that under the new dispensation punishment should be proportioned to the offence, and an adequate retribution would be visited upon the transgressor.

We ask the reader's attention to the opinions of several learned commentators upon this passage. Dr. Adam Clarke says:

"It is very probable that our Lord means no more here than this: "if a man charge another with apostacy from the Jewish religion, or rebellion against God, and cannot prove his charge, then he is exposed to that punishment (burning alive) which the other must have suffered, if the charges had been substantiated. There are three offenses here which exceed each other in their degrees of guilt. 1. Anger against a man, accompanied with some injurious act. 2. Contempt, expressed by the opprobrious epithet raca, or shallow brains. 3. Hatred and mortal enmity, expressed by the term moreh, or apostate, where such apostacy could not be proved.

Now proportioned to these three offenses were three different degrees of punishment, each exceeding the other in severity, as the offenses exceeded each other in their different degrees of guilt. 1. The judgment, the council of twenty-three, which could inflict the punishment of strangling. 2. The Sanhedrim, or great council, which could inflict the punishment of stoning. 3. The being burnt in the valley of the son of Hinnom. This appears to be the meaning of our Lord."—Com. in loc.

Rev. Mr. Parkhurst, in his Lexicon, referring to this passage, says:

"The phrase here translated hell-fire, (literally gehenna of fire) does, I apprehend, in its outward

and primary sense, relate to that dreadful doom of being burnt alive in the valley of Hinnom ;" he adds (for what reason he does not inform us) "that this, as well as the other degrees of punishment mentioned in the context, must, as Dr. Doddridge has remarked, be ultimately referred to the invisible world."

WYNNE."This alludes to the three degrees of punishment among the Jews, viz.: civil punishment inflicted by the judges or elders at the gates; excommunication pronounced by the great Ecclesiastical Council or Sanhedrim; and burning to death, like those who were sacrificed to devils in the valley of Hinnom or Tophet, where the idolatrous Israelites used to offer their children to Moloch."-Note in loc.

The meaning of the passage seems to be this: under the old economy all transgression was adequately punished, so under the new dispensation of grace and truth, punishment was proportioned to guilt, and would be inflicted, according to the degree of criminality.

SCARCELY SAVED.

"For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear."-1 PETER iv. 17, 18.

In examining this passage, let us first attempt to ascertain what is meant by judgment beginning at the house of God? This point, once understood, will aid us in our subsequent investigations. "For the time is come," says Peter, "that judg ment must begin at the house of God." Allusion evidently is here made to a "time" and "judg ment," in relation to which, the author of these words had been previously instructed. A brief reference to the circumstances under which the text was uttered, will essentially aid us in arriving at the truth originally designed to be set forth. Before the introduction of Christianity into the world, man had long been groping in darkness and unbelief; he had become blinded by sin and prejudice, and wedded to long established opinions. He had received error for truth, darkness for light, and become extremely superstitious and conservative, and madly resisted the light and knowledge which

Jesus furnished for the instruction and salvation of the world.

When Jesus came to earth to bless poor, erring humanity, in the execution of his divine mission, he called to his aid a number of apostles to be coworkers with him in establishing his kingdom of grace and truth, and in spreading abroad the glorious doctrines of the new dispensation, which were hostile to the teachings of the Jews, and designed to supercede them.

Peter, the author of these words, was one whom the Savior employed to go forth in defence of his truth, and encounter the opposition which a wicked world would bestow upon the disciples of the cross. The Master clearly portrayed the difficulties with which his friends would meet in the execution of their mission. He informed them of the awful woes and terrible calamities which were about to come upon the people with whom they mingled, for their sinfulness. The Savior looked forward to the time when those temporal judgments would come upon the Jewish nation; but before Jerusalem itself was to be laid in ruins, the disciples of Christ would be persecuted, and this should be one of the signs that would precede the overthrow of that ill-fated city, over which the Savior wept. Jesus said to his disciples thus: "Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you; and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake." Having then such a personal interest in the matter, the disciples could not easily have for

gotten this sign.

persecute you in

"But," says Jesus, "when they

this city, flee ye to another." See Matt. x. 22, 23; and xxiv. 9, etc.

When the disciples of Christ went forth to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God, they met with the persecution which was foretold; the wrath of a perverse generation was aroused against them; and Peter then remembers the language of the Master in relation to the signs that should precede the destruction of the Jewish nation. Jesus told them that they would be hated of all men, and be delivered up to be afflicted and killed; and that they must flee. from city to city; and when the persecution foretold commenced, Peter exclaims: "The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God," etc. As though Peter had said: "The time predicted by our Master has arrived; persecution has commenced against us; that time which Christ foretold has come." By the "judgment beginning at the house of God," reference is made to the persecution which the followers of Christ received.

But, is there any scriptural proof to justify the assertion, that Christians are referred to by the expression, "house of God?" Most certainly, we answer. In Hebrews iii. 6, Paul says thus: "But Christ as a Son over his own house: whose house are we," etc. Here faithful believers are called God's house; and it was with this "house" that judgment was to begin; or, in other words, that persecution was to commence. Again, in the 2d