ARTICLE XXV.

DESTRUCTION OF. SOUL AND BODY IN HELL.

[Concluded.]

LET us now turn to the Old Testament and see if there is not some evidence to sustain us in the above view of the subject. Let us see if it is not a proverb. I will pass over all those Scriptures which speak of God's utterly consuming nations, and of his threatening to consume them, which, I might show, have a bearing upon the subject under consideration. They are indeed the same proverb in substance, and only varied in expression; the same as if we should say, ← Mr. Skinner has had a controversy with Alexander Campbell, and he has torn him up root and branch. He has demolished him soul and body. He has completely put him down to rise no more. Now these expressions are varied in language, yet by them we mean but one thing. We only mean to express entire defeat, proverbially. I therefore pass over such passages of Scripture, and leave the reader to examine them at his leisure, [see, for example, Exodus xxxii. 10. Num. xvi. 21. Deut. vii. 22. 1 Sam. xv. 18, &c.]

Leaving these, I will select one or two, which now occur to my mind, as having a direct bear

ing upon the case in hand. Isaiah x. 16, 17, 18, "Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire. And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy one for a flame; and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day; and shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body; and they shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth." Here you perceive the prophet declares, that they shall be destroyed "soul and body." This did not mean their punishment in another world, nor their "moral death," nor even the natural death of that whole people, but it was a proverbial expression, to denote their entire destruction as a nation. On this passage, Dr. A. Clarke says, "The fire of God's wrath shall destroy them both great and small, it shall consume them from the soul to the flesh, a proverbial expression; soul and body, as we say; it shall consume them entirely and altogether, and the few that escape shall be looked upon as having escaped from the most imminent danger." Here Dr. Clarke says, that to destroy or consume them, "soul and body," is a proverbial expression," and that in the Hebrew, it means "from the soul to the flesh;" yet he grants, that it did not even mean the natural death of all of that people against whom it was spoken. Scott

says, that to destroy them soul and body means 66 absolutely and finally.”

This proverb originated among the Hebrews, and hence we see why our Lord's disciples perfectly understood him. The expression, destroying soul and body, is equivalent to destroying a nation, "root and branch." The latter is, in fact, the same proverb in different phraseology. In proof of this, I will produce an instance. Malachi iv. 1, "For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." Now all commentators, so far as I am acquainted, apply the above passage to that very destruction of the Jews, to which I believe the language of Jesus, now under consideration, applies. And is there not a striking coincidence between the words of Malachi and Jesus? "Burning them up root and branch," and "destroying them soul and body in Gehenna fire," I consider as parallel passages. They both refer to the same people, and to the same long predicted and final destruction which God brought upon them, when their national sun went down in blood. the passage in Malachi, (destroying them root and branch,) Scott says, "it is a proverbial expression for extirpating desolation." Dr. Clarke,

On

after stating that it refers to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, says, "the day that cometh shall burn them up." "Either by famine, by sword, or by captivity, all those rebels shall be destroyed." It shall leave them neither root nor branch. "A proverbial expression for total destruction."

Now as both these expressions were proverbial among the Jews, there is certainly no more. propriety in explaining what is meant by the destruction of the body and the destruction of the soul in the one passage, than there is in explaining what is meant by the burning up of the root and the burning up of the branch in the other. Though Clarke and others fully corroborate my views of this passage, in their comments on the Old Testament scriptures, yet when they come to the passage itself, now under consideration, they lose sight of what they there said. They all seem anxious to preserve this text, and the second death, as two monuments to perpetuate the doctrine of endless misery. All commentators of all denominations agree in applying them to that awful doom. But it would be an easy task to show, that the second death, according to their own writings, is also a proverb. It evidently refers to the same punishment as the text. Dr. Hammond says, The lake that burneth with fire and brimstone is called the second death, into

which they are said to go, that are never to appear in the church again." See that excellent work, Paige's "Selections," p. 109. Whitby

labors to show, from the targums of Onkelos, Uziel, and Jerusalem, that the second death is a proverbial expression, applicable to those "who were never," as Hammond says, "to appear in the church again." And as the Jews were destroyed as a people, never to appear in the Mosaic church again in their own land, so it is applicable to them. They were to be "punished with an everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord." 2 Thess. i. 9., "The man of sin," the son of perdition," was in that day, 66 to be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming." 2 Thess. ii. 8. Now the above passages, and those of the same character, which speak of God's destroying, consuming, and casting into the second death (that is utter death) the Jewish people, and of destroying them "soul and body," and of burning them up "root and branch," are but so many forms of proverb, by which they expressed the same national ruin. It was a destruction which God had long threatened; which he declared he would execute; and that he was able to do it so thoroughly as to make it final and irrevocable, without the least possibility of their ever return