Mr. Locke's doctrine, which derives our conceptions of time from the succession of our ideas, which, whether true or false, is a doctrine to be found only among certain philosophers, and which, we may reasonably believe, never came into the heads of those to whom the gospel, in the apostolic age, was announced.

I remark, thirdly, that even the curious equivocation, (or, perhaps more properly, mental reservation,) that has been devised for them, will not, in every case, save the credit of apostolical veracity. The words of Paul to the Corinthians are, Knowing, that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; again, We are willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord. Could such expressions have been used by him, if he had held it impossible to be with the Lord, or indeed any where, without the body; and that, whatever the change was which was made by death, he could not be in the presence of the Lord, till he returned to the body? Absence from the body, and presence with the Lord, were never, therefore, more unfortunately combined, than in this illustration. Things are combined here as coincident, which, on the hypothesis of those gentlemen, are incompatible.. If recourse be had to the original, the expressions in Greek are, if possible, still stronger. They are, δι ενδημόντες εν τω σωματι, those who dwell in the body, who are εκδημοντες απο το Κυριs, at a distance from the Lord; as, on the contrary, they are, δι εκδημώντες εκ τι σώματος, those who have travelled

out of the body, who are οι ενδημεντες προς τον Kupiov, those who reside, or are present with the Lord. In the passage to the Philippians also, the commencement of his presence with the Lord is represented as coincident, not with his return to the body, but with his leaving it, with the dissolution, not with the restoration, of the union.

;

The fourth, and only other remark I shall make, on this subject, is, that from the tenor of the New Testament, the sacred writers appear to proceed on the supposition, that the soul and the body are naturally distinct and separable, and that the soul is susceptible of pain or pleasure in a state of separation. It were endless to enumerate all the places which evince this. The story of the rich man and Lazarus 107 the last words of our Lord upon the cross 108 and of Stephen when dying; Paul's doubts whether he was in the body or out of the body, when he was translated to the third heaven, and paradise 109; our Lord's words to Thomas, to satisfy him that he was not a spirit 10; and to conclude, the express mention of the denial of spirits, as one of the errors of the Sadducees"; For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit; unde αγγελον, μηδε πνευμα. All these are irrefragable evidences of the general opinion, on this subject, of both Jews and Christians. By spirit, as distinguished from angel, is evidently meant the departed spirit

107 Luke, xvi. 22, 23. xii. 2, 3, 4.

108 Luke, xxiii. 46.

110 Luke, xxiv. 39.

109 2 Cor.

11 Acts, xxiii. 8.

of a human being; for, that man is here, before his natural death, possessed of a vital and intelligent principle, which is commonly called his soul or spirit, it was never pretended that the Sadducees denied. It has been said, that this manner of expressing themselves has been adopted by the Apostles and Evangelists, merely in conformity to vulgar notions. To me it appears a conformity, which (if the sacred writers entertained the sentiments of our antagonists, on this article) is hardly reconcilable to the known simplicity and integrity of their character. It savours much more of the pious frauds, which became common afterwards, to which I own myself unwilling to ascribe so ancient and so respectable an origin. See Part I. of this Dissertation, § 10.

§ 24. I SHALL Subjoin a few words on the manner wherein the distinction has been preserved between hades and gehenna by the translators of the New Testament; for, as I observed before, gehenna, as a name for the place of future punishment, does not occur in the Old. All the Latin translations I have seen, observe the distinction. All without exception adopt the word gehenna, though they do not all uniformly translate hades. Both the Geneva French, and Diodati, have followed the same method. Luther, on the contrary, in his German version, has uniformly confounded them, rendering both by the word holle. The English translators have taken the same method, and rendered both the Greek names by the word hell, except in one sin

gle place 112 where ads is translated grave. Most foreign versions observe the difference. So do some of the late English translators, but not all. The common method of distinguishing, hitherto observed, has been to retain the word gehenna, and translate hades either hell or grave, as appeared most to suit the context. I have chosen, in this version, to reverse that method, to render yɛɛvva always hell, and to retain the word hades. My reasons are, first, though English ears are not entirely familiarized to either term, they are much more so to the latter than to the former, in consequence of the greater use made of the latter in theological writings. Secondly, the import of the English word hell, when we speak as Christians, answers exactly to γεεννα, not to αδης ; whereas, to this last word we have no term in the language corresponding. Accordingly, though, in my judgment, it is not one of those terms which admit different meanings, there has been very little uniformity preserved by translators in rendering it.

PART III.

Μετανοεω and Μεταμελομαι.

I SHALL now offer a few remarks on two words that are uniformly rendered, by the same English word, in the common version, between which there

112 1 Cor. xv. 55.

appears, notwithstanding, to be a real difference in signification. The words are μετανοεw and μεταμελοuai, I repent. It has been observed by some, and, I think, with reason, that the former denotes, properly, a change to the better; the latter, barely a change, whether it be to the better or to the worse; that the former marks a change of mind that is durable and productive of consequences; the latter expresses only a present uneasy feeling of regret or sorrow for what is done, without regard either to duration or to effects; in fine, that the first may properly be translated into English, I reform; the second, I repent, in the familiar acceptation of the word.

§ 2. THE learned Grotius (whose judgment, in critical questions, is highly respectable) is not convinced that this distinction is well founded. And I acknowledge that he advances some plausible things in support of his opinion. But as I have not found them satisfactory, I shall assign my reasons for think. ing differently. Let it, in the first place, be obseryed, that the import of μevaμɛλoμau, in the explanation given, being more extensive or generical than that of μετανοεω, it may, in many cases, be used, without impropriety, for uɛtavoɛw; though the latter, being more limited and special in its acceptation, cannot so properly be employed for the former. The genus includes the species, not the species the genus.