s, fills,
and explains the words. To justify these interpretations, and to
sustain particular features of the doctrine which they express,
almost any amount of evidence may be summoned from the writings
both of the most authoritative and of the simplest Fathers of the
Church, beginning with Justin Martyr,23 philosopher of Neapolis,
at the close of the apostolic age, and ending with John Hobart,24
Bishop of New York, in the early part of the nineteenth century.
We refrain from adducing the throng of such authorities here,
because they will be more appropriately brought forward in future
chapters.

23 Dial. cum Tryph. cap. v. et cap. lxxx.24 State of the Departed.

The intelligent reader will observe that the essential point of
difference distinguishing our exposition of the fundamental
doctrine of the composition in review, on the one hand, from the
Calvinistic interpretation of it, and, on the other hand, from the
Unitarian explanation of it, is this. Calvinism says that Christ,
by his death, his vicarious pains, appeased the wrath of God,
satisfied the claims of justice, and purchased the salvation of
souls from an agonizing and endless hell. Unitarianism says that
Christ, by his teachings, spirit, life, and miracles, revealed the
character of the Father, set an example for man, gave certainty to
great truths, and exerted moral influences to regenerate men,
redeem them from sin, and fit them for the blessed kingdom of
immortality. We understand the writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews really to say in subtraction from what the Calvinist, in
addition to what the Unitarian, says that Christ, by his
resurrection from the tyrannous realm of death, and ascent into
the unbarred heaven, demonstrated the fact that God, in his
sovereign grace, in his free and wondrous love, would forgive
mankind their sins, remove the ancient penalty of transgression,
no more dooming their disembodied spirits to the noiseless and
everlasting gloom of the under world, but admitting them to his
own presence, above the firmamental floor, where the beams of his
chambers are laid, and where he reigneth forever, covered with
light as with a garment.

CHAPTER III.

DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE IN THE APOCALYPSE.

BEFORE attempting to exhibit the doctrine of a future life
contained in the Apocalypse, we propose to give a brief account of
what is contained, relating to this subject, in the Epistle of
James, the Epistle of Jude, and the (so calle