I could mention many more instances in which Mr. B. perverts my meaning, and indulges in personal reflections, but as it must be unpleasant to all reflecting persons, I shall let them pass unnoticed, and shall now call the attention of the reader to the point at issue.

21

STATEMENT AND EXAMINATION OF MR. BALFOUR'S SYSTEM.

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Mr. B. holds that the soul of man is mortalthat the whole man dies at the death of the body, so that there is no conscious existence between death and the resurrection. This is what he contends for in his first Essay, and many other parts of his book. He further holds, that at some future unknown period, all men will be raised from the dead to a state of immortal happiness; so that all punishment or misery must be fined to this world. This statement is justified by many parts of his book, which I need not mention. Let us now inquire in what he makes salvation consist. If men are saved, they must be saved from something; and what is this something from which men are saved? Mr. B. shall answer, "from sin, ignorance, idolatry, the course of this world, and from the condemnation in which sin involves us here, and at last from death and the grave." See pp. 112, 113, 162, 207, 208, 297. It appears then that salvation on his plan consists in being delivered from the troubles of this world, and from the grave. Let us examine these positions separately. How are men saved from sin, and the course of this world? Mr. B. says, by preaching Christ and the resurrection. He tells us that the only motive to holiness of life, is a certain hope of the resurrection. "Until a man

has this hope," says he, "he has no sufficient inducement to live a holy life, but rather to saylet us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." He then anticipates an inquiry-"What, do you mean to affirm that none are reconciled to God, have truly repented, and are really changed persons, but such as have believed in the death and resurrection of Christ? And is faith in this the only thing which can give man hope of a future life, and lead him to holiness of conduct?" To this inquiry he answers-"yes, this is what I do affirm." See pp. 163, 166. From these passages it will be seen that Mr. B. contends, that faith in the resurrection of Christ is absolutely necessary to salvation; that a man cannot lead a holy life, without a belief in the doctrine of the resurrection. And for this belief, he tells us frequently, we are entirely indebted to the scriptures.

Now I would gladly inquire, how are the heathen, who never hear of the gospel, and those in christian lands, who do not believe the gospel, or obey its requirements, to be saved? Mr. B. tells us that they cannot be saved without faith in the resurrection; and this faith the heathen do not possess; consequently they are not saved at all, They experience ignorance and all the evils of this world; nay, they endure all the punishments which are threatened in God's word--a punishment which continues as long as they remain in this state, that is, as long as any can be punished on his plan. He admits what our observation teaches us, that all infants, idiots, the whole beathen world, and in fact all who do not believe in

the resurrection so as to lead a holy life, are not saved in this state. "No man," says he, "cam live happy, or die in hope of a future immortality, living in disobedience of the gospel." He also tells us that very few are saved in this state. See pp. 113, 236, 238. The greater part of mankind, then, are not saved from sin or its consequences; or in other words, are not saved at all. Mr. B. thinks it idle, and worse than idle, nay, he calls it a cheat to attempt to save men from suffering in a future state: because he contends, they were never exposed to any such punishment. The greater part of mankind, then, on his plan, are not saved at all. They suffer all the punishment, which was ever threatened, or to which any of the human family were ever exposed. They are not saved from sin or its consequences, but experience both as long as they live. Our author then is driven to this conclusion;-men must be saved by death, or else come short of salvation. But if men are saved by t death, then they are not saved by Christ. They are delivered from sin, but not by the agency of the Lord Jesus; not in consequence of any thing which the Redeemer has done or can do, but by a physical law of nature, in which he has no agency, and to which he himself was subject. sides, it would be totally absurd to say that death saves men, since, on his plan, it only introduces them into a state of non-existence. Such are some of the absurdities attendant upon his plan. But Mr. B. will probably say that he deûned salvation to be not only a deliverance from sin

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in this world, but a deliverance from death and the grave also. We admit this; but this only increases the difficulty. The resurrection cannot with any propriety, on his plan, be said to deliver men from sin and the course of this world. It may introduce men into happiness, but it cannot deliver them from sin. If death destroys the whole man, as he contends, he can no more be a sinner after death, than a non-entity can be; and to say that a non-entity is delivered from sin, by being brought into conscious existence, is to use words without any signification. The most that Mr. B. can make of it, is that death delivers us from sin, and the resurrection introduces us into happiness. So we are partly saved by Christ, and partly by death! consequently our song of praise must be divided; a part of the glory being due to the king of terrors!

But another difficulty arises; this is saving men by physical, and not by moral causes. It is a given principle in philosophy, that moral causes produce moral effects, and physical causes produce physical effects. Who ever heard of the heart of a man being changed by the chilling breezes of the north, or the burning heat of the vertical sun? These being physical causes, produce, not moral, but physical effects. If a physical cause does in any case produce a moral effect, it is not as a physical cause, that it produces it. A fever is a physical cause, and as a fever it will produce only a physical effect. If the reflection that we are afflicted with disease produces a moral effect, as it may in some cases, this