cussion, that we should lay them aside, and abide by our received Translation!!*

us.

REFUTATION.

The exposure now made of my opponent's canons of criticism, and his practice, and that of his brethren, in controverting the truth, may be considered an answer to a great part of what they preach and write on the question between Their doctrines remain unsupported, when their principles of interpretation are proved essentially wrong. That cause is always suspected, whose advocates frequently shift their ground; who fill up their time, not by answering their ́opponent's arguments, but by groundless complaints that he has none; and who make a great flourish of learning among the illiterate, and yet retreat from the light among those who can consult originals. That their cause ought to be suspected and condemned, that their doctrine is without evidence, will appear by a full and fair examination of the arguments advanced by themselves in its defence. With the help of God, this shall be done under the following heads. 1. The present character and sufferings of mankind. 2. The offer of salvation. 3. Arguments for a purgatory. 4. Restitution. 5. The Attributes of God. 6. His fatherly chastisements. 7. The will of God. 8. 9. 10. Christ's Prophetic, Kingly, and Priestly offices.

FIRST UNIVERSALIST ARGUMENT.

A writer of some name, against the Universalists, gives the following division of their sources of argument. "1. The universal goodness of God. 2. The universal atonement of Christ. 3. The universal offers of salvation. 4. The univer

In the Minutes pp. 256, 272, Mr. K. in opposition to his repeated declarations that I had no argument, acknowledges that there were some argument and some criticism on my part; yet he seems to think it" not necessary" for me to say any thing more about the meaning of certain Greek words." Before the debate he was so anxious to make the unlearned acquainted with aionion, hades, gehenna, tartarus, and SALOL, that he could not wait to teach them the alphabet before he would have them reading from right to left. It is said that some of his followers were in the habit of escaping any argument or text, by crying, "Mr. Kneeland says it is not so in the Greek," At that time, he thought our Bible so imperfect as to need his New Translation and all his other critical labours. How much his mind was changed during the debate, will appear from an account of it which he published a few days after, in which, he says scornfully" there was an aionian fight about the words a, i,&c. which was mostly lost to the audience, and which ended nearly where it commenced." He says moreover, "No rational man can believe any thing essential to salvation which is not plainly and clearly revealed, and which depends on something better than such equiVocal terms for its support."

sal goodness of mankind. 5. Their universal punishment in this life." His two last divisions I make my first; because they are the weakest and the least relied upon by their advocates. A single case is not now recollected in which they have urged them at all; and if they were to insist that all men are good, we could only say with the Spirit, "there is none good;" and the same Spirit declares that some sins shall not be forgiven; "neither in this world, neither in the world to come:" so that punishment in this world, whether partial or universal, does not preclude a future punishment.

SECOND UNIVERSALIST ARGUMENT.

The argument drawn from the offer of salvation cannot be more fairly treated than by admitting that salvation is offered to all who hear the gospel, and are willing to be saved in God's appointed way. But the mere invitation to the supper mentioned in Luke 14th, did not avail those who made excuses, and concerning whom it was said, "that none of those which were bidden shall taste of my supper."

THIRD UNIVERSALIST ARGUMENT.

As it is a fact that many Universalists advocate a sort of purgatory, a concise notice will be taken of those texts which are erroneously thought to countenance that doctrine.

1. Isa. 4: 4. "When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning." This is explained in Isa. 31: 9. 48: 10, where it is declared that the Lord's "fire is in Zion and his furnace in Jerusalem ;" and that his people are chosen, or as some copies have it, they are tried, "in the furnace of affliction."

2. Zech. 9: 11. "As for thee also, by the blood of thy Covenant, I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water." Concerning a temporal captivity, Isa. 51: 14, uses the following similar language. "The captive

exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail." The Israelites owed to the blood of the Great Covenant Sacrifice, their deliverance from Egypt and Babylon a well as their preservation from Tophet.

3. 1 Cor. 3: 13-15. "Every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abideth, which he hath

built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burnt, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire." The following are verses 9, 12. "For we are labourers together with God. Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble." Here the officers of the church are said to build it up of good and bad members. When the building is assailed by the fire of persecution, the wood, hay, and stubble are consumed; that is, hypocrites apostatize, while the faithful pastor and the sound members, the gold, silver, and precious stones, endure the flame, and shall be saved or refined and preserved, yet so as by or through the fire.

4. 1 Pet. 3: 9, "By whom," (that is, the Spirit, see verse 18,) "By whom also he went and preached unto the Spirits in prison." That these spirits were in hell at the time of the Apostle's writing is agreed. But that they were in prison when the Spirit of a long-suffering God preached salvation to them, is disputed on the authority of the next verse, which confines the long-suffering of God in respect of them, to the days of Noah, and confines the salvation of God to the few, that is to the eight souls which were in the ark, Verse 20, "which [spirits now in prison] sometime [that is long ago] were disobedient, when once [that is long ago] the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is eight souls were saved by water." If salvation was preached to them in hell or after their death, why should the long-suffering of God be thus restricted in their case, to "the days of Noah while the ark was a preparing ?"

FOURTH UNIVERSALIST ARGUMENT.

Mr. Ballou,* in shewing "that all will be brought, finally, to the enjoyment of spiritual life and peace," says, "There is a passage in Acts 3: 20, 21, which reads very literally in proof of my argument. And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." As the word apokatastasist here rendered restitution, occurs only once in the New Testament, and not once in the Septuagint, there may appear great room for fanciful and erroneous interpretations. Yet in the 70 of *Treatise on Atonement, p. 193.

Η αποκατάστασις

Amos 5: 15, we find a conjugate used in connection with the judgment of civil courts on earth, in exactly the same meaning which the word has in Acts 3: 21, in relation to the judgment of the last day. The prophet says, "Hate evil and love good, KAI APOKATASTESETE EN PULAIS KRIMA;† and establish judgment in the gates." In Acts 1:11, it is said that Christ "shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." In the passage in question, it is said that the Lord shall send him ; and that this sending and coming shall be at the period of the restitution, or constitution, or establishment, or settlement, or consummation of all things. In 1 Cor. 15: 24, 25, we find that one feature of this important settlement is the restitution of "the kingdom to God, even the Father;" and another is, shall we say a restitution of all enemies to the bosom of the Redeemer? No; but at that period, he shall have "put all enemies under his feet;""and these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." It is true that Mr. Ballou and my opponent who quote this prophecy of Peter concerning the restitution of all things, deny that a general judgment shall ever take place. But the same Apostle* has predicted this denial also, when he says "that there shall come in the last days, scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of his coming?"

FIFTH UNIVERSALIST ARGUMENT.

As it is believed that God's holiness, justice and truth require the eternal punishment of incorrigible offenders, and that the scriptures limit the application of his love, mercy, and grace accordingly, the consideration of these attributes shall be postponed to my first argument in favour of future punishment. We shall in the mean time attend to what is urged from God's fore-knowledge, his immutability, and his being the God of universal creation and providence. Although Winchester thinks that the argument from God's universal providence" has weight in it," and professes to give the authority of 1st, the American Indians, and 2dly, the Apostle Paul, in support of it; yet he says, "this I do not insist upon." It is hoped, therefore, that I shall be excused from insisting upon a sophism which can as well refute the doctrine of present suffering, as of eternal punishment. As he supports the argument from the universal creation only by a perversion of

* 2 Pet. 3; 3, 4.

+ και αποκαταστήσετε εν πύλαις αρμο + His Universal Restoration, dialogue 4th.

Isa. 57: 16, which is a promise to the church of Christ, that passage may be attended to among others of the same description, under the 9th argument, to which it properly belongs.

In Mr. Winchester's 4th dialogue, he professes to display the strong holds of Universalism. 1. God is the universal and only creator of all. 2. The universal benevolence of the Deity, or love of God to his creatures. 3. Christ died for all. 4. The unchangeableness of God. 5. The immutability of God's counsels. 6. God hath given all things into the hand of Christ. 7. The scriptures must be fulfilled; the scriptures cannot be broken.*

The 3d of these arguments will be my last. The 6th, the one before the last. The 1st and 2d have been already postponed. The texts under his 5th head shall be generally considered under my 7th and 9th. To his 4th, 5th, and 7th, it may now be briefly answered that because we believe in the truth of God's word, and the immutability of the counsels of an ununchangeable God, therefore we declare that the wicked "shall go into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into everlasting life" for this is declared by that God whose nature and counsels cannot change, and by those scriptures which "cannot be broken."

The argument from the fore-knowledge of God has, notwithstanding its daring impiety, been urged very much, to my own knowledge, even by the followers of Winchester, who are generally esteemed the better sort of Universalists, and sometimes appear to be almost christians. Mr. Ballou declares that if "the Almighty" knew "before he made man” “ that he would deserve an endless punishment," "it proves that an infinite cruelty existed in God!!" The only reason why this profane language is repeated, is that it has been taken for solid argument, by some who did not consider that if it be cruel to fore-know eternal punishment, it must be cruel, only in a less degree, to fore-know temporal suffering, without preventing it. "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." The God of providence foresees all his temporal sins and sorrows,† and the God of judgment fore-knows all his eternal sins and sufferings yet this does not attach an infinite degree, no the least degree of cruelty to the immaculate character of Jehovah: and that blasphemer who can say that it does, needs

* Did Mr. Jennings, in the 22d page of his Report, give me this last argument, to make me talk as childishly as Mr. Winchester?

†2 Kings, 8; 12 13.

Matt. 25; 41, 46.