hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him." (Luke xii. 4, 5.)

It is usually supposed that Gehenna must here imply a hell beyond the grave, because the destruction of the soul, as well as the body, is threatened. But there are two facts in the way of this position; the first is, that the word (psuche) rendered soul in this place, more properly signifies the animal life, and is so rendered in numerous instances. This criticism, the correctness of which will not be disputed, removes the ground of the supposition at once. The second fact is, that the body, which those whom they were told not to fear had the power to kill, is not liable to destruction in a hell beyond the grave, but returns to the dust of the earth from whence it originated. How then can Gehenna, in this instance, imply a place of torment in a future state? It cannot. We must, therefore, seek a more consistent explanation of this passage than that which is usually given.

Some think that the allusion here is to the Roman authority, personified, which had power, after killing the body, to deny it burial, and cast it into Gehenna; or to destroy the life and the body together in Gehenna, by burning alive, which was a mode of punishment practiced in that day on the highest class of offenders. If such was indeed the Savior's allusion, the following paraphrase may well convey the sense of the passage. "I say unto you, my disciples, (for they are the party addressed,) that so long as you are faithful to the objects of the mission on which I now send you, you have nothing to fear from your persecutors, for not a hair of your heads shall perish unpermitted of your Father in heaven. Entertain no fears, therefore, in regard to them at the most, they can but kill the body. You will in that case die a martyred and honored death; but even this shall not befall you, except by your heavenly Father's permission for your good. Beware, however, that you run not into unlawful excesses; presume not on the divine protection, if you should wantonly transgress the laws of the land, but apprehend the fearful award of the civil magistrate, who, after killing the body, has power to cast it into Gehenna, or (by dooming you to be burnt alive) to destroy the life and body together, in that loathsome place." Peter uses a caution of similar impcrt, to those whom he addresses in his episstles. "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial

which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil-doer, or as a busy-body in other men's matters. Yet if any man suffer as a christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.” (1. Peter iv. 12—16.) Others again think that Jehovah is alluded to as the object to be feared, not on the ground of his ability to destroy in a hell beyond the grave, (for Gehenna, in that day, was not received in any such sense,) but in reference to his power to involve them in a common destruction with that portion of their countrymen who should obstinately reject the gospel. To me this seems the most probable construction of the text; for Gehenna was associated in the minds of Jews with every thing horrid, loathsome, and abominable. Christ tells the Pharisees that they made their converts "two-fold more the children of Gehenna than themselves;" and James, speaking of the tongue, says, "it is set on fire of Gehenna." Should we be at a loss to understand a person who should say, that the converts made to such and such principles were made the children of the penitentiary? The meaning, I think, would be sufficiently obvious to us; we should understand it to imply, that they had become fitted, by the evil principles they had imbibed, for such practices as might subject them to the penitentiary. Well, then, as before observed, Gehenna was a place of as great and of as odious notoriety, in that day, as is the prison, or penitentiary in ours; for the former was not only a receptacle for the unburied carcasses of criminals, and the filth and offals from the vast and over-populated city of Jerusalem, but it was also a place of criminal execution. The Jews, it is well known, held themselves polluted if they came in contact with a dead body, and it may well be conceived, therefore, what a horror they entertained in regard to so nauseous and loathsome a place as by all accounts the valley of Hinnom was.

It is worthy of remark, that neither Christ nor his apostles ever used the word Gehenna except when addressing Jews: to Gentiles the reference would have been unintelligible. Paul,

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who calls himself "the apostle to the Gentiles," never once used it, nor any other term answering to the modern idea of hell. It is somewhat singular-nay, it is very remarkable, that while all other nations had their respective hells, the Jews, who were especially instructed in religion by Jehovah, for the space of 2000 years, were without any ideas on the subject! Should not this fact alone suffice to prove, that the doctrine of a region of suffering beyond death is fabulous?—that it is of heathen origin? and that it has no true and proper connexion with a religion revealed .from heaven?

It is probable that the idea of a hell was first taken from those gloomy dungeons, which earthly tyrants have, in all ages and countries, employed as the instruments of their ambition or revenge; hence, with the idea of hell are usually associated the dismal and heart-sickening imagery belonging to such places as the Bastile of France, the Black-hole of Calcutta, and the Inquisition of Spain or Goa; dungeons, chains, racks, torturing implements, darkness, feverish thirst, groans, shrieks, blasphemies, burning, suffocation, desperation, despair, all these start up in eonnection with that direful word, which has given to priests their magic power over the souls of men, and which has caused man to start back with horror from the contemplation of that futurity which has been opened to him in the gospel as an object of joyful hope.

In this branch of our general subject it is a high satisfaction to us, that we have the judgments of all, of all sects, both Jew and christian, in perfect coincidence relative to the radical and primary meaning of Gehenna; all agree that it comes from the two He brew words Gia and Hinnom, literally signifying the valley of Hinnom. On this point there is no dispute. It is assumed, indeed, that it came by accommodation to be applied to a hell beyond this life; but it surely ought not to be expected that an assumption of such magnitude will be admitted without the most substantial evidence; and none such, so far as I can learn, has ever been produced, nor do I believe it can be.

Critics are also agreed, as before observed, relative to sheol and hades, and even our English hell. These things must be kept in mind by the reader, for they are of great moment in their bearing

upon the settlement of the great question before us, relative to

the truth or falsity of universalism.

The celebrated Dr. John Mason Good, in his lecture on the nature and duration of the soul, affirms, respecting the popular tradition, as early as the time of Isaiah, (and Homer, with whom he believes him to have been contemporary,) that "it taught that the disembodied spirit becomes a ghost as soon as it is separated from the material frame: a thin, misty, aerial form, somewhat larger than life; with a feeble voice, shadowy limbs, knowledge superior to what was possessed while in the flesh; capable, under particular circumstances, of rendering itself visible, and retaining so much of its former features, as to be recognised in its apparition; in a few instances wandering about for a time after death, but for the most part conveyed to a common receptacle situated in the centre of the earth, denominated SHLOL, HADES, HELL, or the world of spirits.

"Such was the general belief of the multitude, in almost all countries, from a very early period of time, with the difference, that the hades of various nations was supposed to exist in some remote place on the surface of the earth, and that of others in the clouds.'

It is more than probable that this dim and misty outline of the realm of ghosts was from age to age amplified upon, until it became the abode of the damned, modified amongst different nations according to the diversified policy of their priests, or fancy of their poets by some it has been located in the interior of the earth; by some on its surface in some remote district; by some in the clouds, in the moon, in a comet, or one of the planets. With some it has been held a hell of fire; with others a hell of ice; with others, of alternate burning and freezing; with others, of darkness and dreary wandering amid every frightful circumstance, of hunger and thirst, etc. The latest refinement upon it amongst christians is, that it has no outward or material existence, but is merely a state of moral suffering, remorse, unavailing anguish, and despair.

If hell be a located place, God made it. He made it with a perfect knowledge of the end to which it should answer, and he of course adapted it to that end. He also created those whose doom it shall be to groan in its depths forever; and he of course knew that such should be the issue of their being. And he is infinitely benevolent, nevertheless! He is good to all, and his tender

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mercies are over all his works!!" Let those believe these absur

dities who can. I can not, if the penalty be a hundred fold dam

nation !!!

Thanks be to God! I lie under no such obligation! The light of his word shines sufficiently bright on the pathway of my inquiries on these subjects, to satisfy my understanding and my hopes. It informs me, that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” but no mention is made of his having created a HELL!! So, also, at the conclusion, it speaks of "a new heaven, and a new earth," but nothing whatever of a NEW HELL!! Thus, neither firstly, nor lastly, nor intermediately, do the scriptures recognise such a hell, as at this day is proving, to a frightful extent, a source of terror, and madness, and suicide.

It is sincerely hoped that the reader will "search the scriptures," in order to satisfy himself on this point. He will receive but little edification from the perusal of polemical squabbles concerning it. He must "to the law, and to the testimony ;" and oh! let him take heed, that nothing short of these high authorities determine him in a belief, so dreadful in its bearings on his own happiness, and so pernicious in its influence on his views of the Divine character.

FOREKNOWLEDGE AND FOREORDINATION.

DOES ABSOLUTE FOREKNOWLEDGE NECESSARILY IMPLY ABSO

LUTE FOREORDINATION?

So momentous are the consequences involved in this question, that very many have been deterred from adventuring fairly and boldly into a discussion of it; for if, on the one hand, it be settled in the affirmative, it seems clearly to follow that God is the author of sin-that man is without moral freedom-that he therefore is not responsible for his actions—and, in that case, promises, threatenings, rewards, punishments, appeals to his interests, his fears,' his sense of propriety, &c., are unmeaning mockeries. It seems