Earlier text: Importance of Right AssociationsThe Sovereign Pontiff, and the Church of Rome.
By Prof. Gaussen
They Vindicate the Truth by Fulfilling the Prophecies.
A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BY PROF. GAUSSEN, AT THE RE-OPENING OF THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT GENEVA, OCTOBER 3, 1843. GENTLEMEN: I call your attention to an important point, which should be constantly before your eyes, when you have to do with Rome. I mean the precious and sacred doctrine of our fathers, too much neglected and often even despised in our churches, though God has given us, to appreciate its value, many new reasons which our fathers did not possess. This doctrine is, that Rome is the Babylon of which John speaks; the pope, the Man of Sin, the son of perdition of whom Paul speaks; popery, the little horn of which Daniel speaks. I wish to show you that this doctrine, constantly held in the church of God for nearly twelve hundred years, has only been lightly esteemed, like the doctrine of an evil spirit, the tempter, in times of lax theology and infidelity. When the pious Waldo distributed the Scriptures in France, seven hundred years ago, the cry was soon heard: Come out of Babylon! When the great Wickliffe preached the Reformation in England, five hundred years ago, all eyes were turned to the Roman pontiff with the exclamation, Behold the Man of Sin! When the generous Huss and when Jerome of Prague made their voice heard, a hundred years before Luther, it was against the abominations of "the great whore" foretold by John. When our fathers preached the Reformation in Geneva, one of their first cares was to affix to the walls of our hôtel de ville a brass plate (of which, alas! there only remains the frame), on which they inscribed thanks to God "for having delivered them from the tyranny of antichrist." When the fathers of most of us, gentlemen, made their admirable Confession of Faith at Rochelle, they took care in their seventeenth national synod (held at Gap under Henry IV., in the year 1603), to decree that at the end of the 30th article should be inserted the following declaration, called article 31st. (I transcribe their words): "And since the bishop of Rome has erected a monarchy in Christendom, claiming for himself dominion over all churches and pastors, exalting himself to be called of God, wishing to be adored, boasting to have all power in heaven and upon earth, to despose of all ecclesiastical matters, to decide upon articles of faith, to authorize and interpret at his pleasure the Scriptures, to make a traffic of souls, to disregard vows and oaths, to appoint new divine services; and in respect to the civil government, to trample under foot the lawful authority of magistrates, by taking away, giving and exchanging kingdoms, we believe and maintain that it is the very antichrist and the son of perdition, predicted in the word of God under the emblem of a whore clothed in scarlet, seated upon the seven hills of the great city, which has dominion over the kings of the earth; and we expect that the Lord will consume it with the Spirit of his mouth, and finally destroy it with the brightness of his coming, as he has promised and already begun to do." For more than fifty years the Protestant ministers and people of France were persecuted by kings and governors of provinces on account of this 31st article. But we love to hear their faithful voice making itself heard in their twenty-ninth and last synod, after they had been refused for fifteen years holding any:— "The king's commissioner having requested that they should not employ such expressions (antichrist, when speaking of the pope; idolatry, when speaking of the Romanists) in the oaths taken in this synod, the moderator was instructed to answer as follows:—" "'But in regard to these words, antichrist, found in the Liturgy, and idolatry and workings of Satan, found in our Confession of Faith, they contain the reasons and foundation of our separation from the church of Rome, and express the doctrine which our fathers maintained in times of cruel persecution; and we are resolved, after their example, never to abandon them, by the grace of God, but to preserve them faithfully and inviolably to the last moment of our life.'" Such, gentlemen, is the declaration of your fathers, which I put to your understanding and to your conscience; to your understanding, that you may study it carefully; to your consciences, that you may preach it resolutely, like your fathers "in times of cruel persecution, faithfully, inviolably to the last moment of your lives." This important doctrine is taught us by three prophets—by Daniel, in chapters 2, 7, and 11; by Paul, in his second epistle to the Thessalonians, and his first epistle to Timothy; and lastly, by John, in chapters 9, 11, 12, 13, 17, and 18 of the Revelation. I design to give you some idea, gentlemen, of the wonderful light which the Holy Spirit sheds upon this subject; and I shall be satisfied for this purpose to state briefly what only one of these prophets, the oldest, Daniel, says, and that only in his seventh chapter. I beg, first, that one of the brethren will please to read aloud the first fourteen verses. 1. In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed; then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters. 2. Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. 3. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. 4. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it. 5. And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it; and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. 6. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it. 7. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it; and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. 8. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots; and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things. 9. I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. 10. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the judgment was set, and the books were opened. 11. I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake; I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame. 12. As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away; yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time. 13. I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. 14. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. At the Freethinkers' Convention held at Watkins, N. Y., not long since, Mr. Miln, whose extremely "liberal" views had proved too much for even the Unitarians, and who has left the pulpit for the stage, gave his testimony as to the power of certain features of Christianity. When infidels themselves admit that they have nothing to compare with that which the Christian religion offers, there is no need of preaching against infidelity. Here is what he said:— Let me next call attention to a feature of strength possessed by the church, to which the liberal cause as yet offers but meager rivalry; I mean its wealth of poetry. To challenge the fascinations of poetry were to deny the instincts of humanity. If one pauses he will at once perceive how charming a dress is there provided for the most insidious, though well-intended error. Be sure of this, that a proverb or a rhyme is the safest vehicle for either truth or error. Let me illustrate my meaning. The Christian conception of this world is a wilderness through which we journey to a promised land. In this wilderness are dangers innumerable—besetting foes, the seductions of dangerous by-paths, and a thousand ills beside. Now, in this view what could possibly supply a stronger motive for exertion than the tender strain:— "Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but thou art mighty,
Hold me with thy powerful hand." Again the Christian dogmatist teaches his follower that he is in danger. To a disciple deeply and earnestly imbued with such views, what greater inspiration could he offer than this well-known song? "Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Save from wrath and make me pure." Or, if we consider an attempt to awaken enthusiasm over the indestructibility of the Christian system, what shall we find superior to this? "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in its excellent word;
What more can he say than to you he hath said,
To you, who to Jesus for refuge have fled.
"Fear not, I am with thee; oh! be not dismayed,
I, I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I'll comfort thee, cheer thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by my mighty omnipotent hand." I shall not ask your pardon for introducing to you these old hymns, which to many before me will have all the charm of novelty, and to others will come as an echo of by-gone days; but I will say that in my judgment the church wields no stronger influence than that which resides in sacred poetry. We come now to consider the seductive charm for the human heart which surrounds the Christian doctrine of a blissful immortality of the righteous. Look for an instant upon this inviting phase of Christian doctrine. "In my Father's house are many mansions," said Jesus of old, and every Christian fondly believes that Christ has gone before to prepare a place for him. How radiant, how peaceful, how replete with light and joy and unbroken harmonies that fair dwelling-place shall be! "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive!" How alluring, how fascinating this prospect! The keenest logician of us all bids farewell to that conception with ill-concealed regret. The reunion which it promises, how full of tenderest anticipation! And because self-preservation is the first law of nature, and because man projects the desire to preserve and perpetuate self beyond the limits of this mundane existence, I hold that that system which predicts an eternal life for the individual man has in the present stage of human development, a tremendous advantage over the system which denies or is simply agnostic in regard thereto. Perhaps to this practical age, however, the chief claim as put forward by the church in her own defense is found in the magnitude and variety of her charities. I count that man foolish indeed who attempts to sneer at the philanthropic activity of the Christian church. When I recall the sincere self-denial of her missionaries, the constant benevolence of her followers; when I think of her care for the aged, for the halt, lame and blind; when I remember her tender solicitude for the street waif, or for the poor creatures who stand upon the brink of humanity, I detect at once the tender benevolence of the human heart and the secret of the mighty grip still laid by the hand of the church upon the heart of humanity. THE DISTANCE OF THE STARS.
The idea of distance is often best conveyed by some every-day illustration. In a recent lecture by Dr. William Huggins, the eminent English astronomer, as to the results of spectrum analysis as applied to the heavenly bodies, this striking statement was used to give some faint notion of the enormous distance of the stars. "The earth's orbit," said the lecturer, "which is more than 190,000,000 miles in diameter, at most of the stars dwindles to a mere point, and has no sensible size whatever. If you suppose a railway from the earth to the nearest fixed star, which is supposed to be twenty billions of miles from us; and if you suppose the price of the fare to be one penny for every hundred miles—not, mind! a penny per mile—then, if you take a mass of gold to the ticket office equal to the national debt ($3,800,000,000) it would not be sufficient to pay for a ticket to the nearest fixed star. And I think I should not be wrong in saying that there are stars so far off that the price of one penny for every hundred miles, the whole treasure of the earth would not be sufficient to pay for a ticket." Fulfillment of Prophecies Concerning Christ.
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
A GREAT number of prophecies had their fulfillment in the scenes connected with the betrayal, trial, crucifixion, and burial of our Lord. One is struck by the number of times that the evangelists say, "That the scripture might be fulfilled," etc., and many times the fulfillment of a prophecy is not noted. Many of these prophecies of the Old Testament would not be recognized in our ordinary reading as referring to Christ, if our attention were not called to them; but when the evangelists record the fact that they were written of Christ, we can have no doubt. The writers of the Gospels were themselves unable to see the application of all these prophecies, until after the resurrection of Christ; but when they wrote, their minds were enlightened by the Holy Spirit, according to the promise of Christ. The exactness with which prophecies are fulfilled is the strongest proof of the inspiration of the Bible; we cannot, therefore, better employ a portion of our time, as we review our past work, than in tracing out some of these prophecies that refer to Christ. We shall not attempt at this time to make an exhaustive review of them. 1. Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples who had lived with him and shared his confidence. According to John 13:18 this was a fulfillment of Ps. 41:9: "Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me." Since our attention has been called to this psalm, we can see other passages which may plainly refer to Christ. How the plotting of the Jews against Christ, and the spies that were placed upon his track, and the false reports which were circulated, are indicated by verses 5–7: "Mine enemies speak evil of me, When shall he die, and his name perish? And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity; his heart gathereth iniquity to itself; when he goeth abroad, he telleth it. All that hate me whisper together against me; against me do they devise my hurt." John assures us that verse 9 refers to Christ; by verse 4 that David is also speaking of himself. This is an instance where the scripture has an immediate application, and also a reference to future events. This is very common in the Psalms, and also in the prophetic books. 2. When Jesus was taken by the mob, his disciples all forsook him and fled. This was in fulfillment of Zechariah 13:7: "Smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." In this chapter there is unmistakable reference to Christ. See verse 6. Isa. 53:3 was also fulfilled here, in part: "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid, as it were, our faces from him." 3. Christ was insulted, scourged, and spit upon. In this we see Isa. 50:6 fulfilled: "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting." 4. In all Christ's trial, when he was insulted and scourged, and even when crucified, he had no word of reproach for his enemies. Isaiah's description of this is so vivid that we can see it as though with our natural eyes. "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth." Isa. 53:7. 5. The crucifixion itself was foretold by David in Ps. 22:16: "For dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me; they pierced my hands and my feet." 6. It was the custom for the soldiers who executed a prisoner, to divide his garments among themselves; these were their perquisites; but Christ had a seamless garment which could not well be divided, and for this the soldiers gambled. John 19:24. This was also foretold by the psalmist: "They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." Ps. 22:18. 7. He was crucified between two thieves, just as a common criminal. All the ignominy possible was heaped upon him. This was in fulfillment of Isa. 53:12: "He was numbered with the transgressors." 8. The people reviled Jesus as he hung upon the cross, and the chief priests mocked him, saying, "He saved others; himself he cannot save' If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him; for he said, I am the Son of God." Matt. 27:42, 43. To see how clearly this was foreseen, read Ps. 22:7, 8. 9. The legs of the thieves were broken, in order that the shock might hasten their death. Christ was already dead when this was done to them, and his legs were not broken. This was in order that Christ might be an exact antitype of the paschal lamb, none of whose bones were to be broken. Ex. 12:46. David mentioned this fact in Ps. 34:19, 20: "Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. He keepeth all his bones; not one of them is broken." See John 19:36. 10. In order to make sure that Christ was dead, a soldier rudely thrust his spear into his side, making a deep and large wound. John 19:37. Thus the fulfillment of Zech. 12:10 was provided for: "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." John, in Rev. 1:7, tells us that this will be fulfilled at the second coming of Christ. 11. Christ was taken from the cross and laid in the tomb which Joseph, a wealthy Jew, had prepared for his own use; and thus was fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, that he should make his grave with the rich. Isa. 53:9. A word of explanation may be needed upon this point. The text reads: "And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth." It would thus seem to the casual reader, that Christ made his grave both with the wicked and with the rich. Dr. Barnes makes a very critical comment upon these words, and explains it thus: The Hebrew word rendered "he made" means, according to Gesenius, to give, as to give into the hand of any one, to give into prison or into custody, etc. "The notion of giving or giving over, is the essential idea of the word, and not that of making, as our translation would seem to imply; and the sense is that he was given by design to the grave of the wicked, or it was intended that he should occupy such a grave. The meaning then would be: 'And his grave was appointed with the wicked; but he was with a rich man [or with the rich] in his death.' This makes the meaning clear, and brings out the idea that the intention of the Jews was frustrated. They expected that he would receive a dishonorable burial; but their purpose was thwarted, and his burial was that of a king. These are some of the prophecies concerning Christ's death. There are others that show that he was to be put to death by the Roman Government, and that also fix the exact year when it should take place. And yet the prophecies concerning Christ's first advent are not nearly so numerous nor so explicit as those which refer to his second coming. The Jews were rejected because they did not know the time of their visitation; because they did not make the proper application of the Scriptures, in which they were well versed. If such was their fate, what will be our lot, if we do not heed carefully all the prophecies which pertain to the second coming of our Lord? Boys in the Sabbath-School.
THERE was a fair-faced young lady in a certain Sabbath-school, whose class of boys had arrived at the dangerous age; yet she held them steadily. Not only were they attendants, but they were noticeably regular in attendance; not only that, but they were prompt. I studied over it a good deal. I knew the young lady. She did not seem to be more learned than the others, or more apt to teach; she had no better advantages for preparation, and, so far as I could learn, she did not study harder than some of the rest; yet, apparently, she succeeded better. I was quite well acquainted with one of her class. I cross-questioned him. "Is Miss Marvyn a very superior teacher, Charlie?" "She's tip-top." Spoken with the air of prompt heartiness that means so much in a frank-hearted boy. "How did she manage last Sunday's lesson?" "Oh, I dunno;" in that off-hand tone, which may mean: "I know all about it, but I'm not going to tell you; its a matter of confidence between her and us." "The boys all like her, don't they?" "Of course they do; they would be great simpletons if they didn't." "But, Charlie, what makes her any better than the others?" "Dunno, I'm sure; all I know about it is, we don't want to exchange her for anybody that we know." I was still in the dark as to Miss Marvyn's success; but that evening, as Charlie was coming in at his father's side-gate in his shirt sleeves, and with dusty hands which had been helping to build a wood-pile, I, standing in the door, saw him suddenly halt and lift his cap, and at the same time heard a cheery voice say: "How do you do, Charlie? I was just thinking of you; I hope we shall see you out this evening; we are depending on you." Then—as he protested that his hands were too dusty to accept her offered glove—"Never mind the dust, Charlie; good, honest dust never hurt anybody's hands. May we expect you?" "I'll be there," he said, heartily. Then he came in. "Charlie," I said, "Miss Marvyn has a real cheery way with her, hasn't she? I like to see people shake hands with their friends." "She'd shake hands with one of her boys if he had just tumbled out of a tar-kettle," said Charlie, emerging from the basin into which he had dipped his curly head, and speaking in a tone of grim satisfaction. "Where is she so anxious to have you come this evening?" "It's to prayer-meeting," he said, under his breath. "She wants some of us to help along the singing." "Charlie, are you going?" "Yes'm, I am; I kind of like to please her; and beside," with a rougish glance at me, "she had us to her house to eat strawberries and cream last night; a fellow would feel rather flat not to do what she asked him after that." And I, as I went up stairs, mused as to whether I had found a clew to Miss Marvyn's influence. "The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." It was infinite wisdom that said that; are not we, as a people, at work proving the truth of it? There is only here and there a Miss Marvyn who has any consecrated strawberries and cream, or a pair of gloves that honest dust will not hurt.—Baptist Teacher. Absent Teachers and Absent Pastors
By Westminster Teacher
SUPPOSE the pastor, every few Sabbaths, should fail to appear in his pulpit at the hour of service, with no substitute and no notification of his absence, leaving the elders to hold some kind of a meeting or send the people away—how long could such a pastor retain his place? Teachers who stay away from their classes and make no provision for them, can work out the meaning of this paragraph.—Westminster Teacher. It is easy enough to make sacrifices for those we love, but for our enemy we have to struggle and overcome self. Such a victory is noble. Scriptural Meaning of the Word Soul.
A STRANGE and quite unwarrantable use of this idea of personality or selfhood of the term soul has been made in favor of its separate existence from the body, on which depends its present immortality. It is based on such texts as 2 Peter 1:14. The argument may be stated as follows:— Peter said: “Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle.” The identity or selfhood is found in the pronoun my. The personality represented by my possesses and dwells in a tabernacle, which is the body. Therefore my represents the soul which dwells in the body as a temporary abode or tabernacle, and of course lives on independent of its temporary dwelling-place when it leaves it. This has been used by men of ability and education; and therefore many have thought it quite irresistible. But it is the merest sophistry, without any weight as an argument. By this method of reasoning it may be proved that there are several personalities in one man. And the form of expression may be varied indefinitely. Thus: You say, my body; and it is the soul that speaks, showing that there is a conscious, intelligent entity independent of the body. And again you say, my soul; and it is the body which speaks, showing that the body is a conscious, intelligent entity independent of the soul. No, says the objector, man may have two intelligent entities; but the body is not one—it is the spirit. Very good, but we have not exhausted the list of illustrations. When Mary said, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour,” Luke 1:46, 47, then her body must have spoken, proving that the body is an intelligent entity independent of the soul and spirit. Again, the pronoun your expresses in the second person exactly what my expresses in the first person. And when Paul prayed that “your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” it proves that there is an intelligent entity in man which possesses a body, a soul, and a spirit, and of course may exist independent of all of them. But what is it? Is this undefined entity immortal? It must be; for one of the strongest evidences offered for the immortality of the soul is that it possesses the body, saying “my tabernacle.” The truth is that the man may speak of all his parts, whatever those parts may be, or whatever their nature, and use the possessive; and he who endeavors to prove from this that any part of man can live as an intelligent entity separate from the body, is guilty of using unpardonable sophistry. But the question is asked, “Is not man a compound being?” Yes; you may call him a compound being, or a complex being; we admit that he is, and so is everything else that has a being. But we shall adopt and adhere to the language of the question; man is a being; he is not beings. A single man has but a single entity. We ask our opponents on this doctrine to produce one text of Scripture from which it may be inferred that there are two personalities in one man. Prof. Bush (and others) claims that soul applied to man, is synonymous with life; that life is the primary and true meaning of the word soul. We have shown that this is not true, for soul (neh-phesh) is applied to a dead man even as it is applied to a living man. But it is not applied to life in the vegetable kingdom; it refers to animal life only. But admitting that Prof. Bush’s statement is correct, our conclusion is still the correct one. For the life of man is not an entity separate from and independent of man, but is a quality or condition of man. Deprived of life he is still a man— “a dead man.” This is an expression of Scripture; but who ever heard of personality—of manhood—being ascribed to the life of a man after the death of the body? Where is the text of Scripture which will warrant such an application or such an idea? We are willing to go still further in our admission: Man is a compound being, composed of body, soul, and spirit,—the word soul being used in a secondary sense,—but he is not a perfect or complete being when these component parts are separated. A man destitute of breath, or life—“the breath of life”—is a man minus animation, thought, volition, and all power of action. The life is not the man, but it is a condition of man necessary to the exercise of any power, and to the enjoyment of any good. From this fact some have hastily, but without reason, inferred that life means happiness. They do not like to admit that life means merely animated existence. Thus Prof. Bush only gives expression to a very common idea when he says, “There is a superadded sense of enjoyment, which is frequently to be recognized in the use of the word life, both in the Old Testament and the New.” The expression, “superadded sense,” is not accurate. It is not any sense of life, whatever. It must be evident to every one that that which is superadded to life cannot be inherent in life. Happiness is no more a sense or meaning of the term life, than is misery. In this present state of mixed good and evil, both are conditions of life. And it is a part of the every-day experience of the majority of the human race, that misery is quite as likely to be connected with life as is happiness. The greatest boon ever conferred upon or promised to man, is life. The opposite, death, is the greatest curse, the penalty of the transgression of the divine law. God is called “the living God,” or the God of life. He has, throughout the Scriptures, shown the high estimate he places upon life. In it are stored all the possibilities of good and of happiness. It is true that happiness is inseparably connected with life, for without life there is no happiness. And it is equally true that misery is inseparably connected with life; for without life there is no misery. But it is not equally true that life is inseparably connected with happiness. There cannot be happiness without life; there may be life without happiness. Happiness may indeed be “superadded” to life, but happiness is not a necessary condition of life. Miserable life is possible as well as happy life. Nothing more can be needed to show that happiness is not a synonym of life; that life does not mean happiness. It means simply animated existence, other circumstances determining the conditions—the happiness or misery—of the existence. But “God is love,” and his tender mercies are over all his works. He has wisely and mercifully determined that they only shall live forever who are fitted to enjoy life; who are proved to be worthy of the great boon. There are those who prove themselves “unworthy of eternal life,” who, being unreconciled to the ways of God, cannot be happy, and they will return to their original condition,—to a state of non-entity,—be destroyed. What better could be done in their case?