atoning work and his entrance into glory would have upon the lost spirits shut up in the prison-house of doom. We have good reason to suppose "the spirits in prison" were cognizant of this stupendous event, the consummation of which even inanimate nature, by the most striking phenomena, acknowledged. And would not such an event make proclamation to the lost spirits? What tormenting memories it must have awakened in their minds; what bitter regrets; what painful anticipations. Is not Christ now preaching to the lost spirits, and will he not forever be. preaching or proclaiming to the lost spirits, as imagination shall forever hold before their eyes that lowly, rejected Saviour, and faithful memory shall forever cause to sound in their ears his gracious, but forever rejected messages? Says not the psalmist: "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I make my bed in sheol, thou art there." Even so may the sinner exclaim Whither shall I go from the Saviour? If I take up my abode with the spirits in prison, behold thou art there, and thy presence and preaching there shall be the instruments of my keenest anguish. In arriving at this interpretation, we have been guided much by the remarks of Dr. Fairbairn.

In favor of this exposition we can say: (1.) It ascribes a legitimate and common sense to the verb mpúσow, “he preached;" a sense justified by the usage of all languages, and which in our language is denoted by the proverb " Actions speak louder than words," which is referred to by the poet when he says our life

"Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything;"

and by the orator, when pointing to the granite shaft that uprears its majestic form upon Bunker Hill, he declares to assembled thousands: "That plain shaft is the orator of this occasion;" and by Joshua of old, when, after setting up a great stone, he says to the people of Israel: "Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us, for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which he spake unto us" (Josh. xxiv. 27).

(2.) This interpretation is in harmony with the context. Scarcely could the design of the apostle be better expressed than by the following comment: "He is endeavoring to fortify Christians against discouragement from the sufferings to which they were exposed for the sake of the gospel. Christians should seek to avoid suffering by maintaining a good conscience; but if they should still, and perhaps on this very account, be called to suffer, it was greatly better to do so for well-doing than for ill-doing. Then, in confirmation of this complex truth, he points to a twofold illustration. In the first instance, he fixes attention on Christ as having suffered, indeed, the just for the unjust; suffered as the Righteous One, but only once suffered, and on that “aπaş πade" the especial stress is to be laid. It was, so to speak, but a momentary infliction of evil, however awful in its nature while it lasted; still but once borne, and never to be repeated. Not only so, but it carried along with it infinite recompenses of good for sinful men, bringing them to God, and for Christ himself, limiting the reign of death to a shortlived dominion over the body, while the soul, lightened and relieved, inspired with the energy of immortal life, went into the invisible regions, and, with buoyant freedom, moved among the spirits of the departed. How widely different from that mighty class of sufferers; the most striking examples in the world's history of the reverse of what appeared in Christ, the last race of the antediluvians, who suffered not for well-doing, but for ill-doing; and suffered not once merely in the flood that swept them away from their earthly habitations, but even now, after so long a time, when the work on the cross was finished, still pent up as in a prisonhouse of doom, where they could be haunted by memories of past crimes, and with forebodings of eternal retribution. What a contrast! How should the thought of it persuade us to suffering for well-doing rather than for evil doing! And for those lost ones themselves Christ's spirit, now released from sufferings, fresh with the dew of its dawning immortality preached, — preached by its very entrance into the paradise of glory" (Fair. Her. Man.).

(3.) As a final argument in favor of this interpretation

66

we may say, while it gives to all the words and clauses of the passage their natural meaning and construction, it also perfectly accords with the analogy of faith. It is in harmony with the general tenor and scope of the teachings of the New Testament in respect to Christ and departed spirits. It is free from all taint of the pagan notions of a common underground depository of spirits. It gives no countenance to the Romish dogma of purgatory. Nor does it lend the slightest sanction to the opinion that probation will be extended for a longer or shorter time after death; that an opportunity for securing salvation will be granted to sinners beyond the grave. This opinion seems to be gaining new adherents at the present time. Of the Essays and Reviews" by eminent English churchmen, that by Wilson upon the "National Church" concludes as follows: "The Roman Church has imagined a limbus infantium,' we must rather entertain a hope that there shall be found after the great adjudication receptacles suitable for those who shall be infants, not as to years of terrestrial life, but as to spiritual development; nurseries, as it were, and seed-grounds, where the undeveloped may grow up under new conditions, the stunted may become strong, and the perverted be restored. And when the Christian church, in all its branches, shall have fulfilled its sublunary office, and its founder shall have surrendered his kingdom to the Great Father, all, both small and great, shall find a refuge in the bosom of the universal parent, to repose, or be quickened into higher life, in the ages to come, according to his will."

The fatal tendency of such a belief we can readily understand. Men in love with sin will continue in sin up to the very instant of death; will make no provision for eternity until they are plunged into it. Now, adopting the exposition we have given to this text, it can by no means be made to countenance the idea of a probation after death. And if such an opinion is not countenanced by this text, then it finds no support in the Bible. The great and obvious doctrine of the Bible is that now, in the present life, is the accepted time; that now is the day of salvation, and that this life is the only day of salvation.

ARTICLE II.

SAALSCHÜTZ ON HEBREW SERVITUDE.

BY PROF. E. P. BARROWs, andovER, MASS.

AN exhibition of the subject of Hebrew servitude from the Jewish point of view has long seemed to us eminently desirable. For this purpose we had selected the 101st chapter of Prof. Saalschütz's Treatise on the Mosaic Law, entitled "Dienende." Before we had found leisure to complete the translation of this chapter, our design was in part anticipated by the appearance in the American Theological Review of Prof. H. B. Smith's translation of Dr. M. Mielziner's work on "Slavery among the ancient Hebrews, from biblical and Rabbinic sources." By this translation Prof. Smith has rendered to the Christian public an important service. We proceed, nevertheless, to carry out our original plan, and that for two reasons. First, because Saalschütz differs in some important points from the common Rabbinic view, to which Mielziner in general adheres ; so that by a comparison of the two the reader will have the matter more fully before him in its various aspects. Secondly, because we propose in a series of consecutive articles to discuss the whole subject of slavery, in its relations to the Bible, the State, and the Church; and to such a series the subject of Hebrew servitude constitutes the most suitable introduction.

In Saalschütz's Treatise on the Mosaic Law2 the numerous foot-notes are numbered consecutively from the beginning to the end of the work. In the translation of the present chapter it was important to retain this numbering for various reasons, especially for convenience of reference

In the April and July numbers for 1861.

2 Das Mosaische Recht, nebst den vervöllstandigenden thalmudisch-rabbinischen Bestimmungen. Für Bibelforscher, Juristen und Staatsmänner. Von Dr. G. L. Saalschütz. Berlin. 1853.

to the notes appended to other chapters. The few brief notes of the translator are always indicated by brackets. To the translation are appended some general remarks, to which the reader's attention is respectfully called.

TRANSLATION.

§ 1. The Mosaic law knows nothing of slavery in the sense of considering freeman and slave as beings holding an opposite relation to each other in respect to their dignity as men, and on a scale of civil and social rights. The Hebrew language has no word for stigmatizing by a degrading appellation one part of those who owe service, and distinguishing them from the rest as "slaves," but only one term for all who are under obligation to render service to others. For males this is Ebed, servant, man-servant; properly laborer; for females, Shifchah, Ama, maid-servant, maid. Among a people who occupied themselves with agriculture; whose lawgiver, Moses, and whose kings, Saul and David, went immediately from the herd and from the plough to their high vocation, there could be nothing degrading in an appellation taken from "labor." "Servant of God" is

899

also applied to Moses and the pious as a title of honor. The laws, moreover, respecting servants protect in every regard their dignity as men, and their feelings, as will be manifest from what follows. They by no means surrender these to the arbitrary will of the masters, as in other ancient and modern states in which slavery and thraldom have prevailed.

§ 2. The body of servants consisted in general of the following classes: 1, debtors who were obliged to render service to the creditor; 2, Hebrew men-servants and maid-servants bought with money; 3, heathen men-servants and maid-servants; 4, children of both sexes brought up in the master's house, that had been either taken in war, or were

The verb abad (2) signifies to labor in general, as may be plainly scen from its use in the law of the Sabbath, Ex. xx 9: 'Six days mayest thou labor."

RE, EN; see § 9, note 911.