they expected in a very little time. The spirits of the departed are then to come forth and meet the living at the judgment seat, where all will have an impartial trial; from which the righteous will be received up into heaven, a place located somewhere in the sky, beyond the shining expanse above us, and the region of the stars; while the wicked will be remanded to their Tartarean prison, to be confined there forever. Such was the mythology of the apostles and primitive Christians respecting the state and prospects of the dead; and, what is more, Christ himself inculcated the same views; although Mr. Alger charitably thinks that he knew better, and that his language may be so spiritualized, so divested of its oriental cast and imagery, as to teach the true doctrine. Further down in the history of the Christian church, when the coming of Christ had been long delayed, the received mythology was somewhat changed. The martyrs and more eminent saints, when they died, were received at once to heaven; while the under-world became a purgatory, from which there were various methods of deliverance.

The views here presented show what must have been the theory of the apostles and early Christians as to the doctrine of redemption by Christ. It was not what the Unitarians represent, viz. that of a mere moral, recovering influence. This by no means comes up to the language of the sacred writers. Neither was it what the orthodox representan expiation, an atonement, on the ground of which pardon could be extended to transgressors. But it consisted in Christ's going into the under-world, and proclaiming deliverance to the prisoners there; and in his bringing them forth to judgment, and receiving his approved people to mansions in the skies.

But

Some of Mr. Alger's readers may have supposed that this was his own view as to the work of salvation by Christ, and that he had really made an advance upon the commonly received doctrine of the Unitarians. it is not so. Mr. Alger no more accepts what he sets forth as the doctrine of the apostles on this subject, than he does the extremest doctrine of the orthodox. It is all mythology with him; and what he has written is but a history of the Christian myths.

Will it be asked, then, what does Mr. Alger believe? He has given us his creed in plain terms; and it is the merest naturalism in the world; far short of the platform of Lord Herbert, and most of the old English infidels. The good will be happy in the future world, simply because they are good; and the wicked will be unhappy for like reason, though not forever. The doctrine of endless misery, though taught by Plato, and by our author's favorite prophet Swedenborg, he of all things most abominates. "A hell of fire and brimstone," to use his own elegant language, "is the great rawhead and bloody-bones in the superstition of the world."

Respecting the proper resurrection of Christ, Mr. Alger is not so explicit as on some other points. That he appeared in spirit to his disciples on and after the third day, he has no doubt; but that his dead body was raised to life he does not believe. "We maintain," says he, " that the essential fact in this historic act is not the resurrection of the dead body, but the celestial

reception of the deathless spirit." What became of the dead body he does not say; nor does he attempt to explain what Christ said to his doubting disciples: "Handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (Luke xxiv. 39).

Mr. Alger discards from his theology almost every doctrine that is peculiar to Christianity: the inspiration and truth of the scriptures; the divinity and atonement of Christ; the fall and ruin of man; his need of regeneration and justification; the resurrection of the body, and a general judgment. Indeed, he avows himself a rationalist; and says, that "this position is, in logical necessity, and, as a general thing, in fact, that of the large though loosely-cohering body of believers, known as Liberal Christians." Whether "Liberal Christians" will thank him for this avowal remains to be seen. He has no doubt that the whole world is yet to subside into Rationalism, and find its millennium there.

What are known as the doctrines of evangelical religion, Mr. Alger treats always with unfairness, and often with the greatest rudeness. He perverts them, frequently caricatures them, and turns them into ridicule; and then seems to fancy that he has demolished them forever. And yet, for some reason, they continue to live, and constitute the endeared faith of a vast majority of the Protestant Christian world.

The use which is made, in the volume before us, of the doctrine of an intermediate place, the under-world, the abode of the departed immediately after death, leads us to say a few words, in closing, on that particular topic. Mr. Alger represents it as the doctrine of the Bible - the Old Testament and the New that there is such a place, into which the souls of all men, the good and the bad, descend at death, awaiting a deliverance in the final resurrection. To be sure, he has no faith in the doctrine himself. It is to him a myth; and on this point we fully agree with him. But we entirely disagree as to the fact that the sacred writers teach any such doctrine. Primarily, the of the Old Testament signifies the grave, and is so rendered in many scriptures: "Ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave” (Gen. xlii. 38). "The Lord killeth, and he maketh alive; he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up" (1 Sam. ii. 6). David charged Solomon concerning Joab: "Thou shalt not let his hoary head go down to the grave in peace" (1 Kings ii. 6). Job says: “Oh that thou wouldst hide me in the grave!" "If I wait, the grave is my house." "They shall go down to the bars of the grave, when our rest together is in the dust" (Job xiv. 13, xvii. 13, 16). Such is the primary use of the word in question, as it occurs in the Old Testament. But as the grave is regarded by most persons, and was especially so by the ancients, with awe and dread, as being the realm of gloom and darkness, so the word denoting it soon came to be applied to that more dark and miserable world which is to be the abode of the wicked forever. Numerous passages to this effect may be quoted from the Old Testament. "A fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn to the lowest hell" (Deut. xxxii. 22). "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art

there" (Ps. cxxxix. 8). “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God" (Ps. ix. 17). The hell here spoken of certainly is not the grave, nor any other place, in this world or the next, into which the righteous go. It is the place prepared for the future abode of the wicked, and for them exclusively. In other words, it is hell. And so in the following passages: "Thou shalt beat him," the unruly child, " with a rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell"; not from the grave certainly, nor from the future abode of the righteous, but from hell (Prov. xxiii. 14).

In the New Testament, ons is used much as 5 is in the Old, except that in a less proportion of cases it signifies the grave. Still, there are instances in which the word is used in this sense; as "O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory!" In general, however, the ons of the New Testatemnt is no other than the world of future misery. "Thou Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell" (Matt. xi. 23). "On this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. xvi. 18). In hell, the rich man "lifted up his eyes, being in torment" (Luke xvi. 23).

Neither nor ons is ever used in scripture to signify the abode of the spirits of the just. In opposition to this statement, a single passage is refurred to. David says: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption " (Ps. xvi. 10). The apostle Peter, having quoted this passage and applied it to Christ, goes on to assure us that David here "spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption" (Acts ii. 31). We have then, in this verse, a poetical prediction of the resurrection of Christ from the tomb, and of nothing else. The prediction is expressed after the ususal manner of the Hebrews, in a parallelism, the plain import of which is, that Christ should be raised from the dead, and raised speedily. His life was not to be left in the grave; his flesh was not to see corruption. The original words in this passage properly signify the grave, and not the world of future spirits. In this interpretation, we are sustained by eminent critics, some of whom are advocates of the intermediate place.

As this passage is the only one on which the semblance of an argument can be founded that the words in question are ever used in the scriptures to denote the world of happy spirits; and since, properly interpreted, they have no such signification here; we are warranted in affirming that they have it nowhere. They signify the grave, the place of the dead body, and also the world of miserable spirits; but never the future abode of the righteous.

On the contrary, the scriptures represent the holy dead as going at once to heaven, and as dwelling with Christ in heaven. Thus, our Saviour said to the dying thief: "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise;" which, in the estimation of Paul, was but a synonyme of heaven "the third heaven"

1 The Hebrew word here translated soul,, properly signifies breath, life, the vital principle.

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(see 2 Cor. xii. 2, 4). Stephen, too, just before his death, saw the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." And he prayed and said: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (Acts vii. 56, 59). Who can believe that this prayer was rejected, and that Stephen, instead of being received up to heaven, was sent down to äons, to remain there till the judgment day?

The apostle Paul represents the whole church of God as being, at present, either in heaven or on earth. "Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named" (Eph. iii. 15). How is this representation to be reconciled with the idea that the greater part of God's redeemed family are now neither in heaven nor on earth, but in the dark and secluded prison of embodied souls? In several other passages of Paul's Epistles, the souls of believers are represented as being with Christ in heaven: "We know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (2 Cor. v. 1). "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better" (Phil. i. 23). We are taught also in the Epistle to the Hebrews that in the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, there dwelt, not only God the Judge of all, and Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and an innumerable company of angels, but the spirits of just men made perfect (ch. xii. 21 – 24). And when the heavens were opened to the beloved John, he saw, in repeated i stances, vast multitudes of these redeemed spirits, standing before the throne of God and the Lamb, and heard them singing a new song, which no beings in heaven could sing except themselves.1

But we will not pursue the subject further. We regard the theory of an intermediate place, an under-world, into which both the righteous and the wicked descend at death, of which Mr. Alger has so much to say, and which some sounder divines have incautiously adopted, as one having no real foundation or countenance in the oracles of God. The doctrine is of heathen and not Christian origin; one better becoming a believer in the mythology of Greece and Rome, than a disciple of the Saviour. We regard it, too, as of dangerous influence. Should it be generally received by Christians, it would be followed in a few years, if not by the infidelity of American and German Rationalists, yet with prayers for the dead, with the doctrine of a future probation and restoration, and with all the superstitions of purgatory. This is the course which the error took in the ancient church, and there is every reason for supposing that it would take the same again. Let, then, the believers of God's truth beware - obsta principiis.

By far the more important part of the volume before us is the bibliography with which it closes. This has been compiled, with immense labor and fidelity, by Mr. Abbot, and will be a great help to those who may be called to investigate the doctrine of a future life.

1 See chapters v. 9, vi. 9, vii. 9, and xiv. 1–3.

DR. NAST'S COMMENTARY ON the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.' This large and solidly-printed volume is from the pen of a gentleman, who, once a Tübingen student, a classmate of Strauss, and sharing his views, was, after his removal to this country, brought to a hearty reception of the gospel, not as a myth, but as it is in truth, the word of God; and who is now an eminent minister of the Methodist Episcopal church. The titlepage of the volume accurately describes its plan and purpose. Though the author is a German, and a man of German learning, it is evident from the whole tone of his work that he is entirely free from an exaggerated estimate of the results of modern exegetical researches; at the same time he cannot but be sensible that the auxiliaries of biblical study accessible to the general Christian public, have, up to the present time, been for the most part founded on the comparatively scanty researches of a former generation, and adapted to the modes of thinking and aspects of controversy then prevailing. He has a just understanding of the great value of the mine of biblical learning opened since that period, especially in his native country, and recognizing the fact, which no one but the most conceited of Anglo-Saxons can deny, that in biblical science the English world has become secondary to the German, and that the most formidable attacks, upon the truths of the Christian records, as well as the ablest defences of them, are for the most part of German origin, he justly believes that the time has come to make accessible to the public at large the chief points of those rich results of devout learning which have hitherto been only sparingly shared even by the clergy of the United States. At the same time, he is very far from confining himself to the labors of German authors. He quotes very extensively from all the writers, English and American, who have won for themselves a good name in sacred literature. His aim, in short, is to communicate to the general reader the interpretation and vindication of the records of our faith in such a form as shall embrace all the results that have been secured in the past, and shall at the same time be adapted to the special necessities of the present. The work thus prepared has a very fair amount of intrinsic merit. The author is a man of competent learning, a sound judgment, a broad and liberal spirit, and a firm and living faith. The labors of such a man, if applied to such an end as that proposed by him, cannot but be profitable to his fellow Christians.

The plan of the work is one which evinces a self-denying humility in the author, who is content to postpone his own fame to the profit of his fellow believers. Instead of aiming to have his commentary homogeneous, by

1 A Commentary on the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical; embodying, for popular use and edification, the results of German and English Exegetical Literature, and designed to meet the Difficulties of Modern Scepticism. With a General Introduction, treating of the Genuineness, Authenticity, Historic Verity, and Inspiration of the Gospel Records, and of the Harmony and Chronology of the Gospel History. By William Nast, D.D. 8vo. pp. 760. Cincinnati: Poe and Hitchcock. 1864.