Since that event, time has closed its record of eighteen centuries. How stands the account? Even now, there are two to one against Christianity. Christendom has nominally three hundred millions; Heathendom six hundred. Such are the records. This is not all. In Christian countries, according to popular belief, the ratio between those who know Christ savingly, and those who know him not, is, by the most liberal computation, as ten to one. What then results? Is any one orthodox enough to maintain that all but the strictly evangelical shall be endlessly damned? or, is any one unreasonable enough to assert that all shall immediately enter the same state of holiness and joy? In this world, right and wrong are words of force-there is meaning in them. So of barbarism and civilization; savage and sage; saint and sinner. How is it in the dialect of the future? Shall such words there lose their power? Does the infant become a man; the sinner a saint; the savage a sage in a twinkling? If so, by what law? or, to change the terms, does the individual as quickly become a demon? If so, by what decree?

Scripture and reason teach that the same spiritual laws govern in all ages and in all worlds. Christ is Lord both of the dead and living. He was made a High Priest for time and for eternity. Jesus Christ, the Judge and the Saviour of men here, is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. At the right hand of the Father, he is not idle. The human race belongs to him. He ransomed it with his blood. A soul is as dear to him here as in the future, and in the future as here. The conditions by which it enters into spiritual life are unchanged. Repent and believe is the voice to-day; repent and believe shall be the word, we trust, until the fulness of God is the portion of all.

We have said that eternal life is an addition to the soul, and not a constituent principle. Christ said to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." His old life might remain, but he could receive no fresh power except by a new birth. This new birth, however, is natural; is in perfect harmony with the laws of the soul. Observe the soul's life. It is a growth. Continually new powers are born. Each fresh idea is, in some sense, a new life into which it is the privilege of the soul to enter. Take an example from astronomy. Till the sixteenth cen

tury man was shut out from the peculiar life which it confers. Geology, which came later, opened still another new life to man. The same is true of all science, philosophy, poetry, literature, and art. The birth from above, by which we enter into eternal life, is in perfect analogy with these. It differs, however in this. It touches the springs of our being. It comprehends all the other births and lives of the soul.

more.

To sum up the points we have now urged, immortality is the soul's birthright; Christ's mission is to all souls, of all ages, and in all worlds; that mission was to save; and to save he must judge. This salvation is eternal life; its conditions are repentance and faith now, and shall be foreverThe practical application is this: We are ever in the presence of God. Hence the day of salvation is always now. Man never will be saved in the future, for salvation, when it is felt is always present. Not to-morrow, next week, the next year, or the next age, should man calculate upon feeling the power of Christ's gospel. Through all its ages the present is all they can call their own. The relation of the gospel to the soul is always actual rather than prospective-present rather than future. W. U. P.

ART. III.

The Pre-existence of Christ.

THE doctrine indicated in the heading to this article is, we are convinced, extensively held among Universalists, and, by some, supposed to be a doctrine of essential importance, and to furnish a sort of necessary groundwork for their faith in the salvation of all men. We have heard it said by some Universalists, who had not eliminated all the crudities of Calvinism from their faith, that the salvation of those who died before the birth of Christ could be advocated only on the ground of his pre-existence; the

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atonement being ante-dated, and its benefits applied to them by anticipation; though on what scriptural or rational grounds this is maintained, we never could divine. But the larger number of those who hold to Christ's pre-existence rest their faith on certain texts of Scripture which they know not how to understand if that doctrine be not true. And we have thought that we might do a useful service by calling the attention of our readers, to a consideration of some of the passages of Scripture which have been supposed to teach the doctrine of Christ's pre-existence. We say, which have been supposed to teach it; for we are thoroughly convinced that this doctrine is founded on a misconception of language; as we hope to show to the satisfaction of the candid reader. As preliminary to the examination proposed, it will not be unprofitable to refer to some well settled principles and rules of interpretation, which must always be followed if we would arrive at a just understanding of the Scriptures.

Whatever theory of inspiration we may hold in respect to them, whether that of plenary and verbal inspiration, which is now generally abandoned as untenable, or that of substantial truth under circumstantial variety, allowing on the latter theory for the imperfection and fallibility of the human medium through which inspiration is conveyed,in either case, the Scriptures must be acknowledged to carry with them manifest tokens of their genuineness and authenticity in their general form, character, teachings and spirit, in their idiomatic peculiarities, in their archaisms and in their elliptical and highly poetical forms of expression, such as the Hebrew and oriental. mind always delights to use, but which are quite foreign to our habits of thought and modes of speech. These peculiarities of the Scriptures render the work of translating them into our vernacular tongue,-into any living language, -exceedingly difficult. If it be difficult, in translating any book to preserve the tone and coloring of the original, and transfer the exact shades of thought and the spirit of the author to another language, how are these difficulties aggravated when the book to be translated, is, in its origin, its idioms, and all the circumstances attending its composition, so far removed from us in space and time as the inspired volume. The ancient Hebrew is not merely a dead language, its only remains are preserved in the Old Testament.

The best modern Hebrew scholar, therefore, must read it with but an imperfect acquaintance with the usus loquendi of the age to which it belongs, and without that assistance, so invaluable in all cases, which is derived from a knowledge of the thousand circumstances which serve to mould and qualify, and give significance to, the forms of a living, spoken language.

The New Testament was originally written in Greek, with the possible exception of the Gospel of Matthew and the Epistle to the Hebrews; yet its authors were Jews, whose vernacular tongue was "that dialect of the Chaldee which was then the language of Jerusalem, and by Jewish writers called Hebrew," and their familiarity with Hebrew and want of familiarity with classic Greek naturally and unconsciously led them to copy the forms, idioms and imagery of their mother tongue even when not expressly quoting from the Old Testament. Though the form and body of the New Testament be Greek, it is Greek saturated with Hebraisms,—the spirit and characteristic quality of the writings it embraces are essentially Hebrew. As Dr. Campbell expresses it, "though the words, the inflection, and the construction in the books of the New Testament are Greek, the idiom is strictly Hebraical."1 Hence it follows that in order to a just appreciation of the New Testament it is necessary to have some knowledge of the idiomatic peculiarities and usages of speech of the Old Testament. We need to come to the perusal of the Gospels and Epistles in a spirit congenial to that in which they were written; we need to have Jewish ideas, customs and associations constantly present to our thoughts; we need to lay aside our habits of thought and speech, transport ourselves back through the long period of three thousand years and put ourselves in sympathy with the hopes and fears, the loves and hates, the joys and sorrows of the "peculiar people."

We do not suppose that this can be done so perfectly as to save us from all mistake; but only in the same degree that we familiarize ourselves with the genius of a people and an age long since past away, and enter into their views and spirit, can we hope to understand their literature, especially when cast in poetical forms and treating on such lofty and

1 Prel. Diss. ii. 4.

sublime themes as the Scriptures are occupied with. Moreover, we wish to guard against its being inferred from anything we have said that the Scriptures are written in a lawless, enigmatical style, or that their interpretation is to be left to chance and conjecture, as some people seem to suppose. The language of Scripture has its rules and laws, which may be ascertained and fixed beyond rational doubt, by the requisite aids of the grammar, lexicon, monuments, history, and especially by following the plain and sensible maxim which is allowed to be a safe and just rule in the interpretation of all writings whatsoever, that of allowing the sacred writers to interpret themselves by comparing one part of Scripture with another.

In conformity with the foregoing considerations, the pertinency of which will appear as we proceed, we propose to call attention to the opinion, which is founded as we believe on a misconception of Scripture,-that Jesus existed in his distinct and proper personality anterior to his manifestation in the flesh. This notion, we humbly conceive, has arisen from a want of acquaintance with Hebrew forms of expression, under which the writers of the New Testament often speak of our Saviour's pre-eminence in rank, power and glory, in terms which seemingly, though not really, denote priority in point of time over all other men and all created things. Jesus himself says (in John xvii. 5, 24,) “ And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was-for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world;" which language affords an illustration of the perfect communion of Christ with the Father, and reveals at once his unity of spirit, purpose and will with God, and his vast superiority to all other men. There must have been a peculiar and unapproachable elevation and grandeur of spirit in Christ which could justify such a mode of supplication, such intimate and holy confidence in approaching the Father of spirits. St. Peter declares, (1 Peter i. 20,) that Christ "was foreordained before the foundation of the world." These passages represent a large class of texts, which are commonly taken without inquiry or hesitation as proof of Christ's pre-existence, or, in the language of the Assembly's Catechism, that he was "eternally begotten of the Father." The trinitarian is consistent, at least, in so believing; but