Dreadful want of assurance. wicked who were here "not in trouble like other men,' will there be tormented. surances of this new sect. in believing. They never can know that they have suffered, or will suffer, in this present life all that their sins deserve. Well may we exclaim, in view of such boastings and such miserable uncertainties, in the language of the poet, Such are the delightful as- "Oh! star-eyed Science! hast thou wandered there, CHAPTER XI. NO SUCH THING AS PUNISHMENT. Design of punishment-A carnal scheme-Danger of misapprehending their admissions-What does sin deserve-Denial of all punishment—All suffering for sin is the fruit of God's love, and designed only for the sinner's highest good→→→ Its removal, and not its infliction, a curse-All men the children of God—Mankind not divided into two distinct classes-Fearful language of Scripture. "While man exclaims- See all things for my use!' 'See man for mine !'—replies a pamper'd goose !”—Pore. It appears to be the constant aim of these writers to make their system as palatable as possible to a depraved heart. For this they make the fall of our first parents nothing more than a beautiful allegory, never meant to be regarded as a relation of actual occurrences. Thus they rid themselves of the original curse, or give themselves all the latitude that they can desire in interpreting its allegorical meaning. For this, too, they discard original sin, or native depravity, and flatter poor man by assuring him that he comes into the world as pure as an angel. Instead of showing, as do all the sacred writers, that sin is "ex Admissions. Very incongenial. ceeding sinful," they will scarcely allow that the human mind, (or "intellectual phenomena," as they call the soul,) ever consents to sin. Sin is simply the want of conformity between a man's choice and his judgment, which choice results from the animal appetites, as God created them, and is to be regarded as a fulfilment of his will. Having thus converted sin into righteousness, it seems rather strange that they should ever admit that man is liable to any punishment at all for doing that which he cannot help-to which his mind never consents, which is only the working of the animal nature, and accords perfectly with the Creator's design. But the Bible too expressly speaks of the punishment of the wicked, and gives too many fearful examples of it, for them boldly to deny in so many words all punishment. Perhaps, I may add, there is a voice within, a conscience, that, after all their refined speculations, accuses of guilt, and convinces of ill-desert. To save appearances, therefore, they must admit punishment of some kind; but only on two conditions: viz. the limitation of it to mortal life, or at most, the ante-resurrection state, and the absence of all penal inflictions. In making these admissions, so strangely incongenial to their whole system,-in order to blind the eyes of the people, they insist upon it, as has been shown, that all sin will receive its full deserts-that there shall not be the least abatement, on any account whatever, of the just punishment of sin. If now the reader, who has been accustomed to regard sin, as an Caution to the reader. What does sin deserve ? unmixed evil, in the highest degree offensive to God, deserving the most signal manifestations of his displeasure and wrath,(and if he has gathered his theology from the Bible alone, he cannot but thus judge,) he will be liable utterly to misapprehend the meaning of these admissions. Let him first unlearn the lessons of his childhood and youth, and then let him be taught to regard sin, as an infraction only of the law of one's mind, the resistance of an innocent animal appetite to the better judgment of a pure and noble and almost godlike mind; in short, let him learn that what they call sin is only a carrying out of the divine purposes of good,-a part of his glorious plan of benevolence, and indispensable to the greatest good both of the sinner and the world; let him thus become a proficient in the art of making black white, and he will at once perceive that these new expounders of scripture venture nothing in admitting, that every sin will inevitably be punished to the full extent of its desert. But what is that desert? What evil, after all, has the sinner done? Whom has he injured? Not God, they say, for this is impossible. Whom, then? Not his fellow-men, for "all things work together for good to them." His sin injures only himself; and even this injury God is bound to make good, since he brought the man into being and gave him such a body of sin and death. How much then, does sin-thus understood fully deserve? Who can believe that it deserves any punishment at all? How safe is it, therefore, for those, who have thus diluted sin until it can scarcely An easy way to pay debts. All suffering the fruit of love. be distinguished from righteousness itself, to admit that every man will inevitably suffer to the full extent of his deserts, for every sin that he commits! A very easy matter it is, truly, for a man to pay all his debts when he owes nothing! It will thus be seen, that this strange system, after all its boasting about the full exaction of punishment, does actually deny all punishment, in the proper sense of the word. Such is the necessary inference from those parts of their creed which have already come under review. We are not left, however, to inference alone, in order thus to understand them. I shall now attempt to show that it is an essential part of their system, and an avowed article of their creed, that XII. THERE IS PROPERLY NO SUCH THING AS PUNISHMENT. The sufferings which mankind endure, they regard, or profess to regard, as an expression, not of God's anger, or displeasure, but of his love. They are all fruits of a Father's tenderest concern for the welfare of his children, designed not as a judicial infliction of punishment, but for the good, the personal good in every case, and the very highest good, of the sinner himself. They are exceedingly tenacious of these views. They introduce them on every occasion. No matter what is the text, they are sure to evolve from it this doctrine. Take a few examples. In a sermon from Mal. iv. 1,—“For, behold! the day cometh that shall burn as an oven," &c.,-Hosea Ballou remarks, ('L. Sermons,' p. 91,) "Now we know, that it is not the nature |