The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-03-31

| professed that they would not have been
| guilty of such wckedness, and by the very
terms of their professions confessed them
| selves to be the sons of wicked ancestors;
| and JESUS more than intimates that they re-
| semble their murderous fathers in their
manifest spirit and purpose toward him and
his religion. 1t has frequently occurred in
the progress of the worlds moral reforms
since the days of JESUS and the Pharisees,
and to the disgust of sincere-hearted and
sober-minded people, that the despised
prophets of former age have been praised
the loudest by the class OF persons which
actually represent their defamers. "Fill ye
up" said JESUS, or, "you will fill up your
fathers measure By this he declared that
they would do in their generation what their
ancestors had done in theirs. He intensifies
the expression of his feelings by change of
figure and calls them "brood of vipers "
and declares by interrogation that they will
not escape the judgment of Gehenna hell.
This judgment had long before been an
nounced by the prophets: "Then came Jer-
emiah from Tophet, whittier the LORD had
sent him to prophesy Tsaying], Thus saith
the LORD of Hosts, the GoD of Israel, Behold,
will bring upon this city, and upon all her
towns, all the evil that I have pronounced
against it, because they have made their
necks stiff that they might not hear my
words" Jeremiah xix. 14-16; Lib; And
they shall go forth and look upon the car
casses of the men that have transgressed
against me; for their worm shall not die,
neither shall their fire be quenched" (Isaiah
Xvi. 24). Tophet was another name for &C.
henna, the name of a valley near Jerusalem,
employed as place of scavepger for the
city, where was cast the filth and offal, in
tested by worms, and whose fires were kept
continually burning to consume the often
sive contents. 1t was employed by the proph-
cts and by JESUS as the symbol of terrible
calamities, and especially of those impend-
ing upon the Jewish nation, the consequence
of rejecting the Messiah of GoD. (See Study,
February 12.) JESUS declares that the judg-
ment shall overtake that generation who, IN
imitation of their ancestors, would kill and
cruelty and scourge the prophets and teach
ers sent unto them. The New Testament
history sufficiently designates this. To de-
scribe the enormity of their guilt, and their
eous martyrs of all ages is represented as
flowing in one great flood upon the people of
that generation to overwhelm them with
bloody destruction. The murder of Abel is
the first recorded in the Bible Genesis iv.
10y, that of Zachariah is described in Chron
icles (xxiv. 20 22), which was last in the ar
rangement of the Hebrew Scriptures. The
statement of JESUS was intended to include
all the martyrs of the Scriptures. This ar
raignment of the Jewish rulers by JESUS was
bold and vigorous, and his discourse marks
him as real hero of the truth.
Gehenna.-As we trace the history of the
locality as it occurs in the Old Testament,
we learn that it should never have been trans
lated by the word she'll" 1t is a proper
name of a we'll known locality, and ought TO
have stood Gehenn0, as it does in the French
Bible, in Newcome and Wakefeld's transla-
ton, in the Improved Version, etc. Babylon
might have been translated "hell - with as
much propriety as Gehenna. Judgment of
Gehenua" undoubtedly refers to the literal
destruction that soon after befell the Jewish
nation, when six hundred thousand expert
enced lit orally the condemn alton of Gehenna,
by pershing miserably by IRE and sword
j. w. Hanson, DID,, Zine New Covenant"
Whatever may be the meaning of the en-
tire passages IN which the word (Gehenn0)
occurs hell" must be a complete mistrans-
Iation, since it attributes to the term used by
CHRIST a sense utterly differe MT from that IN
which 1t was understood by our Lords hear
ers, and therefore utterly different from the
sense in which he could have used it, Canon
Fairor, Eternal Hope"
Hearing CHRIsT's great speech, we see in
him a devotion to truth which clothed him
with sublimest fearlessness-a devotion to
mil
him above all fear. Men are not con-
tinuously and coherently striving except in
proportion 10 their devotion to truth: such
men are sublimated by their devotion, they
are lifted up into new and larger selfhood;
it is no longer they that speak, but GOD that
speaketh in them. The action is not to be
measured by their personality, they stand as
representatives of the majesty end grandeur
of truth, they are the heroic expressions OF a |
heroic principle. You will only be strong il
proportion as the truth, not some side, point,
or aspect of it, but the truth is in you.
He would have pleased the people better if
he had said, " You would not have done what
your fathers did, you are much better men,
much nobler and kinder persons; it would
never have occurred to you surely to have
imbrued your hands with the righteous blood
of Abel; it would never have occurred to
your refined sentiment to have hao anything
to do murderously with Zacharias the son of
Barachias." He might have bought himself
a cheap popularity by such vulgar lies, but
looking at them, piercing them, seeing all
history in one grand continuity, he said, "Ye
blind guides: evil never changes; a serpent
is always serpent you have the serpent
spirit in you, and until you are born again,
you would have done just what your fathers
did. Fill up the measure of their lniqulty-
they filled the cup nearly to the brim, pour
it full up till the drops fall on your feet, and
when your mission is fulfilled, GoD will fiud
a place for you in his Gehenua. Joseph
Parker, d. d., "The Peoples Bible"
THE DOOM OF JERUsALEM.-From the
doom of the men who killed the prophets,
JESUS proceeds in his discourse to declare
the doom of their national capital He Ia
ments the sad fate, and expresses his SYM
patty and past solicitude for its doomed in
habitants, by the figure of a mother bird pro-
tecting her young by gathering them under
her wings. He would have protected them
from the dreadful fate which awaited them,
if they had welcomed and helped forward his
kingdom. He is now about to leave them
and their city without adequate protection,
and their Temple without competent relig-
ious teachers. He has made his last visit as
public teacher to both the city and its Tenn
pie. He has made the last public announce
ment of his mission, and has uttered his last
warning of the danger of rejecting his king
dom. They shall behold him no more till
thav rAioioinpIv ackuO WledOe his Divine an