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Is not God as much the Father of all men now as he ever will be? Does this fact prevent men from running into sin and experiencing its consequences? Does this prevent the sinner from reaping the bitter fruits of his transgressions long after his reformation? What reason then have you for supposing that his paternal love will operate so differently after death? None at all; and consequently this class of passages proves nothing in favor of your system.

VI. You assert that the gift of God is eternal life; and you prove this position by a passage or two from the scriptures. You then infer that there will be no future retribution. Your conclusion does not legitimately follow. Is not the present life the free gift of our Father? Have we done any thing to merit an earthly existence? Surely not. Surely not. But does the possession of this gift make us all happy? Does it destroy our free agency? Does it prevent us from suffering the natural consequences of our transgressions? Now can you do any thing to merit another existence? Certainly not. Then your future life will surely be the gift of your heavenly Father; and given through Jesus, since he has furnished incontestable evidence of your immortality. But because you are to have another life, does it follow that men will not be rewarded and punished according to the deeds done in the body? By no means. Perhaps however you will say that eternal life means eternal happiness. Very well. This does not prove your position. For you are not informed when this happiness shall commence. You are told of some who received it when they became christians. You never heard of any one securing this blessing without moral goodness. You know that this gift is promised upon certain conditions. Your health is the gift of God in precisely the same manner. Without your own exertions you cannot secure

the blessing. Without your own consent and labor you cannot be a christian this side of eternity. If you can point out any way in which a man can be made holy without his own choice and exertions, then you will have more ground on which to stand. But since this is a moral impossibility, this class of texts neither asserts nor implies that there shall be no future retribution, and consequently is nothing to your purpose.

VII. You assert that Jesus is the Savior of the world, and you prove this by some quotations. You then infer that none will be hereafter rewarded and punished for the deeds done in the body. Your conclusion is drawn too hastily. This whole class of passages is the strongest possible proof against your doctrine. For you know that many leave this world whom Jesus has not saved. If he is to be their Savior, there must be some disciplinary process in the future life, and consequently the doctrine of future retribution is established. If they are saved by death, or the resurrection, or a miracle, then Jesus is not their Savior, and has no share in their salvation. If then all men are to be saved by Jesus there must be future rewards and punishments beyond the grave.

VIII. You assert that Jesus shall subdue every enemy, abolish death, destroy the devil and hell; and in proof of your assertion you refer to certain passages of scripture. You then infer that there will be no future retribution. This is most sophistical reasoning. When is Christ to subdue all enemies? In this life? Surely not. If then he has any hand in their conversion it must be after death; and if they need this reformation then, of course there must be future punishment. If they are made holy in any other process, then he has nothing to do in their subjugation. Consequently this

whole class of texts furnishes an unanswerable argument against your doctrine.

IX. You assert that he who is dead is freed from sin; and you take a passage from its connexion to prove this statement. You then infer that no one will be miserable after death. Your conclusion is lame, even if your premises were correct. For a man may be freed from sin and still suffer its consequences. Here is a person

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who has been a common drunkard for twenty years. He has now thoroughly reformed. He is free from the sin of intemperance; but is he free from its consequences, the loss of health, character, property, reputation, confidence, wasted time and privileges? Surely not. If then you could free a man from sin by death, its consequences might long remain to give him torment. ▾ But the text mentioned has no such meaning. Formerly it was appealed to with great confidence; now I do not know that even the most uneducated preacher in your connexion would quote it in proof of your system; so that there is no occasion to give a formal exposition of the whole passage.

I have thus passed over very lightly the many proof texts to which reference is frequently made in support of the doctrine of universalism. You must see that not one of the number has the least possible connexion with the question at issue. Some of them have a direct bearing on the subject of the duration of future punishment; but this is a point with which I have nothing to do in my present work. I hope therefore no man will ever again quote a single passage from the whole number mentioned above, in proof of the doctrine of no future punishment; for I could not excuse one who should be guilty of such a measure from either gross ignorance or wilful dishonesty. I will now proceed to the three arguments on which great dependence is

placed in defending your system; and will endeavor to show you that these have still less connexion with the subject in debate than even the former supposed proofs.

X. Your system formerly rested on the following foundation. "All sin originates in the flesh, is punished in the flesh, and terminates with the flesh. The soul cannot sin, and when liberated must be happy; death sets it free and heaven becomes its home." A few years since one of your present preachers undertook to prove that we have no immortal souls, that the whole man moulders in the dust until the resurrection, and is then to come forth qualified for future felicity, as pure glass is made from sand and other ingredients. This new system was readily embraced by many who began to discover that the apology for an argument on which their old scheme rested, began to evaporate before the rising sun of truth. How the members of your denomination are divided between these two contradictory theories I am unable to state. I will give them both a passing notice.

1. I reject your theory that sin originates in the flesh, and that the soul cannot commit sin, as the old heathen doctrine that matter is the source of all evil. This has long since been exploded as a gross absurdity. A little acquaintance with works of philosophy would have saved your writers the mortification of having advocated the false systems of the gentiles. I would recommend to those who still adhere to this rotten foundation of universalism to make themselves somewhat acquainted with the principles of human nature and mental philosophy.

2. You take an entirely erroneous view of the nature and sources of sin. You suppose sin to begin and end in the flesh and no where else. If so the soul would do well enough provided the body would give it no trouble.

If so the soul is no agent and has no share in the process by which moral evil is produced. Now have you never learnt that sin consists in disobedience to the moral law of God, as well as to the physical laws which he has implanted in our constitution? Can the body or the flesh disobey this moral law? Surely not. Then obedience must be rendered by something else; and what is this something else, but the soul; the internal agent; the only agent; indeed all that constitutes the man a moral being? To say then that the body or flesh disobeys the moral law is a gross absurdity.

3. But you contend that sin is produced by temptations arising from the flesh. Suppose for the sake of argument I admit this. How is sin produced? Why, the soul yields to the temptations when they might have been resisted and should have been resisted. This the soul knows and feels. This constitutes the sin. This causes the soul to feel guilty; and severe remorse is the consequence. How happens this that the soul is punished for the sins of the body? Which is the greatest torment a sinner experiences, mental or bodily, in the spirit or the flesh? You cannot hesitate to mention the soul. On your ground this is altogether wrong; and if the soul now suffers because it has yielded to temptation and committed sin, what is to prevent its suffering in a future state for the same offences? Nothing. Perhaps indeed the flesh in many cases furnishes the occasion, but it is the soul alone that sins, by employing its moral powers in disobedience rather than in obedience. This every person must know from his own experience and observation; and none but those wedded to a system can have the effrontery to deny so palpable a truth. So that your system has no support from fact. 4. You ask whether it is not the cravings of appetite which induce the hungry man to steal food; whether it

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