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withering" apprehensions would make the poor fellows insane; and tell them to banish their fears; for then was all the judgement they need to apprehend; and all the "fiery indignation" was only a Pagan superstition, invented to torment the feelings of honest men, and sustain the interests of priestcraft? Paul was certainly not so fearless a universalist preacher, as this age of improvements produces.

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'He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, he shall be thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and has done despite unto the spirit of grace."-Heb. x. 28, 29.-The first punishment was to die without mercy. The second is much sorer, yet does it mean a deliverance from all trouble, and a reinstatement in divine favour and glory? No wonder the kind work of doing away the doctrine of future retribution, carries away the Bible in the minds of many along with it.

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."—Heb. x. 31.-Yes, says the pseudo philosophy of universalism, we are already in his hands, and can never fall into them and if we should, we have nothing to fear, for every thing must be overruled for our good.

"And others had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonments: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheep skins, and goat skins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented: (of whom the world was not worthy) they wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth."Heb. XI. 36, 37, 38.-Were these men thus afflicted, in this life, as a reward for their superiour goodness, the world not being worthy of them? Poor encouragement, we should think, for a good life, if this were all the reward they had to expect! Yet this is the reward that

science to be sure.

hundreds of thousands of pious and good men have received in this vale of tears! They have enjoyed a good conBut their persecutors have also often enjoyed the same. A good man has a good conscience; but a bad man has a bad conscience. Hence a good man's good conscience will sting him about as much for his small sins, as the bad man's bad conscience will sting him for his great sins. Some men will feel as much smitten for an unguarded and injurious expression, as others will for a secret robbery and murder. Conscience is not that uniform, invariable minister of justice that renders to all men according to their deeds, as we have shown in the preceding section. Many-very many commit the most flagrant enormities, with little compunctions of conscience; and yet riot in all the luxuries and fortunes of life. Many look upon their villainies with complacency; and exult in the misfortunes and miseries they produce. Look at you pensive widow-pious, industrious, virtueus, but poor. Long since the grave of her bosom companion was bedewed with the tears of undying affection. She has lived and reared an only daughter-on the child have lingered the last ties that bound the widowed mother to earth-around the child clustered the virtues and graces that promised to reward the sleepless anxieties and toils of the lonely parent-around her brightened the happy visions of a mother's last hopes and sweetest prospects. But there was a worm to poison this tender plant. A gentleman, in higher life, talented, fascinating, artful, and who had no concern about a future reckoning, became her admirer : he flattered, and vowed, and promised-and conquered! He has gone; and now mingles unconcerned and unsmitten in other scenes, and unblushing seeks another victim! Such is his guilt, and such his reward, in this life! But cast an eye upon the cottage, where innocence and meekness and piety, recently inspired the swelling hope, and mingled misfortune with sweetness. Count the tears and

sighs, as the mother's bosom heaves with anguish unutterable; and the unsleeping pangs that rend the soul of the heartbroken and distracted daughter! Do all these receive in this life, according to their guilt? How often do such men prowl along, solaced and proud of their trophies, till several hapless beings have fallen; and at last die in delirium, through excessive indulgence! Do they wake up in glory? But there are other ways of iniquity--innumerable kinds of vice, of wickedness, and successful crime; where people triumph in the ruin they have caused, and laugh at the tears that follow their criminal career! Shail we softly and gently tell them, they ought not to do so, for fear it will disturb their consciences? But whether they do or not, all will be well when they die? No. Give them no such preposterous expectations. Let the Deity be heard in thunder upon their crimes; until deep contrition and reformation wash away their stains or bring them to Christ. Till they do that, let them dream of naught but damnation! Let dungeons of horrour, perjured and bloody companions, storms of wrath, and the sighs of wronged and injured ghosts, echoing from the towering flames, haunt their dreams and sting their consciences. So let the guilty live, or let them reform. A conscience, thus haunted with forebodings of retribution, might be some punishment, and might tend to reformation. But remove the fear of future punishment from the minds of those, who have no moral principle, and you unchain the tiger; and he will pounce upon every victim within his grasp. This is the world as it is; not as we would like to have it be. We should like to have all good and happy, both here and hereafter.

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For the time (is come) that judgement must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God"-I. Peter iv. 17.-Does not universalism teach that the end of such will be immortal glory in heaven? Did Peter mean

so?

"And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the siuner appear?"-Verse 18.-Did Peter mean, they should appear in heaven? Was Peter a universalist? Some have said that Peter here was alluding to the judgement that was to come upon Jerusalem. But he was writing to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Capadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. In what danger were these people of the judgement of Jerusalem? If this judgement was in his mind, he might have preached it to Judea and Jerusalem, but why speak of it in a warning style to people of other countries?

"For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to bell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgement."-II. Peter 11. 4.-Are we to suppose this was the judgement of Jerusalem? Or are we to suppose it the present judgement of the wicked, at which mankind are judged and punished daily for their sins? And were the angels reserved in chains of darkness unto this?

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The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished."-Verse 9.-Was this day of judgement all the time that men live on earth. And does God reserve the unjust unto this day (their present life) to be punished, by punishing them while he reserves them? Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly men.-II. Peter 111. 6, 7.—Is this day in which we live the judgement day referred to? Is this the day of perdition of ungodly men? And is the heavens and the earth, which were reserved unto this day, now on fire? Or does this mean the judgement of Jerusalem? But Peter was not writing this to that devoted city, yet he avails himself of this judgement to terrify the scattered people to whom

he wrote, to good works. "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be, in all holy conversation and godliness." "Verse 11. See also verse 10 and 12.-We must here add the 16th verse. "As also in all his (Paul's) epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which some things are hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction."

Serious and affecting truth! Do any wrest the scriptures to their own destruction? Let the plain and candid construction of scripture be heard. They speak about the secrets of the future state. How curious would we be to peep through the veil of death, and look a moment on the invisible world. The Bible is all the window through which we can gaze until we go. We have no interest. therefore, to pervert that to make it reflect false shadows and images upon our minds.

Upon all the passages referred to in this section, we remark, 1. They are quoted from the prophets, evangelists, and apostles, addressed on various occasions to different kinds of people. And they all allude to a judgement to come, to a retribution at a future time. And the language, generally is expressive of a retribution beyond this life, so plainly that in most cases it would require the most subtle ingenuity to invent any other meaning to it.

2. The numerous classes of people addressed on these @ccasions, were all believers in future retribution; except some, who denied a future existence. That the Gentiles were believers in future rewards and punishments, is proved from their classick authors. In the Latin and Greek poems, and histories, we ind an abundance of such belief. Indeed the religious Jews not only believed in a partial salvation, but that none would be saved but the pious of their own country. That both Jews and Gentiles held to a judgement and state of retribution in another world in the days of Christ, is admitted by universalists.

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