and had applied the term Gehenna, as a name to it, by consigning over all the Gentiles to its punishment, and exempting themselves, their hatred of them and also their own self-love was gratified; yea, by this they blinded their own eyes, as to the punishment of Gehenna, threatened them by their own prophets.

But there is one important question on this subject to which we ought to turn our attention. It is this. Is it. certain that our Lord, in the New Testament, when he used the term Gehenna or hell, used it in the sense it has in the Targums, and not in the sense in which it is used in the Old Testament? To decide this question is to put the subject at rest.

It is very evident that Dr. Campbell, Parkhurst and Whitby take it for granted that our Lord did use the term Gehenna as it is used by the writers of the Targums and Apocrypha, to signify a place of eternal punishment for the wicked. They seem to speak about this, as if it could not, and ought not to be questioned; yet all they advance in proof, is bare assertion. They proceed upon the presumption, that this is indisputable, and entirely overlook, what we have proved to be a fact, that the term Gehenna is used in the Old Testament as an emblem of the temporal punishment which God was to bring on the Jewish nation. Had those men turned their attention to this, they would have given us a very different account of Gehenna, and not referred us to the Targums and the Apocrypha.

Considerable evidence has already been produced, showing, that our Lord used the term Gehenna in the sense Jeremiah did when he predicted the temporal punishment of the Jews. All the passages where Gehenna occurs agree with this view. It has been shown that in the only place where our Lord threatened the Jews with the damnation of hell, he evidently referred to the temporal pun

ishment of the Jews, and the very same punishment which Jeremiah had predicted. Besides, facts have been stated, which not only confirm this, but which are irreconcilable with supposing that our Lord meant by Gehenna a place of endless punishment. That our Lord had no reference to the Targums and the Apocrypha, as the above writers would have us believe, but that he used the term Gehenna as it was used in the scriptures of the Old Testament, as an emblem to describe the temporal punishment of the Jews, we submit for candid consideration the following additional remarks.

1st, The Old Testament closes with a solemn injunction to the Jews, to give heed to the law of Moses, until Elijah or John the Baptist should come. Four hundred years were to elapse before he should appear; and to the scriptures Malachi directs them to give attention. But does he, or any other prophet enjoin on them to give attention to the Targums? No man will affirm this. But why not if such writings were to teach them that Gehenna or hell was a place of endless misery for the wicked? Without any such injunction, the Jews did give heed to such kind of teachers, until they made God's law void through their traditions.

2d, Jesus Christ said to the Jews, "search the scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they which testify of me." But did he ever say "search the Targums, because they testified of him or of Gehenna's being a place of endless misery?" But why was this not done, seeing it was from them and not from the Old Testament, that they could learn such a doctrine. It is allowed that the Old Testament did not teach any thing about Gehenna as a place of future eternal punishment. If he meant to recognize such writings, we think he certainly would have done it. But so far from doing

this, he reproved the Jews for holding the tradition of the elders, and said, " in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments, of men." Was this like paying any regard to the Targums or the Apocrypha? Did this look like sanctioning their sense of Gehenna? No man, we think, will say so.

Our Lord, in speaking about Gehenna, quoted the Old Testament. But did he ever quote it to prove that Gehenna was a place of endless misery? He could not do so, for it did not teach this. Why then did he not quote the Targums which did teach it? Why did he not avail himself of their authority to enforce this doctrine on the Jews if it was true? The Jews were strongly attached both to the Targums and the writers of them. What an excellent opportunity he here missed of enforcing this doctrine, if he believed it true, by availing himself of the authority of those writers and the prejudices of the Jews in favor of them. Instances could be adduced where our Lord availed himself of the acknowledged principles of the Jews to enforce his doctrine but about this we never find that he did so. If he and the writers of the Targums were of one mind about Gehenna's being a place of endless misery, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to show why he did not reason with the Jews about this on their own received principles. This is a mode of convincing people which all men avail themselves of. The apostle availed himself of a heathen poet to convince men of idolatry, and is it to be supposed that our Lord would not have availed himself of the doctrine taught in the Targums to convince the Jews that they were exposed to eternal punishment in Gehenna, if he believed this doctrine true?

It should almost seem from his conduct that he believed no Jew could go to hell, and that this was the reason he said so little about it to them. If he agreed with the

Jews about this as stated in the above quotation from Whitby, it will indeed account for his saying so little to the unbelieving Jews concerning hell, but it does not agree with his saying so much about it to his disciples, or that neither he nor the apostles said any thing of it to the Gentiles. Had even Christ threatened the unbelieving Jews with Gehenna, as much as he did his disciples, and had his apostles threatened both Jews and Gentiles with this punishment indiscriminately, the subject before us would have worn a very different aspect. Had we found them, as we find modern preachers almost in every sermon, after stating to men what they think of the gospel, and enforcing the necessity of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, describing all the horrors of hell and threatening every one who did not believe and repent, with this punishment, we would be the last to raise a doubt that by hell or Gehenna they meant a place of eternal punishment. But surely no man will affirm that this was done by Christ or his apostles, who has studied with attention the New Testament. Do we find their preaching bear any kind of resemblance to many modern sermons preached on the subject of hell and the eternity of its torments to the wicked? To what apostle shall we turn to find a word said about hell, either when preaching the gospel or discoursing on any other subject?

3d, Many things are said in the New Testament to excite our attention to the scriptures, but I find nothing said to induce us to pay any regard to the Targums and the Apocrypha. We are commanded to hold fast the form of sound words. It is said we do well to take heed to God's word, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place. But is any thing like this said of the Targums or the Apocrypha? It is further said, that Timothy from a child

had known the holy scriptures which were able to make wise to salvation, and to make the man of God perfect; but are the Targums and Apocrypha recommended to people to make them wise or perfect about any thing? Paul foretels that men would turn away their ears from the truth and be turned to fables; but is any thing like this said about the Targums or the Apocrypha? If the doctrine of endless misery in Gehenna or hell be true, and if any persons turn away their ears from it, ought it not to have been said also that men would turn away their ears from the Targums, and be turned to fables? This cannot be denied if the Targums are our authority for this doctrine. If they are not, and the scriptures teach it, why make any appeal to them? In a word, if these writings now are of such importance, how is it that all the New Testament writers are so silent about them? They often quote Moses and the prophets, but do they ever say—as it is written in the Targums or the Apocrypha? Yea, do they ever quote the Targums to explain the Old Testament? But why not, if they are such excellent helps in this?

4th, If those writers are good authority for our believing, that Gehenna is a place of endless punishment, we do not see why the church of Rome is not as good authority for our believing in the doctrines of purgatory and transubstantiation. Indeed, why is not my authority, or any other man's, just as good as either of them. Why an uninspired author is not as good authority after the New Testament was completed, as before it was written, I am not casuist enough to perceive.

5th, If the Targums and the Apocrypha are to teach mankind the important doctrine of endless misery in Gehenna, why send a copy of the scriptures out into the world, without being bound up with them? The Apocry