in torments"? Why the application to Abraham for relief?-What! did he want relief from happiness? Was the "Rich Man" so burning with love, so fired with delights, that he could not contain himself, and wanted a drop of water to cool his fervour, and diminish the flame ?-O ye glowing Seraphs, so near the ever-resplendent Throne, so high in the climes of glory and felicity,— why do ye not complain, and agonizingly cry for an ocean of water to cool your holy, heavenly ardours ?—If hades never signifies a place of misery, and if both saint and sinner, at death, equally and immediately enter into heaven, -why was the case of Dives contrasted, with that of Lazarus -Why is it said, that in this life, Lazarus received his evil things (sufferings) and the "Rich Man" his good things, (worldly comforts and pleasures) and that in the future state Lazarus is comforted, and the rich man tormented? And why, on the modern Universalist principle, was Dives so very solicitous that his five brethren, should not "also come into this place of" happiness? Did he wish to enjoy all his comfort alone? Or had he shut up the bowels of his compassion against them and hardened his heart with ravishing delights? If there be no distinction of place in the future world,—if no hell of suffering, if when sinners die, they, with the righteous, are immediately enwrapped to the "Paradise" of God, where then, we ask, would the "five brethren," find, at death, their “destined place ?"-Dives wished them not to be in the same place with him ;-i. e. according to the modern interpretation, in heaven ?-Into what other place then could they go, on the termination of natura! life, if there be but one place of happiness hereafter. The extreme of happiness and of infelicity is not more opposite, than this entire passage is to the notions of Modern Universalism, and if it prove not the reality of a place of future misery, there is not a verse in the Bible which proves the reality of a place of future happiness. B Gehenna, is another term used by the Sacred writers and translated hell; and here we may remark, that it commonly, if not invariably, denotes the place of the damned. "It is a corruption of the two Hebrew words Ge, a valley, and Hinnom, the name of a person who was once the possessor of it. This valley of Hinnom lay near Jerusalem, and had been the place of those abominable sacrifices in which the idolatrous Jews burned their children alive to Molech, Baal, or the Sun.”—(3) It afterward became the receptacle of the filth of Jerusalem, which was consumed by continual fires. Now when punishment in Gehenna is threatened, the Modern Universalists refer it to an actual suffering in the valley of Hinnom, and assert that no future suffering whatever is intended. This is a very easy, but a very fallacious method of setting aside future punishment. It is evident, that neither the Jews, nor our blessed Lord, nor his Apostles, undertood the term in this way, nor did they give it this application. That they looked upon the valley of Hinnom, with its abominations and fires, and worms, as a striking emblem of hell, with its quenchless fire and deathless worm, is acknowledged. But that they regarded the one as synonymous with the other may well be denied. "From this valley's having been the scene of those infernal sacrifices, and probably too from its continuing after the time of king Josiah's reformation, (2 Kings xxiii. 10) a place of abominable filthiness and pollution; the Jews, in our Saviour's time, used the compound word Ge Hinnom for hell, the place of the damned. This appears from that word being thus applied by the CHALDEE TARGUMS on Ruth ii. 12.Ps. cxl. 12. Isa. xxvi. 15-xxxiii. 14. &c. and by the JERUSALEM (3) Parkhurst's Greek Lex. sub voce Gehenna. TARGUM, and that of JONATHAN BEN UZIEL, on Gen. iii. 24-xv. 17. Conp. ii. Esdras, Apocryph. ii. 20.” (4) Speaking of gehenna, a sensible writer observes,"This word, I know, has been frittered away by Universalists, to mean only a valley in the vicinity of Jerusalem. But how was it used by our Saviour? and how was it understood by the Jews who heard his discourses? I answer, with no fear of contradiction from any intelligent student of the Bible, that the Saviour always used this term to denote the place of future punishment; and that it was uniformly understood in this sense by the Jews of his time. It is a word peculiar to the Jews, and was employed by them some time before the coming of Christ to denote that part of Sheol which was the habitation of the wicked after death. This is proved by the fact of its being found in the Apocryphal books, and Jewish Targums, some of which were written before the time of our Saviour. These Targums were translations and interpretations of the Scriptures. Three of these Targums, in remarking upon various passages of the Old Testament, use the word Gehenna, and expressly explain it to mean the place of future punishment for the wicked. If then our Saviour did not use this word in a totally different sense from that in which it was used by the persons whom he addressed, he must have employed it to denote the place of future punishment. And that he did thus use it, must be evident to any one who considers the passages in which the word occurs." (5) To convict the Universalists of uttering a positive and shameless untruth, in stating that the word hell in the Scriptures, in no one passage, denotes a place of future misery, it is not necessary to adduce all the instances in which the word Gehenna is found :-some of them, however, will now be advanced, abundantly sufficient for this purpose. (4) Parkhurst's G. Lex. sub voce. "And if the right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell, gehennan." Matt. v. 29-also repeated v. 30. Our Lord is here cautioning his disciples against the indulgence of impure desires; and it is evident he does not enforce his caution by any Jewish mode of external punishment. He does not therefore refer to any suffering in the valley of Hinnom; for the Jews never punished persons, in any way, for the desires of the heart,however impure, for a good reason, they are not cognizable to man; and, besides this, their religion was outward. The religion of Christ is spiritual and reaches to the inward workings of the soul as well as to the exterior demeanour :-he, therefore, urges his disciples to forego even the desire of forbidden pleasures, as this will subject the indulging parties to future suffering in hell, as certainly as the outward act. "And 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 in hell, geennē." Matt. x. 48. A more fatal passage, than this to the scheme we are opposing, the Universalists never need wish to encounter. To be convinced of this, it is only necessary to read it with their gloss. "Fear not them (men) which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him (God) which is able to destroy both soul and body in the valley of Hinnom !" The destruction of the soul as well as the body is spoken of in the text. Now we should like to be informed,-what kind of destruction the soul can suffer in the valley of Hinnom? Again, whether there is any account of God's having destroyed, or punished, any soul in this valley? Again, whether it be possible for the Diety himself to punish the soul, or inflict pain upon it, by the mere agency of natural fire applied to the body? Or in any other words can an immaterial principle receive punishment from the operation of a natural agent? You might as well attempt to horsewhip a spirit as to burn it with fire; or to drown it in water as to suffocate it with smoke. Observe-the contrast, in this verse, is between the body and the soul, and the power of man and the power of God. Man may kill the body, but cannot touch the soul: God can destroy, punish, both in hell. But if gehenna here only mean the valley of Hinnom, and if the mere suffering there constitute hell, why may not man destroy both body and soul there as well as God? Again:-It is evident that the command of our Lord, and the motives by which he enforced it, did not refer to the first disciples exclusively, but to others of succeeding ages to the end of time. Now we would ask the Universalists, if gehenna here only mean the valley of Hinnom, whether persons of the present day who fall under the displeasure of God, will be punished body and soul, in the valley of Hinnom? Lastly if it be true that man cannot kill the soul, and the fires of the valley can only kill the body, then some other punishment is referred to than that of burning there; because, it is expressly said, God is able to destroy the soul as well as the body, in hell. Hell therefore, in the text, does not mean the valley of Hinnom, but a place of future suffering. "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him two fold more the child of hell, geennes, than yourselves." Matt. xxiii. 15. Read the latter part of the verse according to the Universalist system, and admire its profundity of sense. "Ye make him two fold more the child of the valley of Hinnom than yourselves"! Poor Poole ! Henry! Wesley! Whitby! Doddridge Benson! Scott! Clarke! Watson ! what pity it is, ye had not the profound wisdom of some of our |