An Inquiry Into the Scriptural Import of the Words Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna

the most intimate communion with several eminent orthodox clergymen of New England. The position he took was new and startling. Boldly he said, "There is no place of endless suffering; the idea of a future hell has no authority in the Bible." This changed entirely the ground of controversy in regard to endless punishment; and several replies, in the course of a few years, appeared against the work. In his introduction to the third edition, the author speaks with reference to them in the following manner :

"In presenting the third edition of the Inquiry to the public, it may be proper to inform the reader of the following things respecting it. The first edition was published in 1824. It would be tedious, and would occupy more room than we can spare, to notice all the attacks which have been made upon it from the pulpit and in the public journals. The instances which have come within the range of our own personal knowledge and observation have not been few. We shall only notice the attempts which have been made to refute it in regular book form.

"The first attempt was made by Mr. James Sabine, a Boston clergyman, soon after the Inquiry was published. A gentleman called on the clergy, in the public journals, either to refute the Inquiry or confess they were deceiving the people. This call roused Mr. Sabine, and he announced in the public papers his intention to refute the Inquiry, provided a suitable meeting-house could be obtained, his own being inconvenient for the purpose. When all sects declined offering him a house for the purpose, the Universalist society in Charlestown unanimously voted him the use of theirs. He accepted their offer, and delivered six discourses, one every other Sabbath evening, to excessively crowded audiences. He afterwards published his discourses, and our reply to them appeared in 1825. This public and published attack on the Inquiry hastened a second edition of it in a cheaper form, but in every material respect the same as the first. Mr. Sabine's reply was considered very generally a total failure. He did not pretend to advocate endless punishment, nor did his discourses touch the principal facts and arguments contained in the Inquiry. All seemed to allow that his discourses did more evil than good to the cause of endless punishment. They, however, excited inquiry in the public mind, and somewhat promoted the demand for my work, which was very unpopular. Most people denounced it as a pernicious book, but felt perplexed with the evidence it contained, and were desirous to see it refuted.

"The next attempt to refute the Inquiry was made by Mr. Charles Hudson, a Universalist clergyman, in Westminster, Mass. His letters appeared in 1827, and were replied to in my Essays, which were published in 1828. Mr. Hudson's 'Reply' to my Essays appeared in 1829, and in the same year my Letters in answer to it were published. From some cause or other, like Mr. Sabine, he passed over the principal facts and arguments of the Inquiry, still leaving the book to be answered by some one else.

"Dr. Allen, President of Bowdoin College, Maine, was the next person who made an attack on the Inquiry. This he did in a lecture, which he first delivered before the students of the college, and afterwards published. We replied to his lecture in a letter, which was published in 1828. The doctor's attempt to refute the Inquiry was deemed so weak, even by his own friends, that his pamphlet was withdrawn from the bookstores and suppressed, if our information is correct. It is certain it was frequently asked for in the bookstores of Boston, but could not be obtained, and very few persons in this region ever procured a copy of it. The very weakness of this effort to refute the Inquiry was calculated to lead many to think it could not be answered.

"Another attempt to refute the Inquiry was made by Professor Stuart of Andover. From some cause or other, the public had long looked to him to furnish a refutation. The failure of the preceding attempts was imputed, by some, to the want of talent. When Mr. Sabine did not succeed, we heard it remarked, 'If Mr. Stuart only takes hold of it he will easily refute it.' At last, his Exegetical Essays appeared. They were published in 1830. Though he avoids naming me or the Inquiry in them, it is obvious enough to all they were written to counteract the effect which the Inquiry had produced on the public mind; and, also, what I had written in my Second Inquiry on the words rendered everlasting' and 'forever,' in our common version. I replied to these Essays in a series of letters addressed to Mr. Stuart, which were published in 1831. He has not yet made any reply to them. Here the controversy for the present rests.

"Before Mr. Stuart's Essays appeared, I supposed he must have something new and powerful to produce; that the Inquiry would receive a full and fair reply, and that I should see in what my error consisted. But I was entirely disappointed; for, like all the preceding attempts, the principal facts and arguments were passed over without notice. Indeed, many of Mr. Stuart's statements confirm the views advanced in the Inquiry. I begin to suspect that no reply can

be made which will prove that Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, or Gehenna, designates a place of endless misery. I have too high an opinion of Mr. Stuart's understanding to think that he considers his Essays deserving the name of an answer to the Inquiry. I have never heard of a single intelligent man, orthodox or otherwise, who thinks his Essays a reply. But I have heard several express a contrary opinion. If the book, then, is not unanswerable, I may say it yet remains unanswered.

"I have a word or two to say respecting this third edition of the Inquiry. In every material respect it is the same as the first and second editions. The only alterations deserving notice are the following. All the texts under Sheol, Hades, Tartarus and Gehenna, are arranged and considered in the order they occur in the Bible. But the arguments and explanations are in substance the same as in the preceding editions. Perhaps this edition has been somewhat improved by the help afforded me by Mr. Stuart's Essays. Objections and views urged by him have been noticed. Some slight alterations in the arrangement of the matter in a few places have been made, and some new matter has been introduced. But all the facts and arguments, and, indeed, the whole substance of the work, remains the same. I have seen nothing which alters the views expressed in the Inquiry. After all the attacks which have been made upon it, its foundation remains unshaken, and its pillars and posts unbroken. All the replies, to me, have only tended to show the solid foundation on which the views advocated in the Inquiry rest, and ought to excite my gratitude to the men who have made them. Without these I might have gone down to my grave doubting whether I might not, after all, be mistaken in my views. It would be almost sinful in me now to doubt their correctness, considering the character, talents, and standing of the men who have tried, but failed, to point out my error.'

Since the appearance of the third edition of the Inquiry, other books have been published against it. Among them is the work of Rev. Parsons Cooke, which is composed of a series of lectures delivered in Weare, Mass., to the parish over which the author was then settled. This appeared in 1834, under the imposing title of "Modern Universalism Exposed, in an Examination of the Writings of Rev. Walter Balfour." We have seen nothing in this work which renders us unwilling to name it in this place. In conclusion, we will say, though we have read what the ablest and most learned men have published against this Inquiry, we think it has never been refuted, and that its leading views are unanswerable. O. A. S.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, showing that Gehenna, in the time of
Christ, was not used to signify a place of endless misery,

CHAPTER I.