rtake of it with him.
See to it that you are free from crime, free from sins for which
you ought to suffer; then, if persecuted and slain for your
Christian profession and virtues, falter not. The terrible time
preceding the second advent of your Master is at hand. The
sufferings of that time will begin with the Christian household;
but how much more dreadful will be the sufferings of the close of
that time among the disobedient that spurn the gospel of God! If
the righteous shall with great difficulty be snatched from the
perils and woes encompassing that time, surely it will happen very
much worse with ungodly sinners. Therefore let all who suffer in
obedience to God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well
doing."

The souls of men were confined in the under world for sin. Christ
came to turn men from sin and despair to holiness and a
reconciling faith in God. He went to the dead to declare to them
the good tidings of pardon and approaching deliverance through the
free grace of God. He rose into heaven to demonstrate and visibly
exhibit the redemption of men from the under world doom of
sinners. He was soon to return to the earth to complete the
unfinished work of his commissioned kingdom. His accepted ones
should then be taken to glory and reward. The rejected ones
should Their fate is left in gloom, without a definite clew.

CHAPTER II.

DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

THE Epistle to the Hebrews was written by some person who was
originally a Jew, afterwards a zealous Christian. He was
unquestionably a man of remarkable talent and eloquence and of
lofty religious views and feelings. He lived in the time of the
immediate followers of Jesus, and apparently was acquainted with
them. The individual authorship it is now impossible to determine
with certainty. Many of the most learned, unprejudiced, and able
critics have ascribed it to Apollos, an Alexandrian Jew, a compeer
of Paul and a fellow citizen of Philo. This opinion is more
probable than any other. Indeed, so numerous are the resemblances
of thoughts and words in the writings of Philo to those in this
epistle, that even the wild conjecture has been hazarded that
Philo himself at last became a Christian and wrote to his Hebrew
countrymen the essay which has since commonly passed for Paul's.
No one can examine the hundreds of illustrations of the epistle
gathered from Philo by Carpzov, in his learned but ill reasoned
work,