ing as a proverb was-what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world at the expense of his life? This is admitting even more than Mr. B. has attempted to prove. And yet it is capable of easy proof, that this common proverb is here used in a transferred sense,—accommodated to express the loss of eternal life. Christ in the context urges his disciples to take up the cross, and follow him through every danger. And tells them that whosoever will save his life (by refusing to risk it in his cause) shall lose it, (that is shall lose eternal life). And whosoever shall lose his life, (natural life) for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it, (that is eternal life). That I am correct in here understanding eternal life as used in antithesis with the life of the body, is plain from the parallel passage in John, He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life shall keep it unto life eternal. Having said this, the Saviour quotes the proverb and accommodates it to the case in hand. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own life? Now, what life? Not temporal life, for he is urging them to risk that in his cause, but eternal life, the same as in the verse above. The passage admits of no other construction which does not reduce it to nonsense. If Mr. Balfour had been willing to meet the argument, he would have told us how to interpret the preceeding verse, consistently with his notion, told us how a man can lose his life as a martyr, and gain the life of his body by the loss.

In the next place, he adduces those passages which speak of saving the soul, and labors to show that they mean no more than saving the life. Here follows his argument to that point." "Many people seem to think that the term salvation can be applied to nothing else, except the salvation of the immortal soul in the future state. But when eight souls were saved by water, all will allow, eight lives or persons were saved. People forget that Paul and James wrote to believing Hebrews just before the destruction of Jerusalem. Our Lord had told his disciples that he who endured to the end should be saved from all the calamities which came upon the unbelieving Jews, and that this is called perdition needs no proof." Thus he makes the saving

of the soul, to be the saving of the life from sharing in Jerusalem's destruction. Let us refer then to some of the instances to test this interpretation. 1 Peter 1: 9. Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. The end of the Christian's faith, then, was the salvation of their lives, when Jerusalem was destroyed. But the men to whom Peter wrote strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Gallatia, Capadocia, Asia and Bythinia, were in no danger of that destruction, and had no need of that kind of salvation. If salvation from Jerusalem's destruction, were the great end of the Christian's faith, for what purpose was that faith offered to other nations than the Jews. If the saving of the life were the great end of embracing the Christian faith, it ill-ly secured its end, for it brought thousands to a violent death. And then just look at the context, "of which salvation (saving of the life) the prophets have enquired and searched diligently." This saving of the life of the few Christians that escaped out of Jerusalem, when it was destroyed, is made the object of the prophet's diligent search spoken of as the glory that should follow the sufferings of Christ, and that which the angels desire to look into. Believe it, who can.

Another instance, James 5: 19. Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him, let him know, that he that converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and hide a multitude of sins. Now how are a man's sins hid by escaping the destruction of Jerusalem? If death were the extinction of being, and the end of all ill effects of sin, one would think death in the destruction of Jerusalem to be an effectual hiding of sin. And then was it su as this interpretation implies, that the whole world was in such a condition that, erring from the truth exposed a man, let him be where he would, to be buried in the ruins of Jerusalem? If I can understand plain English, the man will have us believe it. Take another view of the matter. We are told here, that salvation means only the saving of the life of the body. And Mr. Whittemore, (on the Parables p. 262,) says that the happiness of the future world "cannot in the nature of things be affected by the

conduct of men in this life." Properly speaking then, the gaining of that happiness is not salvation, nor the thing called by that name in the gospel. But then how happens it that the very name which the sect have chosen to adopt, universal salvation, conveys a contradiction to such a principle. They ask us to believe that all the gospel says about salvation relates to the well-being of the body. But surely, this kind of salvation is not universal; men are not all saved from death and temporal calamity.

Again, Math. 10: 28. Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. But rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. It is not in the power of man to frame an expression which shall state more plainly, and set more beyond the power of evasion, the distinction between soul and body, and the soul's capability of living after the death of the body. But Mr. B. tells us men can kill the body, but cannot kill the life. As though there were a life left to kill after the body is dead, though no soul or life separate from the body. Well, if the human mind is capable of conceiving of such an absurdity, suppose it to be so-suppose there be a life left which none but God can kill, after the body is dead, and yet man has no conscious soul in danger of being destroyed-how is God to be feared by reason of his ability to kill this life. The body is killed, and there is no soul to kill,—— nothing that is capable of suffering or experiencing the pangs. of death. Why fear God on account of his ability to extinguish an unconscious entity, which by the way he never does extinguish. In his interpretation of this passage he makes a great display of criticism or rather of quotations from the Greek Testament and lexicon, and spins out his remarks to the length of twelve pages; proves to us indisputably, that to kill, means to slay, to put to death, and favors us with glosses of other words equally enlightening, as if he intended to cover up the difficulty by the lumber of words. But any man may read over his exposition a score of times, and then find it impossible to give from it a satisfactory reason, why God is presented as an object of fear, because of his ability to destroy the soul, af

ter the death of the body. After you have taken away my immortal soul and killed my body, you may inflict what you choose upon what is left.

Again, Acts 2: 22. Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, (Hades, the place of departed spirits) neither suffer thine holy one to see corruption. That Hades was, in the current opinion of the Jews at the time of Christ, supposed to be a habitation of departed spirits, is admitted by Mr. B. What idea would this quotation from the Psalms as made by Peter, be likely to convey to the Jews. Would it not plainly teach them that the soul of Christ went into a conscious existence in the world of spirits? Another evidence that the soul of Christ was in the world of spirits, is found in what he said to the penitent thief. To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. This difficulty Mr. B. escapes as usual, by the help of Hebrew roots;tells us that the word comes from a root, which means to separate, and therefore the word means an enclosure, and therefore the grave; and that the Lord said to the thief, To-day shalt thou be with me in the grave. But here he has involved himself in many difficulties to escape one. In the first place, the word is never used by any writers, sacred or profane, in the sense of the grave. In the next place, he makes Christ's reply to the prayer of the thief to be, To-day shalt thou be with me in the grave, which was a cold consolation to a dying man. And then, it happens the body of the thief found no grave. If paradise means the grave, it is strange that the seventy who must have understood the meaning of the word quite as well as Mr. B., have used it for the word to translate the garden of Eden. And if Paradise means the grave, when Paul was caught up into paradise, he was caught up into the grave, and that, a state of complete unconsciousness, and there he heard unspeakable words. I conclude, after such specimens of Mr. B.'s philology, my readers will find no hindrance from it to be-, lieving that the penitent thief went that day into a state of happiness with Christ. And that Christ's soul, living and conscious, was in the world of spirits while his body was in the grave.

Again, Rev. 6: 9, 10, 11. I saw under the altar, the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying; How long O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood, on them that dwell on the earth. And white robes were given unto every one of them, &c. Now suppose it be said that John did not intend to represent the vision of these souls, as of realities, still if a separate soul were what never had existence, it could not be the basis even of a figurative representation. The pale horse seen as the symbol of great destruction Överspreading the world, might be no proof that a real horse was there, yet the use of such a symbol pre-supposed the existence of such a creature as a horse. So if the vision of these souls was only a symbol of the result of persecutions and martyrdoms, about to take place, yet the use of the symbol presupposed the existence of separate souls, as the basis of the figure. But you shall hear Mr. B.'s explanation. He says the souls of those martyrs, are only the blood calling for vengeance. We have it then, that the blood cries, how long dost thou not avenge our blood-that is, the blood's blood. And then white robes are given unto every one of them,-that is, to all the blood. That this is a vision of transactions before the end of time, appears from the fact, that these martyrs are commanded to wait till more should be slain. That they were persons is evident from their having been slain. They were glorified persons, for white robes were given them; that they were separate spirits, is asserted. Should it be said, the whole representation is symbolical-then the question is, Are not real existences used as the symbol, as much as in the preceding case of the pale horse? And what does the symbol teach, if not that the souls of martyrs, even before their fellow servants are slain, are elevated to glory and clothed with white robes?

Again Rev. 7: 9. After this I beheld, and lo a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands. John asks who these persons are, and the angel informs