little equity, that a doctrine, the most congenial to the human heart, was disgraced by the absurd mixture of the wildest fictions. The doctrine of a future state was not held in repute by the polytheists of Greece and Rome. They believed the providence of the gods to be visibly displayed on the theatre of the present world; therefore they neither feared nor expected a future state of existence. The doctrine is inferred from the abuse of the terms, Hell and damnation. We have shown that the word Hell, in its modern signification, is totally abjured by the spirit of prophecy and the testimony of Jesus; and consequently it is a violation and corruption of divine truth, to place such a word in the Bible. We shall now show that it is equally abusive to intrude the word damnation, on the sacred records of life and immortality. From Krino, to distinguish or judge, is derived Krites, a judge or critic; Krisis, a distinguishing, a judging, or determining; and Krima, a decision or sentence. But if Krisis or Krima mean damnation, then Krino, must mean to damn, all judging must be damning, and every judge, a damned person! Let us however admit the reading of Mat. 23: 33, and John 5: 29, “damnation of Gehenna,” "Resurrection of damnation," and then let us translate accordingly the following passages, where the same word, Krisis, occurs. John 5: 22, the Father hath committed all damnation to the Son. Ver. 27, given him authority to execute damnation-Verse 30, my damnation is just-John 16: 7-11, the comforter will reprove the world concerning damnation, because the prince of this world is damned. 14, the Lord cometh to execute damnation on all ! Again, we shall take the word Krima, and translate it damnation. John 9: 39, for damnation I am come into the world-1 Peter, 4: 17. Damnation must begin at the house of God! Lastly, let us take the Judė word damn. Mark 16 16, he that believeth not shall be damned. John 8: 10, 11, hath no man damned thee-neither do I damn thee-Mat. 12: 41, 42, the men of Nineveh shall rise and damn this generation-the Queen of the South shall damn it. In these passages the Greek word is Katakrino, but the simple verb Krino is also rendered to damn by our translators, 2 Thes. 2: 12. God shall send them delusion, that they all may be damned. Now we shall use the same liberty in a few instances. John 5: 22, the Father damneth no man-3: 17, the Father sent not the Son to damn the world. John 12: 47. If any man hear my words and believe not, I damn him not; for I came not to damn the world, but to save the world. But some may be disposed to exclaim, stop, you abuse the scriptures! Nay rather, I would show you how you have abused them, by putting into them, the pagan and diabolical terms, Hell and damnationI therefore conclude that there is no word, in the original Scriptures, that can, with even a shadow of propriety, be used to signify the punishment of Hell, which is what is generally meant by damnation. The doctrine of future rewards and punishments, was built on the supposition of the immortality of the soul; a doctrine as fanciful as any of which the reveries of imagination can boast. All the phenomena from birth to death, are repugnant to the immateriality and immortality of the human soul; and compel us to admit with Lucretius, what all experience demonstrates, that the human mind grows and decays with the body.* God has given us reason to distinguish, and senses to perceive and reflect; but this very reason shows the absurdity of embracing an opinion of spirit, which none of these senses will support. This doctrine was invented in Egypt, the mother of super * Quoque pariter cum corpore et una crescere sentimus, pariterque senescere mentem. stition, and brought by Orpheus to Greece. Thence it passed to the Romans; and being so admirably adapted to flatter human pride, Indians, Scythians, Gauls, Germans and Americans, eagerly received the dogma. The hypothesis of future punishment served two important purposes; first as a reply to the Atheists, who objected to the unequal distribution of good and evil in the present state; secondly, to restrain the manners of men, through the fear of being miserable in another world. Legislators believing the doctrine to act as a powerful charm, used their utmost exertions to give it publicity and influence. Hence Polybius blames the great men of his time for teaching the common people to despise the fables of the poets, and represents them as useful fictions. This doctrine was received by the Pharisees under the reign of the Asmonean princes, as well as several other articles from the philosophy of the eastern nations, such as fate, predestination, angels and spirits. See Gibbon's Rome, vol. 1. chap. 15. Though the philosophers sometimes pretend to countenance the dogma of future punishment, yet they taught that death would terminate all our sufferings; and in order to reconcile the minds of men to bodily dissolution, they affirmed death would either be an utter extinction of being, or a change for the better, for with one voice they all rejected every kind of future punishment. Pythagoras taught that all souls were a portion of the great soul of the universe, and discarded the notion of future punishment, as a vain terror.-Plato sometimes favours the representations of the poets, at other times despises them, as conveying too frightful ideas of futurity.-Cicero not only disavows, but even ridicules the doctrine of future punishment, and represents it to be opinion of the philosophers, that the gods are never angry, and therefore incapable of hurting any person whatever. 66 Josephus appears to have had clear ideas of the origin of the doctrine, for, describing the religion of the Essens, he says they had the same notion as the Greeks, who allowed the islands of the blessed to their brave men, and the regions of the ungodly in hades to the wicked, who, as their fables relate, are punished there. Hence their dehortations from vice, and exhortations to virtue, whereby the good are bettered by the hope of reward after death, and the vicious restrained by fear of torment. These doctrines lay an unavoidable bait for such as have once had a taste of their philosophy." As our Lord delivered some of his discourses in the vicinity of Gehenna, a reference is made to that valley three times in the gospel history. But will any one pretend that the Jews believed, there would be a place in another world like Gehenna, in the neighborhood of their city? Did our Lord ever inform his hearers that after death men would be put into a place like Gehenna? Answer these questions in the affirm ative, and show the proofs, or for ever abandon the wicked dogma. To what part of the universe can we look for the modern hell, whose elements are fire and flame, the abode of creatures totally abandoned by God; where infinite wrath perpetually abides; where nothing can be felt but inexpressible torments-nor heard but incessant groans and curses to all eternity? O ye Pagan fabulists and worshippers of Moloch, give to your gods the glory due to their deeds ; but do not blaspheme our God also! In vain do paganizing Christians tell us of bible hells and evangelical torments. O, if there were not a single sentence, in all the bible, on behalf of salvation, but that psalm, 145: 9, "his tender mercies are over all his works," it alone would suffice to water out all the hells of the universe! Punishment in another state of being was never threatened, by God, as the penalty of any law which he ever gave to mankind-therefore it cannot be inflicted. Deity cannot inflict a punishment for the breach of a law, which has never been promulgated ; nor for the violation of a law, to which man was incapable of yielding obedience. Now where, in the volume of revelation, has God published a law, the penalty of which is damnation, in a future mode of existence? Our eagle-eyed, evangelical preachers, have discovered this heavy threatening in the phrase, "thou shalt die!" If so, then why are they not afraid, for the threatening is unconditional? If to die, means to die spiritually and eternally, then all who die must undergo the penalty; and be for ever abandoned of God to the regions of despair, where all the guilty ghosts of Adam's race must for ever shriek and howl, Beneath the weight of heavy chains, Had the heathen poet heard these heralds of damnation proclaim the corruscations of divine wrath, he would doubtlessly have cried out -Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ-En. 1, 11. Can heavenly minds such dire resentment show, Surely these advocates of endless misery, must be unbelievers themselves, otherwise they would fear to add to the revelation of heaven, lest God should add to them the plagues written in his book. But perhaps they are of the same mind with their pious ancestors, that God will never bring men to account for pious frauds or useful corruptions of the sacred text! O for the day when every man will speak the truth to his |