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among men than have those of benevolence; for the reason that the mass of mankind are in gross ignorance, and their conceptions of the deity are low and grovelling: when intelligence and refinement become more general in the world, doctrines of benevolence will be better received. Paul labored and suffered reproach for exhibiting God as an universal saviour: (1 Tim. iv. 10.) and the same teaching would have ensured him a like experience in every subsequent age to the present time. My opponent tells us how opposed to the doctrine of an endless hell the pious minister of Jesus finds the world; but the truth is utterly to the contrary. put it to your own observation, whether the opposite to this is not the fact ! Knew you ever of a case of persecution against an individual, for his preaching an endless hell? Never, surely! As already said, this doctrine is by far too convenient, and too well suited to the vanity and selfishness of men, to be a subject of opposition it is a point which the interests of all false and corrupt religions will unite to guard, as the main secret, and allpotent engine of their dominion over mankind.

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Nor can I allow to my friend's objection to universalism the weight he claims for it, that it is generally disapproved, and its propagation deprecated, by men of prayer. Possibly it is; possibly too the preaching of it by the apostle was opposed by this class of persons: we know with certainty that it was principally such that composed the number of haters and crucifiers of the saviour! I should be sorry to endorse a millionth part of the doctrines and doings of praying men; for many and many a dark deed of crime, God knows, has sought to sanctify itself by prayer. The simple fact, therefore, of a doctrine being loved or hated by praying men proves nothing either as to its truth or falsity.

On the whole, then, I ask, how can we rationally infer from the opposition encountered by Christ and his apostles, that they taught the doctrine of endless misery? On the contrary, when it is considered that his opponents themselves believed this doctrine, is not an opposite inference the more rational? You, my hearers, may decide these questions for yourselves. I pretend not to say that they were persecuted for the one of these causes or the other, but only that if for either, the latter is the more probable.

POPULAR DEBATE.-No. V.

IS THE NOTION OF A GENERAL JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH AGREEABLE TO THE SCRIPTURES AND REASON?

ARGUMENT IN THE AFFIRMATIVE.

Of all the heresies that have infested the Christian church, universalism is at once the most audacious and the most alarming; it lays its destructive axe at the root of opinions which have ever, by general suffrage, been regarded as vital, and fundamental, in christian faith amongst these it is doubtful if any one is more venerated, for its antiquity, and general prevalence in the world, than that which is involved in the question before us. Will there be a judgment after death? Say no-decide this momentous inquiry in the negative, and you will be secure of a hearty vote of thanks from the irreligious and the abandoned of all nations, by whom, we may be sure, this doctrine is but little relished. Say no, and the bible may very well be dispensed with: for its main business. as it seems to me, is to prepare men against that dreadful assize at which all our actions in life must undergo the severest scrutiny. Ah! in reference to this, how many a dying wretch has disclosed the secrets of a life of crime, which had otherwise gone down with him into the oblivion of the grave! And how many an one at the same awful juncture, has relinquished his grasp upon hoards, which had been accumulated by fraud and oppressive exactions! Well doth the poet call this the

"Great day, for which all other days were made,

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Great day of dread, decision, and despair.

At thought of thee, each sublunary wish
Lets go its eager grasp, and drops the world,
And catches at a single reed of hope

In heaven."

Reason clearly suggests the necessity for a judgment of men afte this life when we observe the present dispensations of providence, we perceive that they take place indifferently in regard to the righteous and the wicked; a suitable distinction is not now

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maintained between these opposite classes: hence a future dis pensation is obviously necessary in order to remedy the irregulari ies of the present. God must vindicate the justice of his gov ernment-he must display his infinite aversion to sin, and his approval of virtue-and this he must do before assembled worlds. By confining our attention to the events of time, we should often be tempted to call the justice of God into question: the cruel, and the rapacious, are allowed to trample under foot and despoil the meek and the upright: the poor man finds in the law but a weak defence against the rich oppressor; the innocent are often subject to the full rigors of legal vengeance, whilst the guilty are suffered to escape with impunity. Who can estimate the sum of suffering caused by such men as Charles XII. of Sweden, Cromwell, and Napoleon? How could Pizarro, and Cortes, be adequately punished in life, for the prodigies of cruelty which they perpetrated in Mexico, and Peru? When Jehovah looked down from his throne in heaven upon the unhappy Montezuma, expiring on heated plates of iron: marked he not for deep damnation the miscreant who had caused this suffering? A single mandate, from a single tyrant, has often whelmed millions of hearts in anguish; think of the horrors inflicted within the limite of British-East-India (if Burke, and Sheridan, may be trusted) by the tyranny of Warren Hastings! "I'll swear," (said an unhappy princess, whose husband had been perfidiously murdered by that tyrant,) "if Hastings is not damned, his God is a black accomplice in his crimes!" It would indeed seem so, if the unjust oppressions of time are not to be avenged in eternity.

When we look through the scriptures we find them to contain, 1st: numerous allusions to a certain set time, denominated "the day of judgment;" these allusions are an indirect proof of the doctrine under examination. 2ndly, we find direct proofs to the same effect in particular descriptions of that day.

"And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than that city." (Mat. x. 14, 15.) "Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they

repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee." (Mat. xi. 20-24.) “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." (2 Pet. ii. 9.) "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day." (Jude 6.) These are the principal among the indirect proofs of a day of general judgment: you will observe that it is alluded to as a fixed and definite period-not as a day; but as the day.-Sometimes it is denominated “that day,” "the great day," &c.

Again, there are passages in which mention is made of “the judgment seat of Christ," and of our having to stand before, and to give an account thereat. (Rom. xiv. 10.—2 Cor. v. 10.)

The accounts of our Lord's second coming I shall not adduce in this argument, although they have been thought to belong to the same subject, but they have been already subjected to the alembic of my opponent's sophistry, and they turned out to mean no such thing. I pass them, then, and go to the direct evidences. "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent; Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; wherenf he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." (Acts xvii. 30, 31.) Here is the doctrine fully asserted: Christ, the judge-the world, the party-and an appointed day, tho time all clearly and distinctly revealed.

Next see, 2 Peter iii.: "Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: Bnt the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved

unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness: Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." (6-13.) Here is a circumstantial account of an awful event, or rather train of events. I hope my opponent will not attempt to spiritualise it, and reduce it to a nonentity,

Pass we now to 2 Thes. i: " Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; And to you who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.” (6—10.) Could a general judgment, and one too, which shall decide the fates of the parties for eternity, be more decisively revealed than it here is? Christ descends-he descends from heaven-he descends in flames-he descends to avenge himself upon the enemies of his gospel-and that vengeance, what is it? Destruction, total, perpetual, irremediable.

I will adduce two other testimonies, which I confess to be highly figurative, but which, nevertheless, without doubt, refer to the same stupendous transactions: the first is in Daniel vii. "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did

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