rest, till you find it in him who died for sinners, and whose yoke is easy, and whose burden is light.

3. To real believers in Christ.

Beloved brethren,--It is deeply to be lamented, that errors so destructive to souls as the one opposed in the foregoing pages, should be so prevalent in the christian world, as they are at the present time.

We ought to lay it to heart; and whatever we find it duty to do in counteracting the evil we lament, we ought to do it with all our might.

In the first place, we need to confess and mourn our sinfulness before God, and our unfaithfulness in the best of causes; and then earnestly pray for pardon, and for grace to strengthen us in the discharge of all our duties. We are called upon to live religious and spiritual lives; which is the most effectual way to recommend divine truth, and to bear down every thing that is raised against it. We are to contend earnestly for the faith; but in the temper and spirit of the gospel. Fierce disputations, rash and hasty words, will injure the cause for which we contend, more than our arguments will do good. But rather, "in meekness instruct those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth."

And while we take heed to ourselves, our tempers, our practice, and to our doctrine, let us pour out our souls to God in earnest prayer; that he will have mercy on sinners, liberate such as are entangled with the error of the wicked, suppress the dangerous schemes of the present day, and cause the light of the glorious gospel to shine with irresistible splendor, till the whole earth be filled with his glory!

APPENDIX.

If there be no future punishment for sinful man, and if there be no devils to suffer the displeasure of the holy and just God; then a hell is altogether useless, and consequently unnecessary. Hence Mr. Hutchinson, and unquestionably from Mr. Balfour, would make out that there is no such place as we commonly understand by hell.

There are four words in the original Scriptures, which are rendered hell, in our translation. The Hebrew SHEOL, and the Greek, HADES, TARTAROS, and GEHENNA; neither of which is acknowledged by the above writers as conveying the idea of a state of misery after death.

It is generally agreed, that HADES is a correct translation of the Hebrew SHEOL; therefore I shall pass the latter word, and make my remarks on the three Greek works, that are rendered hell in our version of the Scriptures.

HADES generally means "the state of the dead, or the receptacle of departed spirits,"* whether they be happy or wretched. Good old Jacob said, "I will go down, EIS HADON, into the grave (or hell) unto my son mourning." Gen.XXXVII. 35. We caunot conceive that the aged saint had any idea of going into hell, as we understand the word; but as we sometimes hear it expressed, he viewed himself as going into the world of spirits, and of course down to the grave. * Dr. Allen's Lectures on Universalism, p. 8.

Therefore, "I will go down to the grave," is doubtless a good translation of the sentence as a whole; although the word grave or sepulchre never conveys the full import of the Hebrew SHEOL, or the Greek HADES."*

When it is said of Christ," that his soul was not. left EIS HADON, in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption," a state of misery is not intended, for his soul was in paradise; yet it was in HADES, or in the world of spirits. His body and that only was in the grave, but it did not continue there long enough to see corruption.

On the other hand, HADES certainly in other cases means a state of misery. In Deut. XXXII. 22, there is great displeasure expressed against the sinner after death; "A fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell." HADON.

Matt, XVI. 18, "I will build my church; and the gates of (HADON) hell shall not prevail against it ” Does not the phrase, gates of hell, in this place mean "the counsels of the invisible world, that is, of the wicked and miserable spirits in hell?" This promise much resembles that made to Abraham, "Thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies." Gen.

XXII 17. "As the gates of cities were the most public places of intercourse, judges anciently held their courts at them;" hence, "to possess the gates of enemies is to have dominion over them." So the gates of infernal spirits shall never have dominion over the church of Christ, or prevail against it; but contrariwise, "The God of peace shall shortly bruise satan under the feet of his people." Rom. XVI. 20.

The rich man "EN TO HADE,in hell lifted up his eyes being in torments.' This passage is express as to

*Dr, Campbell's Dissertations, vol. I. p. 287.

torment; and there was no passing from thence to Abraham's bosom. Luke XVI. 23.

It is maintained, that HADES does not signify "the place of punishment or of the souls of bad men only, but the grave only, or the place of death."* But Dr. Campbell has amply proved, that it cannot sinply mean the grave, and observes, that HEBER, the Hebrew word for grave, or sepulchre, is never rendered in the ancient translation HADES, but TAPHOS, MNEMA, or some equivalent term." It is granted then, that HAPES does not always mean the place of eternal punishment, though sometimes it does, at least implicitly; but it never means simply or directly the grave.

TARTAROS Occurs but once in the New Testament, and is there rendered hell. 2 Pet. II. 4, "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down TARTAROSOS, heli, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." "Nothing can be clearer, says Dr. Allen, than that the passage quoted declares, by inspiration of the omniscient, that the fallen angels are confined in TARTARUS, in chains of darkness, or confined in a dark place in chains, kept for judgment. TARTARUS then, must mean a place of misery. If now we read what follows the verse quoted, the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished,' it would seem, that no honest reader of the Scriptures could deny, that at the great day of judgment, the unjust are to be punished; and therefore, if punished together, there must be a place of punishment. The fallen angels are in TARTARUs, in *Dr. Whitby, in Balfour's Enquiry, p. 50.

Diss. vol. I. p. 284

hell. We are told that the sentence on the wicked will be," Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."*

That GEHENNA, says Dr. Campbell, is employed in the New Testament to denote the place of future punishment prepared for the devil and his angels, is indisputable. He afterwards adds, "The place of torment reserved for the punishment of the wicked in a future state, is the sense, if I mistake not, in which GEHENNA is always to be understood in the New Testament, where it occurs just twelve times.In ten of these there can be no doubt."t

In conformation of this statement, let us inquire into several passages where this word is used. Matt. V. 22, "Whosoever shall say thou fool shall be in danger, EIS TEN GEHENNAN TOU PUROS, of hell fire." Mark IX. 43, "It is better for thee to enter into life inained than having two hands to go into hell, GEHENNAN, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worin dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." See also verses 45--48. These passages render it so plain, that hell is a place of future punishment, that further observation is unnecessary.

Matt. X. 28, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body, EN GEHENNA, in hell." This is after death, and indeed after the resurrection, when the body as well as the soul must suffer, and that forever.

Upon the whole HADES signifies the state of the soul indefinitely after death; and TARTARUS and GEHENNA denote a state of misery, and are the most

Lecture, p. 9, 10,

Diss. vol. 1, p 272, 278-Bos, ed. 1811.