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earrection of the dead, those who separate themselves from the doctrines of the congregation, and those who cause terrour among the dwellers upon earth, and those who have sinned and caused many to sin, as Jeroboam the son of Nebat and his companions; these all descend into gehenna and are punished therein ages of ages, as it is written.And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall the fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." This surely extends the meaning to a future world. "That ungodly man, Turnis Rufus, asked Rabbi Akiba, if your God loves the poor, why does he not feed them? He replied, in order that w may be delivered through them from the judgement of gehenna." Whoever carefully celebrates the three feasts to be instituted every sabbath is delivered from three calamities, namely, from the distress at the coming of the Messiah, from the judgement of geheuna, and from the war of gog and magog.' "God will redeem my soul from condemnation to gehenna, and he has delivered my body from condemnation to gehenna." "God hath set the one against the other, that is, gehenna and paradise." "You will escape the judgement of gehenna, and your portion will be with Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah." The fire of gehenna does not prevail against the sinners of Israel so as to consume them, but they are sent down into it to be frightened and scorched awhile on account of their evil deeds; afterwards Abraham, who kept all the commandments and went down into the fire of the Chaldeans to sanctify the name of God, descends thither, and through his merits brings them forth from thence that he may establish the promise of the covenant." I could extend my quotations to an indefinite number; but sufficient have been presented for all necessary purposes. Wetstein. Mat. 111.9; V. 22: XXVIII. 15, 33; Luke xxI. 43; Bartoloccius Part I. p. 143, 148, 138, 133."

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This proof is sufficient to overthrow all that has been written on the other side in the present age. The same author well says; I would further remark, that I cannot believe all commentators of note, of every denomination, who have had no special interests to serve, could have been mistaken in the meaning of this Hebrew word. They have spent months and even years in studies connected with this question; they had no cause at heart but truth; they were qualified for such investigations; and on the

common grounds of judging, their conclusions are not to be shaken without preponderating evidence on the other side. This never has been, and never can be produced." p. 183.

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2. It will be objected, that gehenna cannot have been in the days of Christ a significant term to denote a state of future misery, because our Saviour only used it eleven times as recorded by the evangelists. We know not how often he used the term, though we have no record of his using it more than eleven times; however we would not expect a record of any more, in consideration of the great variety of conversations, miracles, and circumstances, embraced in the brief style and limits of the evangelists; but as we see in what sense the word was used among his hearers, we are obliged to suppose he used it in the same sense. Especially when he gives no intimation of using it in a different sense; and especially since his declarations imply, in their phraseology and application, the same. We contend, that we are obliged to understand him in the current sense of the age and country where he taught. We cannot avoid the conclusion.

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3. It will be objected also that the Apostles never used the term except in one instance, and then not in pointing out the punishment of sin. See James 111. 6. And if they, in all their epistles, believed in future punishments, and never taught it, they must have been very unfaithful ministers. This argument, Balfour has urged, with all his power. But we have said, if they did not believe in future punishment, and knew that the people generally did, and never undertook to correct them, they must have been unfaithful ministers indeed! But we have shown in the preceding section, that they did teach future punishment, and we shall yet show it more fully, in the very language that such people with such ideas would so understand. They did not speak to the Gentiles about gehenna for this very good reason, that it was not a term in use among them.

Therefore, the Apostles taught them future punishment in such language as they could: understand. Our author well says of them; They knew little or nothing of the colloquial usages of Judea. They were acquainted with the old Testament only through the Septuagint. Consequently, the apostles, if possesed of the true spirit of gospel ministers, would not use a word which some of their hearers or readers could not understand. All these were firm believers in future retribution before and after their conversion, and consequently had no special need of elementary instruction on this doctrine. This then is the very best reason in the world why the other inspired teachers did not use the word gehenna. They could not use it to mean future punishment when addressing such believers, with any more propriety than I could use the word hell to convey the same idea to a congregation of Germans. You will please to remember that the question is not whether the same word is always used, but whether the same doctrine is taught throughout the New Testament.". t.".p. 186. Some have tried to get along with these passages, by supposing our Saviour to refer to some literal executions in the valley of Hinnom, but there were no such laws in his day, and no body was exposed to be executed in that manner, let them do what they would. Besides his language implies, that such as became his followers and practised the christian virtues should not suffer the punishment of gehenna. But if gehenna were the place where the Sanhedrim executed criminals at that time, such a course of conduct would be the very way to get into its fire. It has also been supposed to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, and the calamities which befel that devoted city and country, about thirty eight years after our Saviour's crucifixion. But this evasion has no weight; for although the licans destroyed their city, and slew hundreds of thou

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shers of them, they did not burn any of them in the valley of Ifinnom. This, therefore, could not answer to the de

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nunciations contained in our passages. And there is no criticism that can evade the fact, that this word was used and understood in our Saviour's time, to signify a state of punishment beyond this life. That Jesus used it in that sense in the above scriptures; and did teach plainly, and as plainly as he had language to teach, the existence of future punishment. And the doctrine is truth, or else the Bible is not a divine revelation, and Jesus Christ was mistaken, as well as the principal part of mankind in all ages of the world.

SECTION VIII.

The Rich Man and Lazarus, considered.

"There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day.And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: "moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried, and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me; and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou, in thy life time, receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And besides all this, between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed; so that they that would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee, therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house. For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, they have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, nay, father A ham, but if one went unto them from the dead, thesis ill repent. And he said unto him, if they hear not Mos and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead."-Luke xv. 19-31.

Thus reads the "parable of the rich man," so denominated among universalists. This has been supposed, in all ages of the church, to refer to the two states of men in a future world, as its language plainly imports, till within a few years, it has been touched with the magick wand of universalism, and turned into something else! The author once published a discourse on the text, and was about as successful as any of them in making it mean something else. A great variety of meanings are given to such hard passages in the order: but it seems to be a rule among them; that it is unimportant what they make them to mean, provided they make them mean something else, besides what they possitively affirm; and sustain that something with some appearance of plausibility.

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They say it is a parable! Well, that circumstance then gives them an unbounded license to invent any sense to it; no matter if it be so far off, that it took eighteen hundred years to produce a single individual capable of guessing at it. But unless it mean something else entirely foreign to any thing which the description naturally implies, it would upset universalism: therefore, it must mean something else! And if there be nothing else within the reach of ordinary minds-nothing that could be thought of for eighteen hundred years in all christendom, New England, famous for curious inventions, might be expected to invent the curious thing. Well. What do they make the rich man? Why the high priest of Israel and yet not exactly the high priest for no one could tell which of the high priests; but rather the office or its incumbents in succession; representing the Jewish nation. The beggar is the Gentile world. The desire to be fed with crumbs, was the desire of the Gentiles to obtain the knowledge of the legal economy, (which desire, however, did not exist) the dogs that licked his sores, were Plato, Socrates, and other philosophers that attempted to enlighten the Gentiles. The 'poor man's death was the conversion of the Gentiles to

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