Clergy, as a class, on their side of its issue. We have many on our side. The great majority, probably, have heretofore stood aloof from the subject, uncommitted to either decided opinion. A portion, as has been already said, with an industry magnifying their apparent number, have espoused the other side with a zeal worthy of a nobler object. We desire to address not only this latter class, but those who, from the contagious example of these, and from the natural influence of their skilful appeals to prejudice and panic, may be more or less inclined also toward that side. We would include, too, the large numbers of the undecided and indifferent, who may never have had a combined opportunity and disposition to give to the question, as a question of Biblical criticism, that investigation necessary to its proper mastery. Every Minister ought to give to it his most earnest attention. It is a question of lives and souls-a question into which some of the fundamental principles of religious truth enter as among its essential elements -a question with which the Bible has most direct relations, and toward which already so many of their colleagues in the Profession have officially assumed such attitudes, that none can hold back from the duty and necessity of forming a conclusion and taking a part for himself. If indeed the Punishment of Death ought to be abolished, then is there no class of men who ought to aid in its abolition more prominently, or by higher obligations, than the Ministers of Christianity. For the sake of the truth itself; for the sake of the human souls at stake on the issue; for the sake of their own hold on the public confidence and respect; for the sake of the prejudicial influence which through them may reach the truths of which they stand in the public places as the messengers and interpreters, if they go wrong, or even if they do not go right, in this matterfor these among many obvious reasons, such is their peculiar, their vital duty. If it ought to be abolished, and if it is to be abolished, not only ought they by the most solemn considerations of duty to contribute toward that object their important influence, but on the clearest grounds of policy in reference to their Church and their Class. Every Minister should think not only twice,

but very earnestly each time, before making up his mind either to discountenance this proposal of reform, or even to hold back his hand from its aid. Our design in the present Article is to bring succinctly before the special attention of those to whom it thus addresses itself, an outline of the Scriptural Argument by which we refute the common objections opposed to us from the Bible, and on which we claim the right to invoke their favor and co-operation with these efforts. We ask to be confuted if we do not convince, and are perfectly willing to open our pages to any well stated and reasoned reply to our arguments.

Understand-we here deal only with the scriptural aspect of the general subject; putting entirely out of view all considerations of mere policy or expediency. The question is, Does the Bible make it a positive and mandatory religious duty to inflict the Punishment of Death for Murder? If it does, then are those Ministers right who insist upon it, and on this ground; if it does not, then are they committing a grievous wrong and a grievous folly. On the one hand they assert that it does. On the other we assert that there is no authority in either the Old or New Testament more than merely permissive, in favor of the Punishment of Death-a permission only to be used in case of its necessity as a matter of practical policy; and that the spirit of the Christian Gospel is strongly in opposition to it. Here, then, is an issue fairly made up. Let us argue it logically and fairly.

Does the Bible make it a positive and mandatory religious duty to inflict the Punishment of Death for Murder?The main point of departure and point of support to the argument on the af firmative of this question, is the familiar passage from the ninth chapter of Genesis, which (according to the common English version) reads as follows:

5. "And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.

6. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man."

In this passage resides the only diffi

culty we have to combat in this Biblical discussion. Read in the absolute imperative sense for which our opponents contend-and made universal and perpetual, as they interpret its intended application-it would indeed at the first blush seem hard to get over or round; nor is it surprising that its apparent force should, in the very outset of every discussion of this subject, create a strong bias on the minds of the "religious community," against a doctrine which would seem to propose a flat disobedience to so direct a divine command.

Now against the force of this passage, as thus read by our opponents, we have two replies to make. The first is, that there is nothing in the terms or structure of the original Hebrew to which necessarily attaches any such mandatory sense, and that it may just as well be rendered in a sense simply denunciatory, or at most permissive. The second is, that even if, for argument's sake, an imperative force be conceded to it, yet, however proper and necessary it may have been for the age and society to which it was addressed, it does not follow that it must be equally mandatory to us and our times, when an altered state of social and civil institutions may have superseded its former utility. Either of these replies, if it can be sustained, must be conclusive; and must remove entirely out of the path of this reform the obstacle which we find thus formidably heaved up against us at its outset. The first of these is a question of criticism, which may, however, be made plain enough to the unlearned, as well as the more scholarly reader; the second is one of common sense, to judge of which requires neither Hebraic erudition nor the aid of sacerdotal authority. The first, first.

What is the literal rendering of the Hebrew of the sixth verse? Simply this: "Shedding blood of man in man his (or its) blood will be shed," &c. No one will dispute this. Now, in order to convert this into the common English version, three things have to be assumed, on the strength of some right or authority which, wherever it may reside, it is very certain does not necessarily reside anywhere in the terms of the Hebrew itself,-namely: 1. The participle shedding is not only made personal and masculine, but it is con

fined to the personal and masculine sense, in the words, "whoso sheddeth;" 2. The verb which in the original is the simple future tense, so as to be rendered in Latin effundetur and in English will be shed, must receive an imperative sense so as to be read, shall be shed; and 3. The expression which is literally in man in the original, must be made to denote agency, by selecting and assigning to the preposition employed one only of its numerous meanings, so as to be converted into "by man." It is only after the performance of this triple process that the original Hebrew (of which the literal rendering has been above given) becomes translated, or rather transformed, into the common English reading of our Bibles.

Respecting the participle, we do not care to dwell upon that point. It is true that it is almost universally rendered by all the old commentators and translators, including the Septuagint, in the personal sense; though the high authority of Michaelis extends it to both the personal and the neuter senses, so as to include both the antecedents to which it has reference, that is to say, both the man and the beast shedding human blood. The rendering which would to us make the most intelligible and rational sense of the entire passage, would be, with Michaelis, to adopt the neuter sense of the participle, though not for the purpose of making it cover both, but for that of confining it to the beast alone; and then, taking the future verb in its natural merely permissive sense, to understand it as conferring that moral right, which nowhere in terms appears before the Deluge, to slay all beasts themselves destructive to human life. It is true that this construction would have no other authority, so far as the books are concerned, than the mere capability of the Hebrew, boldly interpreted by a modern independence and originality of judgment, anxious perhaps to find a possible reading more satisfactory than any of the current ones. We do not care to lay any stress upon it, and are in fact perfeetly willing to give it up, rather than unnecessarily embarrass a discussion which we desire to confine to a form as simple, and as suitable for general acceptance, as possible. Let it pass, then, as "whoso sheddeth”—not caring even to insist upon the reading of Mi chaelis.

Respecting the future form of the verb, however, we deny most emphatically that our opponents have any right or reason to claim for it any necessary imperative force. What is their reply to this point? Do they deny the fact? No;-but they say, that as there is no third person imperative in the Hebrew, the future has to be used when it is desired to express that sense. If you would render back into Hebrew, say they, this same mandatory expression "shall be shed," you must use the same word; and so, too, is the same used in such passages as this, where the context makes unequivocal the imperative meaning-" He shall flee to the pit, let no man stay him,"-as also in the commands of the Decalogue. Grant all this, is our answer, and it does not disprove our assertion, nor prove the antagonist one. We may also with the same right urge that if you would render back into Hebrew our version, namely, will be shed, or may be shed, (that is, in a denunciatory or in a permissive sense), the same Hebrew word must be employed. The word may undoubtedly be so rendered, if we choose, but it is not necessary to do so. Because the future form may sometimes be rendered imperatively, must it always be? Are may and must identical? For one instance of the imperative, ten can be pointed to of the simple and proper future sense. In the verse immediately preceding in which it is said that "Every living thing that moveth shall be meat for you," it will hardly be pretended that there is any imperative command to make meat of spiders, rattlesnakes, or centipedes. The future is there obviously one of mere declaration or permission-precisely as we contend for in the present case. In the case of the futures used in the Decalogue their imperative sense will not be questioned, both because the whole is evidently an act of express legislation (which is not the case in the present passage, which is a covenant and not a code), and also because none of the absurd and bad consequences follow from the imperative sense in the Commandments, which we do impute and prove against its adoption here. To oppose to us in this instance the objection, that a similar reasoning would overthrow the imperative authority of the Commandments, would be an equally sound

argument to compel us to give an imperative sense to every instance of the mere future occurring between the covers of the Bible.

Our position on this point cannot be shaken; no scholar, no candid reasoner, can dispute it-namely, that there is nothing necessarily imperative in the Hebrew verb here used, and that it may just as well be rendered will be shed (denunciatory or declaratory), or may be shed (permissive). To give it the imperative sense, and then to claim our obedience as to a command, is not only to beg the whole question, but even impiously to clothe in the garb of a divine authority that which is the mere imposture of human assumption. In the present application of it, it may not unfairly be compared to an act of forg ing a sovereign's signet to a deathwarrant.

And respecting the expression which is rendered in our English version "by man.' It is essential to the adverse argument to retain this. But to insist on this, and to derive from it a mandatory authority upon man, requiring him to make himself the executioner of his fellow creature, because "by man shall his (the murderer's) blood be shed," is even a still more unwarranted assumption than that just explained. As above stated, the literal rendering of the Hebrew is "in man." The preposition here employed (beth) is one including a wide variety of significations. It may indeed, if we choose, bear the translation "by," but it may just as well, if not better, be translated, as is done by different commentators, among (so as to signify, among men, in human society, or in the course of human events, corresponding to the declaratory or denunciatory future); or for, or on account of (that is, on account of the one slain); or, as some render it, in the presence of. So, after enumerating the various senses in which it is received in this passage, the " Synopsis Criticorum” says, "beth hæc omnia significat, per, pro, propter, coram, et cum."- We might here rest content with simply disproving any such sense as necessary, and claim the right to take any of the others better harmonizing with our view of the truth. But we are entitled to go much further. Not only is it not necessary to adopt this translation “by" as unequivocally involved in the origi nal, but the weight of authority is con