To Correspondents by Editor

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 21, 1857

To Correspondents.

By Editor

S. Osgood:—The first three verses of Hosea vi, doubtless have their application about the present time, especially verse 3. But we are not settled as to the meaning of the particular verse you mention, and have seen nothing touching it, which was to us satisfactory.

E. O. Meacham:—Much of the ground laid out in your article we think is covered by our remarks on the penalty of the law, in No. 23, Vol. IX. We see no occasion as yet to look upon the subject differently. Death in itself considered, is the penalty of sin, without any distinction of temporal or eternal, first or second: these distinctions are the result of after considerations, growing out of the second probation, as it were, upon which man was placed after he had fallen, and the plan of salvation had been introduced. We are inclined to look upon Adam as mortal. Immortal he certainly was not; for that which is immortal cannot die. But there can certainly be no such a penalty as a spiritual death. To tell Adam, in the form of a threat, that in the day he sinned he should surely be a sinner, would seem to us, as Ham says, like language turned lunatic. The state of being dead in trespasses and sins is the result of certain actions, and not their penalty.