Eternal death, which denotes the endless continuance of spiritual death, together with the torments occasioned by the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched. In which of these senses am I to understand the word death, when predicated of Christ in the scriptures? That Christ actually died on the cross in the first sense, there can be no doubt. But he thus died only in his human nature. But Mr. G. maintains that he died in his divine nature, or "in his ethereal substance," and that this is entirely different from the physical death which occurred on the cross. What was this death? Not spiritual death, for that would imply that he became a totally depraved being. Not eternal death, for no one supposes that Christ has become an eternal outcast from heaven, or that he suffered from the stings of a guilty conscience, or from the exercise of malignant passions, which make up a large proportion of the sufferings of the lost. The term death, therefore, as applied to Christ's divine nature, is not to be understood in any of its ordinary senses. What then, becomes of our author's rule for interpreting the language of scripture? "But," he says, "the Bible has imparted to the term death, a meaning unknown to the dictionaries of secular lore." And what is this meaning? Where is the passage of scripture which gives us the definition? For any such passage, we look in vain. That the term death is used in the scriptures to denote "physical decease," "the undying misery of the indestructible spirit," and a "death in trespasses and sins," our author admits; and he

does not adduce a text to prove that it is used in any other sense. Yet he is very sure that when the death of Christ is spoken of, the term is used in a sense entirely different from any of these. Consequently he departs from the rule which he has himself laid down for interpreting the language of the Bible.

But, says our author, "In the vocabulary of the Bible, death means penal suffering, corporeal, and incorporeal, temporal and eternal. It is the appropriate scriptural name of penal suffering, in all its infinite variety of modifications. It shadows forth the penal sufferings of lost souls, and as we believe, of fallen angels. Once, in the history of the universe, has penal suffering devolved on spotless purity. To express the penal suffering, borne by the Son of God, no new name was introduced into scriptural diction."

And have we at length obtained the scriptural definition of death, as applied to the divine nature of Christ? In what chapter and verse of the Bible is this definition found? Besides-Is there no penal suffering but death? What are fines and imprisonments, and scourgings, and all the various modes of torture which have been invented as punishments? Are they all to be denominated death? Death, it is true, is one kind of penal suffering; but penal suffering is no more the definition of death, than it is the definition of imprisonment. When the term death is used to denote a kind of punishment, it is always used in some one of the senses which have been specified. Let a single passage of scripture be pointed out, in

which penal suffering is called death, which does not mean natural, spiritual, or eternal death? That Christ did not suffer in his divine nature, spiritual or eternal death, has been shown. If then he suffered any other death, but the literal death which he endured on the cross, it must have been a kind of death unknown not only to every uninspired vocabulary," but to "the vocabulary of the Bible."

says,

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Mr. G. does not undertake to give us any definite account of this death. He supposes, indeed, that it cannot be described, or even conceived of by mortal man, and probably not by the highest archangel. He "The term death, or either of its synonymes, then, when applied in scripture to the Second Person of the Trinity, meant not to intimate the cessation of his existence even for a moment. It meant to shadow forth to the imagination, and impress on the heart, the image of those vicarious sufferings, equivalent in the estimate of sovereign grace, to the eternal death of the redeemed, which the uncreated Son endured for their redemption."

But if the word death, when applied to Christ, is used in a sense so different from its meaning in other parts of scripture, why have we not some intimation of the fact? In the many texts in which Christ's death is spoken of in the New Testament, is there any thing in the manner in which it is mentioned, which would lead us to suppose that it denotes, not only something different from all the kinds of death elsewhere mentioned in the scriptures, but something of which neither

man nor angel had a conception? If it denotes sufferings which could not be bodied forth, with distinctness, in words to be found in any human vocabulary, nor probably in the vocabulary of heaven" if, as our author Says, "the viewless recess in which were consummated the sufferings of the Prince of life in his ethereal essence, witnessed throes and spasms sufficient to have dissolved the material universe, had it not been upheld by the power of its agonized Creator"-I say if these things are so, why is scripture silent on the subject? Why does the pen of inspiration fail, where our author is so eloquent? The truth is, all those vivid representations which he has given us of the viewless, nameless, inconceivable sufferings of God, "in his ethereal essence," and of that cup of wrath, which Christ in his human nature "could no more have drank, than he could have quaffed an ocean of liquid fire," are the creatures of his own imagination. There are no such representations in the bible. And yet, again, and again, he tells us that his "argument asks nothing but belief in the declarations of the living God." Let him then give us some declarations of scripture, which are equivalent to those which I have just quoted from his book. Let him point us to a single text which asserts that Christ suffered any other death than that which he suffered in the flesh. Until he has done this, let him no longer claim, that he receives the Bible in its plain and obvious sense, and that those who do not adopt his views, convert it all into metaphor.

CHAPTER XII.

History of opinions in relation to the question under discussion. The views of the Patripassians-of Athanasius-of Apollinaris-of Eutyches, and the Monophysites. The theory of Mr. G. maintained by no respectable orthodox writer from the days of the Apostles till the nineteenth century. Alleged inconsistencies of those who maintain the commonly received doctrine. Extracts from sermons, and from hymns.

THE question brought forward by Mr. G., has never, so far as we are able to learn from ecclesiastical history, awakened much discussion in the christian church. Near the close of the second century, a small sect arose, called the Patripassians, who ascribed the passion or sufferings of Christ, to the Father; for they asserted the unity of God in such a manner as to destroy all distinctions of persons, and to make the Father and the Son precisely the same. This sect awakened but little interest, and soon disappeared. Their views were different from those maintained by Mr. G.; for they had no just ideas of the distinction of persons in the Godhead, or of the distinction of natures in the person of Christ.

In the fourth century, there were some who denied the "impassibility of God," and who maintained that Christ suffered in his divine nature. Who they were, or how numerous, or of what repute, we are not informed. Nor have we the means of ascertaining their pre