hades was fictitious or the mere fancy of the poets. His language here is very ambiguous; but it must mean either that the fancy of the poets was employed in giving the name of tartarus, and ascribing the attributes that were ascribed to the real place, or it must mean that the place which goes by that name, has no real existence. I of course suppose he means the latter. But, it so happens that all his proofs, so far as they prove anything, are confined to the former. He proves that the fancy of the heathen poets attached this and that fabulous idea to tartarus. But that there is in reality no place of punishment which hades or tartarus arc fit words to describe, is a point which his arguments do not touch. There seems to be running through all the writings of Mr. B. an assumption of a principle, that if a doctrine or anything like it can be proved to have been held by heathen, that itself is proof of the falsity of that doctrine. And this assumption is the main principle of the argument now before us. Egypt believed so and so about hades, therefore there is no hell. Virgil pictured out the infernal regions so and so, therefore hell is the offspring of imagination. It is really humiliating to notice such frivolous pratings. And I would not do it, were it not that my silence would be taken as constructive evidence of inability to answer, what may appear to the more ignorant of Mr. B.'s readers as beyond all the rest wise and learned.

Mr. B. admits that at the time when this parable was uttered, the “opinion prevailed among the Jews that there was torment in hades," and he will have it that Christ here speaks in accordance with popular opinions. But I ask, did our Lord suffer himself to assert positive error-to say that a man went to hell when there was no hell, and thus lend his authority to confirm his hearers in a statement which it is worth a life of. Mr. B.'s learned labors to refute. But Mr. B says repeatedly, that this was no sanction to error, no more than when he spoke of demons, satans, ghosts, &c. Thus he assumes that demons and satan were only imaginary beings, as though it were a given point, and then builds a weighty conclusion upon it. And to save appearances, he tucks on that word ghosts, as

though Christ had somewhere spoken of ghosts by the same principle of accommodation to popular opinions as of real beings. I hope in his Third Inquiry he will inform us where. But look at it. Mr. B. tells us that Christ's hearers believed that there was torment in hades, and yet that when Christ told them there was torment in hades, he was not liable to be understood as confirming the opinion that there was. Pray tell us how Christ's hearers could decide, on such principles, when' he intended to speak the truth and when he did not.

When Mr. B. comes to the question, what did our Lord mean to teach by so representing hades as a place of torment, he says "This question may be answered by what did he mean to teach when he spoke of demons and of satan as real beings?" Well, what did he mean to teach? I see not that this answers the question. But it is all the answer which our author gives, and we must be content with it.

We will turn our attention now to Mr. Whittemore's attempt to explain away this passage. His first position is, that "allowing the passage to be a literal account and not a parable, it fails altogether of substantiating either the doctrine of the Calvinists concerning election and reprobation, or of the Arminian doctrine, concerning rewards and punishments in the future state, for the conduct of men in this life." Very good. If any Calvinist ever came to this passage for proof of the doctrine of election, he certainly failed of finding it there. And if any Arminian frames any peculiar notions of his upon this passage, let him answer it to Mr. Whittemore.

He next says, "allowing the parable to be a literal account and not a parable, it does not prove that men are to be punished in the next life for their conduct in this, and that because the rich man tormented in hades was in some respects a good man." Then he goes on to prove, that the rich man was very benevolent and holy, by alledging that he fed Lazarus from the crumbs of his table, and that Lazarus was so pinched with hunger, that he "delighted" to be fed even with crumbs. He informs us by the way, that the word means delighted instead of desired. So much for his benevolence. And then as to his

holiness, that is proved by the fact, that he prayed to Abraham, that his brethren might be warned not to come to that place. He calls this the breathing of a holy feeling. But what holiness there is in praying to Father Abraham, and in dreading to have a man's torments aggravated by the presence of those who shared in his guilt, does not appear. Here are the proofs of the man's piety such as Mr. W. relies on to show that his torments were not on account of his wickedness. But one would think that his wish to have his brethren warned to shape their conduct so as not to come to that place of torment, is proof that he was convinced that his conduct brought him there and the not hearing Moses being brought in as the ground of their danger, would settle the question. What is it to hear and obey Moses and the prophets? Is not he a wicked man who refuses to hear? And then if conduct had no influence in bringing those torments, why should his brethren be warned lest they also come ?

Mr. W. tells us there were some with Abraham, who would go to the rich man, but could not. But the parable tells us no such thing. It does not say that there are any who wish to pass, but chooses a simple way of saying that there is a complete non-intercourse, and none could pass if they would. Equal force will be found in the following suggestions, that "hell cannot be so hot a place, as it has been represented, or the rich man would have called for more than a drop of water," and this, that the "devil could not be pleased to have so benevolent a prayer offered in his dark dominions." These are the reasonings on which men are invited to risk their eternal all-by which new and great light is pretended to be poured upon the holy Scriptures.

Our author's argument, constructed to show that the passage is a parable is useless, for we are ready to admit it. We conceive the same truths are inculcated by it whether it be narrative of real fact, or a parable. Take the parable of the sower which Christ himself interprets. He does not bring out the meaning through the question whether it was narrative or literal fact-whether such a sower went out and sowed in such

a way and compassed such results or not. But when he comes to the interpretation, he uses the story to illustrate his general truths, as if it were narrative of real life. This then, Christ himself being judge, is the proper way to interpret parables. Whether such a rich man and such a Lazarus lived and died and came to such ends, is immaterial. But we are to understand that the results of human conduct in the life and the state of men in the future life, are as this narrative in its essential features represents.

I make the limitation in the last clause with regard to essential features, for this is made in all interpretations of rhetorical imagery. A parable is never to be made (to use a homely yet technical phrase) "to run on all fours." When Lazarus is represented as in Abraham's bosom, we are not to understand a literal dwelling in a man's bosom. When the rich man is said to have lifted up his eyes and to put forth other bodily actions, these expressions argue no more against the fact, that the parable is descriptive of the condition of spirits in the spiritual world, than the use of bodily organs everywhere attributed to God, proves that God is not a spirit. These expressions are the proper results of the imperfections of human language and human conceptions, in relation to matters of the invisible world. But if this parable is interpreted according to the rules above stated, none can doubt of its bearings on the subject before us.

I now proceed to notice Mr. W.'s interpretation, in which he undertakes to tell us what the parable means. In order to give some air of plausibility to his statements, he pretends that the verse preceding the parable is related to it as its introduction. The verse is this-Whosoever putteth away his wife and marrieth another committeth adultery, and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery. Upon this our author thus remarks: "If the Jews had put away the law, and married another covenant before John came, they in a parabolic sense, would have committed adultery. For infinite wisdom ordained that the law should remain until John, and it ordained that it should remain no long

er. For since that time the kingdom of God is preached. The law was put away, it was fulfilled. The Jews by rejecting the gospel and adhering to the law, committed adultery, as would a man that should marry a woman that had been put away by her husband." Let no man after this despair of the solution of any problem in biblical interpretation! It seems, according to this, that the wife (the law) is put away not by the act of the husband, (the Jewish nation,) nor by her own act, but by that of a third person. And so put away that it is adultery even for her own husband, to receive her, after she had been forced from him. And that he commits adultery if he refuses to marry another, that is the new covenant. This is a strange

species of adultery. But not more strange than the original marriage. The Jewish nation it seems, was married to, not joined in or by a covenant, to another party-but married to a marriage covenant-took a marriage covenant for a wife. And this we are told is marriage and adultery in a parabolic sense. Parabolic sense! nay, arrant nonsense! Whether the man himself is a fool or whether he calculates upon all his readers being fools, I will not decide.

But as to the connexion of the parable with the preceding verse, Christ said, verse 16. The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of God is preached and every man presseth into it. That is, the Old Testament institutions were of force until John. But these now so far as inconsistent with,or as they have been fulfilled by,the introduction of the gospel, are no longer binding. But lest any should think that the eternal principles of God's law were to suffer mutilation, he adds, that it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail, so he gives them to understand that no essential principle of the moral law is repealed by abolishing the national ordinances and institutions of the Jews which had their end and fulfilment in the coming of Christ. And in the verse respecting adultery, he illustrates the case by a strong example. Moses desired to prevent all unnecessary divorces, but was unable to do it without a greater evil to the state, and so for the hardness of their hearts, he