is urged to "abstain from evil,” and “sanctify the Lord God in his heart," and "love the brethren," and "obey the laws," and "do well,” "girding up the loins of his mind in sobriety and hope." This is not Calvinism.

The third fortification of this exposition is furnished by the following fact. According to our view, the death of Christ is emphasized, not on account of any importance in itself, but as the necessary condition preliminary to his resurrection, the humiliating prelude to his glorious ascent into heaven. The really essential, significant thing is not his suffering, vicarious death, but his triumphing, typical ascension. Now, the plain, repeated statements of Peter strikingly coincide with this representation. He says, "God raised Christ up from the dead, and gave him glory, [that is, received him into heaven,] that your faith and hope might be in God." Again he writes, "Blessed be God, who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead unto an incorruptible inheritance in heaven." Still again, he declares that "the figure of baptism, signifying thereby the answer of a good conscience toward God, saves us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is gone into heaven." According to the commonly-received doctrine, instead of these last words the apostle ought to have said, "saves us by the death of him who suffered in expiation of our sins." He does not say so. Finally, in the intrepid speech that Peter made before the Jewish council, referring to their wicked crucifixion of Jesus, he says, "Him hath God raised up to his own right hand, to be a Leader and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins." How plainly remission of sins is here predicated, not through Christ's ignominious suffering, but through his heavenly exaltation! That exaltation showed in dramatic proof that by God's grace the dominion of the lower world was about to be broken and an access to the celestial world to be vouchsafed.

If Christ bought off our merited punishment and earned our acceptance, then salvation can no more be “reckoned of grace, but of debt.” But the whole New Testament doctrine is, "that sinners are justified freely through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." "The redemption that is in Christ"! Take these words literally, and they yield no intelligible meaning. The sense intended to be conveyed or suggested by them depends on interpretation; and here disagreement arises. The Calvinist says they mean the redemption undertaken, achieved, by Christ. We say they mean the redemption proclaimed, brought to light, by Christ. The latter explanation is as close to the language as the former. Neither is unequivocally established by the statement itself. We ought therefore to adopt the one which is at once most rational and plausible in itself, and most in harmony with the peculiar opinions and culture of the person by whom, and of the time when, the document was written. All these considerations, historical, philosophical, and moral, undeniably favor our interpretation, leaving nothing to support the other save the popular

theological belief of modern Protestant Christendom,---a belief which is the gradual product of a few great, mistaken teachers like Augustine and Calvin.

We do not find the slightest difficulty in explaining sharply and broadly, with all its niceties of phraseology, each one of the texts urged in behalf of the prevalent doctrine of the atonement, without involving the essential features of that doctrine. Three demonstrable assertions of fact afford us all the requisite materials. First, it was a prevalent belief with the Jews, that, since death was the penalty of sin, the suffering of death was in itself expiatory of the sins of the dying man.12 Lightfoot says, "It is a common and most known doctrine of the Talmudists, that repentance and ritual sacrifice expiate some sins, death the rest. Death wipes off all unexpiated sins."'13 Tholuck says, "It was a Jewish opinion that the death of the just atoned for the people." He quotes from the Talmud an explicit assertion to that effect, and refers to several learned authorities for further citations and confirmations.

Secondly, the apostles conceived Christ to be sinless, and consequently not on his own account exposed to death and subject to Hades. If, then, death was an atonement for sins, and he was sinless, his voluntary death was expiatory for the sins of the world; not in an arbitrary and unheard-of way, according to the Calvinistic scheme, but in the common way, according to a Pharisaic notion. And thirdly, it was partly a Jewish expectation concerning the Messiah that he would,15 and partly an apostolic conviction concerning Christ that he did, break the bolts of the old Hadean prison and open the way for human ascent to heaven. As Jerome says, "Before Christ Abraham was in hell, after Christ the crucified thief was in paradise;" ;"16 for "until the advent of Christ all alike went down into the under-world, heaven being shut until Christ threw aside the flaming sword that turned every way."

These three thoughts-that death is the expiatory penalty of sin, that Christ was himself sinless, that he died as God's envoy to release the prisoners of gloom and be their pioneer to bliss-leave nothing to be desired in explaining the sacrificial terms and kindred phrases employed by the apostles in reference to his mission.

Without question, Peter, like his companions, looked for the speedy return of Christ from heaven to judge all, and to save the worthy. Indications of this belief are numerously afforded in his words. The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer." "You shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the

12 Witsius, Dissertatio de Seculo hoc et futuro, sect. 8. 13 Lightfoot on Matt. xii. 32.

14 Comm. on John i. 29.

15 God shall liberate the Israelites from the under-world." Bertholdt's Christologia Judæorum, sect. xxxiv., (De descensu Messiæ ad Inferos,) note 2. "The captives shall ascend from the underworld, Shechinalı at their head." Schoettgen de Messia, lib. vi. cap. 5, sect. 1.

16 See his Letter to Heliodorus, Epist. XXXV., Benedict. ed.

17 Comm. in Eccles, cap. iii. 21, et cap. ix.

dead." Here the common idea of that time-namely, that the resurrection of the captives of the under-world would occur at the return of Christ is undoubtedly implied. "Salvation is now ready to be revealed in the last time." "That your faith may be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." "Be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." "Be ye examples to the flock, and when the chief Shepherd shall appear ye shall receive an unfading crown of glory.” “God shall send Jesus Christ, . . . whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restitution of all things." It is evident that the author of these passages expected the second coming of the Lord Jesus to consummate the affairs of his kingdom.

If the apostle had formed definite conclusions as to the final fate of unbelieving, wicked, reprobate men, he has not stated them. He undeniably implies certain general facts upon the subject, but leaves all the details in obscurity. He adjures his readers-with exceeding earnestness he over and over again adjures them—to forsake every manner of sinful life, to strive for every kind of righteous conversation, that by faith and goodness they may receive the salvation of their souls. He must have supposed an opposite fate in some sort to impend over those who did otherwise, rejecting Christ, "revelling in lasciviousness and idolatry." Everywhere he makes the distinction between the faithful and the wicked prominent, and presents the idea that Christ shall come to judge them both, and shall reward the former with gladness, crowns, and glory; while it is just as clearly implied as if he had said it that the latter shall be condemned and punished. When a judge sits in trial on the good and the bad, and accepts those, plainly the inference is that he rejects these, unless the contrary be stated. What their doom is in its nature, what in its duration, is neither declared, nor inferrible from what is declared. All that the writer says on this point is substantially repeated or contained in the fourth chapter of his epistle, from verses 12 to 19. A slight explanatory paraphrase of it will make the position clear so far as it can be made clear. "Christian believers, in the fiery trials which are to try you, stand firm, even rejoicing that you are fellow-sufferers with Christ, a pledge that when his glory is revealed you shall partake of it with him. See to it that you are free from crime, free from sins for which you ought to suffer; then, if persecuted and slain for your Christian profession and virtues, falter not. The terrible time preceding the second advent of your Master is at hand. The sufferings of that time will begin with the Christian household; but how much more dreadful will be the sufferings of the close of that time among the disobedient that spurn the gospel of God! If the righteous shall with great difficulty be snatched from the perils and woes encompassing that time, surely it will happen very much worse with ungodly sinners. Therefore let all who suffer in obedience to God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing.”

The souls of men were confined in the under-world for sin. Christ came to turn men from sin and despair to holiness and a reconciling faith in God. He went to the dead to declare to them the good tidings of pardon and approaching deliverance through the free grace of God. He rose into heaven to demonstrate and visibly exhibit the redemption of men from the under-world doom of sinners. He was soon to return to the earth to complete the unfinished work of his commissioned kingdom. His accepted ones should then be taken to glory and reward. The rejected ones should Their fate is left in gloom, without a definite clew.

CHAPTER II.

DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

THE Epistle to the Hebrews was written by some person who was originally a Jew, afterwards a zealous Christian. He was unquestionably a man of remarkable talent and eloquence and of lofty religious views and feelings. He lived in the time of the immediate followers of Jesus, and apparently was acquainted with them. The individual authorship it is now impossible to determine with certainty. Many of the most learned, unprejudiced, and able critics have ascribed it to Apollos, an Alexandrian Jew, a compeer of Paul and a fellow-citizen of Philo. This opinion is more probable than any other. Indeed, so numerous are the resemblances of thoughts and words in the writings of Philo to those in this epistle, that even the wild conjecture has been hazarded that Philo himself at last became a Christian and wrote to his Hebrew countrymen the essay which has since commonly passed for Paul's. No one can examine the hundreds of illustrations of the epistle gathered from Philo by Carpzov, in his learned but ill-reasoned work, without being greatly impressed. The supposition which has repeatedly been accepted and urged, that this composition was first written in Hebrew, and afterwards translated into Greek by another person, is absurd, in view of the masterly skill and eloquence, critical niceties, and felicities in the use of language, displayed in it. We could easily fill a paragraph with the names of those eminent in the Church—such as Tertullian, Hippolytus, Erasmus, Luther, Le Clerc, and Neander-who have concluded that, whoever the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews was, he was not Paul. The list of those names would reach from the Egyptian Origen, whose candor and erudition were without parallel in his age, to the German Bleek, whose masterly and exhaustive work is a monument of united talent and

toil, leaving little to be desired. It is not within our present aim to argue this point: we will therefore simply refer the reader to the thorough and unanswerable discussion and settlement of it by Norton.'

The general object of the composition is, by showing the superiority of the Christian system to the Hebrew, to arm the converts from Judaism-to whom it is addressed—against the temptations to desert the fulfilling faith of Christ and to return to the emblematic faith of their fathers. This aim gives a pervading cast and color to the entire treatment to the reasoning and especially to the chosen imagery-of the epistle. Omitting, for the most part, whatever is not essentially interwoven with the subject of death, the resurrection, and future existence, and with the mission of Christ in relation to those subjects, we advance to the consideration of the views which the epistle presents or implies concerning those points. It is to be premised that we are forced to construct from fragments and hints the theological fabric that stood in the mind of the writer. The suggestion also is quite obvious that, since the letter is addressed solely to the Hebrews and describes Christianity as the completion of Judaism, an acquaintance with the characteristic Hebrew opinions and hopes at that time may be indispensable for a full comprehension of its contents.

The view of the intrinsic nature and rank of Christ on which the epistle rests seems very plainly to be that great Logos-doctrine which floated in the philosophy of the apostolic age and is so fully developed in the Gospel of John:-"The Logos of God, alive, energetic, irresistibly piercing, to whose eyes all things are bare and open;" "first-begotten of God;" "faithful to Him that made him ;" inferior to God, superior to all beside; "by whom God made the worlds;" whose seat is at the right hand of God, the angels looking up to him, and "the world to come put in subjection to him." The author, thus assuming the immensely superhuman rank and the pre-existence of Christ, teaches that, by the good will of God, he descended to the world in the form of a man, to save them that were without faith and in fear,-them that were lost through sin. God "bringeth in the first-begotten into the world." When he cometh into the world he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared for me.” "Jesus was made a little while inferior to the angels." "Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise partook of the same;" that is, in order to pass through an experience like that of those whom he wished to deliver, he assumed their nature. "He taketh not hold of angels, but he taketh hold of the seed of Abraham :" in other words, he aimed not to assist angels, but men. These passages, taken in connection with the whole scope and drift of the document in which they are found, declare that Jesus was a spirit in heaven, but came to the earth, taking upon him a mortal frame of flesh and blood.

1 Christian Examiner, vols. for 1827-29.