To save a few Jews from the destruction of Jerusalem. For what did they expose themselves to the most severe persecutions? To save a remnant of the chosen people from temporal death. For what were their lessons of wisdom given? To rescue some of their brethren from a few moments of bodily pain. All of those who were destroyed in the calamity went to heaven. The few who were delivered and redeemed were exposed to afflictions and tortures more excruciating than temporal death. Yes; your mode of explaining the scriptures confines almost all their efforts to this paltry, insignificant purpose. And is not this an unscriptural interpretation?

9. Modern universalism destroys all of christianity which can be of serious interest to us of the present period. You limit all threatened punishment to the present world. On the same principles of interpretation, you must also limit all the promises of happiness to this life. There is no possible way in which you can honestly avoid this conclusion. I am glad to find some of your writers consistent. One has lately undertaken to show that those passages which teach the resurrection of the dead must be confined to the mortal existence; that the day of resurrection commenced at the destruction of Jerusalem; that all the descriptions which relate to this event in the epistles are to be thus applied. There can be no other honest course. Now in what passages is a

future life declared? What is to be the future condition of mankind? What have we to do with the history of transactions which have long since transpired? What christianity remains for our use? How many passages will be left for our particular benefit? I do hope that you will endeavor to ascertain to what results your principles of interpretation must necessarily lead. I must consider a system unscriptural which confines christianity to a particular period and for a temporal purpose.

10. Modern universalism saps the foundation of christian morality. There is a right and a wrong in every thing. Jesus instructs us to adhere to the right in all cases, although our obedience should expose us to great self-denial, severe persecution, the most excruciating tortures, and even death itself. And why should this be done if this world has no connexion with another? On your ground, the rule of conduct must come to nothing more than atheistical morality. You are to take such courses as will insure the greatest degree of present happiness. This can frequently be obtained by deviations from the path of rectitude. Conscience must become nearly powerless when all fear of an hereafter is removed. And consequently the principle of expediency becomes the standard of duty. Is not this unchristian, and is not a system which necessarily leads to this result unscriptural?

I could mention many more reasons did my limits permit. These are sufficient to convince you that I have not taken up my present opinion without examination or evidence. If these arguments are sound, as I verily believe, they ought to awaken an alarm in your mind. You have no desire to uphold an unscriptural system. Then follow out the few hints I have mentioned; see if you can furnish a text from which to preach your distinguishing views; see if the passages I have quoted do not destroy your theories; see if you can find any distinct traces of your sentiments in the early ages of the church; look at the various defences which have been written; examine the history of Jesus and his apostles; ascertain if the character of your heavenly Father remains untouched, and decide for yourself, whether modern universalism is unscriptural, the invention of men, or whether it is the very gospel which Jesus taught and in proof of which he laid down his precious life.

II. Modern universalism is an irrational system. I shall attempt to prove, that it is not the dictate of reason, that it does not coincide with the decisions of reason, that it is opposed to the soundest conclusions of reason. A few of the arguments which confirm this opinion I will briefly state.

1. Modern universalism is not the dictate of reason. Look at the great company of reasonable beings whose history is known. Has their reason declared that a perfect retribution took place on earth? Has their reason discovered that men will be neither rewarded nor punished beyond the grave for the deeds done in the body? Has their reason adopted the conclusion that all mankind will be happy the moment they enter upon the next conscious existence? Has their reason taught that all will be upon an equality in the heavenly world? No. You will admit that no such views have generally prevailed in any age, in any nation, in any religion; and consequently your system is proved irrational.

2. Human reason has taught doctrines directly con-` trary to modern universalism. It has proclaimed that a perfect retribution does not take place on earth. It has concluded that men must be rewarded and punished hereafter for the deeds done in the body. It has determined that distinctions must hereafter be made according to moral goodness. Are not all these views opposed to your theories? And have not the great majority in all times and places and churches adopted these deductions of reason? This you will admit, and consequently your system is proved irrational. My four next reasons are taken from a late volume of discourses by Dr. Channing. Since the ideas are expressed with so much more beauty and power than I could possibly give them, no apology is needed for borrowing his language.

3. "It is maintained by some among us, that punish

ment is confined to the present state; that in changing worlds we shall change our characters; that moral evil is to be buried with the body in the grave. As this opinion is spread industriously, and as it tends to diminish the dread of sin, it deserves some notice. To my mind a more irrational doctrine was never broached. In the first place, it contradicts all our experience of the nature and laws of mind. There is nothing more striking in the mind, than the connexion of its successive states. Our present knowledge, thoughts, feelings, characters, are the results of former impressions, passions, and pursuits. We are at this moment what the past has made us; and to suppose, that, at death, the influences of our whole past course are to cease on our minds, and that a character is to spring up at war with what has preceded it, is to suppose the most important law or principle of the mind to be violated, is to destroy all analogy between the present and the future, and to substitute for experience the wildest dreams of fancy. In truth, such a sudden revolution in the character, as is here supposed, seems to destroy a man's identity. The individual thus transformed, can hardly seem to himself or to others the same being. It is equivalent to the creation of a new soul."

4. "Let me next ask, what fact can be adduced in proof or illustration of the power ascribed to death, of changing and purifying the mind? What is death? It is the dissolution of certain limbs and organs by which the soul now acts. But these, however closely connected with the mind, are entirely distinct from its powers, from thought and will, from conscience and affection. Why should the last grow pure from the dissolution of the first? Why shall the mind put on a new character, by laying aside the gross instruments through which it now operates? At death, the hands, the feet, the eye, and

the ear perish. But they often perish during life; and does character change with them? It is true that our animal appetites are weakened and sometimes destroyed by the decay of the bodily organs on which they depend. But our deeper principles of action, and the moral complexion of the mind, are not therefore reversed. It often happens, that the sensualist, broken down by disease, which excess has induced, comes to loathe the luxuries to which he was once enslaved; but do his selfishness, his low habits of thought, his insensibility to God, decline and perish with his animal desires? Lop off the criminal's hands, does the disposition to do mischief vanish with them? When the feet mortify, do we see a corresponding mortification of the will to go astray? The loss of sight or hearing is a partial death; but is a single vice plucked from the mind, or one of its strong passions palsied, by this destruction of its chief corporeal instruments?"

5. "Again; the idea that by dying, or changing worlds, a man may be made better or virtuous, shows an ignorance of the nature of moral goodness or virtue. This belongs to free beings; it supposes moral liberty. A man cannot be made virtuous, as an instrument may be put in tune, by a foreign hand, by an outward force. Virtue is that to which the man himself contributes. It is the fruit of exertion. It supposes conquest of temptation. It cannot be given from abroad to one who has wasted life, or steeped himself in crime. To suppose moral goodness breathed from abroad into the guilty mind, just as health may be imparted to a sick body, is to overlook the distinction between corporeal and intellectual natures, and to degrade a free being into a machine."

6. "I will only add, that to suppose no connexion to exist between the present and the future character,