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1. Those, in which a certain kind of death is contrasted with eternal life. As sin hath reigned unto death, even so grace might reign, through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. The end of those things' (sinful practices) is death; but now, being made free from sin, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.'The death spoken of in these passages is set, in every instance, in close and immediate contrast with eternal life. Consequently it must be the opposite of eternal life; that is, it must be eternal death.

2. Eternal death is intended in those passages, in which the wicked are represented as exposed to a certain kind of death, to which the righteous are not exposed. As a specimen of the numerous passages in which this representation is made, I may refer the reader to the 18th and 33d chapters of Ezekiel. God here urges repeatedly, and in every form of expression, that those who persevere in holiness shall live; while those who decline to the paths of sin, and persist in them, shall die. But what is the death here intended? What kind of death is it, to which the wicked are exposed; but from which the righteous are exempt? Not temporal death, surely for to this, both the righteous and the wicked are exposed alike. Neither is it spiritual death: for to this the wicked are not exposed-they are already involved in it. They are already dead in trespasses and sins.' What death then is it, so frequently mentioned, in the chapters to which I have referred? To this question, the ingenuity of man can furnish but one answer -it is eternal death-that death spoken of by the apostle, as the proper wages and desert of sin.

3. Eternal death is intended in all those Scriptures, in which sinners are exhorted to rescue themselves from their exposure to death. I have set before you, this day, life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose life, that thou and thy seed may live.' 'Make ye a new heart, and a new spirit; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways, O house of Israel; for why will ye die ?'-But what is the death here intended, to which sinners are exposed, and from which they are exhorted to save themselves by repentance and reformation? Not temporal death: for from this, repentance will not save them. Neither is it spiritual death: for to this the wicked are not exposed-they have already fallen under its power. In regard to this kind of death, there would be no propriety in saying to them, Why will ye die?' for they are already dead in trespasses and sins.' The inference therefore is unavoidable-the death here intended, which the wicked are exposed to suffer for their sins, and from which they can be saved only by repentance and reformais eternal death.

But

4. Eternal death is intended in those passages, which speak of a sin as unto death-which is never to be forgiven-and for the forgiveness of which the people of God are not required to pray. 'If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. And there is a sin not unto death.' The distinguishing mark of the sin here spoken of is, that it is unto death;'_or that it must inevitably terminate in a certain kind of death. what kind of death is intended? What death is it, in which the dreadful sin here spoken of is sure to terminate, and which renders those who have committed it no longer the proper subjects of prayer? It cannot be temporal death: for this is a fruit of all sin; and it is no reason why persons should not be prayed for, that they are exposed, in this sense, to die. Neither can it be spiritual death for this is the state of all persons, previous to repentance; and if none may be prayed for, who are in this state, then no impenitent sinner is entitled to the prayers of God's people. The death intended then must be eternal death. In this, the sin spoken of is sure to terminate-it hath no forgiveness-and consequently prayer for those who have committed it must be vain. I observe again,

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5. Eternal death is intended in those passages of the Revelation which speak of the second death. He that overcometh, shall not be hurt of the second death.' 'Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power.' It might be shown conclusively, from the passages themselves, that the death, here spoken of, is not temporal, or spiritual, but eternal death. But on this point we are not left to mere inference. 'I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire. THIS is the second death.'-' But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone-which is the second death.' From these passages, we know, that the second death is eternal death. It is that fearful and eternal punishment, which is reserved for the finally impenitent beyond the grave.

There are many other passages of Scripture, besides those here referred to, in which mention is made of eternal death. But these are such as will not admit of any other interpretation. They speak, not only a language which can be understood, but which, it should seem, cannot be misunderstood. And they assure us, on the highest authority on earth or in heaven, that impenitent, incorrigible sinners must suffer the pains of eternal death.

W.

REVIEWS.

LECTURES TO YOUNG PEOPLE. By William B. Sprague, D. D., Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Albany: with an Introductory Essay, by Samuel Miller, D. D., Professor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, N. J. 12mo. NewYork: John P. Haven.

MORAL Science is among the earliest subjects of human speculation. So soon as men begin to think at all upon abstract subjects, they turn their thoughts to the nature and tendency of their actions, considered as right or wrong, and as beneficial or hurtful to others. Such contemplations may be followed by the mind without intercepting the ordinary engagements of life. The hunter, the peasant, and the shepherd, may each pursue them without injury to his business. No laboratory is wanted for the purpose, but that of a sound head and an honest heart. Hence it is, that rude nations abound with apothegms and proverbs, which manifest a deep knowledge of the human heart, and of the tendencies of buman conduct. Hence some of the earliest efforts of public teaching have been to regulate the moral actions; and there is no doubt that Pythagoras, and perhaps others before him, were preachers of what they considered to be virtue. Even among the Pagan inhabitants of our own woods, there is much of moral inculcation. We have heard with our own ears an aged chief giving to the young lessons of patience, mutual forbearance and discretion, which could hardly have been expected from a savage.

In that country whence nearly all the literature and much of the science of modern times took their origin, the discussion of moral subjects occupied, for many ages, a great share of public attention. Centuries before the time of Christ, different schools and sects were formed, which sought to rival each other in public favor, and to gain proselytes. This fact may show how strong a hold they had upon public attention; and, in passing, we may be allowed to suggest to the learned, that a consideration of the manner and degree in which the schools of Greece tended to prepare the minds of men for the preaching and hearing of a code founded upon better promises,' would well repay the labor of an investigation, which we think it has never yet received.

Up to the age before Christ, we know all that the unassisted wisdom of man had discovered concerning virtue. We are enabled to know this with certainty, from the work of Tully upon moral duties. We had been revising the studies of former years, and were led into a train of reflections upon the comparison of heathen and Christian ethics by a new perusal of that immortal

work, when the Lectures before us were received; and the subject of them is well calculated to encourage the reflections with which we have commenced this article, and which we may be allowed to pursue a few moments longer.

If, according to the foregoing remark, the study of morals is an early study of mankind, we think it may also be added that, even among the uninspired, it has been a successful one. The difficulty with mankind is not, that they do not know, or cannot easily learn their duties. No thinking man can read the work of Cicero, to which we have referred, without admiration for the beauty, and dignity, and truth of the lessons, which he lays down for his son, and for mankind. Certainly the Gospel, and before it the Law of Moses, have given some rules of moral duty which, as if to show the superiority of their source, exhibit a moral excellence above all that Greece and Rome had heard. But the number of these is not very great. Socrates (or Plato) had gone so far as to forbid the negative of our Saviour's great rule of conduct between man and man. He forbade us to do to others what we would not be willing that they should do to us. Cicero plainly adopts the same rule,—a rule that calls forth our admiration by its approach to inspiration on the one hand, while on the other, it leaves room for the towering superiority of the positive precept of the Redeemer," so that in all things he might have the pre-eminence." In like manner, the injunction in the law to remember the poor, the precepts about gleaning, the limitation of servitude to seven years, the command to deliver our neighbor's ox, and not to muzzle the mouth of the animal, and many others, attest, even in the reproached law of Moses, a higher and better humanity than was known to the philosophers of Greece.

This superiority in the precepts of the divine legislation is distinctive; but it is not its most peculiar feature. The great peculiarity of revealed religion is, that by it, man is placed in an actual intercourse of discipleship and obedience to his Creator and Judge. This is an entire new head, in addition to all that the light of philosophy had revealed. It places man in a condition entirely new; it changes the whole principle of moral obligation, or rather introduces a principle of obligation for the first time. Ethics, as a science, became as new, on the publication of the Gospel, as Astronomy after the discoveries of Kepler and Newton. We now receive rules written by the Creator for the government of those he has created. These rules are not the operation of natural appetites within us; but something different from, and often in opposition to them. They are either not written upon the natural heart, or not observed by it. By him those rules are actually and especially given; by us they are actually heard and read; so that we find ourselves in the relation of subjects, and pupils, and children, to the God of all worlds.

In the next place, the laws of God are enforced by sanctions;by rewards and punishments. "On these two hang all the law and the prophets." If even the gross and imperfect legislation of man needs to be enforced by the powerful anticipations of good or evil, how just and reasonable does it appear that a law, which can embrace no shade of error, should be enacted with the highest sanctions.

Cicero had prescribed to his son the observance of justice and temperance. When the same great man came to arraign Verres before the Roman people, for aggravated violence, plunder, and bloodshed, in his government of a province, he reasoned from such topics as he knew; and Verres no doubt grew pale from the apprehension of confiscation, or banishment. But when, in the next century, Paul appeared before another Roman governor, equally flagitious, he had been divinely taught, and he knew of other topics. He reasoned not only of righteousness and temperance, but of judgement to come; and the rapacious governor trembled before a man in chains.

We have brought up the contrast of these two trials, not because it exhibits anything which is new, but for the sake of newly impressing truths which, however important, seem stale, and are almost forgotten. In the midst of overflowing privileges and redundant light, we forget how great those privileges are. If any thing could impress upon the youth of our country the value of such a series of lessons as are contained in these Lectures by Dr. Sprague; we think it would be a fair comparison of Christian doctrine proposed to youth, with all its magnificent hopes, and most solemn sanctions, and under the eye of a present God, on the one hand, and on the other, the brightest moralist of ancient days proposing to his son a system of morals, just indeed for the most part as to practice, but destitute of accountableness, unfortified by any reverence for the divine name, without pardon or purification for sins, and not adorned by any glimpse of immortal hope. Let the studious and ingenious youth then ponder upon the treatise De Officiis, and in that splendid system of heathen ethics let him observe that no higher reason is given for any duty, than because it is "naturæ hominis aptissimum,"* and the like. The father can quote to the son no higher authority than that of Cratippus and the Stoics. If interest or passion should urge the youth to break over these barriers of reason, it is a case unprovided for, and the parent had no remedy. He heard no superior and revered command: he saw no stay of fear, or prop of hope, or smiling spirit of comfort, or avenging arm of wrath, to keep the steps of erring youth in the path of rectitude. When the whole administration of things around us is so manifestly formed upon a principle of retribution, it seems wonderful that the operation of this principle was not discovered by heathen antiquity; or if discovered, that it was

* But adapted to the nature of man. Cicero De Officiis, Lib. I.