SECTION CXIV.

"Then, when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.'-JAMES i. 15.

THIS passage is somewhat similar to Rom. vi, 21, 23, to the notes on which the reader is referred for some remarks on the meaning of the word death. Some have supposed that this word, used as in the text, must signify endless misery; but I know not why it may not as properly signify misery in the present life; and so Rosenmuller seems to have viewed the subject. On the words, sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death, he has only this remark :

'Punishment or misery follows sin, when committed.' Scholia in loc.

He gives no intimation that this must necessarily belong to the future life, but seems to consider it a declaration of the general fact, that sin will certainly be followed by an adequate punishment, but without specially designating the time when that punishment shall be administered.

SECTION CXV.

For he shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.' JAMES ii. 13.

THE apostle is supposed, by some, to indicate, in this verse, that endless misery awaits those who, in this life, are unmerciful. But the very popular writers, quoted below, do not seem to have found any proof in the text, that the judgment here mentioned should be rendered in the future life, but merely to have considered it a declaration,

that the merciful man should be treated mercifully, while the unmerciful should be judged more severely :

1. WHITBY. 'For he shall have judgment without mercy, who hath showed no mercy, and so hath highly thwarted the great law of love; and mercy rejoiceth against, or triumpheth over judgment, i. e., enables the man to rejoice, as being free from the judgment of condemnation from that God, who, to the merciful, will show himself merciful, Psalm xviii. 27.

"Of this mercy, the Jews were so unmindful, that Josephus having said, they violated the laws of nature, and polluted the divinity with their injustice towards men, he adds, that no good affection was so entirely lost among them, as that of mercy.' Par. and Annot, in loc.

2. GROTIUS. Mercy signifies, in our writers, not only lenity in administering punishment, but also every kind of benevolence, answering to the Hebrew chan, as may be seen, Gen. xix. 19, Num. xi. 15, and elsewhere. So, also, Matt. ix. 13, xii. 7, xxiii. 23. The law of the gospel is, that we do good to all; and whosoever doth not obey this law shall be severely dealt with, Matt. vii. 1, 2, xxv. 42.' Annot. in loc.

SECTION CXVI.

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison: Which sometimes were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels, and authorities, and powers being made subject unto him.'—1 PET. iii. 18—22.

Br the spirits in prison, many have understood the spirits of the damned, now confined in the prison of hell.

And this, they imagine, furnishes conclusive evidence, that some shall endure misery in the future life. But several orthodox commentators explain the text with reference to a subject altogether different from torment after death.

1. CLARKE. 'To the spirits in prison: the inhabitants of the antediluvian world, who, having been disobedient, and convicted of the most flagrant transgressions against God, were sentenced, by his just law, to destruction. But their punishment was delayed, to see if they would repent; and the long suffering of God waited one hundred and twenty years, which were granted to them for this purpose during which time, as criminals tried and convicted, they are represented as being in prison, detained under the arrest of divine justice, which waited either for their repentance, or the expiration of this respite, that the punishment pronounced might be inflicted. This I have long believed to be the sense of this difficult passage, and no other that I have seen is so consistent with the whole scope of the place. That the spirit of God did strive with, convict, and reprove, the antediluvians, is evident from Gen. vi. 3-" My spirit shall not always strive with man, for as much as he is flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.' And it was by this spirit that Noah became a preacher of righteousness, and condemned that ungodly world, Heb. xi. 7, who would not believe, till wrath, divine punishment, came upon them to the uttermost. The word spirits is

supposed to render this view of the subject improbable, because this must mean disembodied spirits; but this certainly does not follow, for the spirits of just men made perfect, Heb. xii. 23, certainly means righteous men, and men still in the church militant; and the Father of spirits, Heb. xii. 9, means men still in the body; and the God of the spirits of all flesh, Num. xvi. 22, and xxvii. 16, means men not in a disembodied state.' Com. in loc.

Dr. Clarke, as the reader will perceive, understands the spirits in prison to mean the disobedient antediluvians; but it should be observed, he represents them as

having been in prison while they lived, and not after they were destroyed by the flood. And, however firmly he might have believed that these, or any other men, should be punished in the future life, he does not pretend that proof of such punishment is furnished in the text. The next quotation is from a writer who once, as he informs us, entertained the same views which are expressed in the foregoing note; but, on more mature consideration, he was led to interpret the text more nearly in conformity to the views of the majority of Universalists in the present day.

2. LEIGHTON. Archbishop Leighton, in the text of his commentary on this passage, interprets it to mean, 'that Jesus Christ did, before his appearing in the flesh, speak by his spirit in his servants to those of the foregoing ages,' &c. But in a note he holds the following language:

'Thus I then thought, but do now apprehend another sense as probable, if not more, even that so much rejected by most interpreters-the mission of the Spirit, and preaching of the gospel by it, after his resurrectionpreaching to sinners and converting them, according to the prophecy which he first fulfilled in person, and, after, more amply in his apostles. That prophecy I mean, Isa. lx. 1, The Spirit upon him, and it was sent from him on his apostles, to preach to spirits in prison, to preach liberty to those captives, captive spirits; and therefore called spirits in prison, to illustrate the thing the more, by opposition to that spirit of Christ, the spirit of liberty, setting them free; and this to show the greater efficacy of Christ's preaching than of Noah's, though he a signal preacher of righteousness, yet only himself and his family, eight persons saved by him, but multitudes of all nations by the spirit and preaching of Christ in the gospel; and that by the seal of baptism, and the resurrection of Christ, represented in the return from the water, and our dying with him by immersion, and that figure of baptism like their ark.' Expository works in loc.

3. GROTIUS.

'He went, after he ascended into heaven, as in ver. 22, John xiv. 2, 3, 12, 28, xvi. 7, 28. Christ is said to have preached to the Gentiles, because the apostles did it, in his name, and by his authority, 2 Cor. v. 20, Acts xiii. 47, Rom. xv. 16, Gal. ii. 8, Eph. ii. 17. But because Peter would add a reference to the times of Noah, in order to show how much more successful was the ministry of Christ than that of Noah; he therefore takes the words from that history. For God says, Gen. vi. 3,' &c. Annot. in loc.

4. CALMET. 'Some suppose that, in this place, St. Peter speaks of the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, which work Jesus Christ commenced, and which the apostles, in his name, and by his spirit, carried forward. They interpret the word prison to signify, allegorically, the shades of ignorance, with which the Gentiles were enveloped, before they were called to faith in the gospel. Jesus Christ says, John v. 25—“The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live;" which is interpreted to mean the calling of the Gentiles to faith. And, Luke iv. 18, our Saviour applies to himself these words of Isaiah: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, [to preach deliverance to the captives]." And Isaiah himself, speaking of the Messiah, says, xlii. 6,7, "I will give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house ;" which is generally understood to mean the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. St. Paul frequently (Eph. ii. 17, iv. 8, v. 8, Col. i. 13, 1 Thess. v. 4,) alludes to this prison, this captivity, and these shades of darkness, in which the Gentiles were, before they received the gospel.

'Others, again, understand the body as the prison of the soul; they say that Jesus Christ, by his spirit, wherewith he inspired Noah, preached to the unbelievers in that age, that they should repent, and thus avert the wrath of God, who was about to bring a deluge of water upon the whole earth, &c.