place, to see if indeed they conducted it in the ludicrous and revolting manner represented by their opponents.-Candour demands of me the statement that I heard not a single sarcastiek expression or unchristian insinuation, or any thing else, more than serious practical preaching, and impressive appeals to sinners to come to Christ and live.There were some things that infidels might not approve, and that abandoned people might condemn; but I think there was nothing that any christian could be displeased with.

About this time it began to be talked that I had renounced universalism. I had not done it, neither had I determined that I should. I was dissatisfied with it, as being not calculated to build up serious and devout societies; but I dared not immediately renounce it, through fear that my objections were the result of some intellectual hallucination, or temporary prejudice, or hypochondrical affection, and might finally wear off. Being thus circumstanced, I felt it improper for me to urge upon my readers a belief in universal salvation. It was also equally improper for me to urge objections to the theory until I should become fully established either against or for it. Therefore I took the only course remaining for me, which was to confine my publick remarks to subjects not immediately connected with the question; and to urge upon my readers such considerations as I believed would be useful to them.

Although, I have for some time thought I should ultimately renounce the doctrine, yet I was determined not to do it so hastily as not to be fully conscious of doing right. I published an article in the 44th No. 2d volume Genius of Liberty, from the Boston Trumpet, by a Restorationist, which professes to give an account of the religious condition of universalists generally in New England. The reader is requested to peruse it. The editor of the Trumpet asserts that it is a misrepresentation. How it may be in New England, I do not know; but this I know, that it is

not a misrepresentation of their religious condition so far as I know any thing about them. I would not speak harshly of them. My affections have clung to them with almost the grasp of desparation. Certainly as a people they deserve no evil at my hands. I only wish to speak of the general effects of the doctrine. I know individuals among them of the most amiable dispositions and characters, that would honour any profession. But I do not think their doctrine ever made them so. I candidly aver in the fear of God, that I do not believe the doctrine ever made a single soul any better than he otherwise would have been, while it has been the means of removing necessary restraints, and giving latitude to thousands, whose propensities and passions needed restraint, whereby they have indulged in criminal pursuits and gone to perdition. I only judge from what I know-from what I have seen, in reference to the general effects of the doctrine. "The tree must be known by its fruits." And after taking the fruits of the tree of universalism into long and deliberate and prayerful consideration, so far as I have ever seen them, I am compelled to conclude the tree is radically defective-that God never designed to give mankind a religion which would do them no good, and about which most of its friends would feel so perfectly indifferent as universalists generally do about their religion. When I learn of a single drunkard, or swearer, or gambler, or debauchee, or knave, being reformed in consequence of the universalist doctrine, I shall think better of its influence than I do now-for it is my solemn opinion that such an instance never occurred. And I would gladly hold up this truth to all the friends of the doctrine, and make it speak out in thunder to their consciences-and then ask them if they will still teach this doctrine to their children?

Being aroused to these considerations, I began to ask again whether the Bible did teach universalism in its own plain unsophisticated construction. In the first place, it is

manifest that hope and fear are the two great sources of human volitions. Hope is powerful when balanced by fear in inducing men to action. Men will never do much for an object because they hope for it, unless they fear that they shall not obtain it without action. Induce an avaricious man to believe that he shall become rich whether he works or not, and he may ardently hope to be so; but such hope would never induce him to work. On the other hand induce him to believe that if he works he shall become rich, and to fear that if he does not he will be poor, and this hope and fear together will make him active. So when we look impartially into the scriptures, we shall find the hope of reward and the fear of punishment, every where held forth, as the proper inducements to a good life. These are the inducements-they are parallel through the Bible-the one would have no practical effect without the other. In reference to this point I have examined Prof. Stewart's learned work on those original terms which deAne the duration of future happiness and future misery, and I think he clearly shows that the rewards and punishments of a future world are parallel and of equal duration. I know that most of universalists deny the existence of even any punishment in a future state. But I should certainly think it much fairer for them to say at once, that they did not regard the unvarnished sense of the Bible at all, and only used it as a kind of popular mantle in which to dress up a system of palpable infidelity. They may come

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I do not pretend here to accuse all universalists, who deny future punishment, of dishonesty; but that they do not believe in the scriptures in their plain natural unvarnished sense. To bring people to their system, their principal business is to varnish over the scriptures so as to give them the appearance of teaching what common readers would never have suspected from the words.The system, in my opinion, is so near deism, as to be precisely the same in its moral effects. There are many good moral deists.Those men, who would be moral without any religious restraint, would be good moral deists; and so with this system. But such is not the moral constitution of all men. And as all ought to support the laws necessary to restrain the vicious, so all ought to support religion necessary to the security and execution of those laws. Such

out with a vengeance on me for saying so much; but if they must, they must-I never shrink from the convictions of right. If any man of sense can read Balfour's Essays, and other writings which I could name, and not be convinced, universalism, I conceive to be opposed to the unvarnished word of God, as will appear in the third chapter of this work. And every attempt to make the scriptures teach it, only tends to lessen the confidence of men, in the authority and unequivocal language of divine revelation; and to increase unbelievers, and multiply opposers to religion; and to break the strongest chains which bind the corrupt, and save the innocent from the perjury, perfidy, and crimes of others. This is the reason why I think it would be fairer or better for mankind and for posterity, if the advocates of that doctrine would openly espouse deism. For I do not believe, that by preaching open infidelity, they could undermine the christian faith, and increase hostility to religion as fast as they do now. I think it impossible to look over the country, and trace universalisin in any place where it prevails to any extent, and not be satisfied of this truth. Many professed universalists have told me, at different times, that they only supported universalism as a means of putting down superstition, (revealed religion.) Many preachers take a kind of dark course on the subject of future punishment. They preach present punishment; and all their common arguments are calculated to induce a belief that punishment must be here and no where else. Yet they do not say but there may be punishment in a future state! Hence, while they teach ultra universalism in all its material features, they hold in reserve, the advantage of taking shelter under restorationism, whenever they are met with Scriptures in debate, which they cannot evade, and which they must allow to teach future punishment.

Mr. Kneeland was for years a learned and eminent universalist teacher. He became an Atheist; and says, that the fundamental principles, taught by modern universalists and himself, are the same. That the elements of his systein are all found in their arguments. That the principal universalist writers and teachers are engaged in the same great work that he is, viz: to bring mankind out of superstition into reason and nature. He claims the honour of acting openly and honestly in promoting the same results, which he says his universalist coadjutors are promoting in their own way. I am informed by a reputable gentleman from Boston that universalist societies in that region open their temples, and pay him for his instructions on atheism, or pantheism, which is substantially the same thing. Universalist preachers, whether honest themselves or not, hold up to the people an inefficient religion-a religion that never harrows up the guilty conscience, that never made a guilty nerve to tremble. They philosophise and speculate, until they bring their hearers into a habit of doubting-and they generally doubt on, till nothing is undoubted to them, except that priesteraft is the principal evil in the world! This fact is now well known to almost the whole community. Universalist preachers may have good motives of action; but their professed followers generally look upon them as counteracting revealed religion. They have

that materialism and atheism are at the bottom, he can do what I cannot. And I am not accustomed to shrink from an open avowal of my couclusions on account of the frowns or smiles of my fellow beings. What have I on earth to fear? In a few days I shall be in another world! And so will be the multitudes that now rage and clamour about opinions. The only object, then, worthy of me or any other man, is to do something that will gild the way from earth with peace; and leave with our children some salutary principles to guide them safely amidst the temptations of the world.

I do not intend here to discuss the subject of future punishment, though it is not impossible I may do it hereafter. Suffice it to say, I know of no argument against eternal punishment that can be drawn from the fair construction of the Scriptures. And as to the conclusions drawn from knowu facts, they are as much in favour of the hypothesis as against it.

Some have pretended that, as I have said and written so much for universal salvation, I have no right to come out against it now. I clung to the system as long as I conscientiously could; and having seen more and more, and reflected more and more on the subject, and its relations and tendencies, I am fully satisfied that I ought to abandon it. It must be because I know more than I once did, or less.

Some time in the last winter, I received of Mr. Gillet, Bishop Horne's evidences of revealed religion. I read it with increasing avidity. It was the first work I had ever read in proof of the divine authority of the Bible. Every objection that ever I thought of, and many more, were there conclusively answered. The Scriptures were supported by thousands of such admirers, who assume the name of universalists, laugh at their wit, and chuckle at their perversions of scripture, yet those admirers well know their instructions to be rapidly undermining the christian faith. They suppose such to be the object of universalism. Infidelity has been extended in the state of New York and New England by that means to a great extent.