able other predictions of a similar kind;-all intended and calculated to forewarn them of that fate which, notwithstanding the anticipations of their own vain minds, and the delusive hopes cherished and fostered by their rulers, a perseverance in opposition to Jesus as the Messiah would inevitably bring down upon them. But all was in vain. Israel, in spite of the prophetic denunciations contained in Deuteronomy, and other parts of those writings which were every Sabbath day read in his synagogues-which denunciations were frequently and fearfully explained as applicable to his own case by the Lord of glory-rushed on blindfold in his infatuated career, filling up the measure of his iniquities, until, in due time, his destiny was accomplished. Then, in a most obvious and undeniable sense, was there to him the day of judgment.

Let it not be alleged, that the language of the New Testament concerning a future judgment is of too strong and unqualified a nature to admit of being applied, even in a primary sense, to any event, or series of events, which could happen in this present world, To argue thus is clearly to beg the question. It does not imply a calm and dispassionate examination of the passages of the New Testament, where the disputed phrases are to be found; nor a comparison of them with those Old Testament prophecies, from which they have been taken; but the mere influence of vulgar prejudices and prepossessions. Let the 66th chapter of Isaiah, where the expressions concerning the undying worm and the unquenchable fire first occur, be candidly examined,

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and the calling of the Gentiles, and the rejection of the Jews, will be discovered to be the topics of which it treats primarily throughout. To the incredulous, the close of the 10th chapter of the epistle to the Romans is proposed, as affording a solution of all the difficulties in the 66th as well as in the preceding chapter of Isaiah. Should any enquire, in what respects was the judgment executed upon the Jewish nation more awful and intolerable, than that which Sodom and Gomorrah and the other cities of the plain underwent ?-the answer is obvious:-not merely were the external sufferings of the former distinguished by peculiar intensity at the period of Jerusalem's destruction, but their punishment has been, in some respects, of a kind quite unparalleled; they have forfeited privileges such as no other nation ever possessed; Psalm cxlvii. 20; and, instead of being destroyed or blended with the inhabitants of surrounding countries as has uniformly happened in similar cases, they have, by special divine interposition, been preserved a distinct and separate people; and shall continue to be so, that their punishment may be, and may be shewn to be, coeval with time itself. Great as were the advantages which Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, enjoyed, while in the height of their opulence and splendour, these advantages were merely of a secular kind: but it was from religious and spiritual privileges, so important as to occasion the Saviour to say concerning them that they exalted their possessors to heaven, that the Jews were thrust out. Besides, Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, although

for the time signal examples of the vengeance of the Almighty, sustained the whole weight of that vengeance at once ;—the divine wrath in regard to them was speedily exhausted :-but the Jewish nation, while time rolls on, shall be kept in existence as monuments of the divine displeasure-shall continue to be an astonishment, and a proverb, and a bye-word among all nations, whither the Lord shall lead them. Say you, that punishment, so signal and so tremendous as this, is unworthy of being denounced in the energetic expressions of the Old Testament prophets and our blessed Lord? Blind, indeed, must that man be, who, in the vengeance inflicted on the Jewish nation, cannot discern the primary sense of their accomplishment.

Still, perhaps, objectors remain unsatisfied. "As the apostle Paul," say they, "in more than one passage of his writings speaks of our all appearing, or standing, at the judgment seat of Christ, how is such language to be reconciled with your theory that, in their primary sense, the judgment and punishment mentioned in the New Testament scriptures are confined to this present life ?" Nothing can be easier. If the xlvth chapter of Isaiah, from the 22d verse to the end, (which clearly appears, by consulting Rom: xiv. 1012, and Philip: ii. 9-11, to be the passage of the Old Testament from which the expression in question is derived), be examined and carefully considered, it will be perceived, that the prophet is speaking primarily, not of what is to happen in a state of existence succeeding the present, but of what was to occur in a then

future dispensation; that is, in New Testament times, and under the reign of the Messiah. I thus most cheerfully admit, that the words of Isaiah are expressive of futurity: but I deny,-and I defy any man, from what appears on the face of the record itself, to disprove my denial, that the futurity, of which they primarily speak, lies beyond the boundaries of this present life. The view which I have given of this Old Testament passage, completely accords with the apostolic application of it. In the first place, although Paul, in the xivth chapter of the Romans, and the vth chapter of 2d Corinthians, speaks of standing at Christ's judgment seat as an event which was then future, he does not, in either of the passages referred to, employ a single expression from which it is necessarily to be inferred, that the only trihunal or judgment seat to which it alludes, is one which is to be set up when this present world shall have come to an end. In the second place, he does not say, as careless and superficial readers and even grave divines have supposed, that the whole human race are to stand at Christ's judgment-seat; but that we, or all we, that is, in the primary sense of the terms, all of us Jews and Gentile proselytes-for it is to such only he is writing, and of such only he is speaking-shall do so. In the third place, the nature and scope of the contexts in Romans, 2d Corinthians, and Philippians, leads us at once to the sense in which the apostle quotes and applies the words of the prophet. During the subsistence of the former dispensation or economy, Moses was the sole legislator of the Church; or, in other words,

during the whole of that period he occupied the judgment seat, Mattw. xxiii. 2, and to his laws and authority the whole Israel of God was subject and amenable. The dignity thus conferred on him he was to retain, until his dispensation, which by visible and immediate divine interposition had been established, should by the same divine interposition be overturned. This latter event, however, at the time when the Apostle wrote, had not taken place;-it was then future;—and as a large proportion of the Christian communities, then in existence, were the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh, their outward subjection to the Mosaic Law, from which they did not find themselves yet delivered, interfered in a great measure with their freedom as New Testament believers; Acts xv, throughout; xxi. 20-26;—prevented the full enjoyment of those privileges, which were destined for them in common with the other members of Christ's mystical body; Hebrews throughout;-and caused them to groan, from the burthensome and oppressive nature of the yoke which, for a time, it behoved them to bear. Mattw. xi. 28-30; Acts xv. 10; Rom. vii. 24. To the period of their emancipation from this state of thraldom, the apostle frequently encourages Jewish believers to look forward. They were then subject externally to the authority of Moses; but that authority was drawing near to its termination, and they were soon to become exclusively the subjects of the Messiah. Jerusalem and the Jewish nation, they are `often reminded, were fast filling up the measure of their iniquities; 1 Thessal. ii. 14-16;—the Mosaic dispen