Sadducees denied, and that our Lord designed to prove. See Acts xxiii. 8. Besides, had it only been the resurrection which they needed to be convinced of, our Lord's argument would have utterly failed to convince them. The language from the Pentateuch, which he quotes, shows that the Patriarchs referred to were, in a sense, then alive; that is, though long after their death, they still knew and worshipped God. And what was true of them, our Lord infers will be true of all the dead, i. e. that they will exist in a state of separation from the body. This passage is plainly and perfectly decisive of the question of the consciousness of the intermediate state.

But the last, and, evidently in the estimation of Dr. Whately, the most important objection, brought against the doctrine of a conscious state of the soul in its separation from the body, is the fact that it seems to supersede the Judgment Day, which is frequently referred to in the Scriptures; since, if the soul enters upon a state of reward or punishment at death, it will not need to know its fate, or be tried for its conduct in this life, at a subsequent period.

The Judgment Day cannot be designed to ascertain, by trial, the guilt or innocence of the judged, for all this must be known to the Judge previously, but its chief design will be to declare these, and thus to vindicate before the whole family of man the justice of God in his dealings with his creatures. This, on the supposition of an intermediate state, would serve to enhance the joys or sufferings of the soul, and to make it certain of the propriety of its reward, and of the reality and eternity of its condition, either for good or evil. Taking, therefore, the language of Christ literally, "Many will say to me in that day," &c., (Matt. vii. 22,) it only implies that the persons here referred to, and such as may resemble them, will not have it made known to them till that day what their final condition must be. And the same will be true of all; but as in human trials, some confidently anticipate their doom, while others, though guilty, hope to escape detection, so it will be then. The language, however, need not be understood literally, but may be taken to mean simply, that in the Judgment, many will share a very different fate from what they now expect. So, too, the language which represents the Judge as

then separating the righteous from the wicked, only carries out the idea of a public exhibition of the characters and destinies of the parties, and proves nothing as to their previous state.

Of our author's elaborate explanation of the phrase, "to depart and be with Christ," and his attempt to reconcile this with the fact of a long interval of slumber, it is sufficient to say, that the Bible was designed for plain men, and not for philosophers and metaphysicians, who alone would ever think of attaching to the words of the Apostle any other idea than that of a literal association with Christ immediately after death. In another and similar passage, (2 Cor. v. 8,) where the Apostle speaks of being "absent from the body and present with the Lord," the same idea is evidently expressed, for here the being present with the Lord is cotemporaneous with the being absent from the body. The first verse of the chapter here referred to, and which contains the same truth, shows that the Apostle is not here referring to the state after the Resurrection; for his language is to the effect that the Christian has now, previous to death, and made ready as in anticipation of death, "a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Had the Apostle been referring here to the future body, as Dr. Whately thinks, he would not have said "we have," but we shall have; or, if this be understood as the use of the present for the future tense, then, according to the previous part of the verse, the possession here alluded to as future, must be cotemporaneous with the dissolution of "the earthly house of this tabernacle," that is, with death. In either case the consciousness of the soul after death is taught. But, as if to settle this whole question for ever, John tells us, (Rev. xiv. 13,) that he heard a voice from heaven saying to him, "Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, from henceforth," that is, from the moment of their dying. What can be more explicit? But we must pass on to notice briefly one more topic of the work before us:

THE ANNIHILATION OF THE WICKED.

On this question our author evidently inclines to the affirmative view, though he does not hold that the Scriptures teach

it positively. What he regards as chiefly favoring this view is the use, in Scripture, of such terms as "death, destruction and perishing," to describe the future condition of the wicked. These, he admits, may be understood figuratively, so as not to involve actual destruction or annihilation. We think that the tenor of Scripture compels us to understand them so; for if we take these literally, then we must understand other terms in reference to this subject as figurative, that will scarcely admit of such an interpretation. For instance, our Lord says that he will say to the wicked at the Judgment, Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," and again, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." Now, the term here used to indicate the duration of the punishment of the wicked is the same in the original as that used to indicate the duration of the reward of the righteous, (viz. "everlasting," and "eternal," which are renderings of the same word, aiúviov;) so that if the one is limited, the other must be also.

But these terms, "death," "destruction," "perishing," though taken literally, do not involve actual annihilation, but only a change in the condition or composition of the subject, and that, too, when applied to a material substance. When applied to a spirit or immaterial being, naturally unsusceptible of decay or dissolution, they certainly do not denote anything more than this. In such passages as these, and many others, the idea of the annihilation of the wicked, and the limited duration of their punishment, is utterly forbidden; "The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever, and the wrath of God abideth on him."

But we have done. We have considered only what we regard as the faults of the work. It would have given us pleasure to notice some of its excellences, also, and to acknowledge our obligations for the light which it sheds upon many interesting topics connected with our best interests. But these do not need our commendation, nor to be pointed out to the intelligent reader. While we are thankful for these benefits, we cannot but regret the tendency of much of the work to create or encourage doubts, and to unsettle the confidence of many minds in the teachings and authority of

the Bible,-besides maintaining what we have tried to show is unsound doctrine on several points. Freedom of discussion we heartily approve; but let it not be a freedom that undervalues the wisdom of the past-that would purge out the gold with the dross-or that would weaken in any soul, longing and striving for better things, "the powers of the world to come."

ART. II.-FUTURE STATE OF THE HEATHEN.

IN two of the British Quarterlies, (the Westminster and North British,) elaborate articles have lately been published on Christian Missions. In both these articles, though very different in other respects, the same ground is taken in regard to the future state and prospects of the heathen. Both scout the idea that the heathen are in danger of being finally lost, and insist that motives drawn from such a supposition should never be urged in support of the missionary cause.

As much as this might have been expected from the conductors of the Westminster Review; but we were not prepared to see expressions like the following in the pages of the North British:

Both in Romish and Protestant missionary records, we may trace a notion, implied, though seldom nakedly expressed, that heathens, who fail to come during their lifetime, within the range, in the one case, of the mystic grace of Christian Sacraments-in the other, of the life-giving efficacy of Christian faith-actually perish.

And having quoted some passages from the letter of an American missionary, in which the final destruction of the heathen is pretty clearly indicated, the Reviewer proceeds:

Can this be mere ad captandum language, intended to draw contributions to the missionary societies? If so, it is very wicked; but if it be really genuine and sincere, how melancholy a fanaticism does it display! We shudder at the accounts of devil-worship, which come to us from so many missionary fields. We pity the miserable delusion of the Manichees, who enthroned the evil principle in heaven. But if we proclaim that God is indeed one, who could decree this more than Moloch sacrifice of the vast majority of his own creatures and children, for no fault or sin of theirs, we revive the error of the Manichee; for the God whom we preach as the destroyer of the guiltless, can be no God of justice, far less a God of love. Pp. 170, 171.

We have no intention to go into an examination of the statements and reasonings in these articles. Those in the Westminster are too grossly unfounded and malicious to need it; and those in the North British are, in general, too sensible and valuable to require it. But it does seem a favorable opportunity, now that public attention is drawn to the subject, to consider, anew and carefully, what is likely to become of the dying heathen. What is their state, and what their prospects for eternity?

In answering this question we propose to show,

I. That the heathen are sinners against God.

II. That being sinners, they are justly exposed to the penalty of the divine law.

III. That from this they cannot be delivered without repentance. And

IV. That in general they exhibit no satisfactory evidence of repentance.

V. We shall introduce the direct testimony of Scripture, as corroborative of the general conclusion.

First: We are to show that the heathen are sinners against God. This proposition is denied in both of the articles referred to above. Those who hold to the final destruction of the heathen are represented as believing that God "sacrifices the great majority of his children for no fault or sin of their own," and that he is "the destroyer of the guiltless." But we have as much evidence that the heathen are sinners as we have that any of the human family are sinners, or as that there is any such thing as sin in the world.

We might infer as much as this from the fact that, like us, they are the descendants of a fallen father, and belong to a corrupted, depraved race. Are the heathen human beings? Do they belong to the "one blood, of which God hath made all men, to dwell on all the face of the earth?" Do they belong, in short, to the posterity of Adam? Then, undoubtedly, they are depraved and sinful; for this is true of all his posterity. "By the offence of one the many were made sinners." "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death hath passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." But we are not left to mere inference in regard to the fact