The acceptance of Abel's, and The rejection of Cain's offering. The mosaical rites. The scape goat, The paschal lamb, The blood of oxen. And above all, by the great sacrifice that these typify The death of Christ :-also from The words of the Apostle, "Without shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins." And that sentence is clearly death, as denounced against all, in the words, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;" and God removed "Adam from the tree of life, lest he should eat, and live for ever." It is death then; eternal death, through the Christian system, the second death, that is the inevitable fate of all that do not, in some degree, love God:-and all who do, under whatever dispensation, since they can do it only by the influence of his Holy Spirit,† may know that their capacity for immortality is renewed within them, through the general satisfacfaction made for sin, by the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Those who, in zeal for the Word of God, contend for an apparent meaning, namely, Eternal Torments, Death, as the consequence of Adam's disobedience, was not a mere judicial sentence to be executed at some future time; or, as is the case at human tribunals, liable to be remitted altogether, but a revelation of the nature of the thing; as simple a truism as this, that those who depart from the principle of life, so far quit life. + It may be necessary to remark here, that I only mean to assert, that where God's spirit is, there is life. though they thereby make the blood of Christ an unrighteous thing; for what they consider the literal meaning, though the letter worse than killeth, whilst the spirit giveth life; like the pharisees in our Saviour's time, make broad the borders of their garments and enlarge their phylacteries, whilst they disregard the weightier matters of the law; mercy, justice, and faith. Our Saviour uses various parables to illustrate the effect of receiving or rejecting the kingdom of heaven; and in all these, as the words of divine truth and wisdom, no christian can doubt that in the imagery every propriety will be observed; that the points of highest interest will be the most clearly exhibited; and since, if eternal, duration will be infinitely the most important point; so, this being uniformly omitted, the parables will be found to preach another doctrine than that of Eternal Torments. It will be very material to observe the distinction between the words of Him who knew all things, and to whom God gave not his spirit by measure, and those of any mortal not under immediate inspiration. By our Saviour, the real nature of man, and the ultimate consequence of his actions, were more clearly discerned than the connection of the most familiar cause and effect is by us :-He sees and speaks of things that are not as though they were, and, in conformity to this idea, He says, "To know me is life eternal," although the sleep of death must intervene therefore, when he threatens exclusion from the marriage feast, to make us dread to incur it, it must be the worst that can befal us, or more would have been expressed. The first parable in St. Matthew is that of the D sower. The seed is his tender of life immortal, which, from various causes, proves unfruitful; in some cases it is caught away by the wicked one, and those who have it and part from it, lose the kingdom, but no hint beyond this: some receive the word with joy, but bye and bye they are offended, and in them, not having root, it withereth away; a poor emblem of eternity. Another receiveth seed among thorns, and he, being unfruitful, obtaineth no entrance into the kingdom. There is no other essential difference noted between those that fall away and those that persevere, than that in one, their nature prevails unto death; in the other, grace unto life. The seed fails three ways, and in each brings forth no fruit: no hint is given that it produces poison, or any thing noxious. Being under the sentence of death, as the children of Adam, the loss of the immortality offered us is beyond comparison the most interesting circumstance; but if the rejection ensured an eternity of misery, that would be in a much higher degree the object of interest: now, our Saviour omitting to notice it, by the rule mentioned above this parable tacitly excludes the doctrine. In the parable of the wheat and the tares, the householder he will direct the reapers to gather first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn says, them; but the wheat into his barn. This is surely represented to us under a familiar figure, that we may understand it. The tares are destroyed with fire, because worthless, as are the wicked, not piled in store houses to shew as trophies which God had gained from the enemy: and here it may be remarked, if any one should doubt the complete 66 analogy between the kingdom of nature (wherein nothing is preserved after it has fulfilled the purpose for which it was created) and that of grace-from life being continued to those who are apparently past reformation-that this parable illustrates it; Nay, lest whilst ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them."-In the explanation of this parable, our Saviour says, that the angels shall gather the wicked, and cast them into a furnace of fire; "There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."*-Here again is no allusion to duration, infinitely the most important point of view; but imagery is used, of great force and propriety as exhibiting the feelings of the banished, but ridiculously weak if you add eternity to it. Fancy, if you can for a moment, that the great and good God can take pleasure in protracting existence to his creatures, in order that they may be eternally wailing and gnashing their teeth; or fancy, if you can, that His creatures can behold Him, whom they have contemned and set at nought, come in His glory, with all His holy angels, to receive the blessed into His kingdom, from which their crimes will have excluded them; and that their eyes will not gush out with water, and if their heart strings crack not, that they will not gnash with their teeth. * The application of wailing and gnashing of teeth to the day of judgment is plainly made and confined thereto by our Saviour, in the 13th Chap. of St. Luke, 28th and following verses. "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; when ye shall see Abraham, &c. in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." And in the marriage of the king's son, the reason assigned for the weeping, &c. is that "but few are chosen," which must apply to the time of the choice. The same chapter contains yet another parable, of a net cast into the sea, which, when full, being drawn to shore, they gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. Can any similitude more forcibly express that no further purposes are included in the divine economy, to which the wicked can be subservient, and that casting them into the furnace of fire, is casting them away, as men throw that to the all-devouring ocean which they have no motive to retain ? From the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, it appears that there is no essential difference between those called early in the morning and those in the cleventh hour; yet if the latter had not hearkened then, they must have remained in their sins, whilst the former are admitted into heaven. This is conceivable if we suppose they were consumed as tares taken from among the wheat, but not if we suppose Eternal Torments, and Eternal Blessedness, with so slight a shade of difference. The lord of the vineyard says, "Is it uot lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" Who shall say God cannot so far forgive the sins of the impenitent, as to dismiss them from further suffering when their probation is ended? "Is thine eye evil, because I am good?" "Two shall be grinding at a mill, the one shall be taken and the other left "—that is, left in his sins, to his natural fate. We ask forgiveness, and we expect to be forgiven our companion goes on doing what we were doing, and we sentence him to Everlasting Torment. The next parable is that of the merciless servant, who having obtained his sovereign's pardon of a very |