I thought that you, as well as myself, had better not have attempted to criticise on Hebrew and Greek terms. You think otherwise. Very well: we have a right, then, to expect the more at your hands. Yet, methinks, you should have been contented to meet an opponent, who never professed to have a competent acquaintance with either of those languages, on his own ground: or, if not, you should either have assumed a little less consequence, or have supported your pretensions with a little better evidence. To be sure, it was very kind in you to inform me, that though alw and alúvios agree in some respects, with the English words eternity and eternal, yet they will not always bear to be rendered by these terms. I ought equally to thank you, no doubt for teaching me, and that repeatedly, that, "as for the word eternal, it is the same in the original which is translated everslasting."* Seriously, may not a person, without pretending to be qualified for Greek criticisms, understand so much of the meaning of words, as to stand in no need of the foregoing information? Nay more: Is it not possible for him to know, that the Greek words aiv and alwvios will not always bear to be rendered by the English words eternity, everlasting, or eternal: and yet perceive no evidence of the one being less expressive of endless duration than the other?

This, if it must be so called, was my "hypothesis." To overturn if, you allege, that the Greek terms will" admit of a plural,” and of the pronouns this and that before them; which the English will not. So far as this is the case, it may prove, that there is some difference between them; but not that this difference consists in the one being less expressive of endless duration than the other. Words in English, that are properly expressive of endless duration, may not ordinarily admit of a plural; and, if this were universally the case, it would not follow, that it is the same in Greek. Nor is it so for the idea of endless duration, is frequently conveyed by these very plural forms of expression. Thus, in Ephes. iii. 11. xarà πpódeσiv tuv alwvwv; according to his eternal purpose. So also, in 1 Tim. i. 17. Τῷ δὲ Βασιλει τῶν αἰώνων

* Universalist's Miscellany, No. I. p. 7. No. XXXV. p. 238.

+ Ibid. No. XXXV. pp. 332, 333.

ἀφθάρτω, ἀοράτω, μόνω σοφῶ, Θεῶ, τιμὴ καὶ δόξα εἰς τὰς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰ wvwv, Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Render these passages how you will, you cannot do them justice, unless you express the idea of unlimited duration. And though the English terms may not admit of what is termed a plural form, yet they admit of what is equal to it; for though we do not say everlastings, nor eternities, yet we say for ever and ever; and you might as well contend, that for ever cannot properly mean unlimited duration, seeing another ever may be added to it, as that alwv must needs mean a limited duration, on account of its admitting a plural form of expression. You might also with equal propriety, plead for a plurality of evers in futurity, from the English phraseology, as for a plurality of ages from the Greek.

With respect to the admission of the pronouns this and that, we use the expressions, this eternity of bliss, or that eternity of bliss ; nor does such language, being applied to a state of existence, express the idea of limitation. The very passage that you have quoted, (Luke xx. 35.) where alov is rendered world, and admits of the pronoun that before it, refers to a state which you yourself, I should suppose would allow to be endless.

For any thing you have hitherto alleged, the Greek words aiv and alúvios are no less expressive of endless duration, than the English words everlasting and eternal: the latter, when applied to temporary concerns, are used in a figurative, or improper, sense as, frequently as the former. And, if this be a truth, it must follow, that the continual recurrence to them by your writers, is no better than a sing-song; a mere affectation of learning, serving to mislead the ignorant.

You make much of your rule of interpretation, that, where “a word is used in relation to different things, the subject itself must determine the meaning of the word." (p. 333.) You are so confident that this rule is unobjectionable, as to intimate your belief, that I" shall not, a second time, have the temerity to reprove you for the use of it." If you examine, you will perceive, that I have not objected to it a first time yet, but rather to your manner of applying it. I shall take the liberty, however, to object to it now,

whatever " temerity" it may imply. I know not who those "best critics" are, from whom you profess to have taken it, but, to me, it appears disrespectful to the scriptures, and inadmissible. It supposes, that all those words which are used in relation to different things, (which, by the way, almost all words are,) have no proper meaning of their own, and that they are to stand for nothing in the decision of any question; but are to mean any thing that the subject to which they relate can be proved to mean without them. Had you said, that the subject including the scope of the writer, must commonly determine whether a word should be taken in a literal, or in a figurative sense, that had been allowing it to have a proper meaning of its own: and to this I should have no objection but to allow no meaning to a term, except what shall be imparted to it by the subject, is to reduce it to a cypher.

:

But, exceptionable as your rule of interpretation is, in itself, it is rendered much more so by your manner of applying it. If, under the term "subject," you had included the scope and design of the writer, it had been so far good; but, by this term, you appear all along to mean, the doctrine of future punishment, abstractedly considered from what the scriptures teach concerning it; at least, from what they teach by the terms which professedly denote its duration. You require, that "there be something in the nature of future punishment, which necessarily leads us to receive the word alúvios in an endless sense; in which case, (as you very properly add,) it is not the word, but the subject which gives the idea of endless duration."* What is this but saying, We are to make up our minds on the duration of future punishment, from the nature and fitness of things; and having done this, we are to understand the scripture terms which are designed to express that duration, accordingly? But, if we can settle this business without the aid of those scripture terms, why do we trouble them; and what is the meaning of all your criticisms upon them? If they are so "weak, from their vague and indeterminate application in scripture," that nothing certain can be gathered from them, why not let us alone? It should seem, as though all your critical labor

* Universalist's Miscellany, p. 329.

upon these terms, was for the sake of imposing silence upon them. I do not know that endless punishment can be proved from the nature of things: but neither can it be disproved. Our ideas of moral government, and of the influence of sin upon it, are too contracted to form a judgment, a priori, upon the subject. It becomes us to listen, with humility and holy awe, to what is revealed in the oracles of truth, and to form our judgment by it. When I suggested that "the nature of the subject determined that the term everlasting, when applied to future punishment, was to be taken in the endless sense," I intended no more, than that such is the sense in which it is used when applied to a future state.

By your rule of interpretation, I have the "temerity" to say again, you might disprove almost any thing you please. 1 observed before, that if one should attempt to prove the divinity of the Son of God, or even of the Father, from his being called Jehovah, your mode of reasoning would render all such evidence of no account; because the same appellation is sometimes given to an altar, &c. You reply, by insisting, that you interpret this term by the subject. But, if you interpret it as you do the term alúvios, it is not the name Jehovah that forms any part of the ground of your conclusion. You do not, on this principle, believe God to be self-existent from his being called Jehovah; but, that the name Jehovah means self-existent, because it is applied to God, whom, from other considerations, you know to be a self-existent being. If Christ were called Jehovah a thousand times, you could not, on this account, believe him to be the true God, according to your principle; because the same word, being applied to other things, its meaning can only be determined by the subject; and, in this case, as you say, it is not the word, but the subject, that gives the idea.

The rule adopted in my last Letter, allows a proper meaning to every scripture term, and does not attempt to set it aside in favour of one that is improper, or figurative, unless the scope of the passage, or the nature of the subject require it. This is a very different thing from not admitting it, unless the subject, from its own nature, render it absolutely necessary. The one is treating the proper meaning of a scripture word with respect, not dispensing with it, but upon

urgent necessity: the other is treating it with indignity, refusing it admission, except where it cannot be denied.

You refer me to Hab. iii. 6, as a parallel passage with Matt. xxv. 46, in which the same word is used, in the same text, in a different sense.* But these passages are not parallel: for there is no such antithesis in the one, as in the other. It has been thought, and, I apprehend, is capable of being proved, that the everlasting ways, or paths of God, denote those very goings forth by which he scattered the mountains, and caused the hills to bow; and, that the term everlasting, in both instances, is expressive of merely limited duration. But, admitting that the everlasting hills are opposed to the everlasting ways of God, or, that the one were only lasting, and the other properly everlasting; still, the antithesis, in this case, naturally directs us so to expound them; whereas in Matt. xxv. 46, it directs us to the contrary. If there be an opposition of meaning in the one case, it lies in the very term everlasting; or between the duration of the hills, and that of the divine ways: but the opposition in the other is between life and punishment, and the adjective everlasting, is applied in common to both; which, instead of requiring a different sense to be given to it, requires the contrary. The words recorded by Matthew, are parallel to those in John v. 29. Some shall come forth to the resurrection of life, and some to the resurrection of damnation; and we might as rationally contend for a different meaning to the term "resurrection" in the one case, as to the term " everlasting" in the other..

But, besides all this, by your manner of quoting the passage, you would induce one to suppose that you had taken it merely from the English translation, which, in a man of your pretensions, would be hardly excusable; for though the same word be twice used in the passage, yet it is not in those places which you have marked as being so the instances which you have pointed out, as being the same word, are not the same, except in the English translation.

It was asked, Whether stronger terms could have been used concerning the duration of future punishment than those that are used? You answer, "The question ought not to be, what language God could have used; but, what is the meaning of that which he has * Universalist's Miscellany, No. XXXV, p. 331. 49

VOL II.