conveys the idea of the terrible unknown. It appears difficult to make the second death, if literal, harmonise with the description given of it in the book of Revelation; we find death and hades are cast into the lake of fire, but if the second death be really a literal destruction, how can the inhabitants of hades be tormented?yet this lake of fire into which they are cast is called the second death, and it is said in Rev. xx. 10, "to be tormented day and night, for ever and ever." Vitringa says upon this passage, -the temporal death will be exchanged for eternal death,—“ Qualis est status opprobrii tristitiæ, malæ conscientiæ, desperationis, cum invidia et odio in Deum et sanctos conjunctæ . . . . omni vera consolatione et spe meliorum temporum cassi, triste agent ævum, quod nulla terminabunt secula." This description of the second death accords with the idea of sufferings most intense; which appear to be expressed by the word torment, and described by a figure which, perhaps, of all others, gives us the idea of most dreadful pain; now if figures are intended to convey some moral ideas, we can come to no other conclusion but that the wicked will suffer eternally, and that the second death, instead of being literally the annihilation of the soul, is but a bold figure to describe the utter loss of everything which renders mental and moral life valuable. It is not a little surprising how men imagine that the topic which deeply engages their attention, has not been much investigated by others; but this is a little piece of self-flattery. Errors have their cycles, and there really is no new error, nor any new argument to support it. In reference to this doctrine of eternal punishment, it is hinted that "teachers of religion have not instituted a search into the foundations of a doctrine supposed to lie at the basis of all religious truth." Surely this is a misapprehension. What! did the man who wrote the splendid sermon, "The wicked shall be turned into hell," did Howe not search? Did Bates not search, when he wrote his Four Last Things? Did Bolton not search, when he maintained this doctrine in the same train of subjects? Did Edwards not search, when he wrote on the " Eternity of Hell Torments?" We hardly do the ancients justice, in supposing our researches are so much greater, and so much more intelligent than theirs. These names are sufficient to show that this awful subject was not believed by persons of feeble intellect, but by those who had an enlightened reverence for the word of God. In affixing the idea of literal death to the second death, is it not just as reasonable to affix the idea of perpetuity to punishment when we find the term everlasting; and especially as the latter can with difficulty be converted into a figure without doing away with punishment altogether, while the former seems rather to have the aspect of figure than to furnish a positive idea of the nature of that punishment which awaits the ungodly. "In proportion (says a writer in the Eclectic' *) to the infinite moment of revealed truth, is the importance of adhering to the principle that inspired persons spoke and wrote under the presumption that they should be heard and read as other men are heard and read: so that when they employ mere uncompounded forms of speech, which are ordinarily understood to convey an absolute sense, they also shall be allowed to intend an absolute sense. He who informs us of an intelligible fact in customary terms, has a right, on the strength of his credibility, to be exempt from an etymological scrutiny of the words he employs. A person of grave character assures us, that he has witnessed a shipwreck, and that the people on board were lost. But the word lost, it may be argued, primarily signifies, not found; and, therefore, the statement may only mean, that the crew were cast upon the shore of some distant country, from whence it is probable they will find an opportunity of returning to their homes. They are thus relatively lost to their country and friends. Or lost may mean, distressed, undone, ruined in their affairs; and so nothing more, after all, may be affirmed concerning them, than that they escaped from the sea with their bare lives. At any rate, when there is this acknowledged ambiguity in the sense of the term, where it may bear a more favourable construction, is it not the symptom of a malignant complacency in misfortune needlessly to apply to it so harsh an import, as to conclude, that these unhappy persons were literally and irrecoverably drowned? If the common-place criticism amounts to anything better than such trifling in truth, it escapes our apprehension." We cannot dismiss this article without cautioning the rising ministry, especially, not too easily to indulge in speculations upon the great doctrines of revealed truth; nor if a subject be of doubtful disputation in their own minds, to bring it into the pulpit, and so gradually loosen the hold which the great doctrines of the Gospel should have on the hearts of the people. REVIEWS. 1. The Antiquities of the Christian Church. Translated and Compiled from the Works of Augusti; with numerous additions from Rheinwald, Siegel, and others. By the Rev. Lyman Coleman. London: Ward and Co. Med. 8vo. pp. 224. 2. A Church without a Prelate. The Apostolical and Primitive Church Popular in its Government, and Simple in its Worship. By Lyman Coleman. With an Introductory Essay by Dr. Augustus Neander. London Ward and Co. Med. 8vo. pp. 120. : 3. Church Principles Considered in their Results. By W. E. Gladstone, Esq., late Student of Christchurch, and M.P. for Newark. London: Murray; Hatchard and Son. 8vo. pp. 562. (Concluded from page 445.) To a careful reader of our two authors, it will be further obvious that Mr. Gladstone does not deal fairly by his opponents. He asserts and proposes to show, the great superiority of these church principles over those of his opponents, and especially over those of the Calvinists or Independents. But if Mr. Coleman is trustworthy, the principles attributed to them, they never held,—either during the first three centuries or now. He charges us, for instance, with reducing the Christian doctrine to the standard and measure of the human understanding; with divorcing the affections from the reason, and the body from the soul, and thus debasing the former from their place in religion; with holding that each particular congregation is, in the strictest and highest sense, a church, ought to acknowledge on earth no authority superior to its own, and in its relations with other churches, to behave itself as a sovereign and independent power; with regarding the sacraments as appropriate signs or figures merely, addressing themselves to man in the way of extrinsic motive alone; and with lightly esteeming alike the order and validity of the Christian ministry. Now these representations are either altogether erroneous, or greatly defective; they are not our sentiments; and those that come nearest to the truth require such modifications or additions as quite to change their character. Nothing is easier than to confute an opponent when you have misre presented him; but the victory gained over a man of straw earns no laurels, and we are entitled unceremoniously to pluck Mr. Gladstone's from his brow. Again, Mr. G. derives no small advantage from an ingenious device. He claims in behalf of his principles the consent of all antiquity; and takes their existence in the church, unquestioned for eighteen centuries, as conclusive evidence of their truth. But we deny both this consent and this long unquestioned prevalence of his views. Mr. Coleman has clearly shown that for three centuries no such principles were generally adopted. And if then they began to receive form and shape,—if gradually they became established, and during the succeeding 1300 years held rule,—what if that period was a period of corruption? And we affirm not only that it was so; but that the heresy that arose, on those very points, constituted the worst part of that corruption. We have yet to learn that error becomes truth by long establishment; accordingly, in spite of Nicene councils or Tridentine decrees, we demur to the church's testimony during this period of her apostacy; we condemn the device of Mr. Gladstone to enlist the sympathies of men on his side by the imposing plea of a venerable antiquity; and would remind him, that with the finding of the key of knowledge, and of the freedom of thought, these principles were resolutely assailed and their opposites affirmed. There is another source of illusion to Mr. G.: he gives, as the necessary marks of the true church, unity, visibility, &c. Not only, however, does he omit some important features, as soundness of doctrine, and require a unity and an authority of such a kind as cannot exist and ought not to be expected; he also confounds what ought to be with what is; and treats as an existing substantial thing, what cannot at present be found. We grant that the church should be one; and that the unity designed by the Redeemer is not spiritual and invisible, merely, (though this is by far the more important kind,) but outward and apparent also. It is not such, however, as to require a visible Head, or to imply uniformity and authority. The conditions of our Lord's most beautiful petition would, we apprehend, be completely fulfilled by such an agreement of sentiment among his disciples, and such a spirit of love as should make it manifest at once and to all, that whatever minor variations there might be, arising out of national peculiarities, or whatever differences of opinion on minor and undetermined topics, it was one and the same church, of one and the same adorable Head and Lord. This would be a catholicity, not answering indeed to Mr. G.'s expectations, but very different from any now to be found, and corresponding alike with possibility and truth. And it is worthy of observation that there once was a unity like this; that it might have been preserved and have existed now in all its beauty and strength. But it has been lost through the long dominion of the man of sin. The church has been kept every member has been known to the great Head, though often they have not known each other. So that spiritually, and in the highest sense really, though not manifestly, it has been one: but now, for fifteen centuries, have men looked in vain for that holy, catholic, and apostolic church, which shall convince the world of the Divine mission of Jesus Christ. But again it shall be one; and if, instead of dwelling on what is not, Mr. G. and his party were earnestly bent on the restoration of this lost and graceful ornament of the body of Christ, they would do good service to the cause of truth; they would soon find, among those they now denounce as heretics and schismatics, many a genuine disciple; and the discovery would abate that arrogant and bitter exclusiveness they too commonly display. Should Mr. G. object to these views, and still insist that such church, although she may have "lost that original beauty and harmony of form that adorned her youth," is still manifest and visible; we are then tempted to ask for a definition of the term-What is this church? Who compose it? Where is the seat of its authority? How may we know its voice and recognise its form? It cannot include all the faithful of past ages, as well as of the present, for that would not be the visible church. It cannot embrace all the members of Christ on earth, at any given moment; for they, though visible, have not unity, -are not one body. Nor can it mean all who take certain views of the sacraments,-those, for instance, taken by our author himself; for whilst these are in the same predicament, and are to be found in various communities, this definition would exclude a large portion, both of the clergy and laity of the Church of England itself, who entirely reject sacramentarian notions. Does this church, then, include "the whole number of the baptized, wherever found, and to whatever communion belonging, over the whole face of the globe?"—"The general mass of those who profess and call themselves Christians?" The clever author of "Essays on the Church," himself a stout defender of the English Establishment, whilst he admits that this is one of the senses attached to the term in common parlance, has no very high opinion of this body; and tells us that it is "animated, in the proportion of at least nineteen-twentieths, with the most deadly hatred to Christ and his true disciples." And he declares, that "to take its decisions, or even the decisions of its priesthood, on any question of faith or practice, would be to leave to the wolves the disposal of the sheep," &c., pp. 23, 25. Pretty strong language, this; and yet such would seem to be Mr. Gladstone's church. This is obvious from his remarks, pp. 113, 405, where he speaks of its "mixed character," and describes it as composed "partly of conscientious and partly of unfaithful members, with a great ostensible preponderance of the latter." First, then, we remark that here is Seeley versus Gladstone; and we want to know which we are to follow. If Mr. Gladstone, then, Secondly, we must express, strongly, our astonishment, that any man |