Satan and his hosts, bound, judged and punished with everlasting destruction. And the redeemed from among the children of Adam, a mighty company whom no man can number, "whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, from the foundation of the world;" clothed in white robes, are seen walking the golden streets of the Celestial Paradise, with crowns on their heads, and harps in their hands, and singing praises to Him who bought them with His own precious blood. And they shall again "have a right to the Tree of Life " and the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

SECTION IV. The Great Alternative; Death, or Life Everlasting.

IV. This is the great alternative presented in the Gospel; Death, or Life Everlasting — through Jesus Christ the Savior. This will be the final outcome or issue of the probation through which God is taking man in this life ; and this is the grand distinguishing difference between natural men and spiritual men, the former as children of Adam are mortal and going down to death; the latter begotten of God are heirs of the Life Everlasting. "This is the Record that God hath given unto us Eternal Life, and this Life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath the Life, and 'he that hath not the Son hath not the Life."

In the two foregoing sections, our attention has been directed to two classes of Scripture texts; First, those that represent the mortal and perishing condition of all the children of Adam by nature, and threaten special wrath and destruction to persistent rebels against God, and rejecters of the Salvation offered in the Gospel; Second, those that proclaim Salvation from death and destruction through an atoning Savior; and promise Eternal Life to all who love, trust, and obey Him. Both these classes of texts are very numerous, and they are so clear, distinct and harmonious in their utterance as to seem to render it impossible to make them mean anything else than just what they say — that there is no possible hope of immortality for any child of Adam, excepting through an Almighty Savior; but that by the grace of God, such a Savior has been provided, and that now, Eternal Life is offered to all men through Him. This is the Gospel of our Salvation: not simply Salvation from that "state of sin and misery into which the fall brought mankind," nor from punishment due to one's own sins, nor from the power of sin itself, but more than all this, from the death and destruction to which all sin inevitably leads.

But, as if to put these two great doctrines of the Bible beyond all controversy, and to make them stand out as clearly as possible, they are not presented to us merely in isolated texts, or by themselves, in such passages as we have cited, but are more often brought into juxtaposition and contrast with each other. These two classes are set over, the one against the other; their separate characters and destinies are put in opposition to each other, and what is affirmed of the one is denied to the other.

Natural men are shown to be, like their fallen progenitor, sinful, selfish, carnal, finite in their aims, earthly, mortal, and beset by a thousand ills, as they run their transitory career, until they go down to sheol, and return to the dust from which they were taken. While, on the other hand, those that had been begotten anew by the Spirit of God, are like their spiritual progenitor, holy, heavenly minded, seeking those things that are above, and becoming more and more like Him, who is the source of their Life and the chief object of their desire and hope. Though these two natures, the old and the new, mingle for a time and struggle for the mastery in the same body, like the infants Esau and Jacob, the last born shall finally supplant the first, and come off completely victorious. And when the old nature shall go down to death and decay, the new man, created after, the image of God in true holiness, shall take to itself a spiritual body, adapted to its spiritual nature, and rise immortal, both in body and soul to its "inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away reserved for him in heaven."

It remains for us now to give our attention to some of these antithetical passages. It is not in the Gospel that this contrast is first instituted. From the time when God first began to choose to Himself a peculiar people out of the world, and the line began to be drawn between them and others, a separate destiny was suggested to their hopes ; and their faith laid hold of it, though it was but dimly apprehended: for it is only in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that Life and Immortality are fully brought to light. Though a very prominent place is given to temporal blessings, in the good that is promised to the faithful, yet they finished their earthly course, under an impression, more or less distinct, that they had not exhausted the promises. Something more was meant by the oft repeated assurance, that they should "prolong their days." Their faith lighted up the dark valley, and dissipated its chief terrors. The way to the grave became brighter and brighter, as the Gospel day began to dawn. While to the wicked, these shadowy terrors that came up from sheol to meet them as they went down into its dark chambers, became more and more terrible.

There is much that is mysterious, even in the utterances of the Gospel, with respect to the issues beyond this life, nor can we in our present state fully comprehend them. But even though the mystery was greater under the law, the Words of God through His prophets were felt to be pregnant and full of meaning, and the rewards and the penalties of His law, which were put into such fearful contrast, were felt to have more than a mere earthly significance.

In the giving of the law from Mount Sinai, where God proclaimed Himself as "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me — and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments;" in the responsive utterance of blessing and cursing from Ebal and Gerizi ; in the farewell address of Moses to the children of Israel; "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you blessing and cursing"; therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live," there is to us, who read these solemn words in the light of the Gospel, a deeper significance than lies on the surface,- and even they, to whom they were spoken felt that they were fraught with a deeper meaning.

In many of the Psalms, this contrast is drawn out at length. In the First Psalm, "The godly man is like a tree planted by the rivers of waters that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, and what soever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away." In the Second, we have a vivid picture of the King in Zion possessing the uttermost parts of the earth with His loyal people — while all His enemies "are dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel." So, also, in the Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and, indeed, in a large part of the Psalms, this contrast between the reward of the righteous and of the wicked, is more or less distinctly drawn out. It must suffice to make one citation, more at length.

Ps. 49. "They that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches — none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him (for the redemption of the soul is precious and it ceaseth forever), that he should still live forever and not see corruption. For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person, and leave their wealth to others. Like sheep they are laid in the grave: death shall feed upon them and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning, and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for He shall receive me. He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light. Man that is in honor and understandeth not is like the beasts that perish."

However vague some of these expressions may be, the contrast is plain enough. It cannot possibly be anything else than that which is more fully set forth in the Gospel; the Life Everlasting for the righteous, and death, and utter extinction for the wicked.

These contrasts abound in the writings of Solomon. The First Chapter of the book of Proverbs closes with a very impressive picture of this sort. We find such antithetical passages as the following throughout the whole book: "The light of the righteous rejoiceth, but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out." "Though a sinner do evil a hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet, surely, I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before Him. But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days [in the- sense in which the righteous will prolong theirs] which are as a shadow, because he feareth not before God."

"The fear of the Lord prolongeth days — but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity." "The hope of the righteous shall be gladness — but the expectation of the wicked shall perish." "The righteous shall never be removed — but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth." "As righteousness tendeth to life — so he that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death." " Whoso findeth me findeth Life, and shall obtain favorof theLord— but he that sinneth against me, wrongeth his own soul; all they that hate me love death."

In the prophetical books, the same significant contrasts are drawn.

In Isaiah 21:11, 12, the present life is represented as a scene of conflict, of mingled darkness and light; the inquirer, anxious for the day, cries out from Seir : "Watchman, what of the night?" And the cheering response sounds out from him who stands on the watch tower: "The morning cometh, and also the night," — the morning of victory and joy to the people of God, the night also of deeper darkness and of death, to His enemies. If ye will inquire, inquire ye; return, come."

This same prophecy closes with these notable words; they are the more worthy of notice because our Lord Him self (Mark 9 : 43-48) quotes and applies them:

Is. 66:24. " For, as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall yonr seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord ; and they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses [pegarim, dead corpses] of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die; neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh."

Strange, that those who understand this passage as describing the future prosperity and happiness of God's people on the earth, and the complete destruction of all the wicked, should, when quoted, evidently in the same sense by our Lord, interpret it as meaning just the opposite; namely, the eternal preservation of the wicked in sin and suffering, and take these agents of their sure and utter destruction, to be the symbols of unending torture!

Ezekiel, a thousand years after Moses, makes use of the same pregnant words, "Life" and "Death," in exhorting the murmuring Hebrews. They complained that the ways of God were not equal and just in condemning them all to death for the sins of their fathers, as they had come to interpret His Word and His providences in view of the evils that were pressing upon them; that it made no difference whether they themselves were righteous or wicked; for they must all die alike. The prophet declared it was not so; that God had no pleasure in the death of any one. It was His will that the wicked should turn and live. "Turn ye, turn ye for why will ye die?" They could not understand Him here as using these words, "Life" and " Death," in a mere physical and temporal sense; for it would have been nothing but mockery, had he meant no more. The full significance of these words may not have been as obvious to them, nor even to the inspired prophet, as they are to us; yet there is in them an implication of a life and a death to come, of which they could not be wholly ignorant.

Daniel, looking forward in prophetic vision to the time of the Second Advent and the First Resurrection, says, as rendered in the revised version of Dr. Tregelles:

Dan. 12 : 2. "And many from among the sleepers of the dust shall awake, these [alluding to such as are written in the Book of Life spoken of in the preceding verse] shall be unto Everlasting Life — but those [the rest of the sleepers, those who do not awake at this time,] shall be unto shame and everlasting contempt [not everlasting shame and contempt as many misread it — but shame, and everlasting contempt or abhorring. The same word (deraon) here rendered "contempt," is rendered abhorring in the passage from Isaiah 66: 24, just cited, and is predicated of (pegarim) dead carcassses.] "And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever."

Malachi closes the Old Testament canon with a vivid picture of the preservation of the righteous, as the jewels of God, and the destruction of the wicked, who shall be burned up as stubble, both root and branchy and shall be come as ashes, to be trodden under the feet of the righteous, in the coming day of the Lord.

It is impossible to take these Old Testament passages in a mere temporal sense, or to construe the distinction between the lot of the righteous and the wicked, so emphatcally and constantly drawn in such decisive language, as one of mere happiness and misery in the life to come, without doing violence to the letter, as well as to the uniform current of the Divine Word. Nothing but life, actual life, prolonged without limit under the favor of heaven, on the one hand; and death, actual and utter death and destruction, can satisfy the demands of the terms employed.

Now comes John the Baptist, like the day-star before the sun, or a herald in advance of a king, to prepare the way of the Lord; saying: "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." A new spiritual kingdom is to be erected on the earth, "The axe is laid unto the root of the trees, every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire " — to be kept there forever? No. But to be burned up. "His fan is in His hand and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into His garner ; but He will [gather into an other garner to be kept forever by itself? No, not so, He will] burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

The phrase " unquenchable fire " (asbestos pur), which was a common expression to denote a furious raging fire that could not be repressed, no more implies the eternal preservation of sinners who are said to be cast into it (Mark 9 :), than it does the eternal preservation of this chaff to whom they are likened — and yet our common version is made to give some apparent color to this idea in that passage, by the rendering of this same expression, asbestos pur, "the fire that never shall be quenched!"

At last, in the fulness of time the King Himself comes down, bringing with Him to earth, in His own person the Kingdom of Heaven. He comes to make a beginning of setting it up in this lower world, and to call all men into it. But all men are by nature earthly, carnal and under the domination of temporal things. This is purely spiritual, and eternal. Hence they are not fitted for it. They must be born again. They must become new creatures, if they would enter it. Their natural birth gives them only a low and transitory life. But the new life, which He shall give to His followers, shall never pass away. It is His own peculiar life. "Because , He lives, they live also." "He is the door by which they enter." " He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life." The gate that leads to destruction (not simply to misery, but apoleian destruction) is broad and therefore many go in thereat; and because the gate that leads to life (zoe) is straight and narrow, there are few that find i; and yet, it is open to all who will enter it. " For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish (not, simply become miserable; but go to naught), but have Everlasting Life." They, who build on any other foundation, will be completely overwhelmed when the final test shall come; but they who build on Him, like the man who builds on a rock, will never fall. Treasures laid up on earth will be lost; those that are laid up in heaven, will be secure forever. He is the Bread that came down from heaven: all who feed on Him shall live forever. But material bread — even the manna that was miraculously given in the wilderness — can nourish only for a little time. Their fathers who ate of it are dead ; but those who shall eat of the Bread that He shall give them, shall never die. He gives the water of Life. Natural water is transient in its effect ; but the water He will give, shall be in those who drink it, a well of water springing up into Everlasting Life. He is the true vine. His people are the branches and live, by their union to Him, as long as He lives ; but the branches that are severed from Him, must wither and die. They are fit only to be gathered up and burned. "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind, which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away." It is like to a field of grai : The good wheat is gathered, in the time of harvest, into bundles and laid away in the garner; but the tares — are not gathered into other bundles, to be kept in a separate garner, they — are burned up; or, it is like a marriage festival, to which only those who have on the wedding garment are admitted. The wise virgins, whose lamps are full of oil and bright and burning, go in with the bridegroom to the marriage, but the foolish virgins, having no oil in their lamps, are excluded and their lamps go out. Commentators, and theological teachers, who hold that the lamp of life, once lighted up, can never be extinguished, have been greatly puzzled to explain this parable, and to tell what is meant by these lamps, but when we once admit that all human life is evanescent and must eventually go out, and that it is only the Divine Life in man that endures forever, this parable is luminous and self-explanatory.

By these, and a great variety of other illustrations, our Lord sets forth in contrast the perishable nature of earthly things and the certain destruction of those who choose them as their chief good; and the enduring nature of heavenly things and the Eternal Life of those who seek them. This is the primary, fundamental idea that runs through all His teachings, Carnality, sin and death — Spirituality of mind, holiness and Life Everlasting — this is the contrast He is continually holding up before the minds of all men. This, indeed, was the grand object of His mission, to rescue man from sin and consequent death, and to lift him up into that higher plane of purity, in which only, he could hope to live forever; in the place of his old Adamic, natural, carnal life, which cannot be perpetuated, to give him a new spiritual life — His own peculiar life, which is a life of immortal blessedness. This is the great Salvation He offers in the Gospel.

The moral law, which had been given by Moses to the Israelites, was holy and perfect, even in its adaptation to their earthly life, though none of them had been able perfectly to keep it. Its penalty of death, was a righteous penalty. But now He uncovers a new and spiritual sense, of which they had hitherto had no conception. It is shown to be equally adapted to the wants of His Spiritual Kingdom. It needs no change. Everything belonging to this world, is gross, sensual, transitory, and perishable. It must soon pass away. They, who set their affections upon it, and pursue its trifles, must pass away with it. Everything belonging to His Spiritual Kingdom is pure and in corruptible, and consequently abiding and eternal. This new life of His people is not their old life simply purified, but a new life, a spiritual life. They are new creatures. Their desires, their affections, their motives of action, the hopes that animate them, the instruments they use, their weapons of offense and defence are all spiritual. Their bodies are yet fleshly, and the old life yet lingers in them. But all this is soon to be changed. Their bodies with all their lusts are to be cast off, and they are to be clothed with bodies that are pure 'and incorruptible. For flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom Of heaven. In that world to which He will bring them, "they neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more."

Let no one suppose that by "Spiritual," something shadowy, unsubstantial, unreal is meant. There cannot be a greater mistake. This new spiritual life, and these spiritual things, are as much more real and substantial, than the old life and tiie things of the world, as they are more abiding. Hence our Lord exhorts men to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and to lay up their treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. 'They are not to labor for the meat that perisheth ; but for that which endureth unto Eternal Life. Whoso mainly.-seeks to save his natural life (psuehe) shall lose it, but he who lightly esteems it, in his higher aim, shall keep it unto (eden awnion) Life Eternal. They are not to fear men, who can only kill the body, but cannot put an end to the soul, or the man himself; but rather to fear Him who can destroy him body and soul altogether in (Gehenna) Hell." The word here translated " Hell," is not Hades, the state into which all men go at death, but Gehenna, the place where dead carcases were cast, to be devoured by worms or utterly burned up with fire. It is a most impressive symbol of complete destruction, and cannot be interpreted otherwise, in the above passage, without reversing its meaning.

At the final judgment, or the judgment of the nations, At His second coming, He will gather all men into two classes, and only two ; placing the good on His right hand, and the bad on His left ; and then, to the good, He will say, " Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;" and to the bad, He will say, " Depart ye cursed into ever lasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," and these shall go away into (Kolasin aionion) eternal punishment, but the righteous into (zoen aionion) Eternal Life. . As an extended comment on this passage will be found in another place, it needs only now to be remarked, that the antithesis here is not between the happiness and misery of these two classes, as many have erroneously supposed; but as everywhere else, it is between Eternal Life on the one hand, and the punishment of eternal excision on the other, which can be nothing less than Eternal Death.

In fixing our attention upon the prominent points in this contrast between these two classes into which the whole family of men is to be divided, and the final issues of each, Life and Death ; we are not losing sight of what our Lord said, at other times, of the rewards and penalties that would be distributed to every one according to his deserts; of the different stations of honor and trust that shall be accorded to those who have been faithful over many things, and those who have been faithful over a few things; of the varying harvests which they shall reap who have sown bountifully or sparingly, on the one hand, or of the many and the few stripes that shall be inflicted upon those who deserved them, on the other. There will be ample room, and ample time, in His everlasting kingdom for all the various gradations of honor to which His loyal subject may be entitled. There will be ample time for the infliction of all the stripes which His justice may require, and for the weeping and lamentation of His enemies, and ther rejecters of an offered Gospel, when they shall see His chosen ones coming, from the North and the South, and the East and the West, and entering His heavenly kingdom, and themselves thrust out. How long the severed branches may be in withering, before they are gathered up and cast into the fire, we know not ; nor, indeed, how long the fire may be in consuming them. But if there is any meaning in the figure He uses, the branches cannot live forever after they have been completely severed from the living vine, nor can they forever resist the fury of the fire that burns them up.)

But let it be remembered, that the varying rewards of the righteous, are not the Life itself which is promised in the Gospel ; nor are these varying inflictions of pain and suffering, the Death itself which is threatened to the wicked. They are but the accompaniments of the Life, and of the Death, spoken of. Life Eternal is not the reward of obedience, and those who conceive of it as such, have no true conception of the Gospel. It is not earned, or bought. It cannot be. It is the free gift of God to all who will receive it as such. Neither is death the penalty of individual transgression. It was, indeed, to Adam ; but it is the common lot of all his posterity, whatever be their moral character. It must not be con founded with the additional punishment which every sinner is to receive according to his own personal deserts. Pre-eminent among all the dreadful accompaniments of death is Death itself, from which the Gospel offers to deliver men ; and in addition to this, there is provision for the forgiveness of all their own individual sins, however many or few, through the infinite merits of the Savior. So, also, is the Life which is begotten within every true believer, pre-eminent and distinct from the reward of his faithful services, whether many or few, upon the earth. It is by confounding these two issues, the Eternal Life, which is the gift of grace, and is common to every believer, with the varying rewards which every one receives according to his merits in the kingdom of heaven; and this Death, which is the common inheritance of all men from Adam, with the penalties which every sinner must receive according to his deserts — an error into which those who hold that the soul cannot actually die, are prone to fall — that the whole Gospel plan of Salvation has been thrown into inexplicable confusion.

We have room for but a few of the many citations in point, that might be made from the Epistles and other portions of the New Testament. No careful reader of the writings of Paul can fail to notice how often he brings the natural and the spiritual man into contrast, and shows the respective destinies of each. It is not a destiny of eternal blessedness for the one, and of eternal sin and misery for the other. No such contrasts can be found instill of his writings. It is uniformly Life in Christ — a life of blessedness and joy forever ; and Death, Death and destruction. Scarcely ever, in all his Epistles, does he speak of Life, but he speaks also of Death, in the same connection ; or of Death, but he speaks of Life also. These two words, Thanatos, Death; and Zoe, Life ; or Zde aionios, Life Everlasting; are found side by side, in contrast in all his Epistles:

Rom. 6:21. " What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin and become the servants of God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end Everlasting Life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

8:6. "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." 13. " For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live."

Gal. 6:8. " For he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap Life Everlasting."

The same contrast between the temporal and transitory lot of all who choose this world for their portion, and the enduring inheritance of those who are the children of God by a new birth, is found in the Epistles of Peter and of John:

1 Pet. 1:20. " Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away. But the Word of the Lord endureth forever."

1 John 2: 17. "And the world passeth away, and the lust there of; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever."

:11. "And this is the record that God hath given unto us Eternal ]ife, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath the Life, and he that hath not the Son hath not the Life"

The antithesis here is not between happiness and misery, but between Life and Death, Eternal Life and Death. If by death had been meant sin and misery forever perpetuated, then why should not the epithet aionios, eternal, be attached to Thanatos, death, as well as to Zoe, Life. But this is never found in the Scriptures. The epithet aionios is reserved for Zoe alone. This Life which is from heaven endures forever. But as for thanatos, death ; or the deuteros thanatos, the second death, to which all sin leads, and in which, unless taken away, it will, when finished, find its certain end — it is a finality of itself, and needs no such qualifying adjective. But, most certainly, if it meant sin and misery forever perpetuated, we should expect to find it somewhere spoken of in the Word of God as Thanatos amnios, everlasting death, as we so often do in modern theological teaching. But the familiar phrase Eternal death has no place in the Word of God. It has' been framed to meet the requirements of that false theology, which teaches that Life and Death alike are conscious states of existence ; and that the only difference between them is that the one is a state of purity and blessedness, and the other a state of sin and misery, and that they are both eternal.

This false assumption is the chief source of the perplexity and confusion that all these Platonic theologians show, in trying to understand and explain the extended parallel, which Paul draws in the Epistle to the Romans, Fifth Chapter, and again in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Fifteenth Chapter; between Adam and Christ, or the First and the Last Adam. Bringing with them to the Word of God, their false theory of the deathless nature of the hu man soul, they have been obliged to interpret this word " Death," which is the real key to the whole argument, not as meaning death, but a state of conscious sin and suffering. No wonder, that under such limitations, they find it difficult to make good sense out of the Apostle's argument, without impugning the justice of God. Hence they have invented the monstrous doctrine of imputed sin, and its consequent desert of punishment, and of imputed holiness, and its consequent merits, and have resorted to various contrivances and special pleas, to relieve the difficulty, which their own error has created, and to vindicate the reasonableness and justice of God, in consigning the whole human race to endless misery from birth on account of the original sin of our first parents ; a doctrine which has never been justified to the moral sense of any man, and never can be. But let any one come to the Word of God, in the simplicity of his heart, without any theory on this subject, which forbids him to give to these words, "Life" and "Death," their true and proper meaning, and there is no difficulty whatever in understanding this argument of the Apostle. It is self-explanatory.

We are charged by our opponents with limiting the meaning of these two words; but it is they, and not we, who limit them. They no doubt wish to give them as full and inclusive a meaning as their theory will allow. But while they hold that immortality is the common inheritance of the saved and unsaved alike, they cannot give to these words their true, literal sense.

We hold that this word (Zoe) Life, or the Life, as it is in the original, so frequently spoken of by our Lord and His Apostles, is emphatic, and as the Divine Life of God in man, the Eternal Life, it includes and carries with it to the righteous, every conceivable blessing; and that the word Death, when put in opposition with the Life, is not only the negation of these blessings, but of the Life itself which includes them. They hold, on the other hand, that these words mean all that we say, except the Life itself, and the Death itself. That is, they reject the main idea from them both. It is the play of Hamlet, with Hamlet left out. But surely the accompaniments of life, however joyous, are not life itself, nor are the accompaniments of death, death itself.

There is no one basis of Life — or of continued conscious existence, which is only another name for life in a lower form —that is common to them both. It cannot be possible that the Bible should echo these two words, from one end to the other — the two most important words in all the Scriptures, — when neither Life itself, nor Death itself is really meant, but only a certain condition of life — blessed indeed on the one hand, and miserable indeed on the other — but as for Life itself, it is not to be held as the peculiar gift of God to His children through Jesus Christ the Savior, as He says, but as the common inheritance of all men through Adam ; and as for Death itself, it is not the wages of sin, nor the end of sin, ai He says, but only the perpetuation of sin, nd of ceaseless misery ; for there is no such thing as actual death to man. Any theory of man that requires such wresting of God's Word to sustain it, can have no foundation in Truth.

For convenience of reference and comparison, we append a condensed synopsis of Bible teaching, with respect to tho future lot of the righteous and the wicked, arranged in parallel columns. It is taken from one of our former works, entitled Homiletical Index, published by D. Appleton & Co., New York. 1878.