teaches this, let us believe it. Let the passages which are supposed to teach it, be carefully and candidly considered. But, after all the care and candor I can bring to this subject, I frankly confess, it is not in my power to find this doctrine taught in the Bible. It frequently speaks of the hope of the resurrection of the dead, but never of any man's fear of it. It teaches that the dead shall be raised incorruptible, but never teaches that men will be sinners after this period. On the contrary, it says they shall be equal unto the angels of God which are in heaven. But it does not say, any of them shall be equal unto the devils which are in hell. What the Bible teaches, let us believe. But what it does not teach, permit me to leave for those whe desire to be wise above what is written.

APPENDIX.

CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES OPPOSED THE DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS MISERY.

ON p. 310, under the head of Objection XVI., Mr. Balfour considers the following argument against Universalism: The doctrine of endless misery was believed in the days of Christ and the Apostles; and if they rejected it, they certainly would have contradicted it; and as they did not, it is fair to infer that they believed it. We think Mr. B. right in the idea that Christ did not employ himself in expressly contradicting the false opinions of his day. His method of teaching was entirely different from that. He dealt more in positives than negatives; he aimed to place before the mind the sublime truths of his religion, knowing that in due time they would eradicate error, and mould all hearts into his image. But while Jesus did not employ himself in contradicting every false notion of his times; while he did not say, for instance, to the fatalist, your theory is false; while he did not arraign the Essenes and other errorists, his course was such as to show them the falsity of their views, that there was a Divinity which shaped the ends of human existence, and that there was a higher conception of life than repudiating the laws of our nature, withdrawing from all objects of sense, and giving the mind solely to the contemplation of Deity. Merely to contradict did not comport with his dignity, or with the great ends he encompassed in every word which he uttered, and in every act which he performed. By attending the marriage-feast in Cana, and converting water into wine, he not only showed that he was not an Essene, but gave a lesson full of comprehensive instruction. In saying, therefore, that it was not compatible with his character and method of teaching to descend to mere contradictions, I do not mean to be understood as admitting that he did not oppose both directly and indirectly many existing errors. And I hold, that, according to his usual method of teaching, he opposed the doctrine of endless misery.

I will proceed by considering two points in the objection, to which I assent. 1. I admit that the doctrine of endless misery was prevalent in the time of Christ and the Apostles. The Pharisees believed it, and doomed to its fearful tortures the whole Gentile world. The heathen believed it, and used it as an instrument of mighty power. The doctrine held a high place in nearly all creeds. 2. I admit, that if Jesus and the Apostles did not oppose it, we may fairly infer that they believed it. This conclusion cannot be denied; especially when we consider the awful nature of the doctrine, and the peculiarly false character it ascribes to God. I make this statement frankly, and without any reservation. The question, therefore, what course did they pursue, is one of great moment. There are three modes by which this may be ascertained. I. By learning whether they used the popular language employed in their day to express endless misery. II. Whether they directly opposed the doctrine in question. And, III. Whether they taught the opposite doctrine. These modes will enable us to form an accurate judgment in regard to the whole subject. We ask, then,

I. Did Jesus and the Apostles use the language, in speaking of punishment, commonly employed in their day by those who believed in endless misery? The reader will see the bearing of this question, if he considers that terms become common property among those who advocate a common opinion. If we go back, for instance, fifty years, when the prevailing theology taught that hell was a place of literal fire and brimstone, we find all the clergy using the same terms in speaking of the place; and now, that few, if any, believe in a hell of fire, you seldom hear the words fire and brimstone, employed in reference to hell; and when you do, it is in a way which shows that they are used in a figurative sense. The world of woe is now supposed to be one of darkness, where the soul is banished from God, and tormented by the reproaches of conscience; and the word hell, in its popular acceptation, denotes this place. This is its common, its received acceptation. Eternal and everlasting are words used to express the endless duration of hell; this is their popular meaning. Thus we see words have a common use among those who concur in belief. An appeal to the classics would fully establish this point.

Such being the fact, it is important to know, 1. What were the common words, in the time of Christ, used to express endless misery? 2. Did Christ and the Apostles ever use them? Let it be remembered that we admit the general prevalence, in the time of which we are speaking, of the doctrine in question. By referring to the writings of that period, we learn, first, that Gehenna was not used in any of them in speaking of hell. It is not in the Apocryphal books, not in the works of Philo, not in the works of Josephus, the only works of the period we are considering. As in these productions much is said about hell, it is certain that Gehenna had not then become a popular term to denote the place. Second. It is equally clear, from the works to which we have referred, that the word aionios, rendered eternal and everlasting, was not employed to express the endless duration of misery. Philo, in his glowing descriptions of the awfulness and perpetuity of punishment, does not employ it. Josephus frequently uses it, but not in the sense of which we are speaking; and it is not until the beginning of the fifth century that the word is adduced to prove endless misery. Third. While Gehenna and aionios, in the time of Christ, were not used to denote the eternity of punishment by its believers, they had common terms to express it. Aidios was the favorite word with Philo, though he used others denoting immortal, interminable. He spoke of the wicked as enduring aidios, endless punishment; as being doomed to thanaton athanaton, death immortal, and as suffering ateleuteton, endless death. According to Josephus, the prison of the damned was aidios eirgmos, an endless prison; and the retribution of the damned was aidios timoria, an eternal, or endless retribution. He says, speaking of the Essenes, "They believed that the souls of the bad are sent to a dark, tempestuous cavern, full of (adialeiptos timoria) uninterrupted vengeance." Here we have the common phraseology used in the time of Christ in speaking of the fate of the wicked; the language in which the acknowledged believers in endless misery expressed themselves on the subject; the terms appropriated by common usage to describe the doom of the lost.

This brings us to our second inquiry, namely, Did Christ use any of these terms? If he did, it is just to infer that he believed

with Philo and Josephus; that as he employed the current language of his age in speaking of punishment, he held the current opinion upon it; but, if he did not, we must conclude that he had no faith in that opinion. What, then, is the fact? We answer: he did not use these terms; we look in vain for them in his conversations with the disciples, and in his discourses to them and the Jews. How are we to account for this, if the doctrine of endless suffering is true? On all other topics, Jesus adopted the common terms of his times, so far as he agreed with the generally received opinions. He was simple in his language, and spoke to the understanding of those he addressed; and, therefore, he used common terms in their common signification. And yet, when he spoke of punishment, he studiously avoided the terms in general use among those who believed it endless: not only so, one of the words (Gehenna) which he employed in speaking of punishment, is not found in the writings of the believers in endless woe, and the other word (aionios), supposed to have been used by him to denote the eternity of suffering, they use in a limited sense, and apply to temporal shame and misery.

These facts must, in the judgment of every candid person, prove conclusively that Jesus gave no countenance to the received doctrine respecting the eternity of punishment. The advocates of endless misery have argued that Gehenna in the age of the Saviour was generally understood to mean a place of endless woe, and, therefore, he must have been understood to teach by it the existence of such a place. We admit that the inference is a fair one from the premise; but we deny the premise. [See our Introductory Essay to this volume.] We now take the position of our opponents, and say, as Christ did not use the language employed by the believers in endless misery, he could not have been understood as teaching the doctrine.

But it will be said, though Christ does not use the language of those who taught endless punishment, Jude does; and, therefore, our argument loses all its force. We reply, it is true that Jude uses one of the several words they employ; and we have no objection to admitting that it as clearly expresses endless as any one of them. He says (v. 6), " reserved in (aidios) everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great