Section 5 continued, viz., The law In the import of its sanctions -- 2. The penalty of the law. -- The nature of the penalty, viz., temporal death and eternal suffering. -- The penalty originally denounced, general and indefinite. -- Temporal death, as it now occurs to all men, not penal.The sentence In Gen. M. 19 not a part of the legal penalty. -- Spiritual death not penal. -- Proof of Prop. -- The temporal death of the Mosaic law taught eternal death without mercy. External obedience clearly shown not to suffice. -- The words to die and death. -- Illustration from the double or extended meaning of exile under certain supposed circumstances. -- Death and to die used in the Old Testament with this additional meaning. -- Additional considerations. Book of Ecclesiastes. -- Enoch and Abraham. -- Prayer of Balaam. -- Destruction by the deluge, and of Sodom and Gomorrah. -- Argument from the New Testament.

 

 

THE object is first to state and explain what I understand to be the penalty of the divine law, and secondly, to justify the statement by proof. I propose --

 

1. To state and explain what I understand to be the penalty of the divine law.

 

I suppose this penalty to consist in the cessation of existence here on earth, and the greatest possible misery forever in a future state.

 

I here use language which is in some respects indefinite, in order to comprise all that the penalty included, as originally denounced. It is supposable that the language or the mode adopted of conveying knowledge on this subject should not specify minutely all that the penalty in fact included; and it is quite possible, not to say probable, that we should be able to show from a subsequent revelation, that it did comprise specific things, which it was not understood to include, either by our first parents or by Moses. Nor does the use of such general phraseology involve the lawgiver in reproach; for the language may be broad and comprehensive enough to cover all that is made known by a subsequent and more specific development of its import.

 

By this mode of presenting the subject, I avoid what seems to have occasioned perplexity and not a little discussion. For example, were we to say that the penalty in its original form included and expressed the destruction of both soul and body (considered as the language of Moses), it might be difficult to prove our position; for the resurrection of the body and its future union with the soul in a state of suffering may be regarded as not very clearly revealed in his time. Still, this may have been actually comprised in the penalty; the form of promulgation may be sufficiently comprehensive to include it, and subsequent revelation fully disclosed it.

 

Again: when I say that the penalty included the cessation of existence on earth, I do not mean that temporal death as it now takes place among men, is in every instance, and as an event common to all men, a penal evil or legal sanction. In the case of those who die in their sins, it is doubtless a real part of the evil, which constitutes the legal penalty as a whole. It is doubtless so regarded by God, and in those cases in which we have proof of the one fact we have proof of the other. Thus the signal destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone was regarded. (2 Peter, ii. 6, and Jude, ver. 7.)

Temporal death, considered as an event to which all men are subject, is a very different thing from temporal death inflicted on the finally impenitent as the commencement and a constituent part of the legal penalty. As an event common to all, i.e., both Jews and Gentiles, it is the consequence of Adam's sin, though not without their being sinners. Accordingly, the inhabitants of the old world and of Sodom and Gomorrah, would have died, had they not died by signal judgments. Although then temporal death when it comes to the impenitent, is in fact a part of the penalty; although when brought on men by the signal interpositions of God in vindictive judgment it is to be so regarded by us; and although in all cases it is to be regarded as an expression of God's displeasure in some degree toward sin, yet it is not in all cases to be regarded as an evil sustaining the penal relation. It may be properly said to be part of the penalty, or a part of the evil which penalty includes, but as a part it is not a penal evil. Aside from the inconsistency of this supposition with the death of those who by faith are delivered from the curse of the law, and with the fact that temporal death in respect to them is destroyed and is strictly not an evil, it is evident from the account of the introduction of death into the world, that considered as the inheritance of all men, it does not sustain the relation of a penal evil. Nor is this at all inconsistent with the fact that it does constitute in some cases a part of the legal penalty. Whatever may be the parts of that evil called penalty, the whole and not the parts are the penalty. The peculiar relation or characteristic which we call venal, or which constitutes it a legal penalty, is predicable of the whole and of none of the parts. If forty stripes save one constitute the penalty of a law, then in a case of the actual infliction, every stripe is a part of the penal evil. But as apart it is. not penal, since that cannot be truly affirmed of a part which is true only of the whole. Nor is this inconsistent with the fact that one stripe should be inflicted under some other relation in another case, even as the dictate of kindness. Indeed, nothing can be plainer to my mind than that the original sentence, "Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return," was not pronounced in execution of the penalty of the law, "Thou shalt surely die." I shall have occasion to resume this topic hereafter. I only remark now, that temporal death here denounced on the whole, human race, was one among other evils to which they were doomed under an economy of redemption from sin and its curse, and was not therefore the curse itself, nor as a part of the complex evil which constitutes the legal penalty, does it sustain a penal relation.

 

Further: I remark here that I do not consider spiritual death, or continuance in sin, as properly any part of the legal penalty. It may be that he who once sins against God will with absolute certainty continue to sin, and it is unquestionably true that the threatening of complete misery from the lawgiver, must prevent all effectual interposition on his part to restore a transgressor to holiness, under a merely legal dispensation; it may even require that he place the transgressor in circumstances that will result in continued sin. The natural evil or misery attendant or consequent on continued sin may be a part of the penal evil. But it does not follow that the sin itself is therefore specifically threatened, or that it exists as an evil under the relation of legal penalty. The threatening may in a similar manner imply the continued existence of the transgressor, since otherwise its execution would be impossible. There may be as real a ground of the certainty of continued sin as there is of continued existence, and the former may be as necessary to the full execution of the penalty in the complete misery of the transgressor as the latter, and yet it would be far from correct and precise phraseology to speak of either as a part of the legal penalty. Similar remarks apply to the sinner's capacity of suffering, to his condition and circumstances, so far as these are necessary to the full execution of the penalty.

 

Further: it has been shown that nothing but natural evil, and this only as it is an expression of the lawgiver's disapprobation of sin, can constitute legal penalty. But sin considered merely as sin, is not a natural evil, i.e., it is not itself pain or misery. The choice of the inferior good viewed abstractly from the knowledge or conviction that the good chosen is the inferior good, and also from the effects which we ascribe to conscience, and from fear, regret and other similar states of mind, is not painful. It is true that pain or misery may be the invariable attendant of such a choice, because the appropriate causes of the pain may always co-exist with the choice. The intellect may always perceive the folly of it and this will occasion painful regret; and conscience may always operate in the production of painful self-reproach. But the operations of the intellect and conscience are not the pain felt, but the cause of it. So the act of will or the choice is not the pain, but only that which with these operations of intellect and conscience, is necessary to the existence of the pain felt. Or if we regard sin as a complex thing made up of acts of intellect, conscience and will, still it is not itself painful, but simply the cause or occasion of pain to the mind, the pain being the effect of the complex acts which constitute the sin. There is of course no more propriety in pronouncing sin, whether we mean by it the act of the will simply or the complex state of mind just described, to be in itself pain or natural evil, than there is in pronouncing the operations of the intellect and conscience which produce pain the pain itself; nor of course in pronouncing the sin a part of the legal penalty, than in so pronouncing the operations of intellect and conscience; and of course no more in pronouncing either a part of the legal penalty, than there is in pronouncing a cause an effect. It is true that in the looseness of popular language this is often done -- it is often done in this very case. Nor have I any objection to the use of the language now referred to for popular purposes; as, for example, when sin is said to be in itself unhappiness or misery, and even the greatest of evils. But my objection is, that such popular propositions, Which in terms are loose though not ambiguous in import. should be applied (for such is the fact) out of their true import to the analytical inquiry before us. The truth is, that misery is so associated with sin as its consequent, that in popular language it is itself according to abundant usage pronounced misery. Being thus in words pronounced a natural evil in itself, the way is prepared (for what on a superficial view of the matter seems like entire consistency), actually in thought, to distinguish sin itself as natural evil from all the natural evil of which it is the cause or occasion, and on the ground that all natural evil enters into the penalty of the law, to pronounce it thus distinguished, a part of the legal penalty. Now who does not see the fallacy of this process of reasoning? The popular proposition that sin is itself unhappiness, has not the meaning which this reasoning gives it. The popular proposition is not intended to separate the sin from the unhappiness connected with it, and to make the one distinct from the other, as they obviously are distinct. And hence in this reasoning, the proposition that sin is itself unhappiness is applied as if they were not distinct. Thus it is that the revolting conclusion is obtained, that God threatens sin with sin -- threatens the violation of his law with its violation -- threatens the acts of a free voluntary agent with the acts of a free agent.

 

Such a law among men would be regarded as a burlesque on all legislation. And when we reflect that all our views of the moral government of God must be derived and modified by an ultimate reference to our views of human governments, it must I think be regarded as incredible, that what would be regarded as so preposterous an enactment in a human legislature, does in fact find place in the perfect moral government of God. The first sin of any being is a punishment of sin, i.e., sin is punished before it exists -- punished for his holiness, or at least for his innocence!

 

If any should say that all this is refined metaphysical speculation, I will not deny it. I have however, this reason for it: that the argument for the doctrine that spiritual death is a part of the penalty, derives its entire plausibility from the metaphysics of its premises, and that it is impossible to unfold its fallacy except by the same mode of reasoning. Thus the argument takes a popular proposition and turns it from its true import into one of a minute metaphysical import, assumes the truth of this import and rests its conclusion upon it. This is undeniable. For let the popular position be understood to mean simply what it does mean in popular usage, viz., that sin and misery are inseparably associated as cause and effect, and it is at once seen to be very different from that which asserts that sin is itself misery viewed abstractly from its effects; and thus the conclusion built on this position is overthrown.

 

Again: according to the principle that nothing can constitute legal penalty but natural evil, and this only, as it becomes an expression of God's disapprobation of sin, sin itself can be no part of the legal penalty. For how can the fact that God renders sin certain, express his disapprobation of sin? Indeed what is more palpably absurd than to suppose that God should inflict sin as a punishment of sin -- should cause sin to exist forever, to show his disapprobation of it? Nothing is plainer than that God, on the present supposition, must be regarded as giving existence to sin in such a manner that its existence may answer the end of legal penalty. But who does not see the gross incongruity of the supposition. that God should give a perpetual and eternal existence to that which he supremely hates and abhors, as the method of showing his abhorrence to it?

 

Again: sin cannot with the least propriety be regarded as an event whose existence so depends on God, as its relation to law as a legal penalty requires that it should. Sin in its very nature is the act of a free moral agent. It is not a thing suffered from the hand or agency of another; but an act done by the accountable agent himself; a thing entirely within the power and at the disposal of the transgressor himself. It can therefore never be regarded as an evil coming from the hand of God, in such a manner as to become a part of the legal penalty. Nor is this all: the supposition that God renders sin certain as a part of the legal penalty, makes it the necessary means of the greatest good, and thus annihilates its nature. But according to the views which I may consider as satisfactorily established, God does not, and cannot as a consistent moral governor, purpose sin as the necessary means of the greatest good, nor purpose its existence in any respect what ever, except as incidental in respect to his prevention to the best system, and therefore purposes it in no sense which is inconsistent with an unqualified preference of holiness to sin, in every instance in which sin does exist. So every subject of God's government with just views of his purposes must regard them. How then can the existence of sin be regarded as purposed of God to subserve the end of upholding his moral government, or as the necessary means of this end? And if not, how can it be supposed to be a part of the penalty of his law?

 

Should it be said that as continued sin is necessary to the complete execution of the penalty (since none but a sinful being can be completely miserable), God must have purposed its continuance as the necessary means of executing the penalty. I should deny the premises. It is not true that the complete execution of the penalty requires the complete misery, but only the highest possible misery. So that if we suppose a transgressor to reform under law, and God to make Min as miserable as possible, the penalty is fully executed. It may be and doubtless is a fact that complete misery is threatened, not on the supposition that he who once sins will afterward become holy, but in view of the fact, that the character which the subject of law voluntarily assumes in an act of sin is, an unchangeable character. For aught that can be shown to the contrary, it may be assumed, that he who sins under a given influence of moral government will never under the same influence reform, and that that degree of moral influence which God, as a moral governor and under a merely legal dispensation, brings upon every subject at a given time, is as great as the perfection of this system demands or allows. In this view of the subject, not only the sin but the perpetuity of it are both incidental to the best system. The perpetuity of sin therefore, cannot be regarded as purposed of God as the necessary means of inflicting complete misery; but the penalty is to be viewed as made to consist in complete misery in view of the perpetuity of sin when once committed. Indeed the difficulties and objections pertaining to any other view of the subject lead me to the belief, that a subject of God's moral government is by the very nature and circumstances of it when existing in its perfection, called upon to choose God or an inferior good as his portion once for all; and that choose which he may, if there be no change in the system there will never be a change in his character. His act of choice will be for once, and immutable forever. Being made with the knowledge that it is a choice by which he becomes, in the lowest degree of it, a decided enemy of God and of all good -- a choice which will continue one and the same during his immortality, which will strengthen by continuance, and which remaining one and the same choice or purpose of heart, will lead to open acts of malice and blasphemy against God. I say with this knowledge, the transgressor does in his first act of sin become, ipso facto, an eternal rebel against God. There is in the first act a real and virtual consent to all sin. Nor is this in principle any excessive refinement. For says an apostle, "Whoso shall offend in one point is guilty of all." He who in heart violates one precept of the law does really violate every other, for the thing and the only thing which the law in fact forbids, is that state of heart which violates the supposed precept. ("Cursed is every one," &c.; "He that hateth his brother is a murderer.") Nor is this view of the subject inconsistent with the fact that the guilt and sufferings of a transgressor should increase. As the same disease may increase in virulence and in anguish, so may the selfsame sin. And here I would remark, that I regard that as an erroneous view of the subject, which represents the wicked in a future world as committing a succession of separate sins, each having its own appropriate measure of ill-desert, and the sinner as suffering the punishment for one and then for another in similar succession. The Scriptures and reason present another view, viz., that the commission of sin brings the curse, the full penalty, and warrant us to assert that although the wicked hereafter grow worse and worse, and suffer more and more, they never cease to suffer for sin as one act or purpose of rebellion done here on earth. With this act all that ill-desert commenced which is the basis of their continual and complete misery; there pertains to it, when committed, this amount of guilt. And if it be said that it could not incur this amount of guilt were it not to be perpetual, I answer that this depends on what the act of sin involved when committed. And if it could not exist under a merely legal dispensation and be what it is without being perpetual, it involved all this guilt when committed. The continued sin of the transgressor is not to be viewed as the necessary means of inflicting the amount of suffering implied in the penalty, but the amount of suffering in the penalty is to be considered as threatened and determined on in view of what sin is, as an act of perpetual revolt from God. I conclude. therefore, that Bin cannot, according to any just principles of reasoning, be viewed in any manner or respect whatever as a part of the penalty of the divine law.

 

Having stated in what I suppose the penalty of the law to, consist, I now proceed --

 

II. To justify that statement by proof. Here, for reasons already assigned, we resort again to the Mosaic law.

 

The argument founded on the Mosaic law, viewed as a representative system, would be this: that as the penalty of that law, considered in its relation to man as its subject and as having an earthly or temporal existence, was premature temporal death without mercy; so the penalty of the perfect moral law of God, considered in its relation to man as an immortal being, was eternal death without mercy, or the highest degree of misery forever.

 

No truth stands out more conspicuously in the Old Testament, than that mere external conformity to the law, though it averted the civil penalty and secured the civil reward, did not avert the wrath and secure the favor of God as a moral governor. It was most clearly taught, that all such sacrifices and all such doings without a holy heart were an offense and an abomination. When God conferred national blessings on the Jews in view of an external reformation, he distinctly declared that it was not for their righteousness, but for his own name's sake and for the love he bore to their fathers, and that they were continually a stiff-necked and rebellious house. The truth was made conspicuous, that they were not all Israel who were of Israel, and that as children of the flesh they were not children of God. God ever set himself before this people as the searcher of the heart and the judge of all the earth, according to the great principles of a moral administration which were to be illustrated and vindicated in a future state of being. Indeed, in view of the high and holy requirements of God, and especially in view of the acknowledged fact of a future existence, and a future retribution under the government of the true God and the living Jehovah, the Jewish theocracy must have been regarded by every enlightened, honest inquirer after truth, as a most impressive representation of God's more perfect dominion over accountable immortals. Viewed as a merely legal dispensation, the sanctions of the one in all their rigor application, must have exhibited and illustrated the sanctions of the other according to the unbending principles of eternal righteousness. Viewed in its connection with a gracious economy, the gratuitous proffers of earthly good to apparent penitence and through typical sacrifice, must have been regarded as adumbrations to the truly pious of the higher joys revealed by Christian promise, and the solemn threatenings of temporal calamities and death to the perversely wicked, as distinct denunciations of the wrath to come.

 

Here it would be in point to support, from the New Testament, the view which I have taken of the Mosaic law. To this I have before referred sufficiently to show the decisive nature of the argument.

 

To see the nature of the argument as furnished by the Mosaic institution itself, is to my own mind alike interesting and important, as it shows not only what that institution was as a revelation of divine truth to Israel, but also develops its utility to us. The force of the reasoning will indeed scarcely be appreciated without more attention to the Old Testament -- a more accurate estimate of its facts and of the character and condition of the ancient Jews -- than is commonly given to the subject. With these in the mind, and by transferring them to ourselves, we should I think be prepared to appreciate the evidence of the point under consideration. Suppose, for example, a similar system to that of the theocracy adopted in respect to this people; suppose our present knowledge of God and of his relations (for though there would be a modified difference between them and us in this respect, it would not be such as ought to affect the conclusion); suppose also the same reasons to exist in our case as in theirs for understanding the national institute as a system of representation; could we easily conceive of any modo so fitted to impress the mind with the great truths concerning God, and man, and eternity? Suppose we were to witness what they did -- the miracles of Egypt and those at the Red Sea! or were to see and hear God in Sinai!

 

From this view there of the Mosaic law as a system of representation, I derive my doctrine respecting the legal penalty of God's moral government, as before stated, that as the penalty of the one was temporal death, the penalty of the other was eternal death.

 

I now appeal also to the language of the penalty, i.e., to the words die and death, as used to describe it both in the Old and New Testament. This import of these words I shall attempt to unfold according to the principles before stated, respecting the language of words and the language of things, as suggesting and representing more than their literal meaning. That I may be the better understood on this part of the subject, instead of repeating the principles already stated, I shall attempt to illustrate them by an example, which shows that these principles are those of constant use and decisive authority.

 

Let it then be remembered that my object is to illustrate the various meanings of the word death, as descriptive of the legal penalty in different cases as facts and circumstances varied, assuming the primary meaning of the word death to be the cessation of existence on earth.

 

Suppose then a king, whose empire is visibly confined to a single island -- a rich and happy country -- should make the loss of residence in that country the penalty of his law against treason. Of this single expression, were no facts known in the case beyond what the language itself conveys, the import would be very indefinite. Were the subjects so ignorant as not to know whether there was or was not any other country, they would regard the penalty as involving at least the loss of a residence where they would wish to live -- a departure from their native land. Whatever also they might conjecture as the further consequence, they would regard this evil unmitigated, and in its full extent as the penalty of the crime. This, estimating their guilt and the displeasure of their sovereign by the magnitude of the interests opposed by the crime, would be the only positive definite conception which the language of the law would authorize or require.

 

Let us now suppose the subjects to know that their king reigns not merely over the small empire of an island, but over a vast continent of empires; that there is a remote and dreary desert which is specified as the place of banishment, and that the king estimates the crime of treason by its true tendency to destroy his extensive empire. Now the same language of the penalty conveys far more than it did before. It necessarily conducts the thoughts to this desert, and though little comparatively might be known of it, a residence there would be unavoidably supposed to be wretched in such a degree, as to express the sovereign's displeasure for the crime of treason against his, great and happy kingdom.

 

Suppose again, that more extensive and minute information respecting the place of exile should be given; that it should be known as a place where existence could be barely sustained, and sustained under continual suffering from cold and hunger, from nakedness and disease, and amid all the miseries of a community of unrestrained maniacs. Now how expressive and how full of meaning does the language of the penalty become, compared with the case in the first supposition, or that in the second? The single word exile or banishment used to designate the penalty of treason, would unavoidably convey to the mind the full conception of all the known facts in the case, in their appalling combination.

 

Let us now suppose that all the subjects of the king unite in one universal conspiracy and revolt, and that the sovereign, instead of an immediate execution of the legal penalty, provides a plan of forgiveness and restoration to his favor, proffering both on condition of returning to duty, but declaring nevertheless that all, whether they comply with the terms of forgiveness or not, shall be exiled from their country; that those who do comply shall dwell in a city prepared for their residence, where they shall enjoy a far more happy existence than they can enjoy in their native land; and that those who do not, shall suffer the entire penalty of the law. Now when the word exile or banishment is used, it will unavoidably be seen how diverse its meanings are in different connections. To speak of the exile of those who have complied with the terms of forgiveness, is, in fact, to speak of the happiest event of their earthly being; but to speak of the exile of the perverse and unsubdued rebel, is to speak of all that is dreadful.

 

I shall now attempt to show, that what I supposed respecting the language of the king's law against treason, is true of the language used to describe the penalty of the divine law.

 

Here then I begin with the primary literal import of the word death, as denoting the cessation of existence on earth, leaving all beyond it so uncertain and dark that even faith has no concern with it. Now whether any of the human race to whom the penalty of the divine law was ever made known were thus ignorant or not, need not here be decided. If they were, and necessarily so, then this restricted view of the import of the penalty was in fact the only penalty to them. But we know that it was not so. (Vide Rom. i. 32.) Even the heathen who do such things as are here specified by the apostle, know that they are worthy of that death which includes indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish."

 

But the question first to be decided according to the proposed method of inquiry is, what facts were known or believed by the ancient people of God when the Mosaic law was given, which would control and determine their views of the import of its penalty. They knew or believed that man was an immortal being: they, like the Egyptians and other nations, believed in future rewards and punishments, and that the law of God did and must respect them, under other relations than those of a mere earthly community. Now I maintain that the knowledge or belief of these facts must, except we suppose the grossest perversion of evidence, have controlled their interpretation of the language of penalty, and that they could not but understand the death threatened, as involving the cessation of existence on earth under the hopeless displeasure of God, and of course as including future endless misery. The only possible question is, whether this people did know or believe, or which is the same thing in respect to our argument, might have known the facts specified. But there can be no question on this point. It was the universal doctrine of all nations as well as of the Egyptians, inculcated and enforced on the popular belief, that their gods would reward the good and the bad in a future state. Of course, as I have before said, all that was really necessary to prove to the nation of Israel that the God of Israel will execute such sanctions, was to prove that he was the true God. The question therefore in regard to the knowledge or belief of these great facts can no longer be, a question. But with this knowledge or belief, it is utterly impossible that by the laws of correct interpretation this people should not have understood the legal penalty to be what I have stated it to be. The use and the import of language are always determined by the known facts of the case. And that the penalty of the Mosaic law should not denote what I have supposed, is as impossible as that in the example supposed, the word exile or banishment should not have the meaning supposed; or as that the phrase Solomon's temple, to one who had seen it, should denote the wigwam of an American Indian.

 

Such we shall see was the fact in regard to its import, as understood and exhibited by those who understood it correctly.

 

Now it will be admitted that Ezekiel and David and Solomon knew no more on this subject than what was revealed under the Mosaic dispensation. The question then is, what did they mean when they spoke of death as the punishment of sin? And this question is answered by one incontrovertible fact, viz., that this death was a death which in its full import at least, the righteous should not die. But the righteous did die a temporal death. Thus Solomon, for example, while he declares in many and different forms that the wicked shall die as the reward of their iniquity (Prov. v. 4, 22, 23; viii. 35, 36,; xi. 19), also asserts that "in the way of righteousness there is life, and in the pathway thereof there is no death." (Prov. xii. 28; vide also x. 2; xi. 4; xiii. 14; xiv. 27.) Ezekiel also asserts with peculiar directness, that the soul that sinneth shall die, that the wicked shall surely die; and yet he no less unequivocally asserts that the righteous shall live, and not die. (Ezek. xviii. 21; compare Isa. lxvi. 16, 24; vide also Prov. x. 2; xi. 4; xiii. 14; xxiv. 27.) Now the death from which the righteous are delivered is the death which the wicked suffer. But the righteous are not distinguished from the wicked by exemption from temporal death. The death therefore which the wicked suffer is something compared to which the temporal death of the righteous is not death. Was it natural death in circumstances of peculiar suffering? The righteous often died in such circumstances (vide Heb. xi. 37), being stoned and sawn asunder. The righteous died prematurely or in early life, even "perished in his righteousness" (Eccles. vii. 15). Besides the difference supposed is not such as the case obviously requires, to exhibit the displeasure of that God toward sin, who had adopted such a course of providence to prevent it. Was it then annihilation? But they acknowledged the doctrine of a future state, and therefore could not so understand it. It was death then as the wages of sin; it was death which excluded from the rewards of the righteous and from the favor of God; it was the cessation of existence on earth, under the frown of the Almighty -- death as an expression of his displeasure as a lawgiver, and death to an immortal being, without one ray of hope, of favor, or of happiness from his offended God.

 

Many other considerations confirm this view of the subject. As to temporal death and calamities, the wise man declares that there is no substantial difference in the estate of the righteous and the wicked, all things happening alike to all. By this we are not to understand that he esteemed the penalty of the Mosaic law as not an evil peculiar to its transgressors, but that in view of their future allotments, which was the theme of his discourse, the difference is not deserving of consideration. As if he said, This world is not, but a future world is the place of just retribution. Again, natural death was without terror to the righteous; they welcomed the event -- they hailed it often with joy. But to the wicked this event was replete with unqualified terror. Now keeping in mind their belief of a future state, what must have been their views of this event as one so appalling? Further, the promises of eternal life to the righteous throw a strong and clear light on the nature of that death which was the penalty of sin. The only condition of such promises was personal holiness, and therefore in every one of them the truth was clearly revealed that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." Beings then who were known to exist forever, dying in sin, were never to see God never to enjoy good in the least degree; were to be excluded from it under his severest displeasure. For here also, let it be remarked, the fact of God's unqualified and extremest displeasure against the wicked was fully revealed, and what evil could immortal beings fail to expect from the wrath of God against sin as exhibited in the Old Testament?

 

I might here refer to the book of Ecclesiastes, as written in the opinion of some learned men, for the purpose of proving from the light of nature a state of future rewards and punishments. (tide Graves on Pentateuch, Vol. II., p. 255, note.) If this was so, how striking a disclosure of the principles of our argument and the conclusion founded on them! But I only refer to some facts which are no less decisive -- I mean those which doubtless were well known in the time of Moses; and first those which exhibit God's dealings with his faithful servants. Take for example those which respect Enoch and Abraham. Now we may assume, as it respects the present argument, that it was a known fact, that these men on the ground of personal holiness were rewarded with the favor of God and everlasting happiness in a future world, one of them being conducted thither by God's miraculous interposition. What is the inference but that there was such a future world that without holiness the inheritance of its joys could never be obtained -- and that the wicked, as the object of God's hopeless displeasure, were doomed to a future existence the very opposite of these holy men?

 

Such was in fact the view of the wicked themselves, at least in one instance. For what could the prayer of Balaam, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and my last end be like his," import, if there had been in his view no difference between the state of the righteous and the wicked after leaving this world? We know, and he knew, that the most desirable consideration in the death of the righteous was the hope of future joys. To suppose this prayer to be prompted merely in reference to any general providential difference between the attendant sufferings of the one and those of the other, or by any thing, while he believed the prospects of both for futurity were alike, is to me incredible.

 

Again: I appeal to the destruction of the old world by the deluge, and of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone. That these are properly regarded as decisive instances of the departure of the wicked from this world to one of endless misery, we are assured from the New Testament. But let us look at the facts themselves, and ask what instruction these must have furnished to God's ancient people on the subject before us. With the knowledge that those destroyed were immortal, of the distinction made between them as wicked on the one hand, and Noah and his family and Lot as righteous on the other, who could suppose that these signal judgments of God terminated in mere temporal death, and this too when Noah and Lot must so shortly die? Could it be supposed that in these cases the legal penalty of the Jewish theocracy, a merely temporal institute, was executed? But this law had no existence. Under such a law therefore they could not have died. But they died under the most signal and awful proofs of God's displeasure. They died too as immortal beings. They died, as the apostle reasons, under another law than that of a theocracy. If the very heathen know that they are worthy of death for their crimes, what must be the conclusion in respect to those whom God destroyed by the deluge, and by fire and brimstone? What must be in store for those who were ushered into eternity under such tokens of the wrath to come?

 

I might here refer to many passages in the Old Testament which in words describe the penalty of sin to be everlasting.

 

(Vide Isa. lxvi. 24; Daniel, xii. 2.) "Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." In view of the acknowledged fact of the soul's immortality, there is not only no reason for limiting the language of this class of texts, but decisive reason for not doing it.

 

In conclusion, I appeal to the New Testament, not to prove the fact that the penalty of sin is endless, but to prove that it was so understood under the Mosaic dispensation. Here we shall not only find this fact established, but a striking illustration of those principles of using language which I have stated and exemplified. It is then undeniable that our Saviour did assume the doctrine of future endless punishment, and used. Jewish phraseology to describe it. So also did the apostles. This they did when the national law with its temporal sanctions had ceased. Nor is this all; it was a doctrine of the popular faith, the Sadducees excepted, and their error our Lord exposed by an argument from the Old Testament. Now let these things be accounted for, unless the Old Testament taught the doctrine of a future state with its retribution in eternal life and eternal death. And in view of the acknowledged fact of the theocracy with sanctions of temporal life and death, let the above usage of language by our Saviour and his apostles be explained, except on the principles which have been stated respecting the change of meaning.

 

Cor. -- It follows that all those passages in the Old Testament in which life and death, good and evil, blessing and cursing are set before men to induce to holiness and to deter from sin, are properly quoted by us in the New Testament import.