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 Presented by WvcS S \ c\ «S/ Y^-V Vc^-V-V 
 
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 „, , BX 99A7 .B35 1856 
 ^g^ Bartlett, Samuel Colcord, 
 ' 1817-1898. 
 Lectures on modern 
 universalism 
 
LECTURES 
 
 ON 
 
 MODERN UNIVERSALIS!: 
 
 AN EXPOSURE OP THE SYSTEM, FROM RECENT PUBLICATIONS 
 OF ITS STANDARD AUTHORS. 
 
 BY SAMUEL C. BARTLETT, M. A., 
 
 MANCHESTEB, N. H, 
 
 MANCHESTER, N. H. : 
 
 FROM THE PRESS OF FISK & GAGE. 
 
 1856. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 
 
 SAMUEL C. BARTLETT, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of New Hampshire. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Fage> 
 
 Introductory Note. 
 
 LECTURE FIRST. 
 Nature and Characteristics of Universalism 5 
 
 LECTURE SECOND. 
 More Obvious Marks of Falsehood 39 
 
 LECTURE THIRD. 
 The Universalist Argument : — The Scriptures Evaded. . . 64 
 
 LECTURE FOURTH. 
 The Universalist Argument : — The Scriptures Perverted. . . 93 
 
 LECTURE FIFTH. 
 The Universalist Argument : — The Scriptures Oven-uled. . .135 
 
 LECTURE SIXTH. 
 Moral Tendencies of Universalism 162 
 
 LECTURE SEVENTH. 
 Restorationist Viewa among Universalists 197 
 
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INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 These lectures discuss the Universalism of the present time. 
 
 The readSi' will observe three things : First, that the statements 
 of doctrine are not made at second hand, but are taken directly 
 from Univerpalist authors themselves, examined by the writer in 
 person. Second, that the authors quoted are among the most 
 noted of the denomination, men who are identified with its recent 
 history and present condition, whose writings have had the widest 
 circulation, and who now direct the theological literature of the 
 order. Third, that the volumes quoted are of the most recent 
 date, some of them not two years old, nearly all of them less than 
 ten, and published during the life-time of their authors. 
 
 These lectures were delivered in the regular series of discourses to 
 the writer's own congregation. Members of other congregations 
 requested a repetition of them at a different hour, but other engage- 
 ments prevented a compliance. A desire has been expressed, from 
 various quarters, that they might be printed. 
 
 They are accordingly given to the press, in the belief that the 
 facts they embody may helj) expose a system that is as full of gviile 
 as it is of error. Christians in general have no correct knowledge 
 of modern Universalism. Their notions are of a Restorationism, 
 recognizing most of the leading features of the gospel, but deny- 
 ing the eternity of future punishment. They have but little idea 
 of the system which rejects nearly all the doctrines of revelation 
 in the mass, and denies even what they regard as the foundation 
 of common morality. They have but little conception of the arti- 
 fices by which it is sustained, or the moral degradation of code 
 which those artifices conceal. Some treatise has been needed. 
 
U INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 which should briefly place those facts in their present aspect before 
 the christian public. This is the principal design of these lec- 
 tures. The author's own preferences would have led to a very 
 considerable extension of the argument ; but the thought that in- 
 crease of size might defeat the circulation and influence of the 
 volume, prevented. The chief thing required, after all, is to drag 
 this system to the day-light, and strip ofi" its disguises. To such a 
 system, exposure is condemnation. When fairly comprehended, 
 there is no fear but that it will be duly estimated by Christian 
 hearts. 
 
 Another consideration, not without its influence on the author's 
 mind, was, the possibility of reaching some of the many individu- 
 als who receive Universalism on trust . Many respectable persons in 
 our larger places, especially many who are young and fond of pleas- 
 ure, are led by their inclinations to listen to the bold and defiant 
 assertion of a flattering doctrine, while they never have made an 
 hour's candid examination of the subject, and have not the remot- 
 est conception of the internal rottenness of the Universalist 
 scheme and its advocacy. The writer has the satisfaction of hear- 
 ing that some such individuals were benefitted by these lectures 
 when delivered, and he hopes that others may derive a similar 
 benefit from their perusal. He has not deemed it necessary, for 
 their sakcs, to soften the severity of his strictures on the system 
 as such ; with the facts before them, honest men are welcome to 
 pronounce on the propriety of the strictures. For those, who, 
 in the full knowledge of the system, with all its windings, sophis- 
 tries, palpable inconsistences, dishonest devices and concealments, 
 and its moral influences, yet deliberately retain it, — there is little 
 hope in this or any other argument. 
 
 One entirely subordinate consideration in printing those lectures, 
 ■was the willingness that those who have learned of their contents 
 only through the representation of opponents, might read for them- 
 selves, and see what is the honesty of some of the jmblic advo- 
 cates of Universalism. 
 
 Modern Universalism is ashamed of itself. During the delivery 
 of these lectures, the gross blunder and folly was first committed, 
 of aflSrming that the Universalism here delineated, was that of 
 some forty years ago. Subsequently the attempt was made, as 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE iii 
 
 the writer is informed, to invalidate the testimony to facts given 
 in 1848, by the present editor of the " Gospel Banner," (the only 
 Universalist paper in Maine,) and by seven other persons, four of 
 whom are recognized in the Universalist Companion for 1856, as 
 regular Universalist preachers in Massachusetts, — with the sweep- 
 ing assertion that it was the testimony of persons disfellowshipped 
 by the denomination. Similar devices were adopted throughout. 
 
 One is often reminded of the brief interview between Lemuel 
 Haynes and the Universalist champion brought to argue with him. 
 When the introduction had been made and the errand stated, — 
 " Glad to see you," said Mr. Haynes, taking him by the hand ; 
 " well, you are the man, then, who preaches that men may swear, 
 and lie, and get drunk, and commit adultery and all other abomi- 
 nations, and yet go to heaven after all, are you?" " No, no," 
 said the Universalist, "I do n't preach any such thing." " Well," 
 said Mr. Haynes, '■'■you believe so, don't you?" The zeal for 
 controversy, for once, suddenly cooled oflF at the question ; and 
 after a few remarks about the weather and the pleasant situation 
 of the village, the Universalist inquired of his attendant, if it 
 was not about " time to be going." He felt the awkwardness of 
 holding a doctrine which, in its bald form, he was ashamed to avow. 
 Thus the most hopeful feature of the present Universalism is, that 
 it is ashamed of itself, shrinks from the naked statements of its 
 own doctrines, and the truthful exhibition of its own doings, and 
 sometimes attempts, before a christian community, to repudiate 
 the grand characteristic of the denomination for a quarter of a 
 century, the doctrine of all its late standard treatises, and of its 
 leading periodicals. With what success, the reader of these lec- 
 tures will judge. 
 
 The Universalist books principally used for the statement of 
 the system are the following : " The Plain Guide to Universal- 
 ism," stereotype edition, by Rev. Thomas Whittemore, now and 
 for many years editor of the Trumpet, — a work which has circu- 
 lated more widely, perhaps, than any other issued by the denomi- 
 nation ; " A Voice to Universalists," published in 1849, by Rev. 
 Hosea Ballou, the patriarch of Modern Universalism ; " Lecture 
 Sermons," third edition, 1854, by the same author; " One dozeq 
 Tracts for the People," (Boston,) 1856, by Rev. A. C. Thomas and 
 
IV INTEODUCTOET NOTE. 
 
 Rev. T. B. Thayer, of Lowell ; "A Compend of Divinity," sev- 
 enth edition, 1854, by Rev. Sylvanus Cobb, editor of the Christian 
 Freeman and Family Visitor ; " Endless Punishment," published 
 in 1847, and the " Exposition and Defence of Universalism," 1840, 
 by Rev. I. D. Williamson, D.D., now preacher at Cincinnati and 
 editor of the Gospel Herald ; and " Universalist Belief," second 
 edition, 1846, by Rev. Asher Moore, now of New York. Other 
 occasional references wUl be sufficiently indicated in their place. 
 
 These authors certainly are accredited organs of the system. 
 They present it in its most modern and its most plausible form, — 
 its aspect for the public. For the reader will learn before he com- 
 pletes these lectures, that there is also a Universalism not for the 
 public. 
 
 On the other hand, the writer has freely availed himself of the 
 aid of such arguments against this heresy, as have fallen in his 
 way. He would especially acknowledge his indebtedness to the 
 recent work of Rev. N. D. George, of the Methodist denomina- 
 tion, " Universalism not of the Bible." During the delivery of 
 these lectures, he met with the volume and derived from it impor- 
 tant information and valuable suggestions, which are cheerfully 
 acknowledged, as well as personal courtesies from its author. 
 
 A constant difficulty which the writer has felt, has been to res- 
 trict the discussion within the limits of his design. It is hoped 
 that any who might desire greater fulness on particular points, 
 will remember the object in view. In wading through the dreary 
 mass of sophistry over which he has passed, it has been difficult 
 always to repress his disgust, and he has not always succeeded. 
 
 The lectures are printed almost precisely as they were delivered, 
 with only a simple revision of the style, and the insertion of por- 
 tions omitted for want of time. They must be given to the press 
 so, or not at all. They are published, not for literary purposes, 
 but to do good. May the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ ac- 
 company them. 
 
 Manchester, N. H., August, 1856. • 
 
LECTURES ON MODERN UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 LECTURE FIRST. 
 
 THE KATUEE AND CHAKACTEKISTICS OF THE SYSTEM. 
 
 2 Corinthians, XI : 13, 14, 15. For such are false apostles, deceitful 
 workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And 
 no marvel : for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. 
 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as 
 the ministers of righteousness. 
 
 Such is the assertion distinctly made by Christ's 
 apostle, concerning certain teachers then living and 
 teaching among the Corinthian Christians, and claim- 
 ing to be teachers and even apostles of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Of course they were very indignant at the 
 charge. It does not appear, however, that any disas- 
 ter to Christ's cause resulted from what timid men 
 must have thought a very imprudent speech of the 
 apostle. Doubtless that cause was advanced, when the 
 issue was distinctly made and Satan's doctrine bore its 
 proper name. 
 
 We learn from this statement of Paul, that it is no 
 unheard-of thing for systems of religion to claim the 
 name of Christianity — Christianity of the highest or- 
 
6 LECTURES ON UNIYERSALISM. 
 
 der — while they are but doctrines of devils ; and that 
 men may claim, and some have claimed to be apostles 
 of Christ and ministers of righteousness, when in fact 
 they are false apostles and ministers of Satan. It also 
 appears to be an apostolic practice to refute prevailing 
 errors that stand opposed to the fundamental doctrines 
 of the gospel. Whole epistles, and large portions of all 
 the epistles, are devoted to the overthrow of heresies. 
 
 Various indications have led me to think it high 
 time that evangelical Christians in this community 
 should have a better understanding of the system that 
 is called Universalism. I propose therefore to discuss 
 the subject in several discourses. 
 
 The present discourse will consider the Nature and 
 Characteristics of Modern Universalism. 
 
 I. The nature op the system. I speak of the sys- 
 tem, not of men. There may be many connected with 
 it who do not fully imbibe the system, nor bring forth 
 its legitimate fruits. There are many highly moral 
 and reputable men who profess to receive it. They 
 are requested to remember the admission. There are 
 a few preachers, prominent men, ranked under its ban- 
 ners, who chiefly moralize gravely or showily upon the 
 varied aspects of human life and character, while they 
 remain singularly silent on the fundamental tenet of 
 the system, and singvilarly abstemious from the gene- 
 ral strain of its preaching. There have been a very 
 few individuals in other denominations, who, like John 
 Foster, have held all the fundamental doctrines of 
 orthodoxy as the broad platform of their belief, and yet 
 have had speculative questionings on the eternity of 
 future punishment, questionings which they have rath- 
 
NATUEE AND CHARACTERISTICS. 7 
 
 er wished than been able to confirm, and which they 
 have hekl as mere incidental things ; between whom 
 and the men that are forever rolling over the doctrine 
 of universal salvation as the whole gospel of Christ, 
 the difference is so immense that they cannot be includ- 
 ed in the same description, — notwithstanding the con- 
 stant efforts of Universalism to gain the respectabihty 
 of their names. 
 
 I speak of the system that is embodied in the doc- 
 trinal writings of the modern Universalist denomina- 
 tion, and heard weekly from the vast majority of its 
 pulpits. The statement shall be made from their own 
 ablest writers, examined by myself in their own works ; 
 such men as Hosea Ballou, A. C. Thomas, T. B. Thay- 
 er, Thomas Whittemore, Sylvanus Cobb, I. D. Wil- 
 liamson. It is the system which is spread before the 
 denomination by the editors of " The Trumpet," " The 
 Universalist Quarterly Review," " The Christian Free- 
 man," and " The Gospel Herald." 
 
 It is not the Universalism even of one-half a century 
 ago, that I am to discuss ; but Modern Universalism, 
 that of the last few years, of the present time.* 
 
 Now most Christians, I think, suppose that system to 
 be the same that it was fifty years ago ; and its advo- 
 cates are not always anxious to dispel the illusion. But 
 an illusion it is, Hosea Ballou himself being witness. 
 "As this doctrine was first taught in this country," 
 says he,t " its general aspect indicated that it had what 
 we may call a Calvinistic base. It does not appear that 
 
 *For the date of the authorities cited, see Introductoiy Note. 
 tVoice to Un. pp. 28, 29. 
 
8 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 our earliest Uiiiversalists doubted that man by sin had 
 incurred the just penalty of endless punishment, but 
 fully relied on the efficacy of the atonement for a 
 deliverance of all men from such a condition. The 
 doctrine of the Trinity was also held as an essential 
 part of the general system of doctrine." These and 
 other connected doctrines, he calls " exploded su- 
 perstitions," and informs us * of the " sharp conflict" 
 which formerly took place between the older preachers 
 who retained them and the younger brethren who 
 repudiated them, and which at one time threatened 
 " lamentable consequences," but ended in the final 
 rejection of the doctrines. The earlier Universalists 
 were Restorationists, holding to a limited future retri- 
 bution ; " the doctrine of a future retribution," says 
 Ballou,f "was not denied by any of the early defend- 
 ers of final restoration." But the denomination long 
 since repudiated the doctrine from its public teachings, 
 and with it, the last remnants of orthodoxy that clung 
 to it. The entire theology of the denomination is now 
 moulded by its one absorbing principle ; and that prin- 
 ciple, 
 
 The grand characteristic doctrine of Modern Uni- 
 versalism, is, that all men alike, when they die, (or when 
 they come to consciousness after death,') enter on eter- 
 nal blessedness. 
 
 The great apostle of Modern Universa,lism, Hosea 
 Ballou, in 1849 informs us that " for nearly forty years," 
 he had not believed in any future punishment. And 
 he gives the following piece of testimony, which, as 
 
 *=Id., p. 36. tib. 
 
NATUEE AND CHAEACTEEISTICS. 9 
 
 coming from a man who had then been sixty years in 
 the Universahst ministry, and was tlioroiighly conver- 
 sant with the affairs of the denomination, is of the 
 very highest authority : " though there are some now 
 who heheve in what is called future retribution, we 
 knoio of none who pretend to prove it by divine revela- 
 tion, or dwell on it in their preaching. We know of no 
 passages of scripture, which teach the doctrine of a 
 future state, which imply the existence of either sin or 
 punishment in that state. Could we find any such 
 testimony, we should then need scripture proof that 
 such sin and punishment will have an end, in order to 
 be consistent Universalists." Such is the weighty tes- 
 timony of the patriarch of the system, near the close 
 of his course.* 
 
 In perfect harmony with this testimony are the pub- 
 lished opinions of their leading writers. 
 
 Whittemorc, for a quarter of a century identified 
 with " The Trumpet," and with Universalism in New 
 England, writes thus : " Now to say that man shall sin 
 on the earth, and suffer the recompense in some other 
 state of being, is alike reasonable with saying that a 
 man who sows a field of grain in Massachusetts, shall 
 reap the harvest in some other state ;"f and, " no 
 threatening or law extends sin or its consequences be- 
 yond the resurrection. "J 
 
 Rev. I. D. Williamson, D.D., now editor of the 
 " Gospel Herald," declares as the belief of the denomi- 
 nation, that "all the evil passions that distract and 
 
 *In the year 1849, " Voice to Un./' p. 37. f Plain Guide, p. 265. 
 JId., p. 34. 
 
10 LECTUEES ON UNIYERSALISM. 
 
 torment men on earth, will be left in the earth where they 
 originated," and "the future life shall be to all a cease- 
 less blessing."* 
 
 Rev. Hosea Ballon informs us that " the apostle 
 [Paul] did not believe in a state of sin and misery 
 after the resurrection;"! that "we are certified that 
 all that die live unto God in the resurrection, and are 
 children of God, equal to angels, and can die no 
 more."^: He also asserts, "It is plain from the scrip- 
 tures that all sin, all wickedness, and all evil doings 
 are the works of the flesh ; and there appears no more 
 reason for supposing that the effects of these works are 
 to extend into the immortal state, than for supposing 
 that the effects of wholesome or unwholesome food are 
 to extend to that state. "§ 
 
 Eev. Sylvanus Cobb, editor of the " Christian Free- 
 man," asserts that "the resurrection state is, without 
 any limitation or reserve, as the state of the angels, of 
 God in heaven;" there is "no room for the notion 
 that there will be an immortal state, in which men 
 will continue in sin and shame." He says, "Jesus 
 Christ and his apostles urge the doctrine of suitable 
 rewards and punishments pending the conduct of men ; 
 but they never give out the idea, that a future immor- 
 tal state of existence is either to be bought or sold by 
 the doings of men in time."^ Rev. A, C. Thomas, in 
 " Tract " No. 5, fully sets forth the same doctrine. 
 
 Saj^s Rev. Asher Moore, "We therefore conclude 
 that the punishment for sins is in the same state of 
 being where men transgress the law of God."** 
 
 * Exposition, pp. 18, 19. t Lecture Sej-mons, p. 86. J M., p. 329. 
 §Id., p. 335. TICompend of Divinity, pp. 317, 318. **Uu. Belief, p. 177 . 
 
NATUEE AND CHARACTERISTICS. 11 
 
 Says Rev. 0. A. Skinner, " So far as admission to 
 endless gloiy is concerned, the saint and sinner stand 
 on a perfect level."* 
 
 In full conformity to these views, Rev. A. B. Grosh, 
 editor of the " Universalist Companion," writes in 
 1856, " God has established his judgment in the earth, 
 where it is needed — where differences exist — ivhere 
 men sin — where they should be called to account, 
 tried and punished. God's judgment is in the earth. 
 In the earth men are rewarded ;" "the scriptures nev- 
 er speak of men going out of this life, or leaving this 
 earth to go to judgment, but always of God and Christ 
 coming to the earth to judge men." He affirms that 
 " Christ is noio judging every man according to his 
 works," and that Christ's kingdom, the kingdom of 
 heaven, spoken of in the scriptures, is on the earth 
 alone, f 
 
 Not to multiply quotations, hear the statement made 
 by Eev. N. D. George, of the Methodist denomination 
 in his recent work on Universalism : -'We have in our 
 possession a large number of books, sermons and tracts 
 from their ablest ministers, and in them all there is 
 not a single effort to teach future rewards and punish- 
 ments; but on the other, hand the doctrine is uniform- 
 ly combatted by those authors, and the future-state 
 reference of those texts which Restorationists formerly 
 employed to teach future punishments, is denied. We 
 called a short time since at the Universalist book-store 
 in Boston, and inquired if there was any book on sale 
 
 *Umversalism Illustrated and Defended, p. 266. Quoted from Rev. 
 N. D. George's "Universalism not of the Bible," p. 231. 
 tUn. Com. for 1856, pp. 16, 17, 18, 19. 
 
12 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 in wliicli future punishment is taught, or if any one in 
 the denomination had issued such a book. The man 
 in attendance said he knew of no such hook issued 
 among them. Their approved Catechisms, used in 
 their Sabbath Schools, do not teach it. They are be- 
 fore us by Balch, Bacon, Skinner, Adams, and S. R. 
 Smith, not one of which even intimates that there is 
 anything to be dreaded by the shiner in the future 
 world."* 
 
 We are occasionally told that there are some in the 
 denomination, who believe in limited future punish- 
 ment. But the men who unequivocally dwell upon it 
 in their teaching or their preaching are not easily to 
 be found. In 1841, Mr. Balfour testified that though 
 he had been twenty years in the denomination, " he 
 never heard it preached but once, and the preacher 
 hardly said enough about it to let his hearers under- 
 stand that he believed this doctrine."! If there are 
 those who believe it, they do not teach it. And when 
 you ask who believes it, it is somebody else. Whitte- 
 more says there are some who believe it, but he is not 
 one. Moore and Williamson imply the same ; but 
 they are not the men. Ballou speaks of some ; but he 
 is not one. And what is more, in 1849, he knew no 
 man who did dwell upon it in his preaching. Nor 
 could book or tract be heard of at the Universalist 
 book-store in the metropolis of New England, in which 
 future punishment is taught.^ 
 
 *P. 382. This work of Mr. George was published the present year ; 
 it is a work of wide research and deserves a wide circulation. 
 
 IQuoted from the Christian Messenger, July 17, 1841, in M. H. 
 Smith's "Un. Examined," p. 217. 
 
 iTVlien hard pressed by argument, Universalists sometimes avow 
 
NATUEE AND CHAEACTERISTICS. 13 
 
 I fortify this point with copious proof, because this 
 is the very UniversaUsm on which I propose to lecture, 
 the doctrine which denies all future punishment. It 
 is the characteristic doctrine of Modern Universalism, 
 that all men alike are raised to blessedness and glory.* 
 
 To this, all else is shaped. In truth, all else is of 
 very little separate account, being only and obviously 
 the scaffolding of this one all-absorbing theme. To 
 
 Kestorationist doctrines. A popular preacher not long since was nnder- 
 stood by intelligent hearers to avow the Eestorationist view. But I liad 
 heard the same man, not three months previous, publicly endorse the 
 sentiment that a young man who died impenitent, and, as the story went, 
 was consigned to the world of woe by the Orthodox funeral sermon, was 
 actually in heaven at the time of a second funeral sermon, preached 
 by a Ilniversalist at the father's request. 
 
 *It is a common thing for members of the denomination to convey 
 the impression tliat Eestorationist views are widely prevalent among 
 tliem; and I find that many of my brethren have supposed it to be so. 
 But where is the evidence in book or treatise ? Where is the Ilniver- 
 salist pulpit in which the doctrine is openly taught and enforced 1 Where 
 has the Uuivcrsahst funeral sermon been heard, in which it was not ex- 
 pressed or implied that the deceased, whatever his character, had gone 
 straight to heaven 1 
 
 I do not question that iiidividual preachers — I loiow not how many — 
 may privately hold, but I am very confident they do not publicly teach 
 and promulgate Rcstorationism. If there are such men, it is still tnie of 
 them as in Nov. 1844, when Rev. Mr. Drew, (then editor of tlie Banner, 
 now Professor in the Tuft's Ilniversalist College,) said of them in the 
 Banner, " Their desire for the peace of the order, has caused them to be 
 more careful than some of diff"ercnt views have been, as to committing 
 tlie order to their opinions." They have been careful indeed; — "the 
 order" is nowhere committed to their opinions — it is everywhere, so far 
 as one can Icam, " committed to the doctrine of no future punishment." 
 
 Probably no evangelical writer has more thoroughly investigated their 
 views than Rev. N. D. George, and his testimony is as follows : "For 
 twenty years j^ast, I have been a close observer of the modifications, tac- 
 tics, and general operations of the order of Universalists, and having 
 availed myself of their periodicals and books, by their principal men, I 
 
14 LECTUEES ON UNIVEESALISM. 
 
 show, however, how thorough-going is the system in 
 rejecting all that Evangelical Christianity receives, and 
 lest any should imagine it only an incidental differ- 
 ence of systems otherwise alike, I add some of the 
 subordinate lineaments. The leading writers to whom 
 I have referred, are bold and open in denying the 
 Trinity, and, of course, the Supreme Divinity of 
 Christ.* 
 
 They reject with scorn and even mockery the doctrine 
 of a Vicarious Atonement. Moore pronounces it " a 
 mere medley of injustice, contradiction and absurdity, 
 — preposterous and shocking to all the moral sensibili- 
 ty of our nature."! The doctrine, Williamson says, is 
 " unjjList in theory, impossible in fact, and pernicious in 
 practice."^ Ballon, Cobb, and others are equally out- 
 spoken. 
 
 The system denies the existence of a personal Devil ;§ 
 the fall of man, the entire innocence of the first pair, 
 and the entire moral delinquency of their descendants, [j 
 
 am fully satisfied that, whatever a few of its advocates may profess in 
 certain localities, no future punishment is the doctrine of the Universalist 
 body in the United States, the exceptions being very few. There is but 
 little regard among them for the future punishment views of the Resto- 
 rationists. The force of their teachings for years, has been against 
 them." Un. not of the Bible, preface, p. 6. 
 
 *Ballou's Voice, p. 32 ; Cobb's Compend, p. 169 and onward; "Wil- 
 liamson's Exposition, p. 23, etc. 
 
 f Pp. 133, 135. t Ex., p. 44. § Voice, p. 33. " Lect. Serm., " p. 73. 
 
 II " There is no other Avay to account for the first transgression than by 
 admitting a constitutional imperfection in the agent." Lecture Sermons, 
 p. 65. " There appears no authority for the common opinion that the 
 first transgression produced a radical change in the moral constitution o f 
 man, or in consequence of the first sin man became totally depraved and 
 altogether opposed to all good, and inclined wholly to all evil." lb., p. 
 73. See, also, Cobb, p. 423 ; Moore, p. 91. 
 
NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS. 15 
 
 It pronounces the scripture narrative of the Tempta- 
 tion an allegory.* It denies that the present life is a 
 state of probation ; f that there is a resurrection of the 
 human body ; J and that there is a judgment and ret- 
 ribution after death. § 
 
 While abundantly using the word " forgiveness," the 
 system most emphatically denies that God ever does 
 forgive, in the sense of remitting the penalty of sin ; but 
 holds that all sin receives all the chastisement it de- 
 serves. " Set it down," says Williamson, " as one of 
 the peculiar doctrines of Universalism that no man can 
 by any possibility escape a just iDunishment for his sins. 
 We believe in the forgiveness or removal of sin, not in 
 the remission of punishment, and neither forgiveness, 
 nor atonement, nor repentance, nor any thing else can 
 step in between the sinner and the penalty of the vio- 
 lated law." II " We maintain," says Moore, "that God 
 never swerves from strict justice in his dealings with 
 mankind, Ijut certainly renders unto all the full recom- 
 pense of their doings."^ 
 
 After making much ado over the absolute certainty 
 of punishment which it teaches, the system proceeds 
 deliberately to destroy all its influence by confining that 
 
 *Lecture Sermons, p. 67. 
 
 t Plain Guide, p. 271; Exposition, p. 96; Compend., pp. 65, 115, 
 267, etc.; Un. BeUcf, p. 179. 
 
 I Compend., 359. 
 
 § Exposition, p. 115; Compend. pp. 112, etc.; Lectnre Sermons, pp. 
 269, etc., 334, etc.; Voice, pp. 46, 89. 
 
 II Exposition, p. 15. 
 
 TTTJuiversalist Belief, p. 159. See also Cobb, pp. 67, 72, 155.; BaU 
 ou. Lecture Sennons, p. 157, etc. 
 
16 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 punishment to the present life,* and hmiting it to the 
 present natural consequences of our actions.^ Pretend- 
 ing to threaten the sinner with certain punishment, it 
 tells him in the same breath " your punishment is only 
 what you are having now;" and he goes his way in 
 quiet, for he did not know before that he was in the 
 act of being punished. 
 
 Still furthet to remove a sense of the ill-desert 
 and enormity of sin, the system declares that even 
 punishment is never the mark of God's displeasure to- 
 wards sinners, but always a loving remedy for a disease ; 
 — a " mark of parental solicitude and affection;"^ — 
 and that in fact God loves all men, saint and sinner, 
 alike and with an equal love. And thus, while the 
 scripture informs us that God " hates all workers of 
 iniquity," that he "will render indignation and wrath" 
 to evil doers, that "his anger is not turned away," that 
 
 *riain Guide, pp. 163, 164, 165. Lect. Serm., pp. 157, 335,262. 
 Uu. Belief, 176, 172. 
 
 t"lf man transgress the law, its penalty is unavoidable, and is com- 
 prised in the evils in ivhich the transgression involves them. Cobb's Com- 
 pend, p. 67. "Wlien and where arc you to receive the punishment of 
 your sins ? We answer the question and say, sin and misery are insepor 
 rably united in the nature of cause and effect. When and where we are 
 sinful, then and thei-e are we our own tormentors." Lect. Serm. p. 157. 
 " Here we have a clear understanding of the Divine Government by re- 
 wards and punishments. Any compliance \ni\\ moral duty brings a cor- 
 responding enjoyment ; any departure from moral duty is a coiTCspond- 
 ing discount on our happiness." Voice to TJn. p. 68. The subject is 
 pursued at length by these writers. 
 
 % This position, as a fundamental feature of Univ.ersalism, iims through 
 their writings, expressly or by implication. It is stated at length in Wil- 
 liamson's chapter on "Punishments," Moore's chapter on "Rewards 
 and Punishments," and other places. This view, therefore, while retain 
 ing the word, rejects the idea, and denies the fact of pimishment proper. 
 
NATUEE AND CHAEACTERISTICS. 17 
 
 " he was turned to be their enemy," — and is sprinkled 
 on ahnost every page with the like declarations, we hear 
 Rev. Hosea Ballon coolly assuring us, in the last edition 
 of his Lecture Sermons, that " the sinner is equally the 
 object of divine love as the righteous" — that "Adam 
 was equally the object of divine favor after he sinned 
 as before " — that "the opinion that our heavenly Father 
 became inimical to man in consequence of his sin, is 
 repugnant to the essential character of the Divine Be- 
 ing" — and that " neither sin nor any thing else was 
 ever the cause of enmity in God towards man"; and 
 "Williamson declaring it " an unquestionable truth, that 
 God does not hate any thing that he has made."* Nay, 
 so high is the audacity and so low the moral standard 
 of these writers, that the one of them informs us that 
 " if sin were more conducive to human happiness than 
 virtue, it would not be right [in God] to prohiljit its 
 practice "; and the other declares that " if there were 
 in nature any thing more calculated to happify man- 
 kind than is the divine Being, that thing would cer- 
 tainly have the greatest claim on our love."t 
 
 Having gone thus far, it became further necessary 
 to deny all fundamental difference of human character, 
 and any such radical change as Christians mean hj re- 
 generation ; and accordingly we find Mr. Whittemore 
 denying that the scripture recognizes " two classes of 
 
 *Balloii's Lect. Serm. pp. 25, 152, 309. "Williamson's Endless Pun. 
 Ex. p. 42. See the same doctrine in Williamson's Exposit. p. 72-3 ; 
 Moore's Un. Bel. p. 93. See also a singular Essay by H. Ballon, Sen., 
 on " The Utility of Evil," in which the dubious nature of the title is by 
 no means alleviated in the discussion. 
 
 tExposit., p. 66; Lecture Sermons, p. 206. 
 2 
 
18 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 men, the righteous and the wicked," either in this life 
 or at the resurrection, — the same man while doing right- 
 eously is " the righteous," and wickedly "the wicked " — 
 that is all.* Mr. Ballou cautiously but emphati- 
 cally endorses the sentiment. y The latter writer also 
 declares that " the church which Jesus loved," " con- 
 sists of every man or the whole human family;" while 
 the former artfully but distinctly argues for abolishing 
 the distinction between churcli and congregation, and 
 having the whole audience join in observing the Lord's 
 Supper. I 
 
 The views of God's government taught by the sys- 
 tem would of course render all prayer unavailing ; but 
 christian decency forbids to dispense with prayer. Ac- 
 cordingly, while here and there an individual, (like Mr. 
 Grosh, of Utica, and Robert Smith, then of Hartford,) 
 have publicly disavowed the practice, the highest view 
 taught upon the subject is that of those who hold that 
 it may produce an effect on us but not on God ; § while 
 not one of them teaches that either prayer, or repent- 
 ance, or faith, or our conduct in any shape or form, 
 has the slightest effect on our condition hereafter. 
 " The truth is," says Williamson, " man can by his 
 faith and works do something towards meliorating his 
 
 * Plain Guide, pp. 264, 265. 
 
 t Lecture Sermons, pp. 263, 264, 337. The writer endeavors to blur his 
 statement by occasionally iising the phrases " exclusively righteous" and 
 "exclusively wicked," but his meaning is transparent; he denies any 
 distinctive clement in the one that is not in the other, that is, any radical 
 diiFerence of character among men. 
 
 J Lecture Sei-mons, p. 209. Plain Guide, p. 332. 
 
 § Skinner and others, quoted by N. D. George, p. 295. 
 
NATUEE AND CHARACTEEISTICS. 19 
 
 condition here ; but he cannot procure his resurrection 
 from the dead ; and if he cannot procure the thing it- 
 self, much less can he procure any modification of it. 
 All that man is and all that he can be in the resurrec- 
 tion he must owe to God alone ; his feeble works can- 
 not reach one line beyond the grave." " If man's res- 
 urrection from the dead depends wholly on God, and 
 no human power can effect it, so must the state and 
 condition of man equally depend on God, and be equal- 
 ly beyond the reach of human agency."* Jesus Christ 
 and his Apostles," says Mr. Cobb, " urge the doctrine 
 of suitable rewards and punishments, pending the con- 
 duct of men ; but they never give out the idea that a 
 future immortal state of existence is either to be bought 
 or sold by the doings of men in time."f " There 
 appears," says Ballou, " no more reason for suppos- 
 ing that the effects of these works [the works of the 
 flesh] are to extend into the immortal state, than for 
 supposing that the effects of wholesome or unwhole- 
 some food are to extend to that state. "$ 
 
 The system also teaches that Christ, though called a 
 Savior with most abundant phrase, saves from nothing 
 beyond this life. " The evils from which Jesus came 
 to save men," says Whittemore, " are in this world ; 
 and for this reason he came into this world to save 
 them." § " The common doctrine," says Ballou, 
 " which teaches us that Christ Jesus came into this 
 
 * Exposition, pp. 167, 168. The same statement is made in Tract 
 No. 5, by Rev. A. C. Tiiomas, of Pliiladelphia. 
 tCompend. p. 318. 
 } Lecture Sermons, p. 335. 
 § Plain Guide, p. 234. 
 
20 LECTUEES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 world to save us in another world^ is contrary to all the 
 representations which are found in the scriptures."* 
 He saves men in this world from ignorance, supersti- 
 tion and fear, by revealing a future life of blessedness ; 
 it is also added for the sake of appearances, he saves 
 men from sin ; — but how, the system has never clear- 
 ly demonstrated either in theory or in practice. 
 
 As for the institution of a Church and the ordinance 
 of the Lord's Supper, the editor of the Universalist 
 Expositor (whom Mr. Whittemore quotes with a gen- 
 eral endorsement) admits that they are discarded in 
 practice by more than two -thirds of their congre^a 
 tions ; and adds for himself, " we have doubts of the 
 existence of ordinances in Christianity ; we mean in 
 the usual technical sense of the term."|| 
 
 Of the views which extensively prevail in the de- 
 nomination concerning the Holy Scriptures, I must de- 
 fer speaking until a future occasion. 
 
 I have given a rapid sketch of the main features of 
 the system. But after all, the great theme, the grand 
 burden of the system, is the doctrine of all men's sal- 
 vation. This is the fore-front of it — tfie beginning, 
 the middle, and the end. It is the sum and substance 
 of the gospel — the glad tidings of great joy. For this 
 the whole Bible is racked, and every doctrine it teach- 
 es, wrenched, and hammered, and clipped. It is, in 
 some form, the perpetual theme of the Universalist 
 preacher, it is the ceaseless want of the hearer, it is 
 the sole, yea, let me say, the forlorn hope of the Uni- 
 
 * Lecture Sermons, p. 17. 
 II Plain Guide, pp. 424, 326. 
 
NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS. 21 
 
 versalist's heart. In proof that I do not speak too 
 strongly, hsten to their own statements. Says Mr. 
 Williamson, " This is with us the crowning excellence 
 of the gospel — a theme on which we ever dwell, with 
 the most lively satisfaction and joy. To this grand 
 consummation of the Divine government, all the attri- 
 butes of God and all the principles of the Divine gov- 
 ernment are tending."* Says Mr. Whittemore, it " is 
 the central sun of Universalism. This with them 
 [Universalists] is the all absorbing topic ; the crown- 
 ing excellence of revealed religion ; the richest glory 
 of God ; the highest honor of Christ ; the fullest joy 
 of saints ; the sweetest answer to prayer ; the strongest 
 motive to praise ; the most potent charm of christian 
 faith ; a fountain of consolation in life ; a holy triumph 
 in death ; the joy of angels and of the sj)irits of just 
 men made perfect. Such is the doctrine of the ulti- 
 mate salvation of all the human race.^''-f 
 
 But enough. The doctrine of universal salvation is, 
 by their own showing, the " all-absorbing" feature of 
 the system : — and that, too, the immediate blessedness 
 of all men at the resurrection — a blessedness tvith 
 which neither their conduct nor Christ's loork has any 
 thing to do.% So far as evidence appears and accord- 
 ing to the recent testimony of its late patriarch, no 
 other doctrine is now publicly and emphatically pro- 
 
 * Exposition, p. 18. 
 
 t Plain Guide, p. 18. 
 
 I How it comes to pass, I have not attempted to state, because it is 
 left indistinct by their -writers. A view sometimes stated and apparent- 
 ly oftener implied is that " as the present life is the simple gift of God, 
 >o will be a futui'e life of blessedness." 
 
22 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 mulgated tlian this : that every man, however vile and 
 loathsome, is raised from the dead to enter at once on 
 perfect*and eternal bliss. That is the nature, and that 
 the central sun of Modern Universalism. 
 
 I have laid before you, as briefly as was consistent 
 with the proof of my statements, the creed which — 
 with occasional deviations — veiled by many a circuitous 
 phrase and orthodox term, covered by many a feint, 
 and sometimes, as we have seen, denied or retracted 
 in pure shame at its naked deformity, yet underlies 
 and pervades the preaching, the books, the periodicals, 
 of the Universalist denomination — taught by its 
 great names, spread through its weekly sheets. 
 
 Behold the system. And before proceeding to re- 
 fute its teachings, let us gaze a little on its monstrous 
 features at our leisure, as we proceed to consider 
 
 II. The Characteristics of Modern Universalism. 
 
 1. This system is, in everj practical aspect, solely 
 an earthly system. 
 
 Its aim is earthly. Its sole aim is to make men hap- 
 py in this A¥orld. Do not understand this as a figure 
 of speech — it is simply the literal fact. Universal- 
 ism tells men, indeed, that they shall be blessed here- 
 after ; but that is only in order to make this life pleas- 
 ant and to take away its gloom. All it professes to do 
 for man is confined to this world. It is to make no 
 difference with the future. Universalism does not of- 
 fer one shred of information, one fragment of advice, 
 one caution, or suggestion, or hint — not one — that 
 has the shadow of a practical influence on our condition 
 in the life to come. It does not pretend to do it. It 
 
NATUEE AND CHARACTERISTICS. 23 
 
 distinctly avows that it cannot do it. It does not saj, 
 " do this and it shall be the better for yon in another 
 world ;" but, "do it or not, be holy or vile, Christ- 
 like or devilish, you shall be happy alike. Believe the 
 statement or not, — do what you can to defeat it, — you 
 shall still be happy in spite of yourself." Not one thing 
 of all its swelling words and boisterous proclamations 
 is to have the influence of a feather's weight, on man's 
 condition through all that portion of his being to which 
 this whole life is the first beat of an eternal pulse. It 
 stands up in the pulpit Sabbath after Sabbath, and pre- 
 tends to teach religion, to utter a communication from 
 the eternal God to his immortal creatures ; and yet, 
 not one word it utters is to affect, in the slightest de- 
 gree, that creature's immortality — it shall not, cannot 
 modify one hair's breadth that creature's character or 
 destiny throughout all eternity. It openly snaps all 
 connection betiveen a future life and this, and preaches 
 to him a message that concerns him only while he is 
 among the beasts that perish. And this is preaching ! , 
 This is a religion ! This is a message, and all the mes- 
 sage from the God of Heaven ! — a message to immor- 
 tal man, having no practical bearing on his immortal- 
 ity ! 
 
 And this is not all. It is of the earth in its origin 
 and all its special doctrines. It contains not a teach- 
 ing that breathes of any higher original than the soul 
 of sinning man. Its whole effort, the burden of its 
 teaching and its preaching, is to bring the entire char- 
 acter and requirements of the great God, down to the 
 standard of his fallen creatures. The system is a mere 
 naturalism, and the naturalism of a sinner. Its per- 
 
24 LECTUEES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 petual strain in regard to God and liis character is that 
 he will not do so and so, because a human father would 
 not do so. Its grand and ceaseless argument against 
 eternal j3unishment, which sticks out through every 
 disguise, is that it cannot be true because it is so hor- 
 rible and so shocking to the sensibilities of weak, sin- 
 ful man. God is, in his moral character, little more 
 than a magnified Universalist. And in his speech he 
 is represented as, like the lowest order of men, in con- 
 stant habits of monstrous exaggeration. 
 
 Sin against God is not the thing that " God hates," 
 an " abomination " unto him ; it in express and open 
 words denies that sin is an infinite evil,* or that God 
 hates the workers of iniquity ; it is a thing that a lit- 
 tle earthly suffering fully remedies. It studiously toils, 
 as the groundwork of all its pretensions, to inculcate 
 the lowest earthly view of sin and of holiness — to 
 make them just what sinful men deem them and no 
 more. And thus its doctrine of reward and punish- 
 ment is equallji low and earthly ; it is nothing but the 
 law of natural cause and effect, open to the eye ol 
 every man : vice produces unhappiness ; and for obe- 
 dience, says Ballon, " there is no extraneous reward," 
 — " the reward is the deed, — the reward is the obedi- 
 ence itself." f And to make this earthly view tenfold 
 more earthly, it arrests the action of the cause, and 
 violently breaks it off at the hour of death, so as to 
 reduce it to its lowest conceivable compass. And for 
 this natural result here on earth, it offers no alleviation. 
 " Set it down as one of the peculiar doctrines of 
 
 * Voice to Un., p, 33. 
 t Id. p. 93. 
 
NATUKE AND CHARACTERISTICS. 25 
 
 Universalism, that no man can by any possibility escape 
 the just punishment of his sins."* There is no ame- 
 lioration of that, with Christ or without him ; wiiile 
 neither Christ's work, nor man's conduct, has any effect 
 on the future state. And thus the mission of Christ 
 is vacated of all that is heavenly. And though he is 
 called a Sa'sior and the word Salvation is abundant 
 enough — they are mere words for effect — they are void 
 words, by their own showing. He saves from none of 
 the punishment due to sin in this life, — that can by no 
 possibility be escaped, say they. He saves from no 
 punishment hereafter — endless punishment, say they, 
 is in the nature of things impossible with God. He 
 casts no light on the present punishment of sin ; men 
 know that themselves. And though it is affirmed that 
 he came to save men from their superstition, and 
 their fears of the future, yet he brought no new light. 
 For it is one of the most strenuous of all the Universal- 
 ist teachings, that both the reason of man and the 
 book of nature prove, beyond all possibility of contra- 
 diction, that God is love and could not inflict eternal 
 punishment. But, we are told, " He saves, also, from 
 sin." How, I ask ? The only answer is, "by precept 
 and example," that is, in the common earthly way, just 
 like any other good man. And we will cheerfully 
 accord all proper credit to the system for these words 
 which it sometimes parades as a feint to cover its 
 actual line of march, when we can learn of the first 
 human being who has been saved from the practice 
 and the love of sin by embracing Universalism. 
 
 * Williamson's Exp., p., 15. 
 
26 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 Thus there is not an important feature of the sys- 
 tem but is human and earthly in character. None of 
 its characteristic teachings rise above a man-made 
 creed ; and it gives man nothing whatever to do, or 
 think, or feel, that can exert the least effect beyond 
 this world. 
 
 Earthly in its origin, teaching and tendency, it is 
 ever dear to those whose heart is bound up in this 
 Earth. Many such men have confessed, 'that while 
 burrowing like the blind mole in earthly things, they 
 would have been glad, and they tried hard, to believe 
 the doctrine and to comfort themselves with it in their 
 low career; — but common sense, and conscience, and 
 the word of God barred their way. Yet many do 
 succeed. Many deeply, thoroughly worldly men, de- 
 termined that they will live only for this present life, 
 do quiet themselves with the belief that this life has 
 no influence on the life to come. They hold so, 
 because they will have it so ; — and though the word 
 of God, or an angel of God with a drawn sword stood 
 in the way, — yea, though God himself with the sword 
 of justice does stand athwart the way, they will go on. 
 They live, they will live for earth, — they will have a 
 doctrine of earth. 
 
 Many, resolved to plunge in all manner of illicit, 
 reckless pleasure, are determined they will not be dis- 
 turbed by any forebodings of future woe ; and they 
 know well — they need not my voice to tell them, how 
 it came nor why it is that they cleave to that syren 
 song, " ye shall not surely die." They know it is not 
 from prayerful study nor even laborious examination of 
 God's word, nor from thoughtful reflection of any 
 
NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS, 27 
 
 kind — they have no intelligent knowledge on the sub- 
 ject — but because it is an earthly doctrine, — and be- 
 cause it does divorce their chosen course in this life so 
 absolutely from all consequences hereafter. They 
 know that thing. Yea, the Sabbath breaker loves it. 
 The great swindler proclaims it as his solace ;* the 
 petty swindler makes it his. The blasphemer swears 
 out the praises of its preachers. They love it in 
 grogshops — the motley throng there swallow it down 
 as greedily as they do that other delirious draught 
 that fills their glass and leads them down to hell. How 
 many a man attempts to drown his temporal and his 
 eternal woe in the same maddening cup. It is wholly 
 a doctrine of the earth — of the clods. 
 • 2. This system is in its moral tone low and grovel- 
 ling. I cannot conceive of anything much lower. 
 Under the name of Christianity and the pretence of 
 honoring the Bible, and with pretexts of more or less 
 speciousness, it actually pushes the moral relations of 
 human existence lower than almost any known system 
 of belief. Its views of human life, of God, of sin, of 
 man's relation to God, are in important rcbpects on a 
 plane of moral degradation below most forms of Heath- 
 enism. Nay, where is the system of Heathenism on 
 God's earth, that cuts off every bond and fibre of mor- 
 al connection between this life and the life to come. 
 Every other form of Heathenism that holds to another 
 state of being, holds to some bearing of our moral 
 conduct here on our destiny hereafter ; that, at least, 
 as to-day influences to-morrow, so this day of life 
 
 =* Bamum's Auto-Biography, p. 247. 
 
28 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 shapes the morrow of eternity ; that the warp threads 
 of human existence are strung here, and run on to 
 receive the woof beyond. But this system runs its 
 shears abruptly along and cuts every thread, and leaves 
 this life dangling loose and aimless in the wind. Heath- 
 enism never sunk so low. It is vain to evade by say- 
 ing that this life is a state of discipline ; for the sys- 
 tem distinctly denies that the discipline of this life has 
 the slightest influence on our condition hereafter ; its 
 whole force is spent here, often to no purpose; whereas 
 John and Judas alike leave all sin and suffering behind 
 them in the grave. 
 
 Its views of sin, also, are low. It entertains the 
 grossest pagan view, that sin is only an evil of such a 
 kind, that a little bodily pain or a little mental remorse 
 may make all right again. The fact of pain and suf- 
 fering here, so crowds itself on men's observation that 
 it cannot be denied — otherwise, all punishment would 
 probaljly be held inconsistent with God's love. And it 
 is lower than Heathenism in its estimate of sin's ill- 
 desert ; for it holds that no sin, not even that of him 
 who commits murder and suicide in the same minute, 
 deserves or receives any chastisement hereafter. If 
 there be any form of Paganism in ancient or modern 
 times, in Scandinavia, or in Africa, holding so low a 
 view of the evil of sin, I am not aware of it. 
 
 Equally low is its moral tone in regard to God. God 
 is substantially a mere instrument for making men 
 happy. " God is love," is its ever recurring phrase ; 
 and as Satan came quoting scripture, transformed into 
 an angel of light, so this system under pretence of 
 exalting God's love, tramples down all those grand 
 
NATUEE AND CHAEACTERISTICS. 29 
 
 moral qualities which form his everlasting glory ; it 
 sets its hoof ou the holiness that is the brightness of 
 his crown, and its cloven foot on the "justice and the 
 judgment," that are " the habitation of his throne." 
 His judgment — even his ultimate moral discernment 
 between the righteous and the wicked — it sets aside, 
 when it affirms that after death the saints of the earth 
 and they that go down foul and rotten with corruption 
 shall rush alike into God's loving arms. His justice it 
 speaks of, but that is a word, and no more ; it means 
 but the action of certain natural laws on earth, which 
 visit their own violation with pain — and that.pain, not 
 as an expression of God's displeasure but as the means 
 of restoring the transgressor's happiness. And as to 
 any such trait as ultimate and changeless holiness in 
 God, I find no trace of it in the system. The word 
 may be there — though of the seldomest — but the 
 thing seems to be wanting. God is a very glorious 
 being whose chief function is to make all men happy ; 
 that is his use. Rev. I. D. Williamson, showing the 
 reason why God has any right to punish sin, namely, 
 becaiise it is " productive of evil to man," [of course 
 in this life,] uses these remarkable and significant 
 words : " for if sin were more conducive to human 
 happiness than virtue, it would not bo right to prohibit 
 its practice."* That is so say, all notion of moral excel- 
 lence, or moral character, or holiness in the great God 
 himself, is over-ridden and crushed out by this grand 
 function and everlasting obligation to make even the 
 vilest of beings happy. God is the mere tool and 
 
 * Exposition, p. 66. 
 
30 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 servant of reckless transgressors ! And thus, whatever 
 moral precepts it may ntter in detail, it cuts them all 
 up together by the root, when it teaches that God loves 
 all men alike in this world, and will treat all men 
 alike in the next. If there is a more grovelling notion 
 of God's moral character and functions to be found in 
 the annals of human degradation — tell me,^oh!tell 
 me, where shall I find it ! 
 
 Its moral tone suffers then in many respects, when 
 compared with Heathenism. Not only so, but even 
 when compared with other forms of infidelity. Infi- 
 delity 4ias generally contented itself with being let 
 alone in another world ; that is all it has dared to ask. 
 The most it looked for, has been that man should shift 
 for himself, and God be indifferent. But Universalism 
 goes further than that and offers a God that shall and 
 must make them happy at all events, do what they will 
 to earn misery. Infidelity has only said in its vile 
 carousings, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
 die." Nay, says Universalism, eat, drink and be mer- 
 ry, drunkard, and adulterer, and gambler, and 
 thief, and wretch of every shade and dye, for to-morrow 
 ye go to heaven." And its literal teaching in regard 
 to the filthy Canaanites, and the vile Sodomites, if 
 it admit the scripture account, has been truly versified 
 thus : 
 
 " God saw those villians were too bad 
 To own that fruitful land ; 
 And so he took the wretches up, 0- 
 
 To dwell at his right hand." 
 
 " Death is a sleep," was the most that those awful 
 Revolutionists in the midst of their crimes, dared 
 
NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS. 31 
 
 inscribe over the tomb. But if Modern Universalism 
 had been there, she would have said to those benighted 
 beings thus living below their privileges, " woman, 
 rushing from the world — reeking with all vice and 
 pollution ; man, dripping with the blood of murder, 
 and of suicide, soar now to glory and to perfect bliss, 
 and the loving embrace of God ! " Yea, of Judas 
 himself, it is the literal doctrine of Modern Universal- 
 ism, if it grant his suicide, — 
 
 "He by a cord outwent his Lord 
 And f!;ot to heaven first." 
 
 And thus it is a system whose strength lies not in 
 scripture, nor in reason, nor in conscience, l^ut in 
 dejDravity ; in the desires of a wicked life, or at least an 
 impenitent heart. None has occasion to crave the 
 doctrine but he who is determined not to repent ; no 
 man has occasion to build his hopes there, but he who 
 refuses to obey the claims of Christ in the gospel. It 
 has human depravity strong on its side ; and that is 
 all. 
 And this leads me to remark, 
 
 3. The system is, in doctrme and spirit, in irrecon- 
 cilable antagonism to Evangelical Christianity. 
 
 Few men, I believe, take broader grounds of chris- 
 tian fellowship, than I do. Ev'ery church that holds 
 the central truths of the gospel, I recognize as a Chris- 
 tian Church, however widely it may deviate from my 
 own preferences. But here is a system, which, on 
 every important point relating to God, his character, his 
 government, his plans, his principles, to man, his 
 nature and deserts, his destiny, Christ and his work, 
 sin and its punishment, affirms what we deny, and 
 
32 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 denies what we affirm. We maintain that God exists 
 and acts primarily for his own glory ; that his holiness 
 is his chief glory ; that he hates sin on its own account 
 and is angry with sinners ; that sin is an infinite evil ; 
 that this life is a state of probation ; that all men are 
 sinners and deserve only God's vengeance ; that it is 
 only through Christ's atonement that even the Chris- 
 tian is saved ; but that the penalty of sin is actually 
 remitted to the Christian for Christ's sake ; that no 
 man will be saved as matter of justice ; that faith and 
 repentance here arc essential to blessedness hereafter, 
 that they who have them not shall suffer endlessly ; — 
 all which vital points and many others Universalism 
 denies. It affirms that God has the same kind of love 
 to every human being ; that his only function is to 
 make his creation happy ; that he inflicts pain only for 
 the sake of making the individual sinner happy ; that 
 he has no right to inflict it for any other purpose ; 
 that the influence of repentance, faith and Christ's 
 teaching are confined to this life ; that every man will 
 be happy hereafter as matter of course ; that sin is not 
 an infinite evil, it is a very limited evil, and its only 
 bad quality is that it makes men unhappy here ; — and 
 many the like things which we utterly deny. In a 
 word we affirm, tha't literally everything in our destiny 
 beyond the grave depends on our conduct here ; Uni- 
 versalism, literally and absolutely nothing. Can there 
 be a more utter antagonism ? And even in those points 
 where there may be a seeming correspondence — a cor- 
 respondence of words — the antagonism beneath is 
 equally great. We say God " forgives," meaning that 
 he remits the penalty of sin ; Universalism uses the 
 
NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 33 
 
 word, but totally denies the tliing. We speak of God's 
 *' mercy," and his grace, meaning his goodness to the 
 undeserving and the ill-deserving ; that system uses 
 the words, but knows no such fact. We say, God is 
 love ; we mean the love of a holy God ; they, the love 
 of a human father, or a weak mother. 
 
 Thus all the chief things we hold, the holiness of 
 God, the sinfulness of sin, a radical change of heart, 
 the distinction of believer and unbeliever, Christ's 
 work, faith, pardon, punishment, probation, retribution, 
 the relation of life to immortality — all these, as we 
 hold them, are scornfully rejected by Universalism. 
 
 The advocates of the system incessantly affirm its 
 entire incompatibility with our views, i Ballou speaks 
 of the " diabolical character " of our views of God's 
 justice and Christ's atonement.* Whittemore says that 
 we ascribe " the utmost malignity " to God ; and, quo- 
 ting the apostle's statement, " believing ye rejoice with 
 joy unspeakable and full of glory," inquires whether 
 they could have so rejoiced, believing the doctrine of 
 endless punishment, " unless they were demons in 
 human form ?"f Asher Moore calls our vital views 
 " a belief that outrages reason and shocks humanity." J 
 Williamson says that our doctrine of God and his jus- 
 tice is a sentiment which " can originate in and be 
 sustained by nothing short of the most malignant and 
 unpitying cruelty," that " it stoops to commune with 
 the spirit of grim devils and infuriate fiends of dark- 
 ness. It delights in the jells of the damned," and 
 " those who teach it do worship the beast and his image, 
 
 * Voice, p. 33. t Plain Guide, pp. 23, 54. 
 3 
 
 tUn. Bel., p. 131. 
 
34 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 and have received the mark of his name."* This is 
 the rant which is somewhat habitually poured forth 
 from scores of Universalist pulpits. 
 
 A few years since the following statement by Mr. 
 Royce, an evangelical writer, was quoted into the 
 Trumpet : " Universalism has a different God," from 
 Orthodoxy, " a different Christ, a different Spirit, a dif- 
 ferent sinner, a different sin, a different atonement, a 
 different pardon, a different salvation, a different resur- 
 rection, a different judgment, a different punishment, a 
 different heaven and a different hell; in fine, a difference 
 with respect to all the essential doctrines of Christian- 
 
 ity." 
 
 Upon this statement Mr. Whittemore remarks, "Mr. 
 Royce is right. To this we give our assent. We con- 
 firm his words, that Partialism is in every sense a very 
 different doctrine from Universalism. He cannot 
 represent the difference to be too great."! 
 
 Such is their own estimate. And one of the very 
 ablest of their writers. Rev. I. D. Williamson, has thus 
 pronounced his deliberate judgment : "I have no 
 disposition to conceal the fact that there is a wide and 
 irreconcilable difference between us and our opposers ; 
 nor can it be denied that if we are right, they are 
 wrong, not merely in some small points, but radically 
 and, I had almost said, totally wrong. This is a truth 
 with which we are well acquainted, and that man pur- 
 sues a mistaken policy, nay, a wicked course of hypoc- 
 risy, who attempts to conceal this fact. There is no 
 manner of use in endeavoring to make it appear that 
 
 * End. Pun., pp. 20, 201. t Trumpet, Aug. 18, 1838. Quoted by 
 Eev. N. D. George, p. 376. 
 
NATUEE AND CHARACTERISTICS. 35 
 
 there is but a shade of difference between us and other 
 denominations ; for there is a difference high as heaven, 
 wide as the earth ; a difference as hopelessly and utterly 
 irreconcilable as light and darkness ; and there is no 
 disguising the obvious truth that if our system is true 
 the other is false, desperately and hopelessly false, I 
 had almost said, in its whole length and breadth." " A 
 man can no more be a Universalist and a Partialist, 
 than he could serve both God and Baal. I go further, 
 and say that no man can innocently believe the one, 
 and yet support the other."* 
 
 This statement I most heartily endorse — ^I thank the 
 writer for it — and I commend it to your consideration. 
 Agreeing with him also, that concealment is not only a 
 mistaken policy but a wicked course of hypocrisy — and 
 holding, with all the mind and heart, to the great doc- 
 tiines of grace, we therefore openly and deliberately 
 maintain, using Mr. Williamson's own words, that 
 
 4. That system " is desperately and hopelessly false, 
 in its whole length and breadth." 
 
 If ours is light, as we think, that is unmitigated 
 darkness. The great, absorbing and monopolizing doo 
 trine of the whole system — its central and only light, 
 or darkness visible, is the total divorcement of our 
 moral behavior here from our condition hereafter, and 
 the audacious doctrine that no matter how vile and 
 loathsome, to the last breath he draws, every man shall 
 wake to perfect bliss. It is not held as a side specula- 
 tion, an incidental prospect or probability. It is the 
 whole scope of the system. This is diuned in men's 
 
 * Exposition, pp. 215, 216. 
 
36 LECTUEES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 ears as the substance of all doctrine. For this, and in 
 this, and by this, the whole system has its being. It is 
 the one brazen note of their " Trumpet," the everlast- 
 ing gospel of their pulpit. It is the kernel and the 
 covering of the whole system — its life and glory — its 
 body and soul — ^its head, hoof and horns. 
 
 Now with such a system as that, evangelical Christ- 
 ianity has nothing in common, but the two covers of 
 the Bible. The systems are, we agree with Mr. Wil- 
 liamson, as utterly and hopelessly irreconcilable as 
 " light and darkness," the worship of " Baal" or the 
 devil, and the worship of " God." And while, there- 
 fore, I have no expectation or desire of changing the 
 usage of speech, which classes it under the general 
 head of Christianity, I make no secret of the fact that 
 without abandoning my own apprehensions of Christ- 
 ianity, I cannot as matter of fact recognize the system 
 which I have here set forth, the system taught by H. 
 Ballou, and Whittemore, and Williamson, and Cobb, 
 and Asher Moore, as any form, branch or part of the 
 Christian religion. And this is the unanimous senti- 
 ment of evangelical preachers of the gospel, and intel- 
 ligent private Christians in our churches. 
 
 You are thus prepared to understand the reason why 
 we also maintain that 
 
 5. The ministration of the system is no preaching of 
 the gospel, but of Satan's doctrine. In truth, the 
 position is put into our mouth by the very advocates of 
 the system. They say the two systems are hopelessly 
 irreconcilable — as much so as light and darkness, the 
 service of God and of Baal. AVe take them at their 
 own word ; if our doctrine is of God, theirs is of dark- 
 
NATUKE AND CHARACTERISIICS. 37 
 
 ness, of Baal, of Satan. There is no help for it. And 
 we add our own word to their admission. We believe 
 they proclaim one of the most ruinous and destructive 
 and groveling of falsehoods ever broached on earth — 
 and we believe the devil is the father of lies. And 
 from before the time when Lemuel Haynes preached 
 from the text, " and the serpent said unto the woman, 
 ye shall not surely die," and from the proposition, 
 *' Satan the first Universalist preacher," down to the 
 present, that has been the view of all intelligent evan- 
 gelical Christians. We maintain that with our present 
 views of Christianity, whatever may be a man's 
 character as a friend, a citizen and a neighbor, and all 
 that, yet, in his official capaciti/, any man who proclaims 
 that system is one of Satan's preachers, and not a min- 
 ister of Christ's gospel, however eloquent he may be. 
 This view, I say, belongs to our system, and not to me 
 personally. The things are irreconcilable. And if 
 this open and deliberate statement gives a surprise to 
 any man in this city, much more to any evangelical 
 Christian, it is time that shock had been given long 
 ago. Men must understand they are two different 
 roads — and make their choice between them. If our 
 road leads to Heaven, theirs leads to Hell. We pretend 
 to no partnership. And much as I would shrink from 
 being the keeper of a gambling saloon, tempting young 
 men to squander for naught their earthly subbtance ; 
 much as I would recoil from being the owner of a dram 
 shop, where men arc beguiled against their better 
 knowledge, to their temporal and eternal ruin ; with 
 far intenser horror should I beg to be delivered from 
 the wholesale sin^ and the awful responsibility of delu- 
 
38 LECSURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 ding, on settled principle, the drunkard, and the blas- 
 phemer, and the rake, Sabbath after Sabbath, with the 
 cry of " peace, peace," where God has uttered no peace, 
 and with the hope that they shall pass at once from the 
 pestilential atmosphere of their earthly lives into the 
 bliss of God on high. And when this work is done 
 under pretence of exalting God and man, when, under 
 pretext of extolling his love and mercy, every high 
 moral attribute of God's nature is ground into the dust, 
 it is but Satan transformed, as usual, into the guise of 
 an angel of light, and his ministers transformed as the 
 ministers of righteousness. 1 know that it is said — 
 and that is the grand plea — it makes the sinner's pres- 
 ent life so happy. So does ardent spirit make men 
 happy ; but there's death in the cup. So does opium 
 make men happy ; but it makes them fools. So does 
 delirium often make men happy ; but it is the happiness 
 of the madman. And oh ! if this doctrine, so captivor 
 ting to a sinful heart, be but a delusion, what a terrible 
 delusion it is ; and how dreadfully it shall be dispelled 
 at the judgment seat of Christ ! If it be biit the 
 intoxicating cup to the human soul, what a very wine 
 of devils it is ; and he that has been intoxicated with 
 that cup throughout this short day of life, to what a 
 fearful heartache shall he waken on the long, dark 
 morrow of eternity ! 
 
LECTURE SECOND. 
 
 THE MORE OBVIOUS MARKS OP FALSEHOOD. 
 
 Matthew XVI : 23, But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind 
 me, Satan ; thou art an offence unto me : for thou savorest not the 
 things that be of God, but those that be of men. 
 
 The tendency of some things is recondite ; that of 
 others, direct and obvious. Some propositions and 
 systems, like Cain, bear the devil's mark on their fore- 
 head, as well as in their heart. So was it with this 
 advice which Peter gave to Jesus — and Peter cringed 
 before rebuke. So is it with the system of Modern 
 Universalism, — the system which cuts off all moral 
 connection between this life and the life to come, and 
 teaches that all men, however vile on earth, at death 
 awake only to eternal blessedness, and that, too, with 
 no aid from Jesus Christ. It is as destitute of external 
 verisimilitude, as it is of inward truth. It is hardly 
 even a whited sepulchre. Full of dead men's bones 
 within, it is garnished with dead men's bones without. 
 In due order, I shall examine the entire argument 
 on which it rests, and indicate its rottenness. For the 
 present, I wish to call your attention to some of 
 
 The more obvious marks op the ungodly origin 
 OP Modern Universalism. 
 
 1. The natural import of Scripture in all its parts, 
 is against it. No recondite interpretations are required 
 to show the falsity of the system — it lies on the whole 
 
40 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 face of the Scripture so clear that plain men feel it — 
 they cannot help feeling it. The manifest drift of the 
 whole Bible is, that there is a God of spotless purity, 
 intensely abhorring sin, the eternal foe of all who per- 
 sist in sin ; man a sinner, to whom mercy and pardon 
 are now offered through Jesus Christ ; this life the 
 scene of mercy and of possible change ; the next, of 
 changeless retribution, the endless reaping of a life-long 
 sowing. So transparent is the teaching, that it shows 
 itself to every mind at first sight. The preacher who 
 teaches it, has but to read straight on in the Scriptures 
 without note or comment, and his hearers imbibe the 
 doctrine. The Bible speaks for him in far more 
 awful terms than he can invent. They that teach 
 Universalism cannot venture to let the Scripture alone 
 — it requires a constant system of ledgerdemain to hide 
 its obvious meaning — a running warfare with its plain 
 sense. They must select, and explain away, and avoid, 
 and soften down, and deny. God's fierce wrath is not 
 fierce wrath — his hatred of sin and sinners is no hatred 
 — forever is not forever — punishment is not punish- 
 ment — forgiveness is not forgiveness — vengeance is 
 love and kindness — salvation is relief from anxiety 
 and fear — Satan is notliing — hell a figure of speech 
 with no particular meaning ; and so on from beginning 
 to end. To frame the system of universal salvation out 
 of the Bible, the volume has to be put perpetually to 
 the rack, and every joint of it dislocated. And after 
 all, there remain a multitude of passages which the 
 preacher loves not to read to his congregation, and 
 many which he dares not read without comment or 
 change of the text. 
 
PLAIN MARKS OF FALSEHOOD. 41 
 
 On this point, the vast mass of good men have been 
 agreed in all ages. The dissent among the best Christ- 
 ians has been literally of no account — scarcely enough 
 for the natural vagaries of the human mind. This 
 unanimous understanding of the holiest men, of the 
 men who receive God's word most Immbly, is deeply 
 significant. 
 
 Infidels — the extreme opposite class, the men who 
 wholly reject God's word — are also agreed, that the plain 
 teaching of the Bible, is eternal punishment. Says 
 Theodore Parker, " I believe that Jesus Christ taught 
 eternal torment. I do not accept it on his authority."* 
 So the writings of Davis and Hare make this doctrine 
 the grand point of their attack, A Universalist preach- 
 er was attempting to persuade an infidel member of his 
 congregation to receive the Bible, by explaining away 
 its threatenings. The infidel listened patiently for a 
 while, but at length broke in, " It is of no use to talk in 
 that way ; the Bible is full of hell, and every body 
 knows that it is."f But why accumulate instances, 
 when the fact is notorious that skeptics agree as to 
 what the Bible teaches on this point. Says the Univer- 
 salist, Asher Moore, " All skeptics, so far as we have 
 been able to ascertain their views, suppose the Bible 
 to teach the doctrine of endless misery ; and on this 
 ground they reject it." $ What can be more deeply 
 significant than the fact, that both the great bulk of 
 those who most humbly submit to the Bible, and 
 those who openly refuse its authority, agree on this point ? 
 
 The more intelligent questioners of the eternity of 
 
 * " Universalism Examined," p. 250. t Two Sermons, p. 14. 
 jUniv. Belief, p. 51. 
 
42 LECTUEES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 future punishment, who receive the Bible, admit that 
 their view is not taught there. In May, 1853, the 
 American Unitarian Association issued a Report, in 
 which they avow that a large majority of them hold the 
 doctrine of the final Restoration of all souls ; but they 
 distinctly say, " it is our firm conviction, that the final 
 restoration of all, is not revealed in the Scriptu.res," 
 but it is only a glorious hope which seems to them a 
 " warranted inference from the cardinal principles of 
 Christianity, as well as from the great verities of moral 
 science."* Here is an admission from a class of men 
 who, for intelligence, learning and character, are as far 
 in advance of the Universalist ministry, as one class of 
 men can well be before another. John Foster too, has 
 been often appealed to of late, as doubting eternal pun- 
 ishment, and hoping for final recovery, ages hence ; 
 but Foster distinctly admits that his questioning is 
 founded only on the mercy of God, and that Scripture 
 is " formidably strong" against him. 
 
 In truth, tlie system of Universalism would get along 
 a great deal better without the Bible. That consti- 
 tutes its great difficulty, its insurmountable difficulty. 
 It were easy to frame a moderately plausible argument, 
 but for the word of God, and a few stubborn facts in 
 Providence. The word of God is, in truth, the only 
 source from whicli has come the doctrine of eternal 
 punishment to all the impenitent. And when the thin 
 web of sophistry is spun ever so fine, the solemn warn- 
 ings of Jesus about the soul and its danger, such 
 passages as the story of Dives, the narration of the final 
 
 * Annual Eeport, May 24, 1853, p. 28. 
 
' PLAIN MARKS OP FALSEHOOD. 43 
 
 judgment, or tlie terrible words of the apostles, come 
 driving over it like some ponderous wheel over the thin 
 gossamer web that lies on the grass. Its fabricators 
 feel it — they shrink from it — they dread those por- 
 tions of Scripture — they crawl and writhe under them. 
 Their chief function is to explain them away. 
 
 The obvious meaning of the Bible — obvious to its 
 most submissive subjects and its most determined re- 
 jectors alike, obvious to the common mind and the 
 child, obvious to the vast majority of those who have 
 read its pages — stamps the system not of God. So ob- 
 vious is the meaning, that advocates of Univcrsalism 
 frequently confine their reading to certain favorite 
 passages ; and instances are on record, of those thus 
 trained, who, on reading the scriptures as they stand, 
 have been confounded, and have abandoned tliek 
 belief. 
 
 2. Another obvious mark of the ungodly origin of 
 the system, is the emergencies to which it is reduced. 
 
 One of its emergencies is that it is driven chiefly be 
 yond the Bible. It is essentially Deistic. You may 
 observe it where you will, the great stress of the Uni- 
 versalist argument is Us own reasonings about God's 
 benevolence — God's being our Father — and how no 
 father can be so severe. On that idea it is perpetually 
 harping.* Not what God has said, but what from the 
 nature of the case he must do ; a purely deistic argu- 
 ment. And in their private arguings, the more 
 mcautious of the sect occasionally avow that they care 
 not if the Bible is against them. Matthew Hale Smith 
 
 *E. g., in Ballou's Lecture Sermons this appeal meets us, in a longer 
 or shorter form, between twenty and thirty times. 
 
44 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 testifies that " he has often heard them say both in the 
 pulpit and out of it, that they would reject the Bible 
 if they thought it did not teach Universalism."* Sim- 
 ilar declarations have fallen under my knowledge. 
 And it is noteworthy how the arguments of the sect 
 are invariably preceded by the laying down of certain 
 principles, to which the word of God must be wrenched. 
 " First principles," says Moore, " should govern our 
 investigations on every subject ; and whatever stands 
 opposed to acknowledged and known truths, we may 
 safely decide has no reasonable claims to our confidence 
 and belief," In the next sentence he applies the prin- 
 ciple by saying that " we should carefully exclude from 
 our crcdenda every principle that stands opposed in its 
 nature or tendency to [the attribute of] love." Of 
 course the case is settled for him. The same writer asks 
 significantly concerning the skeptic, "When such [i.e. 
 eternal punishment] is declared to be the doctrine of 
 that book which proclaims good tidings of great joy 
 that shall be to all people, who can blame a man for 
 pausing to inquire before he believes ?"t Hosea Bal- 
 lon deliberately informs us that he " should feel justified 
 in restraining any passages, could such be found, that 
 should seem to favor an opinion so dishonorable to 
 God, and so revolting to our best feelings,":}: Rev. T. 
 B. Thayer, after arguing universal salvation as an 
 inference from God's being our Father, closes thus : 
 " One of two things is certain — if God is the Father 
 of all men, endless misery is false ; or if endless misery 
 is true, God is not the Father of all men, and the Bible 
 
 * "Univ. Examined, &c.," p. 178. t Un. Bel. pp. 63, 52. % Lect. 
 Serm. p. 193. 
 
PLAIN MARKS OF FALSEHOOD. 45 
 
 is false. Reader, you cannot hesitate in your choice."* 
 My hearer, ponder this last bokl statement, pubh^hed 
 during the present year, and see what less it means 
 than this : I will sooner reject the Bible than receive 
 the doctrine of endless misery. 
 
 So Williamson informs us, near the opening of his 
 argument, that " man is authorized to reject any and 
 every doctrine that contradicts these first principles." 
 And the nature of his first principles may be learned 
 from his remark a few pages later : " It is easy to see 
 that on the supposition of the truth of the doctrine of 
 endless misery, the meanest worm holds the tenure 
 of his existence on better terms than man : and I 
 frankly say, had it been left to my choice, I would not 
 for worlds have accepted the gift of life, even with a 
 possibility of its coming to such a horrid catastro})he."f 
 There is a confession for you — there is one of the first 
 principles according to which the doctrines of the Bible 
 are to be received or rejected : an emergency, indeed ! 
 
 The emergencies of the system show themselves 
 further yet. It bears the devil's mark in the necessity 
 it finds to disparage and wear down all the principal 
 teachings of the Bible. See it in the necessity to de- 
 grade God from the lofty throne on which he describes 
 himself as " hating all the workers of iniquity," to a 
 level with themselves. See it in the deliberate attempt 
 to depreciate the enormity of sin. It is the settled 
 proposition of the system that such men as Edwards, 
 Payson, and the like, overestimate the evil of sin. A 
 
 * Tracts for the People (Boston, 1856), p. 5L This is the series en- 
 dorsed by the Un. Companion and Register as one of the best, if not the 
 best, extant, t End. Pun. Ex., pp. 24, 31. 
 
46 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 system reduced to such a strait, is low, indeed. We 
 need no teacher to pacify our thoughts of guilt — we 
 need the teacher from God to stir them up. Do we 
 not know that our own hearts, taught by Satan, are 
 prone enough to excuse it? Is it not our constant 
 temptation to say to ourselves, " our guilt is slight, 
 this sin is little ?" And when a teacher comes aiding 
 that vile suggestion of our heart, do we not know his 
 mission ? When a system comes so seconding human 
 depravity, is not the Devil's mark on its forehead ? 
 
 The emergencies of the system show themselves in 
 its downward history. It started on a Calvinistic base 
 — it started professing to receive all the evangelical 
 doctrines save this one ; long ago it saw the necessity 
 of rejecting the whole to speed its race and save its 
 life, and long ago it cast the last fragment overboard. 
 It started with the unanimous admission of some future 
 punishment ; but the rickety system shook under the 
 load, and to save itself in the downhill pressure, it cast 
 it all off by the roadside. It has fulfilled the predic- 
 tion — " evil men and seducers shall wax worse and 
 worse ;" and its emergencies have been so great and 
 increasing, that one by one it has thrown away almost 
 everything distinctive in the Bible, — Christ's Divinity, 
 the atonement, eternal salvation by Christ, depravity, 
 regeneration, probation, forgiveness proper, and pun- 
 islmient proper, whether here or hereafter. 
 
 3. The inconsistencies and gross absurdities of the 
 system, clearly show its ungodly origin. It is a bundle 
 of contradictions. It now assures us that men will be 
 saved because God is a merciful God ; and on the next 
 page vii'tually denies all mercy in our salvation, for it 
 
PLAIN MARKS OP FALSEHOOD. 4T 
 
 holds that all sin is punished to the full extent of its 
 desert ; and consequently we are saved not of mercy, 
 but of justice. Will it be believed that such a man as 
 Whittemore, in the very book in which he distinctly 
 affirms that Christ came to save men only from evils 
 of this life, yet quotes numerous passages that speak 
 of .Christ as a Savior, in order to prove the doctrine of 
 final blessedness ? Yet it is even so.* 
 
 Will it be believed, too, that the system can be so 
 inconsistent as to assert that certain portions of Scrip- 
 ture have had their entire fulfilment here on earth, and 
 yet to cull out extracts from those very passages and 
 use them in support of final blessedness in heaven? 
 Yet it is even so. In order to escape the terrible force 
 of John's Eevelation, it was necessary for them to 
 maintain that the book had its fulfilment at the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem. Yet some of the favorite 
 passages urged by them for final salvation are from 
 that very book. Even Hosea Ballou, 2d, some years 
 ago, cautioned them thus : " Universalists have not 
 wholly ceased to quote as proof of the final reconcil- 
 iation of all men, the following text : ' And every 
 creature which is in heaven and on the earth and 
 under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all 
 that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, 
 and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth on the 
 throne and unto the Lamb forever;' "fa text which, 
 if we mistake not their views concerning the general 
 plan of this book, they can by no means suppose, on 
 
 * The first statement is on page 254 of the Plain Guide : the argu- 
 ments and quotations, on pages 30, 32, 34, 35, 38 of the same vol. 
 t Rev. 5. 13. 
 
48 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 careful reflection, to refer to a period yet future. It 
 should not be forgotten that all the passages we have 
 set down are taken from those very chapters which are 
 now universally regarded as having their fulfilment on 
 the earth ; and that unless we renounce this opinion, 
 we are of course precluded from adducing them as 
 proof of " the state of things in another "s^orld." . So 
 far are they from having ceased to do this thing that 
 this very inconsistency is common, and their ablest 
 writers thus contradict themselves in the same book. 
 Thus in the stereotype edition of Whittemore's Plain 
 Guide this very passage is adduced as an argument.* 
 Whittemore also uses as another argument, Rev. 21:4, 
 " God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes," etc.f 
 And yet this very writer in this same book,:|: affirms 
 that the transactions recorded four verses before and 
 four verses after this, are fulfilled at the destruction of 
 Jerusalem. In the first, he goes back two thousand 
 years, and locates " the book of life," " the second 
 death" and " the lake of fire," at the fall of Jerusa- 
 lem ; four verses more and he has strode forth into 
 eternity, " there shall be no more death ;" four verses 
 onward he is back to the destruction of Jerusalem, and 
 there is where " all liars shall have their part in the 
 lake Avhich burnetii with fire and brimstone," which is 
 " the second death !" And where, I ask, shall any man 
 that deals so with scripture, have his part ? 
 
 Intending on a future occasion to trace and show 
 more in detail the absurdities of these arguings, I waive 
 a further discussion of them at the present, to say a 
 
 * Plain Guide, p. 52. t Id., p. 53. t Id., pp. 223, 227, 143. 
 
PLAIN MARKS OP FALSEHOOD. 
 
 few words on the absurdities and gross imbecilities of 
 the scripture explanations given by the system. Indeed 
 there is no system about it, but a series of ever-shifting 
 and absurd expedients, a succession of juggleries prac- 
 tised on persons ignorant of God's word. The only 
 system that runs through them, is the constant, painful 
 effort to take off the edge and power of not alone the 
 passages which teach eternal punishment, but of all 
 that teach God's hatred of sin, his anger and indigna- 
 tion, human danger and destiny, — and to reduce them 
 to inanity. It is painfully instructive to read through 
 the two hundred pages, in which Whittemore thus passes 
 through his crucible a hundred and twenty-six of the 
 sternest passages of the Bible, and shows you nothing 
 but ashes as the result. For example, Christ himself 
 interprets his own parable of the tares, and tells what 
 it means. " The enemy that sowed them," he says, 
 " is the devil ; the harvest is the end of the world ; and 
 the reapers are the angels. As, therefore, the tares are 
 gathered and burned in the fire so shall it be at the 
 end of the world. The Son of Man shall send forth 
 his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom 
 all things that offend, and them which do iniquity ; 
 and shall cast them into a furnace of fire ; and there 
 shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall 
 the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of 
 their Father." So Christ interpreted his own parable. 
 But the Savior's interpretation required mending by 
 Mr. Thomas Whittemore.* Christ said the •' enemy is 
 the devil;" — "it is a 'perverse and wicked spirit' 
 
 * Plain Guide, p. 102. More fully in "Notes on the Parables," p. 52. 
 4 
 
50 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 opposed to the spirit of Christ," says Mr. Whittemore. 
 " The harvest is the end of the world," said Christ ; — 
 " the end of the Mosaic age," says Whittemore. " The 
 reapers are the angels," " the angels of the Son of 
 Man," says Christ; — "the angels mean the Roman 
 armies," expounds Whittemore, " which God sent to 
 destroy his rebellious people, the Jews." " They shall 
 gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and 
 them which do iniquity," said Christ ; — " the Jews," 
 says Whittemore. " Shall cast them into a furnace 
 of fire ; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth ;" 
 — " the city of Jerusalem," says Whittemore. " The 
 righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom 
 of their Father;" — "it is the comparative earthly 
 felicity of Christians," says Wliittemore, " after the 
 Jews were destroyed." Such felicity, doubtless, as 
 they experienced when John was banished to Patmos 
 under Domitian, and they were put to the rack under 
 Trajan, and became the sport of wild beasts in the 
 Colosseum under Hadrian and Mark Aurelius. 
 
 In this style the system goes on. We read in Whit- 
 temore that " hell," in its more terrible meaning, is a 
 filthy place in a valley just out of Jerusalem, and "hell- 
 fire," the fire that burnt the offal there ; " eternal 
 damnation " is the "judgment of the age;" " the Lord 
 Jesus Christ revealed from heaven with his mighty 
 angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that 
 know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ," indicates " the dissolution of the Jewish 
 state;" " everlasting destruction from the presence of: 
 the Lord," is " the banishment of the Jews from their 
 own land ;" " eternal judgment " is " an ancient judg- 
 
PLAIN MARKS OF FALSEHOOD. 51 
 
 ment," one past long ago.* Its stated effort is to 
 reduce all the tremendous thre'atenings of a holy God, 
 when God calls the wicked " accursed," threatens 
 " wrath without mixture," and the like, to expressions 
 of iKirenlal interest and promises of salutary correction 
 for their good : as though an anxious parent should 
 describe his family discipline in this wise : " Very 
 difficult and trying duties have devolved on me of late ; 
 I have been under the necessity of cursing my eldest 
 son, and pouring out upon him my wrath without 
 mixture ; I have made my daughter anathema, and 
 have come out against her in great fury and with fiery 
 indignation. They are cursed children."! Such is 
 the language which this system describes as the lan- 
 guage of paternal correction. How horrible ! And 
 to crown the climax of absurdity, Mr, Whittemore 
 finds it necessary for his purposes to show that Judas 
 Iscariot was a specimen of genuine repentance, whose 
 "sorrow caused his death." J Such are the " genuine 
 
 * Plain Guide, pp. 135, 190, 192, 197. 
 
 t Lectures hj Joel Parker, D. D., p. 36. 
 
 i Lest the reader should be incredulous, I quote the passage : 
 
 " It should be remembered that Judas fully repented of his sin. That 
 his repentance was genuine, is evident from the following considerations : 
 1. He confessed his guilt. 2. He asserted the innocence of Christ. 3. 
 He returned the money. 4. His sorrow caused his death, which it could 
 not have done on any other supposition than that it was sincere." ( ! ! ) 
 Plain Guide, p. 132. 
 
 The reader will see the exigency of Mr. Whittemore, when he remem- 
 bers Christ's terrible words : " It had been good for that man if he had 
 not been born." To destroy the plain force of that passage, it became 
 necessary also to deny that Judas committed suicide (against the clear 
 statement of not only our translation, but the Greek original), and more- 
 over, that it was Judas who went "to his own place" (Acts, 1 :25) ; 
 
52 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 penitents " that people a Universalist heaven ; there 
 are many more of the kind there, no doubt, besides 
 Saint Judas: — Saint Jeroboam, Saint Jezebel, Saints 
 Ananias and Sapphira, and a kindred host. 
 
 Such are some of the absurdities of which the system 
 is full, and which mark its origin. An infidel of Alle- 
 ghany county, N. Y., one day met a Universalist and 
 addressed him thus : " You Universalists are the most 
 inconsistent theorists in the world. You say there is 
 no future punishment, and yet you profess to receive 
 the Bible, and what is more absurd, profess to prove 
 your doctrine from the Bible. You stretch out one 
 passage interminably, and cut another short oif ; you 
 pull connected sentences apart, and put disconnected 
 sentences together ; you set prophets at war with 
 prophets, apostles with apostles, and each one at war 
 with himself. As sure as your Bible is true, so surely 
 there is a hell. For my own part, I do not believe 
 there is a hell any more than yourself ; but more con- 
 sistent, I throw the doctrine of future punishment out 
 of my creed by first throwing out the Bible. And 
 there is no other way to appear consistent. Get clear 
 of that old book, and then you can easily get rid of 
 the rest." 
 
 furthermore, to take the astounding position that Judas's sorrow caused 
 his deatli, and " could not have done " so, unless it were genuine repentance. 
 Behold a good specimen of the system — denying the plainest statements 
 of the Bible, and then bringing platoon after platoon of the same miser- 
 able evasions to back the first. 
 
 Ballou remarks, Lect. Serm., p. 290, that Judas's exclamation when 
 ho threw down the money, (" I have sinned in that I have betrayed the 
 innocent blood,") "shows the high estimation in ivhich this imhappy 7iian 
 held innocence." Not a bad specimen of Hosea Ballou. 
 
PLAIN MARKS OP FALSEHOOD. 53 
 
 4. A fourth mark of the ungodly origin of the sys- 
 tem is its moral tendencies. But as I shall probably 
 devote an entire discourse to this subject, I waive it 
 now. 
 
 5. A fifth mark of its origin is the immoral sympa- 
 thies and desires which it enlists. It is sure to enlist 
 the sympathies of the vilest of men ; and the viler a 
 man becomes, the more earnest are his sympathies with 
 the system, and the intenser his desires for its truth. 
 A man willing to obey God, or a bad man repenting 
 truly, has no occasion to fear the doctrine. But vile 
 men determined to remain vile, are sure to hug it to 
 their hearts. • It gathers up that kind of sympathy as 
 surely as a magnet draws iron, or a carca-ss draws 
 vultures. And when has conversion to Universalism 
 ever led to a reformation of character ? A multitude 
 of cases is on record where genuine evangelical conver- 
 sion /ro?^ Universalism has led the wicked to forsake 
 his wickedness ; but where a case of the converse ? 
 Where is the instance ? one instance — whether convert- 
 ed from orthodoxy or from infidelity ? Nay, when the 
 evangelical professor becomes a Universalist, he is very 
 sure to stop praying, and often he begins to violate the 
 Sabbath, to become profane and reckless ; or, when an 
 evangelical professor begins to do these things, he is 
 very prone to turn Universalist. For example, when 
 the Second Universalist Society in Lynn was formed, 
 it was found by careful examination that nearly all 
 its members were Methodist backsliders — ^men who 
 had lost their religion, as they phrase it.* A system 
 
 * Cooke's " Two Centuries." 
 
5i LECTURES OX rNIVER3ALI5M. 
 
 that enlists sucli sympatluos has a hnd brand on it. 
 6. Common sense and genei'al constcience stamp it 
 as ungodly in its origin. Let it meanwhile be borne 
 ill mind that the system holds out the strongest possi- 
 ble temptations to belief, if it could but be made 
 plausible. Every man who has not submitted to the 
 claims of Christ — that is, all men at some period of 
 life, and many men all through their lives — is tempted 
 powerfully to embrace the sj stem. Our affection for 
 our departed friends also proffers strong inducements 
 to lay hold of it. I heard one say — and I saw the 
 work of the Tempter, for it is the frequent appeal of his 
 emissaries — " One who has lost friends ?is I have, is 
 strongly persuaded to doubt the doctrine of fnturo 
 punishment." I heard another say — and his career 
 had been a wild one — " I have tried hard to believe in 
 Universal salvation, but neither the Bible nor common 
 sense would suffer it." Yes, notwithstanding the 
 powerful and universal temptations, the common sense 
 and the common conscience rise above it. The hea- 
 then never sunk so low in their moral notions as to 
 think the gods would put no difference hereafter be- 
 tw^een the good man and the bad. You must tamper 
 long with any man's reason and conscience, who has 
 seen how some single sin often dogs the sinner with its 
 punishment from eai'ly youth to hoajy age, and how 
 character flows on like a ri-er in an nnbroken stream, 
 before you can persuade him that tlic man who, after 
 a life of iniquity, lies down with his soul putrid with 
 corruption, and shuts his eyes, breathing out^ualice 
 and blasphemy against man and God and Christ, in 
 the next moment comes forth like an angel of God, 
 
PLAIN MARKS OF FALSEHOOD. 56 
 
 pure, holy and seraphic, free from all relic of the 
 blasphemies that filled his throat an instant before ; — 
 that the man struck down in the scene of low vice is 
 offering sweet incense unto God while the body that 
 he left is still reeking with rum, and that his soul is 
 swelling with rapturous songs to Christ ere the echoes 
 of his cursings have died out from the drunkard's 
 saloon below. You may talk to him in vague terms, 
 as you will, of all men's entering heaven alike ; but 
 bring him actually to look in on such scenes as where 
 Hervey or Scott or Payson, after long lives of growing 
 purity and love to God, are breathing out their souls 
 in strains of heavenly affection to the Lord Jesus, and 
 longing to be in his presence — then on such scenes as 
 where Thomas Paine, after a life of evil influence and 
 of foul iniquity, now lies sinkin g to his grave, steeped 
 much of the time in strong drink, shrieking when left 
 alone by day or night, shocking with his abusive lan- 
 guage the kind woman who acted as his nurse, now 
 alarming the whole house with his incessant cries — 
 " Lord help me ! God help me ! Jesus Christ help 
 me ! " — yet convulsed with anger at the very mention 
 of religion, and raising his cane to strike the elder who 
 mentioned to him the name of Jesus Christ : let him 
 gaze in on these different scenes — tell him that when 
 their breath stops, all these men shall join hands in 
 loving companionship around the throne of the Savior 
 whom one cursed and the other adored with their latest 
 breath, and it shocks all his common sense. 
 
 The very child sees through it. A Universalist 
 preacher was telling his little son the .story of " the 
 Children in the Wood." The boy asked, " what be- 
 
56 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 came of the innocent little children ?" " They went 
 to heaven," replied the father. " And what became 
 of the wicked old uncle ?" " He went to heaven too." 
 " Won't he kill them again, father," said the hoy. 
 The question was too much even for the father ; he 
 never rested till he renounced the system, and became 
 a pious man and a preacher of evangelical religion. 
 
 Nay, the truth is, this system was too much even 
 for the conscience and common sense of the first Uni- 
 versalists. It was only by a process of education that 
 men sunk to adopt this system. They began by liold- 
 ing to Christ as an atoning Savior, to the infinite 
 ill-desert of sin, from which men were saved only by 
 Christ's merits : they believed, to a man, (so says 
 Hosea Ballou,) in the limited future punishment of the 
 impenitent. But other men, educated under the sys- 
 tem and seeing that inextricable difficulties followed 
 the admission of any future punishment, discarded the 
 notion wholly ; and, as evil men and seducers wax 
 worse and worse, they then found it necessary to cast 
 overboard all the other great doctrines of the gospel — 
 because it was impossible then to retain them. " But so 
 strenuously did the earlier Universalist conscience 
 resist these steps of degradation, that it raised " a con- 
 flict between the preachers of Universalism almost as 
 sharp as that which had been carried on between 
 Universalists and their opposers," threatening "la^ 
 mentable consequences."* In a downward course, as 
 usual, the Devil triumphed ; ])ut not until it had been 
 proved that even the Universalist conscience at first 
 
 * Bcallou's Yoicc, p. 36. 
 
PLAIN MARKS OP FALSEHOOD. 57 
 
 revolted at the system which contradicts the moral 
 judgment of the human race. 
 
 7. Another of the obvious marks of the falsehood of 
 the system, is found in the manifest uneasiness of its 
 advocates. 
 
 It is difficult to get behind the curtain, and those 
 who have once been there, and come forth to give their 
 testimony, like Matthew Hale Smith, are pursued with 
 an obloquy that impairs their testimony ; — and it is 
 not impossible indeed that their long subjection to 
 demoralizing influences may sometimes leave a per- 
 manent effect on their habits of speech. Mr. Smith 
 has given a sad picture of the unsettled views of many 
 who are to appearance unwavering advocates of the 
 system, and has introduced us to the unsolved doubts 
 of even their preachers, and their private admissions 
 of the sophistry of much of their arguments. I do not 
 however propose to avail myself of that evidence on 
 the present occasion. There is other evidence more 
 obvious. 
 
 It is found partly in the writhing of Universalists 
 under the preaching of judgment and retribution. 
 Kegarding it as an exploded superstition, it ought to 
 affect them, when they hear it, no more than a heathen 
 fable ; at most they sliould merely pity the weakness 
 of us who believe it. But is that the fact ? Not so — 
 not at all. Let an advocate of that system be present 
 on some occasion when the doctrine of God's future 
 vengeance toward the wicked is fully set forth, and it 
 stirs him up, and agitates, and perhaps exasperates him. 
 He complains of it — he shuns it. He cringes under 
 the very phraseology of God himself — it distresses him 
 
58 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 to hear it. It is the testimony of his drugged con- 
 science, pierced by the truth, and showing by its 
 writhings that it has been reached by no other weapon 
 than that two-edged sword, which is the word of God. 
 The same uneasiness shows itself in the constant 
 warfare whicli tlie system keeps up. It is forever 
 batthng orthodoxy, and trying to get into a contro- 
 versy. A Universalist congregation, it has been said, 
 cannot be kept quiet long, without having its favorite 
 opiate. A Universalist preacher cannot rest easy 
 unless he can be wrangling with the Orthodox. A 
 vast proportion of the sermons arc expended on this 
 subject, and a large part of these in explaining away 
 the troublesome passages of scripture.* I have been 
 twice challenged to a public wrangle ; the changes have 
 been publicly rung on my name ; my stated preaching 
 in my own Church, has furnished themes for I know 
 not how many Universalist Philippics. The system 
 seems to be like a man when he can reel along, but 
 cannot stand still ; or, more exactly, when he can 
 stand only by pushing against a post. Opposition is 
 its life and soul. Why, now, this incessant necessity 
 for a wrangle ? There is nothing at stake, if Univer- 
 salism be true. According to the system, all will go 
 well with us whether we believe it or not ! And mean- 
 
 * Smith says, (p. 113,) that nine-tenths of all the Universalist Ser- 
 mons he ever heard, aimed to disprove endless misery ; and that " at 
 least two-thirds of* all their preaching is designed to explain away the 
 unfavorable appearances" of scripture. Un. Ex., p. 178. 
 
 Without insisting on mathematical accuracy of proportion, there is 
 good evidence of ihe truth of this statement. In those many places 
 where the preacher comes but few times in the year, it may be questioned 
 whether any other subject of preaching is ever introduced. 
 
PLAIN MARKS OF FALSEHOOD. 59 
 
 while our faith makes us happy. Why thon not let iis 
 alone ? AVe who believe that God Avill piinii>h here- 
 after, solemn and momentous as is the doctrine, do not 
 feel necessitated to force it out of all proportion in our 
 preaching. We imply it always, indeed, but preach 
 it only occasionally ; and then feel no necessity to 
 wrangle continually with opposers. We discuss it and 
 let it alone — as I shall now. We know it to be God's 
 truth — we rest satisfied. But the advocates of Uni- 
 versal Salvation are never easy. Though if their doc- 
 trine is true, there is absolutely nothing at stake on its 
 reception, yet its advocates are thus perpetually boiling 
 over with the subject. What means this incessant 
 din ? Ah, I will tell you ! — it is the sound of "break- 
 ers ahead " — it is the agitation of the surf as it beats 
 upon the rocks — it is the tossing of the troubled ocean 
 when it cannot rest, whose waters " cast up mire and 
 dirt." 
 
 Xot alone in its wrangling propensities, but in its 
 incessant craving for its customary opiate, in its keen 
 sensitiveness under cxamhiation and exposure, or even 
 under passing allusions to false teachers, in its eager- 
 ness to warp to its seeming support the names of a tew 
 evangelical believers, and by many other signs it shows 
 that it is not at rest. Difficult as it is, of course, to 
 elicit the confession, there arc abundant indications 
 that the case of him described by Dr. Spencer, is not 
 uncommon.* He was a bold and zealous Universalist, 
 the chief pillar of the denomination in the town where 
 he dwelt. His dauo-hter who had married and removed 
 
 * Pastor's Sketches, second scries. 
 
60 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 to Brooklyn, was brought under deep conviction of sin. 
 She lingered long without relief, hindered by the 
 clinging remains of her Universalism. At length all 
 other props gave way, except the force of her father's 
 influence. While she was in deep trouble, the father 
 spent a week at her house ; and though he saw her 
 trouble and guessed its cause, he evaded every oppor- 
 tunity to explain. At length, as he was on the point 
 of departure, in deep anguish she threw herself upon 
 his neck, and entreated him by the love he bore her 
 not to deceive her, but to tell her truly whether he did 
 believe that all men would be saved. Overcome by 
 the appeal, with great agitation he replied, " I think it 
 very likely that some will be lost forever''' — and hur- 
 ried away. She corresponded with him ; and the love 
 he bore her made him advise her to adopt the Presby- 
 terian belief rather than the Universalist. With her 
 last prop swept away, she gave up, and became an 
 humble and i ejoicing believer. But that father — what 
 of him ? The very man who had made that admission 
 and given that advice, returned to his post, and again 
 became, and continued to be, the chief supporter of 
 the deadly delusion. 
 
 Such cases, I say, there is reason to believe, are not 
 uncommon, — the bold exterior, and the misgiving soul. 
 It is not in human nature thus to come in point-blank 
 collision with the plain word of God, without feeling at 
 times that all human assertions are but a frail guaranty 
 that when God threatens " everlasting punishment," 
 he will break his word. 
 
 Their uneasiness and consciousness of the falsity of 
 the system often shows itself terribly at the hour of 
 
PLAIN MAEKS OP FALSEHOOD, 61 
 
 death. I am not going to deny that some adherents 
 of the system, die sustained by their dehision ; nor on 
 the other hand, that evangeUcal professors are some- 
 times troubled about their hope in tlie hist hour ; nor 
 shall I attempt any comparison between the proportion 
 of such cases. Professors of religion often have douljts 
 about their acceptance with Christ, and because their 
 lives have been such. 
 
 But there is one mighty and remarkable difference 
 in tliC two kinds of cases. Whenever a dying Christ- 
 ian is agitated in the last hour, it is with no doubts of 
 the truth of his system ; it is only with fears for his 
 own personal relation to that system. He has lived 
 afar off — his own grasp is feeble — his personal q\\- 
 dence is dim; but the system lies before him, an 
 eternal rock. Give him but clear, full assurance that 
 his own heart has laid hold on that salvation, and he 
 goes down with a calmness and confidence that not all 
 hell can shake, with a liglit that the dark valley cannot 
 dim. That rock is there — his only question is, " do I 
 stand upon it ?" 
 
 But when the TJniversalist doubts, as he often does 
 in that hour, it is of the whole system on which he 
 rests. The very earth on which he stands is crumbling 
 away beneath his feet ; he, and his hope, and his 
 system, are sinking down to hell together. It is an 
 awful position ; — he clung to the rock that overhung 
 the gulf, but alas ! he sees it now cracking away, and 
 rock and man are about to be buried together in the 
 boiling abyss. Such is sometimes the terrible expe- 
 rience of the advocates of the system. On the 29tli 
 day of September, 1827, (for example,) in Windham, 
 
62 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 Greene county, N. York, died David W. Bell, a zealous 
 defender of tliis pernicious system, and a writer for the 
 Gospel Advocate. For several weeks while the fatal 
 disease was upon him, he felt the miserable delusion 
 to be giving way beneath him. " Father," said he, 
 " I find eternal punishment, which I have so long 
 disputed, now to be an awful reality. As soon as I 
 am dead, write to brother B., and to Z. T. and S. T., 
 that the doctrine we have tried to propagate is an 
 awful delusion, that it forsook me on a death bed." 
 Sometimes he would cry aloud to God for mercy — 
 again entreat his Maker to annihilate him ; sometimes 
 he would call on others to pray — again would beg 
 them not to pray for him, for he had already sealed 
 his own damnation. " Oh," said he, " it can alone be 
 for the glory of God and the good of others for me to 
 be damned ! I must be damned ! I am damned — 
 damned to all eternity. I cannot live in peace, I can- 
 not die in peace, without the assurance that my renun- 
 ciation of the delusive and dangerous heresy shall be 
 as public as my defence of it was. Oh, could I speak 
 to those delvided Universalists." And so he died. 
 " The above recantation," says David Bell his father, 
 " was made by my son when in the full exercise of 
 reason. Of this, there are many witnesses. Neither 
 was it extorted from him or occasioned by sudden 
 fright. It was from a deliberate and settled conviction 
 for weeks."* Many, no doubt, die firm or stupid; but 
 there are many such cases as tins — and in them all, the 
 doubt is not of the man's relation to the system, but 
 
 * Arvine's Cyc, p. 426. 
 
PLAIN MARKS OF FALSEHOOD. ' 63 
 
 the system sinks ; all, all goes dovrii together with aw- 
 ful crash and horrible despair. 
 
 But ill the aiiiials of the world is there a case on 
 record, where a dying man lamented his adhesion to 
 the doctrines of grace ? And though a Christian pass 
 away under a cloud, his lament is never that he had, 
 but that he had not, clung with all his heart to those 
 doctrines. The despairing Universalist charges his 
 ruin to his confidence in his system — the beclouded 
 believer to non-conformity to his. 
 
 But I must close. In my next discourse, I may 
 examine more minutely the Universalist argument. 
 Meanwhile, I think we may say of a system that so con- 
 tradicts the obvious import of the Bible as understood 
 by the common reader and the great mass of men, by 
 the best Christians and the united body of infidels, as 
 well as the more intelligent restorationists ; that is 
 driven to such emergencies ; that is guilty of such 
 gross inconsistencies and absurdities ; that gathers 
 round it such a mass of immoral sympathies and sup- 
 port ; that so contradicts common sense and general 
 conscience ; that keeps its advocates in such an uneasy 
 state, writhing, and wrangling to keep their courage 
 up, and yet often breaks down with unmitigated and 
 portentous despair in the most trying hour of life — 
 we may say of it, it carries the mark of its Parentage 
 on its brow ; and we may say to it " Get thee behind 
 me, Satan." 
 
LECTURE THIRD. 
 
 THE UNIVERSALIST ARGUMENT, DESTRUCTIVE. 
 
 Isaiah xxviii: 17, 18. Judgment also will I lay to the line, 'and right- 
 eousness to the plummet : and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of 
 lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant 
 with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall 
 not stand ; when the ovci-flowing scourge shall pass tlu'ough, then ye 
 shall be trodden down by it. 
 
 I HAVE exhibited the nature and characteristics of 
 Modern Universalism. I have pointed out the more 
 obvious marks of falsity which it bears on its forehead. 
 I come now more particularly to consider it as " a refuge 
 of lies," in its arguings ; and shall discuss 
 
 THE UNIVERSALIS! ARGUMENT. 
 
 And here my limits forbid the discussion of the sub- 
 ordinate errors, which fill up the framework of the 
 system and make it false in every part. I must confine 
 my examination chiefly to its main point, viz : its 
 denial of all moral connexion between this life and the 
 future, its assertion that all men, irrespective of char- 
 acter and conduct here, and without any indebtedness 
 to the Lord Jesus Christ, rise from the dead to eternal 
 blessedness. 
 
 I. The most incessant and arduous labor of the 
 system — and the most hopeless — is its efforts to grind 
 away the fearful threats of God's word. 
 
EVASIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 65 
 
 II. Its most impotent and distasteful work, is the 
 struggle to bring a few passages of Scripture to its 
 own support. 
 
 III. Its noisiest pretence, is the attempt to sustain 
 itself by certain inferences from God's character. 
 
 IV. Its most effective appliance, is its constant ap- 
 peal to the sympathies, principles, and passions of 
 impenitent men. 
 
 I propose to examine these several attempts in their 
 order. And 
 
 I. Let me show you a portion of the scriptures 
 which it is the chief business of its advocates to break 
 down and pulverize ; and give you specimens of the 
 mode in which they are bereft of meaning by Univer- 
 salism. 
 
 Let it be observed, however, that these passages 
 almost entirely omit that vast body of texts, which 
 describe God's abhorrence of sin, and his hot displeas- 
 ure towards it and its perpetrators. They also omit 
 that immense class, filling the Bible, which proffers the 
 favor of God 07ily on conditions. Indeed, notwith- 
 standing the number and the fearful distinctness of 
 God's threats of future vengeance, perhaps even they 
 are less permanently impressive to the humble Chris- 
 tian than those solemn constant assurances of his holi- 
 ness and liis abhorrence of sin, with which his word is 
 freighted; and especially those conditional promises, 
 which alone are made to the righteous. For, laden as 
 the Bible is with jjroffers of favor and blessing to the 
 righteous, not one of them all — and he that runs may 
 read — not one, but involves the condition, express or 
 implied, of love and obedience to God. 
 
 5 
 
66 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 Indeed, there runs through the whole plan of salva- 
 tion, and through all God's addresses to sinners, a 
 fearful sense of their danger, an alarming urgency, a 
 Divine solemnity of warning, which, doubtless, make 
 a deeper impression on the habitual reader, than it is 
 possible for the most strenuous extracts to effect. It is 
 like the sight of the actual Alps, gathering all around 
 the traveller's way and crowding on his gaze, in com- 
 parison with the detached sketches, of the tourist. He 
 feels that to deny all danger beyond this life, is to con- 
 vert all that is vast and solemn in the Plan of Salva- 
 tion into mockery and farce. The contemplation of 
 that whole scheme, as it lies in God's word, and of 
 the wonderful mission of Christ, is fitted to produce the 
 highest sense of human danger. But I must hasten 
 from the topic, with this passing allusion. 
 
 I shall not even afford the time for comments as I 
 proceed, but am willing — as the Universalist never 
 dares — to leave the pure word of God to its own im- 
 pression. But take notice how little these passages 
 depend on the use of the word " Hell," or any one 
 term or phrase, but how all the resources of language, 
 and every device of imagination, seem to be racked and 
 exhausted to express the theme. It is no pleasant 
 task for me to gather up such fearful threats. I only 
 hope that God will enable you and me, by faith and 
 repentance, to escape their power. 
 
 My readers will not fail to observe, as I proceed, that 
 these passages, though quoted for their bearing on the 
 doctrine of future punishment, do most abundantly 
 maintain all the associated doctrines which Universal- 
 ists discard. God's holiness, his intense hatred, of sin 
 
EVASIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 67 
 
 and his anger against sinners, human depravity, tlie 
 need of regeneration, the radical diiference between 
 believers and unbelievers, Christ's work the only 
 ground of acceptance and final salvation, remission of 
 punishment for Christ's sake, human probation, — all 
 these points and others are incidentally but emphatic- 
 ally taught in the passages which will be quoted. 
 
 The doctrine of a righteous retribution after death 
 is set forth in various classes of texts, which perhaps 
 may best be contemplated when thrown into groups. 
 But do not forget to observe in what immense variety 
 of phraseology these statements are conveyed ; a 
 copiousness and intensity which far outstrip all human 
 modes of statement on the subject.* Among these 
 declarations we find — 
 
 1. Passages which hold out the offer of eternal life 
 as peculiar to the righteous, — a restricted offer. God- 
 liness is profitable unto all things, having promise of 
 the life that now is, and of that which is to come. — 
 Being made free from sin and become the servants oi 
 God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end 
 everlasting life. — To them who by patient continuance 
 in well-doing seek for honor and glory and immortal- 
 ity, [God will give] eternal life. — They that be wise 
 shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and 
 they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for- 
 ever and ever. — He that reapeth receiveth wages, and 
 gathereth fruit unto life eternal. — Jesus saith unto 
 
 * 111 delivering this lecture, the author read the passages from "Whitte- 
 more's Guide, in the order in which they are quoted there to be assailed ; 
 and Avas unable to read more than half for want of time. In printing, it 
 was thought more convenient for the reader to group the texts. They 
 by no means exhaust the subject. 
 
68 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 him, Sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor, 
 and thou shalt have treasure in heaven. — And Jesus 
 answered and said, Verily I say unto you, there is no 
 man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or 
 father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for 
 my sake, and the gospel's, hut he shall receive a hun- 
 dred-fold now in this time, [this present time — Luke,'] 
 houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and 
 children, and lands, with persecutions ; and in the 
 world to come, eternal life. — And being made perfect, 
 he became the author of eternal salvation unto all 
 them that obey him. — Jesus saith unto them, I am the 
 bread of life ; he that cometh to me shall never hunger, 
 and he that believeth on me shall never thirst ; but the 
 water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of 
 water, springing up into everlasting life. — He that be- 
 lieveth shall be saved. — Believe in the Lord Jesus 
 Christ and thou shalt be saved. — The righteous shall 
 go into life eternal. — Blessed are the dead who die in 
 the Lord. — To him that overcometh, will I give to eat 
 of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise 
 of God. — For I say unto you that except your righte- 
 ousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes 
 and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the king- 
 dom of heaven. — Except ye be converted and become 
 as little children, ye shall in no case enter the kingdom 
 of heaven. — Yerily I say unto thee except a man be 
 born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.* 
 
 * 1 Tim. 4 : 8. Eom. 6 : 22 ; 2:7. Dan. 12 : 3. John 4 : 36.— 
 Matt. 19 : 21. Mark 10 : 29, 30. Heb. 5 : 9. John 7 : 35 ; 4 : 14. 
 Acts 16 : 31. Matt. 25 : 46. Rev. 14 : 13 ; 2:7. Matt. 5 : 20 ; 18:3. 
 John 3:3. 
 
EVASIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 69 
 
 Such is the invariable representation of God's word. 
 Its promises of future blessedness are all restricted to 
 the righteous, to believers in Christ. 
 
 2. Passages of Scripture which describe the future 
 states of men in contrast. 
 
 Men of the world which have their portion in this 
 life : I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness. 
 — The hope of the righteous shall be gladness ; but 
 the expectation of the wicked shall perish. — The 
 wicked is driven away in his wickedness ; but the 
 righteous hath hope in his death. — Say ye to the 
 righteous, it shall be well with him ; for they shall eat 
 the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked ! it 
 shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall 
 be given him. — And many of them that sleep in the 
 dust of the earth shall awake ; some to everlasting life, 
 and some to shame and everlasting contempt. — He 
 will gather his wheat into the garner; but he will 
 burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. — Enter ye 
 in at the strait gate ; for wide is the gate, and broad 
 is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there 
 be that go in thereat ; because strait is the gate and 
 narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there 
 be that find it. — Not every one that saith unto me, 
 Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, 
 but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in 
 heaven. — Many shall come from the east and from the 
 west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and 
 Jacob in the kingdom of heaven ; but the children of 
 the kingdom shall be cast into outer darkness : there 
 shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. — The field is 
 the world ; the tares are the children of the wicked 
 
70 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 one ; the enemy that sowed them is the devil ; the 
 harvest is the end of the world ; — as therefore the tares 
 are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in 
 the end of the world. The Son of Man shall tsend 
 forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his king- 
 dom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity, 
 and shall cast them into a furnace of fire ; there shall 
 be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the 
 righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of 
 their Father. — The kingdom of heaven is like unto a 
 net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every 
 kind ; which when it was full they drew to the shore, 
 and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but 
 cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the 
 world. The angels shall come forth and sever the 
 wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into 
 a furnace of fire : there shall be wailing and gnashing 
 of teeth. — Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; 
 thou hast been faithful over a few things ; enter thou 
 into the joy of thy Lord. And cast ye the unprofitable 
 servant into outer darkness ; there shall be wailing 
 and gnashing of teeth. — Blessed is that servant whom 
 his lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing ; verily 
 I say unto you that he shall make him ruler over all 
 his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in 
 his heart, My lord delayeth his coming ; and shall be- 
 gin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink 
 with the drunken ; the lord of that servant shall come 
 in a day when he looketh not for him, and in am hour 
 that he is not aware of; and shall cut him. asunder, 
 a.nd appoint him his portion with the hypocrites : there 
 shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. — Then shall 
 
EVASIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 71 
 
 the King say 111110 them on his right hand, Come, ye 
 blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
 for you from the foundation of the world. Then shall 
 he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart, ye 
 cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and 
 his angels. And these shall go away into everlasting 
 punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. — ^He 
 that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he 
 that believeth not shall be damned. — He that believeth 
 on the Son hath everlasting life ; and he that believeth 
 not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God 
 abideth on him. — The rich man also died and was 
 buried, and in hell he lifted up his eyes being in 
 torments, and seetli Abraham afar off, and Lazarus 
 in his bosom And Abraham said. Son, remem- 
 ber that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good 
 things, and likewise Lazarus evil things ; but now he 
 is comforted and thou art tormented. And besides all 
 this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed ; 
 so that they which would pass from hence to you, can 
 not ; neither can they pass to us, that would come from 
 thence. — The hour is coming in the which all that are 
 in their graves shall come forth ; they that have done 
 good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have 
 done evil unto the resurrection of damnation. — What 
 if God, willing to show his wrath and make his power 
 known, endured with much long suffering the vessels 
 of wrath fitted to destruction ; and that he might make 
 known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy 
 which he had afore prepared unto glory ? — Be not 
 deceived : God is not mocked ; for whatsoever a man 
 soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that sowetli to 
 
72 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption ; but he 
 that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life 
 everlasting. — That which beareth thorns and briers, is 
 rejected, and is nigh unto cursing ; whose end is to be 
 burned. But, beloved, we are persuaded better things 
 of you, and things that accompany salvation, though 
 we thus speak. — For the time is come that judgment 
 must begin at the house of God ; and if it first begin at 
 us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the 
 gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be 
 saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ? 
 — Blessed are they that do his commandments, that 
 they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter 
 in through the gates into the city. For without are 
 dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murder- 
 ers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh 
 a lie. — He that overcometh shall inherit all things ; 
 and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But 
 the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and 
 murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idola- 
 ters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which 
 burnetii with fire and brimstone ; which is the second 
 death. — He that is unjust let him be unjust still ; and 
 he which is filthy let him be filthy still ; and he that 
 is righteous let him be righteous still ; and he that is 
 holy let him be holy still.* 
 
 3. Passages which announce a final judgment upon 
 
 *Ps. 17: 14, 15. Prov. 10 : 28, 14, 32. Is.3:10,ll. Dan. 12 : 2. 
 Matt. 3: 12; 7 : 13, 14; 7 : 21 ; 8: 11, 12; 13: 38 — 43; 13: 47 — 50; 
 25: 23; 24: 46 — 51; 25: 34, 41,46. Mark 16:16. John 3:36.— 
 Luke 16 : 22, 23, 25, 26. John 5 : 28, 29. Rom. 9 : 22, 23. Gal. 6 : 
 7,8. Heb. 6:8,9. 1 Pet. 4 : 17, 18. Eev.22 : 14, 15; 21 : 7,8 : 22 : 11 . 
 
EVASIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 73 
 
 the righteous and the wicked, to decide their doom. 
 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of 
 Christ, that every one may receive the things done in 
 his body, according to that he hath done, whether it 
 be good or bad. — It is appointed unto men once to die, 
 •but after this the judgment. — Because he hath ap- 
 pointed a day in the which he will judge the world in 
 righteousness, by that Man whom he hath ordained. — 
 I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God ; 
 and the dead were judged out of the things which 
 were written in the book, according to their works. 
 — For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of 
 Christ ; for it is written. As I live, saith the Lord, 
 Every knee sliall bow to me, and every tongue shall 
 confess to God. So then, every one of us shall give 
 account of himself to God. — He that rejecteth me and 
 receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him : 
 the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him 
 at the last day. — The heavens and the earth, which are 
 now, by the same word are kept in store reserved unto 
 lira against the day of judgment and perdition of un- 
 godly men. — For as many as have sinned without law, 
 shall also perish without law ; and as many as have 
 sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law : . . .in the 
 day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus 
 Christ. — Therefore judge nothing before the time, 
 until the Loid come, who both will bring to light the 
 hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the 
 counsels of the hearts. — Every idle word that men 
 shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day 
 of judgment. — Seeing it is a rigiiteous thing with God 
 to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you ; 
 
74 LECTUEES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 and to yoii, 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 obey not the gospel of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. — When the Son of Man shall 
 come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, 
 then shall he sit on the throne of his glory ; and before 
 him shall be gathered all nations ; and he shall separ- 
 ate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his 
 sheep from the goats — And these shall go away into 
 everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life 
 eternal.* 
 
 4. Passages which speak of the endless duration of 
 future punishment, positively, by the terms, " everlast- 
 ing, eternal, for ever, forever and ever." 
 
 It is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, 
 rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast 
 into everlasting fire. — Depart from me ye cursed into 
 everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. — 
 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment. 
 — He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost Ijath 
 never forgiveness but is in danger of eternal damnation. 
 — Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction 
 from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of 
 his power. — The angels which kept not their first es- 
 tate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in 
 everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment 
 of the great day. — These are wells without water, 
 clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the 
 
 * 2 Cor. 5:10. Heb. 9 : 27. Acts 17: 31. Eev.20:12. Rom. 14 : 
 10 — 12. John 12 : 48. 2 Peter 3 : 7. Rom. 2 : 12, 16. 1 Cor. 4 : 5. 
 Matt. 12 : 36. 2 Thess. 1:6 — 8. Matt. 25 : 31, 32, 46. 
 
EVASIONS OF SCEIPTUEE. 75 
 
 mist of darkness is reservecl forever. — Wandering stars, 
 to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. 
 — If any man worship the beast and his image, and 
 receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the 
 same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, 
 which is poured out without mixture into the cup of 
 his indignation ; and shall be tormented with fire and 
 brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in 
 the presence of the Lamb ; and the smoke of their tor- 
 ment ascendeth up forever and ever. — And they said, 
 " Alleluia ! " and her smoke rose up forever and ever. — 
 And the de^al that deceived them was cast into a lake 
 of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false 
 prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night, 
 forever and ever.* 
 
 5. Passages which by the use of negative terms de- 
 clare the punishment of the wicked to be endless. 
 
 The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not he 
 forgiven unto men, neither in this world nor in the world 
 to come. — He hath never forgiveness but is in danger of 
 eternal damnation. — He that belie veth not the Son, shall 
 not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him. — If we 
 sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of 
 the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 
 but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery 
 indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. — Be 
 not deceived ; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor 
 adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves 
 with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunk 
 ards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the 
 
 * Matt. 18:8; 25:41, 46. Mark 3:29. 2 Thess. 1:9. Jude, 6. 2 Pe- 
 ter 2:17. Jiide, 13. Kev. 14:9— 11 ; 19:3; 20:10. 
 
76 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 kingdom of God. — Now the works of the flesh are 
 these : adultery, fornication, nncleanness, lascivioiisness, 
 idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, 
 strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunken- 
 ness, revellings and such like, of the which I tell you 
 before, as^I have told you in time past, that they which 
 do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 
 Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. — Where 
 their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. — 
 And there shall in no wise enter into it [the new Jeru- 
 salem] anything that defileth, neither whatsoever 
 worketh abomination or maketh a lie. — Know ye not 
 that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of 
 God ?* 
 
 6. Passages which in various forms assert or imply 
 the utter ruin of the wicked hereafter. 
 
 Woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is be- 
 trayed ! — It had been good for that man if he had not 
 been born. — Fear not them which kill the body, but 
 are not able to kill the soul ; but rather fear him who 
 is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. — I will 
 forewarn you whom ye shall fear. Fear him which, 
 after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell ; yea, 
 I say unto you, fear him. — What is a man profited if 
 he shall gain the whole world, and lose himself or be 
 cast away. — Ye serpents ! ye generation of vipers ! 
 how can ye escape the damnation of hell ? — From which 
 Judas by transgression fell that he might go to his own 
 place. — The preaching of the cross is, unto them that 
 
 * Matt. 12:31, 32. Mark 3:29. John 3:36. Heb. 10:26, 27. 1 Cor. 
 6:9,10. Gal. 5:19— 21. Hcb. 12:14. Mark 9:44, 46, 48. Rev. 21:27. 
 1 Cor. 6:9. 
 
EVASIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 77 
 
 perish, foolisliiiess. — For we are unto God a sweet savor 
 of Christ in them that are saved and in them that per- 
 ish. To the one we are the savor of death nnto death ; 
 and to the otlier the savor of life unto life. — But these, 
 as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, 
 speak evil of the things they understand not, and shall 
 utterly perish in their own corruption. — But after thy 
 hardness and impenitent heart treasureth up unto thy- 
 self wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of 
 the righteous judgment of God, who will render to 
 every man according to his deeds ; to them who by 
 patient continuance in well-doing, seek for honor and 
 glory, and immortality, eternal life ; but unto them 
 that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but 
 obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribula- 
 tion and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, 
 to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.* 
 
 7. Passages which limit the time of preparation for 
 heaven, and which teach that the punishment of some 
 men is remediless. 
 
 Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also 
 deny before my Father which is in heaven. — Whoso- 
 ever therefore sliall be ashamed of me, and of my 
 words in this evil and adulterous generation, of him 
 shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when ho cometh in 
 the glory of his Father, with the holy angels. — While 
 ye have the light, believe in the light that ye may be 
 children of the light. — Behold now is the accepted 
 time; behold now is the day of salvation. — Looking 
 diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God. — 
 
 * Matt. 26 : 24 ; 10 : 28. Luke 12:5; 9 : 25. Matt. 23 : 33. Acts 
 1:17. Rev. 1; 18. 2 Cor. 2:16. 2 Peter 2 : 12. Rom. 2:5 — 9. 
 
78 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that "be 
 saved ? and he said unto him, Strive to enter in at 
 the strait gate : for many I say unto you, shall seek to 
 enter in and shall not be able. When once the Master 
 of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and 
 ye begin to stand without and to knock at the door say- 
 ing. Lord, Lord, open unto us ; he shall answer and 
 say unto you, I know you not whence you are ; depart 
 from me, ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weep- 
 ing and gnashing of teeth. — While they [the foolish 
 virgins] went to buy, the bridgroom came ; and they 
 that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and 
 the door was shut. — Because I have called and ye 
 refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man 
 
 regarded I also will laugh at your calamity, and 
 
 mock when your fear cometh. When your fear com- 
 eth as desolation, and your destruction as a whirlwind ; 
 when distress and anguish come upon you ; then shall 
 they call upon me but I will not answer ; they shall 
 seek me early, but shall not find me. — He that is 
 unjust, let him he unjust still ; he that is filthy let him 
 be filthy still.* 
 
 Such are some of the varied forms in which the 
 word of God sets forth the fearful fact of a final retri- 
 bution. Well might the infidel reply to the Univer- 
 salist preacher, "It is of no use to talk in that way ; 
 the Bible is full of hell and every body knows it." 
 And the thoughtful reader will inquire, " If these dec- 
 
 * Matt. 10 : 33. Mark 8 : 38. John 12 : 36. 2 Cor. 6 : 2. Heb. 
 12:15. Lttke 13: 23 — 28. Matt. 25 : 10. Prov. 1 : 24 — 28. Rev. 
 22 : 11. 
 
EVASIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 79 
 
 larations do not announce tlie doctrine of future, 
 remediless punishment to the wicked, what forms of 
 human speech can set it forth ?" Hearer, can you de- 
 vise modes of expression more varied and exphcit ! 
 
 And how now can men proceed to take off the edge 
 from such terrific language ? You may well suppose it 
 a Sisyphean toil — the restless rolling of the same re- 
 fractory stone — the ceaseless filling of the same leaky 
 vessel. The Universalist pulpit perpetually creaks, 
 and their press groans, with their uneasy labors to 
 break down the plain word of God. To these refrac- 
 tory passages, Mr. Whittemore's Plain Guide, for exam- 
 ple, devotes a hundred and ninety pages, and refers his 
 reader to some thirty or forty other discussions of many 
 hundred pages more. 
 
 The process is pitiful. The writers assume in the 
 outset, that God's character is incompatible with eter- 
 nal punishment, and that any affirmation of such pun- 
 ishment must, at all events, be explained away. They 
 dare not gaze on the simple scripture statements. Their 
 examination of scripture testimony, (in their printed 
 volumes,) is invariably preceded by protracted argu- 
 ments, designed to abate the force of scripture testi- 
 mony, and explain it away. You must not look, till 
 they have mounted their juggler's apparatus ; and then 
 when you look for the character of God, they show 
 you the heart of a Universalist. 
 
 These writers distinctly avow their settled determina- 
 tion to bend the scripture to their views. " Love," 
 says Williamson in his preliminary discussion, " is the 
 very essence, the life and soul of the gospel, and / am 
 prepared to reject any and every doctrine and practice 
 
80 LECTUEE3 ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 as aiiti-cliristian, that is opposed to this all pervading 
 spirit of love." Says H. Ballou, " Moreover, we feel 
 it to be a duty to state that in room of straining par- 
 ticular passages which speak of the punishment of the 
 wicked, so as to favor the idea of unlimited punish- 
 ment, we should feel justified in restraining' any pas- 
 sage, could such be found, which should seem to favor 
 an opinion so dishonorable to God and so revolting to 
 our best feelings.'''' Moore informs us that " we should 
 carefully exclude from our credenda every principle 
 that stands opposed in its nature or tendency to love." 
 Whittemore deliberately tells us that the word " ever- 
 lasting," " when applied to punishment, ought above 
 every other case, to bear the sense of limited dura- 
 tion."* 
 
 This is sufficiently distinct and intelligible. And 
 you now see why these men cannot find future punish- 
 ment in God's word ; they are " prepared to reject any 
 and every doctrine " necessary, they " feel justified in 
 restraining any passage " requisite, they can '^carefully 
 exclude from their credenda " every principle " they 
 find " opposed " to them, they choose in the threats of 
 punishment, " above every other case," to restrict the 
 words of the Lord God. 
 
 Here you read the grand maxim of Universalism — 
 tampering ivith the ivord of God. Here you see the 
 signal of their truceless war with its plain statements. 
 Here you have the secret of that rasping and hammer- 
 ing and wrenching, to which, from end to end, the 
 scripture is subjected, till the most awful phrases and 
 
 * End. Pun. Ex., p. 5. Lect. Serm., p. 193, Un. Bel., p. 93, Plain 
 Guide, p. 198. 
 
EVASIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 81 
 
 terrific threats are emptied of all meaning. It would 
 seem hardly necessary to give examples ; for no man 
 after weighing those scripture declarations, can fail to 
 feel that any process by which they are made consistent 
 with modern Universalism, must do violence to all the 
 powers of language. Still, the exposure would be 
 incomplete, without specimens of the method. I will 
 cite them chiefly from one volume — the Plain Guide 
 of Mr. Whittemore.* 
 
 Now begins the pulverizing process. " Everlasting 
 punishment," " everlasting chains," " vengeance of 
 eternal fire," " unquenchable fire," " the smoke of tor- 
 ment ascending forever and ever," and the like, nev- 
 er mean everlasting, eternal, forever ; always limited 
 duration, "temporal judgments" (p. 190). "Eternal 
 damnation" is " the judgment of the age," (p. 134) ; 
 " eternal judgment" is " a judgment long past, an 
 ancient judgment," (p. 196). "Shall not be forgiven, 
 neither in this world, nor in the world to come," and 
 " hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal 
 damnation" means, " shall not be forgiven in the age 
 of Christ, nor the age that succeeds" (p. 101). 
 
 And thus the terms, which throughout the Bible, 
 
 * My reasons for dealing chiefly with this book in the Scripture argu- 
 ment, are several : necessary limitation and the desire of definiteness ; 
 the willingness to show how much rotteness is concentrated in a single 
 Universalist book ; the prominence of its author, for quarter of a century 
 editor of the Trumpet, and a noted champion and representative of Uni- 
 versalism ; the plan of liis book, more ambitious and complete in its 
 way, than any I have found ; its wide circulation, amounting in 1851 to 
 ten or twelve thousand, (if I rightly remember the statement in the 
 " Universalist Pulpit") which has probably given it a greater influence in 
 forming New England Universalism, than that of any other volume. 
 6 
 
82 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 invariably denote the longest possible duration of 
 which their subject is capable, and the particular 
 Greek term which in the New Testament is never else- 
 where applied to limited future time, but is used of 
 God and his glory, of Christ and his kingdom, and 
 more than fifty times to describe the happiness of the 
 righteous — this word "everlasting," the moment it 
 touches the punishment of the wicked, is suddenly 
 emptied of its meaning.* 
 
 * Uniyersalists make much parade of a few instances in which the 
 Hebrew term for " everlasting " designates something less than absolute 
 eternity, as the "everlasting hills." But the pln-ase, when applied to 
 futui'e time, always denotes the longest duration of which its subject is 
 capable. " Everlasting hills " are those which will continue to the end 
 of the world. " He shall serve forever," i. e. during the longest period 
 of which he is capable, his whole life. Hannah devoted Samuel to the 
 Lord "forever;" he was never to return to private life. "An ordinance 
 forever" is one which lasts through the longest possible time, i. e. the 
 whole dispensation of which it is a part. Such cases, few in number, do 
 not contravene in spirit the scores of instances in which it signifies abso- 
 lute eternity — the original and proper sense of the term. 
 
 The Greek adjective translated everlasting, ( aluvtoc ) when applied to 
 future duration, in all cases ( excepting for the time its application to 
 punishment ) denotes an endless period. It is used sixty-six times ; twice 
 in relation to God and his glory ; fifty-one times concerning the happi- 
 ness of the righteous ; six times of miscellaneous subjects, but with the 
 plain signification, endless ; and seven times concerning future punishment. 
 (Stuart's Essays, -p. 47.) The phrase translated " forever," ( elg rbv 
 aluva, and the plural form,) uniformly denotes, " endless duration," and is 
 emplo3''ed sixty-one times, six of lohich relate to future punishment. The 
 phrase " forever and ever," ( e/f Tovg aluvag tuv aluvuv ) also invariably 
 denotes endless duration. It occurs twenty-one times, eighteen of which 
 relate to the continuance of the perfections, glory, government and praise 
 of God; one to the happiness of the righteous ; and two to future punish- 
 ment. Plain men can understand such facts. ( Stuart's Essays on Fut. 
 Pun., p. 36.) Hahn's edition of the Greek Testament contains six other 
 instances of the word, making no change in the state of the case. 
 
EVASIONS OF SCRIPTUEE. 83 
 
 This is but a beginning. Every tronblesome phrase 
 and passage is dispatched in the same summary way. 
 To " perish," " consume," " be destroyed," is simply 
 " to fail, sink, be overcome, be driven away, be disap- 
 pointed, be slain in battle " ( p. 66 ). " Shall be more 
 tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judg- 
 ment," means that it ivas more tolerable ages ago ( p. 
 91 ). " Shall not see life," signifies the present conse- 
 quence of unbelief, is not now in a state of life ( p. 
 160). " To sleep in the*dust of the earth," denotes 
 " a state of natural indolence and sloth " ( p. 75 ) ; 
 " coming forth from the graves," denotes " a change in 
 the temporal affairs of men," but never a resurrection 
 to immortality ; and when accompanying the state- 
 ment that the good shall come forth " to the resurrec- 
 tion of life," and they that have done evil " to the 
 resurrection of damnation," it ^^ furnishes proof ^^ that 
 this resurrection is not " the immortal resurrection ! !" 
 (p. 162). The "kingdom of heaven" from which 
 the wicked are excluded, is noi heaven — it is the reign 
 of the gospel in this world (p. 88 ) ; and in all cases 
 where similar statements are made, it ceases to be in 
 the future world. To " have an hundred fold now in 
 this time, and in the world to come eternal life," is to 
 have an hundred fold " under the law," and " in the 
 age of the gospel " to have abundant peace of mind 
 and greater outward peace than ever before " ( p. 
 142). To "see the Lord," in the stern declara- 
 tion " without holiness no man shall see the Lord," 
 refers only " to a state of spiritual honor and enjoyment 
 in the present life " ( p. 208). " The angels who kept 
 not their first estate, reserved in everlasting chains 
 
84 LECTURES ON UNIVEESALISM. 
 
 under darkness unto the judgment of the great day," 
 are " ministers who kept not their proper offices, who 
 were doomed to darkness of mind," and who suifered 
 at the destruction of Jerusalem ( p. 218). "Ever- 
 lasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and 
 from the glory of his power," denotes " the banishment 
 of the Jews from their own land (p. 192). "The 
 heavens and the earth fleeing away before the face of 
 Him" which sat upon the throne, is the passing away 
 of the Jewish religion ( p. 24^). " Hell " is the grave, 
 the valley of Hinnom (p. 82 ), and sometimes " a low, 
 depressed, debased situation " (p. 96). "The broad 
 way that leads to death," is simply the path of folly 
 (p. 85). "Outer darkness" with "weeping and 
 gnashing of teeth," so often declared to be the portion 
 of evil-doers, is "a state of ignorance and uubclief" 
 of the gospel ( p. 88 ). " Many will seek to enter in " 
 at the strait gate, " and shall not be able," was fulfilled 
 when Jerusalem was destroyed, and the Jews ceased to 
 enjoy gospel privileges (p. 192). "Ye shall die in 
 your sins," — shall " as a nation be dissolved for the sin 
 of rejecting the Messiah " ( p. 164 ). " What must I 
 do to be saved ?" — what must I do " to become one of 
 your number ?" ( p. 174 ) . " The unrighteous shall not 
 inherit the kingdom of God," means, substantially, that 
 unrighteousness shall not inherit the kingdom of God 
 (p. 182 ). The " fearful thing, to fall into the hands 
 of the living God," was to suffer at the destruction of 
 Jerusalem (p. 206). The proposition, "It is ap- 
 pointed unto men once to die, and after this the judg- 
 ment," by a species of legerdemain peculiar to 
 Universalism, is transmuted thus: It is appointed 
 
EVASIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 85 
 
 unto the Jewish high priests every year to offer a 
 bloody sacrifice, after which they and the people obtained 
 ceremonial justification (p. 201 — 2).* Christ's sol- 
 emn description of the last judgment " when the Son 
 of Man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels 
 with him, and before him shall be gathered all na- 
 tions," is " a parable " ( p. 170 ) ; Judas, as we have 
 seen, was a genuine penitent (p. 134 ) ; and it was not 
 Judas, but his successor, who was to " go to his own 
 place " ( p. 170 ). 
 
 There is one grand resort when all else fails, and 
 when the language of Scripture becomes too appal- 
 ling to be trifled with ; and that is to refer it to the 
 destruction of Jerusalem. No matter how incongru- 
 ous — no matter for the Savior's own explanation to 
 the contrary — this is the great common sewer of 
 Universalist interpretation. " The last day " at which 
 
 * This marvellous piece of interpretation, it seems, was invented by 
 Hosea Ballou, Sen., Avhen he had been preaching twenty-seven years, 
 and it made him, as we may well suppose it would, "exceeding glad." 
 It is adopted by Cobb ( Compend, p. 136 ), by Williamson ( Exposit., 
 p. 119 ), and quite extensively by the denomination. 
 
 Hosea Ballou has evidently a natural genius for such feats. Thus he 
 takes the passage, Mai. 4: 1, "For behold the day cometh that shall 
 bum as an oven ; and all the proud, yea, all that do wickedly shall be 
 stubble ; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of 
 hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch," and, after a series 
 of passes upon it, he actually pronounces " the time meaning of the text " 
 to be that all the proud, all they that do wickedly " shall be translated 
 into the kingdom of God's dear Son." Lect. Serm., p. 96. I will let 
 the reader guess the process. 
 
 Whittemore has not attained such illumination ; he contents himself 
 with his usual pastime of destroying the Jews : " That the destruction 
 of the Jews is set forth under the figure of burning, is too palpably true 
 to need confirmation." Plain Guide, p. 77. 
 
86 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 Christ's word should judge his rejectors, is the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem (p. 168). When the guest 
 without the wedding garment was to be bound hand 
 and foot, and cast into outer darkness where is weeping 
 and gnashing of teeth, it is the destruction of Jerusa- 
 lem ( p. 117 ). Wlien the wicked at the end of the 
 world are to be gathered by Christ's angels and cast 
 into the furnace of fire, that is the destruction of 
 Jerusalem. The punishment of the unfaithful servant 
 whom his Lord appointed to a portion with the hypo- 
 crites — that of the servant who hid his Lord's money 
 — are the destruction of Jerusalem. " The damnation 
 of hell," is the destruction of Jerusalem ( p. 118 ). 
 The exclusion of the foolish virgins, is the destruction 
 of Jerusalem ( p. 122 ) ; and the watching of the wise 
 was their watching for the Roman armies ( p. 168 ). 
 " The wrath to come," is the destruction of Jerusalem 
 ( p. 78 ). " Wrath against the day of wrath and reve- 
 lation of the righteous judgment of God, who will 
 render to every man according to his deeds," is the 
 destruction of Jerusalem ( p. 178). "Jesus Christ 
 revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in 
 flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not 
 God and 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 " — is the destruction of Jerusalem ( p. 189). 
 The " fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indig- 
 nation which shall devour the adversaries," is the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem ( p. 205 ). The second death, 
 and the being cast into the lake of fire, took place at 
 the destruction of Jerusalem (p. 222 ). The dead, 
 
EVASIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 87 
 
 small and great, summoned before Him that sat on the 
 throne, experienced this at the destruction of Jerusa- 
 lem. The Son of Man sitting on his throne, gathering 
 all nations before him, se^vering them and pronouncing 
 their doom, while these " go away into everlasting 
 punishment, but the righteous into life eternal" — took 
 place at the destruction of Jerusalem ( p. 240 ). The 
 " holy angels " who should gather all nations before 
 the Savior, are Roman armies ( p. 104 ) ; — heathen sol- 
 diers, the armies that Christ termed " the abomination 
 of desolation," converted by Mr. "Whittemore into 
 " holy angels !" 
 
 Almost the crowning absurdity of all, is the state- 
 ment, put forth not only by this writer, but in some 
 form by all the writers of the system, that the inflictions 
 of these fearful threatenings are but the " wise, neces- 
 saiy, salutary ministrations of a father's kindness," 
 expressions of " tenderness and love " towards those 
 on whom they are inflicted. Think of the combination, 
 thus : "0 cursed children, which have forsaken the 
 right way, I will pour out my fury upon you, I will 
 take vengeance in flaming fire on you. Ye serpents, 
 ye generation of vipers ! how can ye escape the damna- 
 tion of hell ? I will render to you indignation and 
 wrath, tribulation and anguish, with everlasting des- 
 truction from my presence and the glory of my power ; 
 I will cast you into the lake of fire, and the smoke of 
 your torment shall ascend up forever and ever ; and 
 you shall never have forgiveness ; — and I will do all this 
 unto you, children of wrath, as an expression of a 
 father's tenderness and love for you." — Can anything 
 be more horribly absurd ? Does it not make one shud- 
 der to hear such delirious assertions ? 
 
88 LECTUEES ON UNIVEESALISM. 
 
 In connexion with all this weakness is found a course 
 of singular unfairness and inconsistency, rising from 
 petty quibbles and equivocations up to what it is hard 
 to believe less than downright dishonesty. Such paltry 
 evasions as this are common : When Christ solemnly 
 warns his disciples not to fear those " who kill [actu- 
 ally kill] the body," but to " fear him which is able to 
 destroy both soul and body in hell," Mr. Whittemore 
 asks, " Does it say God will destroy both soul and body 
 in hell ? No ; it says he is able to do so," — and he de- 
 nies not only that God will do it, but even that there 
 was any danger of his doing it (p. 92). That is, he 
 makes Christ solemnly " forewarn " them, not in the 
 least to fear those who could and would deprive them 
 of life itself, but to fear him who would in no conceiv- 
 able circumstances harm them — to fear him of whom 
 there was nothing to fear — yea, to fear that he would, 
 " after he had killed.,^'' (for this is the phrase of Luke) 
 destroy soul and body in a place, which, according to 
 Mr. Whittemore, has no. existence ! One form of 
 quibbling, is to deny the future-state reference of cer- 
 tain statements, because the phraseology contains, as 
 it must, idioms of this world. When ceaseless suffer- 
 ing is described, in the language of common life, as 
 the ha^dng no rest " day nor night," Whittemore and 
 his compeers insist upon it that this phrase proves their 
 suffering to be in this world, where the change of day 
 and night takes place ; though the last words preceding 
 are, " the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever 
 and ever" (p. 237). So in Christ's tale of the rich 
 man and Lazarus, though we are distinctly informed 
 that each had died, and the one was in Abraham's 
 
EVASIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 89 
 
 bosom, the other in hell, being in torments, it is con- 
 tended that this could not be in the other world because 
 the'parties have " bodies, eyes, ears, fingers ; they con- 
 verse, they reason, they see each other ;" — a principle 
 on which we ought to deny the spiritual nature of God 
 himself, because he speaks, in the language of men, of 
 his eye, ear, finger, hand and arm — reasons, converses 
 and sees. In one part of his volume we find him fram- 
 ing half-a-dozen arguments by quoting the promise, 
 " in thee and thy seed shall all nations of the earth be 
 blessed," and insisting that " all nations " must mean 
 every son and daughter of Adam in all lands and 
 times ; and then, in the gathering of all nations before 
 the Son of Man, making " all nations " comprise the 
 comparative handful who lived at the destruction of 
 Jerusalem and were implicated in that event. 
 
 A favorite device of a paltry kind, is to inquire why 
 a statement found in one gospel is not in all the gospels ; 
 when one word is employed, why not some other ; when 
 a term is used a certain number of times, and that 
 perhaps a large number, why not still more abundant. 
 Thus, why did not Christ say " destroy spirit and body," 
 rather than soul and body (p. 95) ; and Mr, Whitte- 
 more distinctly endeavors to make the impression, 
 which is false* that the word " soul " Q^v-)(ff) does 
 not, in the New Testament, denote the immortal spirit. 
 And when Christ says " they which shall be accounted 
 worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from 
 the dead . . . shall be equal unto the angels," — because 
 the phrase " accounted worthy," etc., is found in Luke 
 
 * See Robinson's Lex., Art. " ■>livxV' 
 
90 LECTUEES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 and not in Matthew and Mark, he actually argues that 
 " the weight is as two to one against the importance of 
 the words" (p. 155). And when the word Gehenna, 
 " hell," a word employed in the Savior's time to denote 
 the place of future punishment, is found as many as 
 twelve times in the New Testament, he inquires if it is 
 " not a little singular " that it occurs no more (p. 81). 
 He argues that there is no future retribution, because, 
 as he says, when the resurrection is mentioned, retribu- 
 tion is not also mentioned in the same passage ; and 
 when retribution, then not the resurrection ; — and 
 when we bring passages (like John 5 : 28, 29 ; Heb. 
 6 : 2) where resurrection and retribution are joined in 
 the most solemn manner, then we are met with the 
 astounding assertion that the very statement, " they 
 that are in their graves shall come forth " to the resur- 
 rection of life and the resurrection of damnation, 
 " furnishes proof " that the immortal resurrection was 
 not intended ! ! ( p. 162. ) 
 
 Recklessness of means is characteristic. Mr. Whit- 
 temore is willing to convey the impression that " soul " 
 does not mean the immortal spirit in the New Testa- 
 ment, and that the term Gehenna ( hell ) was not ap- 
 plied by the Jews in the time of Christ to denote the 
 place of future punishment (pp. 93,94). He boldly 
 declares that " all writers agree " to one of his asser- 
 tions, ( p. 82, ) when some of the most learned men, 
 like Dr. Robinson, deny that there is any evidence for 
 the assertion,* Now he confirms an interpretation 
 
 * That the valley of Hinnom became a place of liunishment, where 
 criminals were caused to suffer death by burning. Fires to devour offiil 
 were kindled there in the time of King Josiah ; and modem -vvTiters, like 
 
EVASIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 91 
 
 with, " SO say the best commentators " ( p. 25, ) ; when 
 as matter of fact the reader will not be able to find one 
 who " so says." 
 
 Every kind of device is unscrupulously adopted to 
 bring some seeming support of these evasions. Uni- 
 versalist and Unitarian authorities are mixed up with 
 evangelical ones, the latter mostly of a by -gone age 
 and scholarship. Every species of aid is eagerly in- 
 voked, down to the eccentric translation of Wakefield, 
 and the Douay version of the Roman Catholics. One fre- 
 quent resort is to catch at whatever peculiar view 
 may be found with individuals of the immense number 
 of evangelical expositors, and somewhat triumphantly 
 to exhibit it either as an admission of orthodoxy or as 
 a justification of the view ; not a little as though the 
 Universalist preacher should frame his code of morals 
 by looking to Jacob for falsehood, to David for adul- 
 tery, to Paul and Barnabas for contention, and to 
 Peter for cursing and swearing, with an occasional 
 embellishment from the lives of Jezebel and Jero- 
 boam. 
 
 But there are graver doings than these. To break 
 the force of the exclusive promises of the scriptures, as 
 
 Stuart, have supposed, without proof, they were kept burning in the 
 time of Clirist ; but, to the contrary, see Robinson's Lex., Art. " jsevva ;" 
 also Royce on Universalism, pp. 23, 24, quoted by Rev. N. D. George, 
 p. 242, etc. The latter writer has shown at lai-ge the gharing mis-state- 
 ments and deceptiye concealments of TJniversalists in regard to this mat- 
 ter, continued to the present day. Even Whittemorc is constrained to 
 admit ( p. 43,) that the Jews of Christ's time "are well kno-mi to have 
 believed in endless punishment ;" while there is evidence aside from the 
 Bible, that "Gehenna" was the special designation of that place of 
 punishment. 
 
92 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 already mentioned, the unhappy man in his straits 
 avers that the phrase " eternal life is not used by the 
 sacred writers to signify endless blessedness beyond 
 the grave," but peace in this world ; and yet in the 
 same volume deliberately advances three several argu- 
 ments, founded solely on the use of this phrase, to 
 prove the endless blessedness of all men beyond the 
 grave.* At one time two passages of John's Revela- 
 tion, regarding the lake of fire, the second death and 
 the punishment of liars and other wicked men, are 
 referred to the destruction of Jerusalem ; in another 
 part of the same volume, a verse is taken out of the 
 same description, midway between these two, and four 
 verses from each, to prove the blessedness of all men in 
 heaven. f In one place when his argviment requires it, 
 he distinctly asserts that Christ will " come down " 
 and " visit the earth again bodily at the resurrection 
 of the dead ;" in all other portions of his book, as his 
 necessities require, he refuses to recognize any such 
 " coming of Christ — it " took place during the apos- 
 tolic age. "J When a man does such things, can he do 
 
 * P. 140, and 25, 46, 52. 
 
 t Pp. 223. 227, 243, and p. 53. Allusion has been made to these 
 cases, and otliers like them, elsewhere ; but I willingly, by repeated ref- 
 erence, call distinct attention to these characteristic procedures of Uni- 
 versalism. Let the honest adherents of the system sec what " Guides " 
 they follow. 
 
 X P. 36. " He had ascended into the heavens bodily ; the heavens 
 would contain him till the times of the restitution ; and then he would 
 bodily visit the earth again. Now when shall he visit the earth again 
 bodily? Answer, At the resuiTCCtion of the dead." On the other hand, 
 see pp. 124, 125, 185, 186, 189 — 192. " The coming of the Lord took 
 place, as we have said, during the apostolic age." " The coming of the 
 Son of Man with his angels, took place during the natural lives of some 
 of the generation then on earth." P. 189. 
 
EVASIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 93 
 
 it in ignorance ? And can he be an honest teacher of 
 God's truth ? 
 
 Such is the course of treatment that fills two hun- 
 dred pages with its worryings of the word of God. I 
 have not tried to answer it. I have only set it naked 
 before you. Fairly before you, I am willing to leave 
 them both — the majestic, clear, and awful voice of 
 God, declaring the eternal doom of the unrepentant 
 sinner — and these poor pitiful perversions, and con- 
 temptible evasions. 
 
 My hearers, you have heard for yourselves the state- 
 ments of God's own mouth. You can judge whether 
 they have any meaning. If they do not affirm the 
 most fearful vengeance of God — if they do not de- 
 clare the eternal punishment of the wicked, how, let 
 me appeal to yourselves, how can language be so fram- 
 ed as to declare it ? Can you invent more intense or 
 varied phraseology ? If this language can be broken 
 down, could not any forms into which language can be 
 wrought, be also set aside ? Nay, do not the first prin- 
 ciples which Universalism lays down, necessitate the 
 crushing out of future punishment from the word of 
 God, at all hazards ? As specimens of interpretation, 
 are not these constructions which I have quoted, equal- 
 ly despicable in themselves, and insulting to the word 
 of God ? Do they not ascribe to God a recklessness 
 and even swaggering of speech, such as is to be found 
 only among the lowest class of men — the ungodly and 
 profane ? And must not the hope of eternal life, 
 which rests only on the expectation of finding the 
 whole Bible a tissue of inflated exaggerations, and 
 
94 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 gross extravagances of speech, sporting with the fears 
 of the great mass of men in all ages, — of finding a lie 
 in the mouth of God, and the truth in the mouth of 
 such interpreters as these — must it not be the frailest 
 of all broken reeds, perishing like the spider's web at 
 the giving up of the ghost ! 
 
 I have read of one who hung down a precipice, sus- 
 tained'by a single strand of a parting cord — of one cast 
 forth in mid-ocean on a solitary plank — and of one 
 who was seen floating in a slender skiff on the brink of 
 Niagara, and straining every sinew till, it was ready to 
 snap, in the struggle against that fearful current ; — 
 and I think their prospects cheering, and hopeful even, 
 beside his whose only hope of heaven rests on turning 
 back the dreadful tide of eternal wrath that heaves, 
 and foams, and dashes, through the word of the living 
 God. " The water shall overflow their hiding-place — 
 their covenant with death shall be disannulled, and 
 their asi'reement with hell shall not stand." 
 
LECTURE FOURTH. 
 
 THE UNIVEKSALIST ARGUMENT, AFFIRMATIVE. 
 SCRIPTURE CITATIONS. 
 
 Matthew IV : 5, 6, 7. Then tlie devil taketh him up into the holy city, 
 and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If 
 thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down ; for it is ^\Titten, He shall 
 give his angels charge concerning thee ; and in their hands they shall 
 bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot againt a stone. Jesus 
 said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy 
 God. 
 
 The arcli-enemj of souls could not only deny, for 
 the ruin of our great ancestor, the plainest teachings 
 of God ; he even quoted Scripture to our Savior, to cut 
 off the only hope of a ruined race. 
 
 . In the preceding discourse, I exposed the attempts 
 of Universalists to break down those Scriptures which 
 speak of future punishment — a rock against which they 
 ceaselessly beat, and fall in spray. I quoted, without 
 comment, a portion of that appalling array of Scrip- 
 ture testimony ; I showed you, from standard Univer- 
 salist writers, the avowed determination to destroy all 
 such testimony ; and gave you specimens, quoting vol- 
 ume and page, of the absurd and sometimes dishonest 
 methods in which that determination is carried out. I 
 now proceed to consider, 
 
 II. The attempt to bring Scripture proof for the 
 doctrine of Universal Salvation. 
 
PERVERSIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 96 
 
 The passages of Scripture adduced by Universalists 
 to sustain their system are usually very \fcw indeed. 
 Sometimes they adopt a more ambitious course ; and 
 then the texts are mostly of the following kinds : 
 First, certain passages which declare God's love, mercy, 
 or parental goodness, only, and say not a word on the 
 question at issue ; passages, therefore, utterly irrelevant, 
 but which they attempt to force into their service by 
 an inference ; — being a merciful God, say they, he will 
 not punish forever. Secondly, certain passages which 
 speak of the greatness of Christ's work, or the suiR- 
 ciency of his atonement, but which have no bearing on 
 the question whether all the individuals of the human 
 race will avail themselves of it, and be saved by it ; 
 passages, moreover, which they are wholly precluded 
 from using, because they distinctly deny that Christ 
 came to save men from any other evils than those of 
 the present life. Thirdly, certain passages which speak 
 of the spread of the gospel through the earth. Fourthly, 
 certain passages which teach the universal dominion of 
 God and Christ over willing subjects and conquered 
 rebels ; and which they assume, against the express 
 statements of Scripture, to be only over willing sub- 
 jects. Fifthly, a few passages descriptive of the final 
 state and blessedness of the righteous, which they vio- 
 lently wrench from their connexion and apply to all 
 men. 
 
 There may be a few passages not covered by this 
 description ; but it comprises the great mass of their 
 Scripture references, at their utmost extent. Most of 
 them have palpably no reference to final happiness in 
 heaven, and scarcely a dozen have any appearance of 
 
PEEVERSIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 97 
 
 it. Ill truth, Mr. Cobb, Mr. "Williamson and Mr. 
 Moore, cautiously abstain from the attempt to adduce 
 more than sis or eight passages of scripture to this 
 point, and some of these wide of the mark. They 
 prefer to rest the case chiefly on general reasoning, — 
 reasonings of their own. This, indeed, is the more 
 ordinary range of the Universalist argument. 
 
 Mr. Whittemore, however, is more ambitious, if not 
 more wise ; and he attempts to manufacture a " hun- 
 dred arguments " from the scriptures, in favor of the 
 final holiness and happiness of all men. These argu- 
 ments, after having been some years in circulation, 
 were retouched by their author to his satisfaction, and 
 incorporated in the stereotype edition of his Plain 
 Guide. To show you how desperate and forlorn is 
 this most ambitious of attempts to frame " scripture 
 arguments," I will follow him somewhat closely 
 through * And I think you will observe as I proceed, 
 that the wrenching process is quite as violent in its 
 endeavors to force the final happiness of all men into 
 these passages, as in its labor to expel the doctrine of 
 future punishment from the class we have already con- 
 sidered. 
 
 The chapter is entitled : 
 
 ^^What evidences do Universalists adduce from the 
 scriptures in support of their belief in the eventual 
 holiness and happiness of all men ? " 
 
 " Evidence from the Scriptures," is the word ; so let 
 
 * Tliis coiirse will at the same time meet the Scripture quotations of 
 the other writers, which are all included in Mr. Whittemore's greater 
 display. 
 
 7 
 
98 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 it be. Not inferences, not declamations about what 
 God nwst do, because be is so good and wise — and so 
 on ; but what he says he will do — not what Mr. Whit- 
 temore says, but what God says. See, then, after the 
 great champion has ransacked the Bible, and remod- 
 elled and stereotyped his argument, let us see what he 
 brings us. 
 
 Argument No. 1 contains this text of scripture, 
 " He hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to 
 dwell on the face of all the earth." Mr. Whittemore 
 has indeed added half a page of Universalist talk about 
 God's " benevolence," but we are listening for scrip- 
 ture and not Whittemore, and here is the solitary 
 scripture. And what does it teach ? Simply the com- 
 mon origin of the whole human family. Of their des- 
 tiny here or hereafter, not a word, not a shadow of an 
 implication. So vanishes number one. 
 
 Number 2 is like unto it. " Have we not all one 
 Father ? Hath not one God created us ?" Certainly : 
 a most important truth ; but having no more reference 
 to final salvation, than to infant baptism. 
 
 Number 3. " Behold all souls are mine, saith the 
 Lord ; as the soul of the father so also the soul of the 
 son is mine." " The earth is the Lord's and the ful- 
 ness thereof ; the world and they that dwell therein." 
 That is to say, God is the owner of all men and all 
 things : how he will dispose of them, we learn else- 
 where — those who refuse to ackiiowledge his authority, 
 he will punish. 
 
 Number 4. " Ask of me, and I will give thee the 
 heathen for thine inheritance and -the uttermost parts 
 of the earth for thy possession" (Ps. 2:8. ) "The 
 
PERVERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 99 
 
 Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into 
 his hand " ( John 3 : 35 ). The first of these passages 
 declares the spread of Christ's gospel and power through 
 this earth ; the very next verse asserting that his ene- 
 mies he will break ivith a rod of iron, and dash them 
 in pieces like a potter's vessel," — averse which Mr. W. 
 discreetly omits to quote. The other verse, as the sen- 
 tence ])efore it shows, simply declares the commitment 
 of all gifts and grace into Christ's hands ; or the in- 
 vestment of him with all qualifications and authority 
 for the fulfilment of his mission, as when he says, " All 
 power is given unto me in heaven and earth." This 
 verse also stands in a connexion most unfortunate for 
 Universalism. The next verse reads thus : " He that 
 believeth on the Son hath everlasting life ; and he tliat 
 believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath 
 of God abide th on him." 
 
 Number 5. " Thou hast given him power over all 
 flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou 
 hast given him." Precisely so : he will give eternal 
 life to those very persons whom the Father hath given 
 him ; and to no more. 
 
 Number 6. " All that the Father hath given me 
 shall come to me, and him that cometh to me, I will 
 in no wise cast out." A precious assurance indeed, to 
 " those ivho come " unto Christ ; " he will in no wise 
 cast out." But alas for the multitude that will not 
 come. 
 
 Now, as the passages separately contain no intima- 
 tion of Universal salvation, the author tries a little 
 legerdemain upon them. Two of these detached pas- 
 sages he joins together, deliberately perverts the first 
 
100 LECTURES ON UNIVEESALISM. 
 
 of them, seasons the perversion with an untruth, and 
 then draws out Universalism from the mixture. — 
 Thus : " The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all 
 things into his hands ;" " All that the Father giveth 
 me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me, I 
 will in no wise cast out." Says Mr. W., " ' all things ' 
 here means all intelligent beings. So say the best 
 commentators." He sums up thus : " All are given ; 
 all shall come ; none shall be cast out." Now, all this 
 is founded on the most reckless assumptions. First, 
 the glaring and monstrous perversion that " all things " 
 here means all intelligent beings, neither more nor less ; 
 for if it include anything more, or if it mean anything 
 different, as it unquestionably does, such as all power, 
 authority, fulness, grace, gifts, or blessings, the ar- 
 gument is absurd. Another gross sophistry is the 
 assumption that if ^^ things^' were intelligent beings, 
 they could be given into the Savior's hands or sub- 
 jected to his aiithority, only for the jDurpose of saving 
 them; — an assumption contradicted in the very verse 
 that follows — " He that believeth not on the Son shall 
 not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." 
 Conscious of weakness, Mr. Whittemore tries to 
 strengthen his position with brass : " So say the best 
 commentators," he avers. Whereas, if you can find a 
 solitary commentator who so says, you will be more 
 successful than I have been. Even a brother Univers- 
 alist has rebuked him for this perversion and untruth.* 
 
 * Rev. W. R. French, in the Gospel Banner, AiTg. 5, 1844, ( quoted 
 by N. D. George,) writes thus; "This is a favorite text with some to 
 prove our doctrine. But does it have the least, the faintest reference to 
 if? Do not " all things " denote the power given to Christ, or every- 
 
PERVERSIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 101 
 
 I have explained these passapjes seriously as they 
 deserve. Still I ought to remind you that for Mr. 
 Whittemore to adduce these passages concerning 
 Christ's work and eternal life, in proof of final salvation, 
 is in him a trick, a double trick ; for he informs us 
 ( on p. 140 ), that the phrase " eternal life " " is not 
 used by the sacred writers to signify endless blessed- 
 ness beyond the grave," and (on pp. 253 and 254) 
 that " the evils from which Jesus came to save men 
 are in this world." 
 
 Number 7 contains a text which is constantly heard 
 from the advocates of Universalism : " Who will have 
 all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of 
 the truth ?" 1 Tim. 2:4. Universalists insist upon it 
 that this expresses God's absolute determination. But 
 is it so ? No. Tlie very language Employed, refutes 
 them. It simply expresses God's benevolent desire, 
 not his irresistible will. The phrase " will have " is, 
 in the original, simply wishes or desires, and commonly 
 so translated in the New Testament. Thus, Luke 8 : 
 20, " Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, 
 desiring to see thee." It is sometimes differently 
 translated, but with the same meaning; thus, Matt. 
 
 thing necessary for the accomplishment of his work ? Does not the 
 context require this explanation ? And yet a certain book ( Guide, 
 p. 25, ) has it that ' all things ' here means all intelligent beings. So say 
 the best commentators.' These best commentators are beyond our 
 knowledge ; yet enough are at hand to bear a contrary testimony." — 
 And Mr. French cites against it, " Scott, Clarke, Campbell, Bloomfield, 
 Livermore, Tholuck;" Mr. George adds, "Heniy, Benson, Wesley." 
 To these may be added, Calvin, Barnes, Rosenmuller, Kuinoel, Olshau- 
 sen, De Wette, and Jacobus. Such is the honesty of a Universalist 
 champion. 
 
102 LECTURES ON UNI VERBALISM. 
 
 15 : 28, " woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee 
 even as thou wilt,^^ i. e. desirest. Every person who 
 has the sHghtest knowledge of the Greek language, 
 knows that here the words of the original * would be 
 exactly given thus : " Who wishes all men to be saved." 
 The text expresses, therefore, God's benevolent desire 
 or disposition, as when he says, " that thou hadst 
 hearkened unto my commandments ;" and when Christ 
 wept over Jerusalem, and said, " How often would I 
 [willed, or desired — for it is the same word as before] 
 have gathered yoxir children together, and ye luoidd 
 not. Behold your house is left unto you desolate." 
 To assert, therefore, that the text before us declares 
 God's determination, or irresistible will, is doing open 
 violence to the words which Paul wrote. But God's 
 merciful disposition, his desire that all men might be 
 saved, is wonderfully displayed in the whole plan of 
 redemption, and the invitations of the gospel ; yet 
 multitudes clearly do not come to a knowledge of the 
 truth, — and reject his salvation. " Ye will not come 
 unto me," said Christ, " that ye might have life."f 
 
 Arguments No. 8, 9, 10, 11, have no bearing what- 
 ever on the question of final salvation, but refer to the 
 general theological doctrine that God's will, or settled 
 determination, is to be accomplished. The Scriptures 
 quoted are these : in Np. 8, " thy will be done ;" " I 
 exhort therefore that first of all, supplications, prayers, 
 intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all 
 men." No. 9, " My meat is to do the will of him that 
 
 * The words are, -d-eTiei au^//vai, 
 
 1 1 waive the questions, whether " all men " here means all individuals, 
 or all classes of men ; and whether " saved " here refers to final salvation. 
 
PERVERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 103 
 
 sent me, and to finish his work." " Lo I come to do 
 thy will, God." No. 10 : " He doeth according to 
 his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabit- 
 ants of the earth ; and none can stay his hand or say 
 unto him what doest thoK ?" No. 11 : " He is in one 
 mind, and who can turn him ?" 
 
 Now, none of iis doubts that God's determination, 
 the fixed decisions of his will, are surely to be accom- 
 plished. The question is, has God absolutely deter- 
 mined that all men shall be saved ? And these general 
 quotations about God's will being accomplished, have 
 no more to do with that question, than with the return 
 of the Jews to the Holy Land. They require no 
 comment. 
 
 Number 12 quotes two passages, one describing one 
 of God's attributes, the other the rule of Christian 
 intercourse among men. The first is " God is love ;" 
 the second, " love worketh no ill to his neighbor." — 
 Mr. W., however, omits the last three words, in order 
 that the passage may seem to be a description of God's 
 dealings ; and probably having confidence that his 
 readers would never discover the omission. But sep- 
 arately or together, these passages do not touch the 
 question of final salvation. 
 
 Number 13 contains this part of a sentence ( John 
 3 : 16 ), " For God so loved the world that he gave his 
 only begotten Son ;" — here Mr. W. arrests the quotation. 
 I will merely finish the sentence, and leave him to 
 make the most of it. "For God so loved the world 
 that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
 believeth in him should not perish, but have everlast- 
 ing life." 
 
104 LECTUEES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 No. 14 contains an allusion to the passage, (Luke 6 : 
 35,) where our heavenly Father is spoken of as being 
 kind to the unthankful and evil; i. e., as it is gi^en 
 more fully in Matt. 5 : 45, " he causcth his sun to rise 
 on them, and sendeth rain on them," in this life. No 
 shadow of reference to a future life. All this, alas, 
 will then be changed. 
 
 No. 15 asserts that God is wise, hut quotes no scrip- 
 ture except that piece of a sentence, " love worketh no 
 ill." 
 
 No, 16 takes James 3 : 17, a verse that describes the 
 " wisdom from above" in a pious man, culls out of the 
 whole verse, the two phrases, " full of mercy" and 
 " without partiality" or ivr angling, and applies them 
 to God ; — and then infers the doctrine of Universal 
 Salvation. 
 
 No. 17. "As I live," saith the Lord God, " I have no 
 pleasure in the death of the wicked." Yes, ^^no pleasure'" 
 in it, he says, — -just as he f^ays again, " I have no plea- 
 sure in the death of him thatdieW — him that actually 
 dieth. The poor man dies — but God has no pleasure 
 in it, and the wail of his word floats over the gulf — "Oh, 
 that thou hadst hearkened!" 
 
 No. 18. " Thou hast created all things, and for thy 
 pleasure they are and were created." A very plain 
 scripture truth, that God made such a world .as it pleas- 
 ed him to make ; but nothing of man's future destiny. 
 
 No. 19. " The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in 
 his hand," Is. 53 : 10. Doubtless it shall ; but shall 
 all men be saved ? That is the question. 
 
 No. 20. " So shall my word be that goeth forth out 
 of my mouth ; it shall not return unto me void ; but it 
 
PERVERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 105 
 
 feliall accomplish that which. I please, and it shall pros- 
 per in the thing whereto I sent it," Is. 55 : 11. The 
 whole passage reads thus : . " As the rain cometh down 
 and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, 
 but wateieth the earth and maketli it bring forth and 
 bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to 
 the eater, so shall my word be." Does it say, the thing 
 which God pleases, is that all men be saved, however 
 they may neglect the blessing thus poured out from 
 heaven ? Not so. As the rain, so shall my word be. 
 Human neglect may frustrate both blessings. The 
 rain of heaven may cause the field of the slothful to 
 bring forth but thorns, and briers, and noxious weeds, 
 " nigh unto cursing" (Heb. 6:8). So the word of 
 God, appointed for a " savor of life unto life," becomes 
 a " savor of aeath unto death.'' No text could better 
 teach the indispensable necessity of human exertion, 
 concurring with the divine favor. The same text, re- 
 peated, forms argument No. 53. 
 
 Number 21 contains this passage : " Having made 
 known unto us the mystery of his will, according to 
 his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, 
 that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he 
 might gather together in one all things in Christ, both 
 which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in 
 him." Eph, 1 : 9, 10. Now, the Universalist might 
 draw support from the latter part of this passage, pro- 
 vided he might reconstruct the two chief phrases on 
 which the whole meaning turns, so that instead of 
 " gather together in one " it should read, make blessed 
 in heaven, and instead of " all things," all men. With- 
 out that privilege it can yield him no help. For if the 
 
106 LECTUEES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 phrase, " all things both which are in heaven and 
 which are on earth," be taken literally and without 
 restriction, it designates the whole creation, animate 
 and inanimate. In that case — observing the special 
 and double emphasis which the verse lays on Christ — 
 the most that could be signified by " gathering in one 
 [i. e. under one head] all things in Christ," would be 
 the exaltation of Christ to dominion over the collective 
 universe, things animate and inanimate, friends and 
 foes. The passage would then correspond with the 
 statement of verse 20th in the same chapter — " hath 
 set him [Christ] at his own right hand in the heavenly 
 places, far above all principality and power and might 
 and dominion, and every name that is named, not only 
 in this world, but also in that which is to come ; and 
 hath put all things under his feety 
 
 But there is a closer union than that in which the 
 whole universe participates : the perfect union of 
 Christ's friends, which he contemplated when he said, 
 " I pray for them ; I pray not for the world, but for 
 them which thou hast given me .... Neither pray I 
 for these alone, but for them also which shall believe 
 on me through their word ; that they all may be one." 
 Now, if we restrict this phrase " all things," in the 
 text, we may not do it arbitrarily, but in accordance 
 with other Scripture and the context. He will then 
 " gather together all things " that are to be gathered, 
 " all things in Christ," holy beings ; " both which are 
 in heaven and which are on earth." — One dark world, 
 the world of hell, has no part in that union. But 
 Christ will gather in one happy and harmonious whole, 
 one triumphant church, of which he is the head, the 
 
PERVERSIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 107 
 
 saints in heaven and saints on earth, Gentile and Jew 
 ahke. Thus, in the 22d verse, God " hath put all 
 things under his feet, and given him to be head over all 
 things to the church, v/liich is his body." 
 
 Whether taken, therefore, in an unrestricted or a res- 
 tricted sense, whether declaring the gathering of the 
 whole Universe under Christ, as King, or of the whole 
 Church under him, as Head, the text has nothing for Uni- 
 versalism. As Monarch, he will reign over a harmonious 
 empire, and " break in pieces his enemies with a rod of 
 iron ;" as Head over all things to the Church, he will 
 gather them into a perfect union, even according to 
 his prayer while on earth. Which of these views is 
 prominent, it is not easy perhaps to say. In tlie 21st 
 and 22d verses of the chapter both views seem to be 
 combined. 
 
 Number 22 cites four .verses, (Is. 14 : 24, 27 ; 46 : 
 11 ; Eph. 1 : 11) declaring only the certainty of God's 
 purposes in general, and therefore requiring no com- 
 ment. 
 
 Number 23 cites the promise to Abraham, (Gen. 
 12 : 3) closing thus : " In tliee shall all the families of 
 the earth be blessed ;" and (Gen. 22 : 18) " in thy seed 
 shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." 
 
 Number 24 is the repetition of the same promise to 
 Isaac, Gen. 26 : 34. 
 
 Number 25, the repetition of it to Jacob, Gen. 28 : 
 14. 
 
 Number 26, the quotation of it by Peter, Acts 3 : 
 25, 26. 
 
 Number 27, the quotation of it by Paul, Gal. 3:8. 
 
 Number 87 is also, virtually, a repetition of the 
 
108 LECTUEES ON UNIVEUSALISM. 
 
 same promise ; making the sixth use of the same ma- 
 terial for a separate " argument." 
 
 The passage itself very obviously declares the exten- 
 sion of the gospel blessings to all nations on the earth, 
 both Jevi and G-entile ; biit utters not an intimation 
 concerning the final salvation of every child of Adam, 
 in Heaven. To go no further for evidence, the apos- 
 tles Peter and Paul^ in the very passages quoted, (Acts 
 3 : 26 and Gal. 3 : 8) clearly teach that the fulfilment 
 of that promise was taking place when Christ's gospel 
 was preached " to the Jews first," and when the same 
 offer of justification " through faith " was proclaimed 
 to the " heathen." " They which are of the faith, the 
 same are the children of Abraham. And the Scrip- 
 ture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen 
 through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abra- 
 ham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So 
 tlien, the^ ivhich be of faith are blessed with faithful 
 Abraham. And if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abra- 
 ham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.''^ (Gal. 
 3 : 7, 8, 9, 29.) This is sufficiently distinct. While 
 . the blessings of Abraham, the blessings of Christ, are 
 to be proffered to all nations, these blessings shall be 
 actually reaped only by those individuals who are 
 Christ's, who are of the faith ; they are " heirs accordT 
 ing to the promise." There is no Universalism here. 
 
 Number 28 contains this solitary scripture : "Is 
 the law, then, against the promises of God ?" Gal. 3 : 21. 
 But as this has no more connection with the question 
 than has the first verse of Genesis, I pass it. 
 • Number 29 contains a favorite passage. Is. 45 : 23, 
 24. " I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out 
 
PERVERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 109 
 
 of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return, 
 that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall 
 swear. Surely shall one say, In the Lord have I right- 
 eousness and strength." Here the Universalist quota- 
 tion always discreetly stops ; but let us read straight 
 on, and the passage explains itself: "Even to him 
 shall men come ; and all that are incensed againsi him 
 shall be ashamed. In the Lord shall the seed of Israel 
 be justified, and shall glory." 
 
 Tliis, then, declares the final and open acknowledg- 
 ment of God's ascendancy and dominion — his undispu- 
 ted sway over friends and foes. All " that are incensed 
 against him," shall be " ashamed and confounded," (as 
 it is expressed just below); " the seed of Israel " (the 
 spiritual seed) " shall glory." Paul has told us when 
 that grand and solemn time shall be. He quotes this 
 very passage (Rom. 14: 10, 11, 12,) as a declaration 
 of the day of final judgment. He says, " We shall 
 all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. For it 
 is written. As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall 
 bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. So 
 THEN," he adds, " every one of us shall give account of 
 himself to God." Yes, friend and foe, we shall all 
 stand before that judgment-seat, and, willing or unwil- 
 ling, every knee shall be made to bow, and every 
 tongue, even those that denied him on earth, constrained 
 before that awful throne to confess that Jesus Christ is 
 Lord. Even on earth, the devils were forced to con- 
 fess that Jesus was the Holy One of God. Multitudes 
 of men now defy his claims. But in that day, none 
 will ha able to deny the authority, or stand before that 
 mighty power. 
 
110 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 Number 30. " What he had promised he was able to 
 perform." Rom. 4:21. This text, in its comiexion, 
 declares God's ability to give to Abraham a son, Isaac, 
 as he had promised. Another passage, once quoted 
 already, — " none can stay his hand or say unto him 
 what doest thou?" — also declares God's mighty power, 
 and says equally little of final salvation. 
 
 Number 31. " Who gave himself a ransom for all." 
 " That he by the grace of God should taste death for 
 every man." " He is the propitiation for our sins ; and 
 not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole 
 world." 1 Tim. 2:6; Heb. 2 : 9 ; 1 John 2 : 2. Waiv- 
 ing the inconsistency, again, of Mr. Whittemore's quo- 
 ting Christ's work to prove final salvation,* — these 
 passages simply declare the freeness and sufiiciencj of 
 that work ; it is ample, all-sufficient. All men might 
 be saved by it ; Init will they ? Of this there is not 
 an intimation. 
 
 So we say, in this city there arc free schools for the 
 thorough education of all the children — they are pro- 
 vided for every child — not for our children only, but 
 for the whole multitude of children, native and foreign. 
 But are they all in the schools ? — will every one of 
 them bo educated ? Alas, not half of them, perhaps, 
 are kept in those schools, not one in four will receive 
 their full benefit. Christ died for the whole world, 
 that " whosoever believeth on him might have eternal 
 life." But he said to some, " Ye will not come unto 
 me that ye might have life." Ho gave himself a " ran- 
 som for all ;" but his apostle tells of those who " deny 
 
 * The reader is desired to bear this in mind without furtlier allusion. 
 
PERVERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. Ill 
 
 the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves 
 swift destruction." The offers of mercy are made to 
 all ; the promises of mercy, only to those who accept 
 the offers. 
 
 Number 32. " He shall see of the travail of his 
 soul and be satisfied," Is. 53: 11. Entirely wide of 
 the point. "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth 
 will draw all men unto me," John, 12 : 32. This is 
 very far from declaring that he will bring all men to 
 heaven, and give them eternal life. Christ elsewhere 
 defines, to whom this " lifting up " of himself shall 
 bring eternal blessedness. Listen : " And as Moses 
 was lifted up in the wilderness, even so shall the Son 
 of Man be lifted up, that ichosoevcr believeth in him 
 should not perish, but have everlasting life," John, 3 : 
 14, 15. The text, then, neither asserts nor implies 
 the final salvation of all men. Its statement is in 
 itself somewhat vague and indeterminate ; and as its 
 connexion is abrupt, its actual reference has been di- 
 versely understood. The previous words are these : 
 " Now is the judgment of this world ; now shall the 
 prince of this world be cast out." 
 
 If we understand Christ to say that he is now break- 
 ing the hitherto undisputed sway of Satan, and attract- 
 ing the human race toward himself ; or that hj his 
 cross he will open a way whereby all men may come 
 to him, and he will draw men of all classes and nations; 
 either view would meet all the demands of this brief 
 passage and the scripture mode of statement. The 
 scripture, it is admitted on all hands, employs current 
 forms of speech, without affecting useless and formal 
 niceties of expression. Where general and even uni- 
 
112 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 versal phraseology has gained a standing restriction 
 by universal usage and perfect understanding, the 
 sacred writers do not hesitate to employ it. All writ- 
 ers or speakers do so. Language just like this, is used 
 of Christ in John, 3 : 26 ; " behold, the same baptizeth 
 and all men come to hini.''^ It does not mean, (as is 
 perfectly understood,) that every person in the world 
 or in Judea came to him ; but that he was the object 
 of general, or, as we often say, universal, interest. So, 
 in the- text, Christ declares himself the object of gene- 
 ral or universal attraction, without at all impairing his 
 other statements concerning those who will not receive 
 him — who " shall die in your sins ; and whither I go 
 ye cannot come," Similar general expressions are to 
 be found in Nos. 88, 39, 40 ; which form a good com- 
 mentary on this passage. 
 
 This I apprehend to be the meaning. Still, another 
 view is possible. This word " draw," is used of force 
 and compulsion, as well as gentle influences. (Acts 
 16 : 19 ; 21 : 20 ; Jas. 2 : 6 — the same Greek word in 
 each case.) Now if we understand that he is to be 
 exalted on the cross as the grand central object, 
 toward which all men shall be drawn in endearing 
 love or in eternal conflict — this, too, would give a 
 consistent meaning. But in any case, the text does 
 not assert that every human being shall be drawn to 
 heaven. 
 
 Number 33. " Behold I bring you good tidings of 
 great joy, which shall be to all people." Luke 2 : 10. 
 Joyful tidings indeed, freely proclaimed to all men ; but 
 not a word of the acceptance by all men, nor their 
 final salvation. 
 
PERVEESIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 113 
 
 Numbers 34 and 35, contain the passages, John 4 : 
 42, and 1 John 4 : 14, in which Christ is called " the 
 Savior of the world." But, as to be the " Surgeon of 
 a Regiment," does not imply that every member of the 
 regiment receives surgical treatment, and that against 
 his will ; so Christ may be called the Savior, the pro- 
 vided, the offered Savior " of the world," though many 
 obviously do not avail themselves of his kind offers, 
 and refuse the provided help of the great Physician, 
 Closely akin to tliis is the passage, (in argument No. 82,) 
 "God who is the Savior of all men, especially of those 
 that believe," (1 Tim. 4 : 10,) — a passage that carries 
 its own explanation on its face : the offered Savior of all 
 men, — the special, actual Savior of them that believe. 
 " God so loved the ivorld that he gave his only begot- 
 ten son, that whosoever believeth on him might not 
 perish." 
 
 Number 36. " 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," Acts 3 : 20, 21. The 
 Universalist arbitrarily assumes that the " restitution 
 of all things," denotes the final holiness and happiness 
 of all men. But Christ uses a similar phrase of Elias : 
 " Elias truly shall first come and restore all things." — 
 Matt. 17 : 11. But Elias (or John the Baptist) was 
 not to save all men in heaven ; he was to restore all 
 things which God had assigned and the prophet de- 
 clared — all within his function ; he was the means of a 
 partial reformation among the Jews, " restoring " a 
 portion of them only, and in some degree, to a right 
 
114 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 notion of their own economy and of the Messiah, and 
 to a preparation for Christ's coming. 
 
 A far higher restoration was to be accomplished by 
 Christ, a glorious recovery of a fallen church (Acts 1 : 
 6) and a ruined world ; and " the times of restitution" 
 here spoken of are no other — so the text specifies — than 
 the same which " God spake by the mouth of all his 
 holy prophets." The reader who will read the subse- 
 quent verses, containing the quotations from those 
 prophets, will see that the text has no bearing whatever 
 on the question of final salvation, but teaches that the 
 heavens must receive the Lord Jesus, until all things 
 spoken by the prophets in relation to his work, his 
 reign, the spread of the gospel, the triumph of religion, 
 shall be fulfilled. Indeed, in the next verse but one, 
 we are told " that every soul which will not hear that 
 prophet [whom the Lord your God will raise up] shall 
 be destroyed from among the people." 
 
 Number 37. " I will put enmity between thee and 
 the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; it 
 shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel." 
 Gen. 3 : 15. No comment required. 
 
 Number 38. " All the ends of the world shall remem- 
 ber and turn unto the Lord ; and all the, kindreds of 
 the nations shall worship before him." Ps. 22 : 27. The 
 spread and triumph of God's kingdom, on the earth, 
 manifestly. It does not state that every child of Adam 
 from the beginning has turned to the Lord, and is to 
 be saved in heaven ; nor that it will be so. 
 
 Numbers 39 and 40. "All kings shall fall down 
 before him, all nations shall serve him ..... men 
 shall be blessed in him, all nations shall call him bless- 
 
PERVERSIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 115 
 
 ed." Ps. 72 : 11, 17. " All nations whom thou hast 
 made shall come and worship before thee, Lord, and 
 shall glorify thy name." Ps. 86 : 9. The same as before ; 
 the future triumph of Christ's gospel on earth. 
 
 Numbers 41, 42, 44, merely contain Scripture state- 
 ments that God is a merciful God, good, and slow to 
 anger. Ps. 136 ; Ps. 145 : 8, 9. 
 
 Number 43. " All thy works shall praise thee, and 
 thi/ saints shall bless thee." Ps. 145 : 10. Among all 
 these irrelevant passages let it be borne in mind that 
 the simple question is, " Scripture evidence of the 
 eventual holiness and happiness of all men." No com- 
 ment is necessary.* 
 
 Number 45. " The Lord is merciful and gracious ; 
 he will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger 
 forever," Ps. 103 : 8, 9. Look forward two verses and 
 you will find that it is mercy " towards them that fear 
 him." 
 
 Number 46. " Though your sins be as scarlet, they 
 shall be white as snow ; though they be red like crim- 
 son, they shall be as wool." Is. 1 : 18. A gracious 
 promise of forgiveness, uttered on the condition just 
 expressed, " Wash you, make you clean, put away the 
 evil of your doings," etc. (verses 16, 17); and followed 
 by the threat, (v. 20) " But if ye refuse and rebel, ye 
 shall be devoured by the sword." 
 
 Number 47. Is. 2 : 2. " All nations shall flow unto 
 it," i. e. the mountain of the Lord's house. The fu- 
 
 * The reader will take notice here of a characteristic procedure, in 
 separating these three verses (8, 9 and 10) of the 145th Psalm, to make 
 three separate arguments — but all irrelevant. The process is repeated 
 in other cases. 
 
116 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 ture glorious ascendancy of Christ's kingdom among 
 the nations, in this world. 
 
 Numbers 48, 49, 50, 51, are made by cutting up 
 three verses (6, 7, 8) of Is. 25, into four fragments, 
 and arresting the quotation in the middle of the third 
 Terse, for very obvious reasons. The first two clauses 
 are these : " And in this mountain shall the Lord of 
 Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast 
 of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of 
 wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in 
 this mountain the face of the covering cast over all 
 people and the vail that is spread over all nations." — 
 This, as the context shows, denotes the triumph of 
 God's cliurch in this world ; taken literally, the deliv- 
 erance and prosperity of Israel ; or, if symbolically, 
 the blessings of the gospel dispensation, and the removal 
 of the vail of idolatry and superstition from the nations. 
 
 The other two clauses read thus : " He will swallow 
 up death in victory ; and the Lord God will wipe away 
 tears from off all faces." There Mr.Whittemore stops ; 
 but read on : — " And the rebuke of his people shall he 
 taken away from off all the earth ; for the mouth of 
 the Lord hath spoken it." It is then God's people 
 whose victory and fulness of joy are here predicted ; 
 and in the next verse but one we are told how he will 
 tread down their enemies. 
 
 Number 52. " The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, 
 and all flesh shall see it together." Is. 40 : 5. Yes, it 
 shall be very fully revealed even here below ; — and some 
 shall " wail " when they see his final glory. Rev. 1 : 7. 
 
 Number 53 repeats the quotation of number 20, viz. 
 Is. 55 : 10, 11. 
 
PERVEESIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 117 
 
 Number 54. " I will also give thee for a light to 
 the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation 
 unto the end of the earth." Is. 49 : 6. Eemarks 
 are not called for. 
 
 Number 55. "I will not contend forever, neither will 
 I be always wroth ; for the spirit should fail before me, 
 and the souls which I have made." Is. 57 : 16. The 
 previous verse tells us that God is speaking of the 
 " humble and contrite ones ;" while subsequent verses 
 are laden with threats to " the wicked." 
 
 Number 56 contains the passage, Jer. 31 : 33, 34. 
 " I will put my law in their inward parts," etc. But 
 as the last words preceding expressly declare this to be 
 a covenant or promise for the house of Israel, there is 
 no need of comment. 
 
 Number 57. " The Lord will not cast off forever," 
 etc. Lament. 3 : 31 — 33. But the prophet is speaking 
 (\^^ 25, 26) of those " that wait for him, the soul that 
 seeketh him." Such he will not cast off forever, though 
 he afflict for a time. 
 
 Number 58 quotes the passage, Dan. 7 : 14, in which 
 it is said that " all peoples, nations and languages shall 
 serve him " — declaring the final ascendancy of Christ's 
 kingdom on earth, but employing a term, " serve^'' 
 equally compatible with voluntary and involuntary 
 subjection. 
 
 Number 59. "I will ransom them from the power of 
 the grave ; I will redeem them from death. death, 
 I will be thy plague ; grave, I will be thy destruc- 
 tion." Hosea 13 : 14. But whom will he thus ransom 
 and redeem ? The context answers, " Israel," penitent 
 Israel. " Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in 
 
118 LECTUKES ON UNIVEESALISM. 
 
 me is thy help," (v. 9) ; "0 Israel, return unto the 
 Lord thy God," etc. (14 : 1—5). 
 
 Number 60. " He retaineth not his anger forever, 
 because he delighteth in mercy." Micah7:18. Towards 
 whom ? The very last words preceding are, he " pass- 
 eth by the transgression of the remnant oihis heritage ;" 
 and the words following are equally restricted to his 
 own peculiar people. 
 
 Number 61. The people " wondered at the gracious 
 words which proceeded out of his mouth." Luke 4 : 
 22. But those words had no reference to this subject. 
 Yet on that very occasion he did tell them that Elijah 
 blessed but one of many widows, and of many lepers 
 Elisha healed but one. And they led him to the brow 
 of the hill to cast him down headlong ! 
 
 Number 62 refers, without quoting, to Matthew 6 : 
 25 — 44, where Jesus enjoins confidence in God, and 
 dissuades from anxious thoughts for the morrow ; 
 assuring those who seek first the kingdom of God and 
 his righteousness, that all things else shall be added 
 unto them. 
 
 Number 63 refers to Matt. 16 : 6, 12, where Jesus 
 cautioned his disciples to " beware of the leaven [or 
 doctrine] of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees !" 
 
 The reader, as he casts his eye over these absurdly 
 irrelevant quotations of the notorious champion of 
 Universalism, will be sometimes ready to question 
 whether Mr. Whittemore can be fairly represented — 
 whether such puerile arguments could have obtained 
 a circulation of 12000 copies in 1851 ; but if he will 
 take the trouble to examine for himself, he will find 
 that I am giving Mr. W. the full benefit of his " evi- 
 
PERVERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 119 
 
 dence from the Scriptures " — all his quotations. 
 
 Number 64. "In the resurrection they neither marry 
 nor are given in marriage ; but are as the angels of 
 God in heaven." Matt. 22 : 30. In the parallel passage 
 in Luke 20 : 35, it reads thus : " They that are counted 
 worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection [i. e. 
 the blessed resurrection — see Phil. 5 : 11] from the dead, 
 neither marry," etc. ; a qualification which Mr. W. 
 very carefully refrains from quoting. 
 
 Number 65. " Woe unto you. Scribes and Pharisees, 
 hypocrites ; for ye shut iip the kingdom of heaven 
 against men ; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither 
 suffer ye them that are entering to go in." Matt. 23 : 
 13. Rather an unfortunate quotation for a Universal- 
 ist, that the Scribes and Pharisees would not enter 
 heaven, and prevented others ! And not only so ; but 
 to these same men on another occasion Jesus said, 
 " Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers ! how can ye 
 escape the damnation of hell ?" Matt. 23 : 33. 
 
 Number QQ refers (without transcribing) to Peter's 
 vision, (Acts 10 : 10—15 ; 11 : 5—10) in which, by the 
 symbol of a sheet containing things ceremonially un- 
 clean, with the command, " Slay and eat," Peter is 
 taught that Gentiles, as well as Jews, are to be receiv- 
 ed into Christ's church on earth. This is the single 
 lesson of the vision, as expressly declared in verses 34 
 and 35. The egregious and pitiful displays of weak- 
 ness in Mr. Whittemore's interpretation, I omit. 
 
 Numbers 67, 68, 69, quote, by piecemeal, Romans 
 5 : 18, 19, 20, 21. " As by the offence of one, judgment 
 came upon all to condemnation ; even so by the right- 
 eousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto 
 
120 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience 
 many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one 
 shall manji be made righteous. Moreover, the law en- 
 tered that the offence might abound. But where sin 
 abounded grace did much more abound ; that as sin 
 hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign 
 through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ 
 our Lord." 
 
 Now, observe, the whole chapter of which this is an 
 extract, is occupied with a discussion of the method by 
 which believers are justified. It begins thus : There- 
 fore being justified by faith, we have peace with God 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ ;" and continues in the 
 same strain. He speaks of us " who have access by 
 faith — in whose hearts the love of God is shed abroad 
 by the Holy Ghost — justified by Christ's blood — recon- 
 ciled to God — and joying in God ;" (vv. 1-11) and 
 describes the effect of that justification on those who 
 thus partake of it. The argument in the passage quo- 
 ted, contrasts the relation of Christ to the believer 
 with that of Adam ; and simply and manifestly de- 
 clares that Christ as effectually secures the salvation of 
 all who are united to him by faith, as the fall of Adam 
 did the fall and condemnation of all that were connec- 
 ted with him by nature. We may add, that as noth- 
 ing which Adam did, condemned the sinner to endless 
 misery, independent of his own acts and voluntary 
 participation in sin, so nothing that Christ has done, 
 can save him from God's wrath, without his own per- 
 sonal, voluntary choice of holiness, and of Christ as 
 his portion. 
 
 Number 70. " Because the creature itself shall be 
 
PERVERSIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 121 
 
 delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glo- 
 rious liberty of the sons of God." Rom. 8 : 28. With- 
 out entering on the discussion of a vexed and obscure 
 passage, I would say that the most probable interpre- 
 tation seems to be that of De Wette and others, which 
 imderstands by "creature," here, the creation, or more 
 exactly, " all nature animate and inanimate in contra- 
 distinction from man." This whole creation groaneth 
 and travaileth in pain together until now — it is suffer- 
 ing in the fall ; but it shall also participate in the glo- 
 rious liberty of the sons of God — " with the coming of 
 God's kingdom and the manifestation of the Messiah's 
 glory shall be connected an exaltation and glorifica- 
 tion of all nature."* If this be not the meaning, the 
 passage is too obscure to found an argument upon, and 
 certainly gives no aid to Universalism. 
 
 Number 71. " Blindness in part is happened to 
 Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. 
 And so all Israel shall be saved," etc. Rom. 11 : 25, 
 26. This is a fragment of a passage concerning the 
 ingathering of both Jews and Gentiles, living in mil- 
 lenial times. It has no reference to men of all times : 
 Paul had previously proved that a large portion of the 
 Jews of his own time would be rejected and lost. But 
 the time is coming when " the fulness of the Gentiles," 
 the great body of the Gentiles then living, and " all 
 Israel," surviving Israel as a people, shall be gathered 
 into Christ's kingdom, and saved. The church is look- 
 ing and praying for that time. Meanwhile, " blindness 
 in part is happened to Israel ;" a large part of them 
 
 * De Wette, in loco. 
 
122 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 " behold as despisers, and wonder, and perish." So do 
 the Gentiles also. 
 
 Number 72. " For none of us liveth to himself, and 
 no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live 
 unto the Lord ; and whether we die, we die unto the 
 Lord ; whether Ve live, therefore, or die, we are the 
 Lord's." Rom. 14 : 7, 8. Paul speaks of " us," himself, 
 and the fellow-Christians whom he was addressing. 
 The attempt to extract Universalism from such a 
 passage, shows the ludicrous straits to which the 
 system is driven. Think of saying of a profane and 
 loathsome wretch, " he lives unto the Lord !" 
 
 Number 73. " As in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
 shall all be made alive." 1 Cor. 15 : 22. A favorite 
 passage ; it is the one which Mr. Barnum ordered to 
 be inscribed in the form of a pair of balances on the 
 tomb-stone of one of his strolling circus-musicians,* 
 on one of those expeditions, in which he himself was 
 alternately negro-song-singer and Universalist preacher, 
 deceiver and dupe, swindler and swindled. 
 
 But the passage has no consolation for wicked men. 
 Look through the chapter, and you will find the whole 
 of it taken up with an argument for the resurrection 
 of Christ's disciples, drawn from the resurrection of 
 Christ himself. And this text plainly speaks of the 
 resurrection of the body, and nothing else ; — it means 
 precisely what it says, they " shall be made alive" 
 raised from the dead. Their state after tlie resur- 
 rection is not hinted at in this verse. Believers will 
 indeed rise to blessedness ; but the statement is not 
 found in this text. The apostle, moreover, is speaking 
 
 * Life of P. T. Barnum, p. 187. 
 
PERVERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 123 
 
 here only of believers ; he proceeds, " every man in 
 his own order: Christ the first-fruits, afterward they 
 that are Christ's, at his coming." Here is a double 
 limitation : he declares only the resurrection from the 
 dead ; he has in view now only the case of believers. 
 
 Numbers 74 and 75 quote other passages of the 
 same chapter, " The last enemy that shall be destroyed 
 is death," v. 26. Also verses 42—44, describing the 
 state of the spiritual body in the resurrection. But it 
 is difficult to see how the abolition of temporal death 
 to the Christian, or the characteristics of the Christian's 
 spiritual body, can prove the salvation of all men in 
 heaven. 
 
 Number 76. " God was in Christ reconciling the 
 world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto 
 them." 2 Cor. 5 : 19. This verse states the object of 
 Christ's work ; but is so far from affirming that all men 
 are actually reconciled, or that the reconciliation takes 
 place without their agency, that hi the very next verse 
 Paul entreats them, " We pray you in Christ's stead, 
 be ye reconciled to God." Mr. Whittemore prudently 
 omits this entreaty. 
 
 Number 77. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, 
 there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male 
 nor female ; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if 
 ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs 
 according to the promise." Gal. 3 : 28, 29. No com- 
 ment is required except that, according to the last 
 words preceding, those whom the apostle addressed 
 had " put on Christ," and were " all children of God 
 by faith in Christ Jesus." 
 
 Number 78 contains the passage, " Every knee 
 
124 LECTUEES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 should bow," etc. Phil. 2 : 9—11, vh'tually the same 
 with No. 29, and sufficiently explained in that place ; — 
 not a holy and voluntary submission alone, but a sub- 
 jection, voluntary or involuntary, before Christ's 
 glorious power. 
 
 Number 79. " If thou shalt confess with thy mouth 
 the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that 
 Grod hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be 
 saved." Rom. 10 : 9. But how if we do not believe and 
 confess ? "He that believe th not shall be damned." 
 
 Number 80. "It pleased the Father that in him 
 should all fulness dwell ; and having made peace 
 through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all 
 things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be 
 things in earth or things in heaven." Col. 1 : 19, 20. 
 This passage, let the hearer observe, does not speak of 
 all souls, but of " all things " in heaven and on earth. 
 In interpreting it, we are therefore absolutely com- 
 pelled to understand in a very limited sense either this 
 phl-ase, " all things," or the word " reconcile." To 
 affirm that literally all things in heaven and earth, 
 comprising holy angels as well as beasts and stones, 
 shall be saved in heaven, forces an absurd meaning on 
 the passage. If we take this phrase in its unrestricted 
 and utmost extent, the " reconciliation " can be no 
 more than a general union, or order introduced into 
 the universe. But if we choose to insist that the word 
 " reconcile " here denotes a cordial union to God, then 
 the phrase " all things" must be restricted — and re- 
 stricted, too, according to the explanatory declarations 
 elsewhere given in God's word ; — he was manifested to 
 reconcile all that was to be reconciled. 
 
PERVERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 125 
 
 " The real scope of the passage seems to be that all 
 reconciliation in GocVs universe was to be effected only 
 through Christ. The special emphasis of the verse it- 
 self, (" by him, I saj/,''^ ) and its context, alike point to 
 this meaning. The theme is the dignity of Christ. 
 The previous verses are setting forth his glory : He is 
 the creator (v. 16 ) ; he upholds all ( v. 17 ) ; he is 
 the head of the church (v. 18 ) ; in him is all the ful- 
 ness of God (v. 19), and (v. 20,) he is the only 
 pacificator, the source of all reconciliation in God's 
 universe, in earth and heaven, between God and sin- 
 ners, and among sinners themselves. 
 
 This " reconciliation "is so far from including the 
 unconditional salvation of all men, which Universalism 
 holds, that the very next verse conditions it upon con- 
 tinuance in the faith and hope of the gospel : " And 
 you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your 
 mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled, in 
 the body of his flesh through death, to present you 
 holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight ; 
 if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and 
 be not moved away from the hope of the gospel," etc. 
 "Whatever, then, that reconciliation may be, it is here 
 conditioned on continuance in the faith ; — a condition 
 fatal to Universalism.* 
 
 Number 81 refers again to ITim. 2: 1 — 6 ; a passage 
 which has been already used piecemeal in numbers 7, 
 8 and 31. 
 
 Number 82 contains the passage, " God who is the 
 Savior of all men, especially of those that believe," — 
 but garbled and shorn of the latter clause, for obvi. 
 
 * This exposition takes the text as it stands in the English version. 
 
126 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 ous reasons. The passage has been explained under 
 number 35. 
 
 Number 83. " For the grace of God that bringeth 
 salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that 
 denying ungodliness and every worldly lust, we should 
 live soberly, righteously and godly in this present 
 world, looking for that blessed hope," etc. Certainly 
 a gospel that holds out a " blessed hope " to those who 
 lead such a life as that, presents no great encourage- 
 ment for the " unholy and profane," the " filthy " and 
 " abominable." 
 
 Number 84 quotes Heb. 2 : 14, where it is said that 
 Christ came that he " might destroy him that had the 
 power of death, that is the devil." But it is not easy 
 to see how the crushing of Satan is to help his followers 
 into heaven. Christ himself says that the wicked shall 
 share Satan's sufferings : " Depart from me, ye cursed, 
 into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his 
 angels." 
 
 Number 85. " We lohich Jmve believed do enter 
 into rest." Heb. 4 : 3. But what of the unbeliever ? 
 That is the question. 
 
 Number 86 quotes the words, " it is impossible for 
 God to lie," Heb. 6 ; 18, and refers to the promise unto 
 Abraliam ; which has already been discussed. 
 
 Number 87 uses the same material that was already 
 used in number 56 ; by citing Paul's quotation (Heb. 
 8 : 11,) of the covenant which God would make with 
 the house of Israel, found in Jer. 31 : 33, 34. 
 
 Number 88 quotes the statement made by Paul to 
 his fellow- Christians, tha.t God "chastens us for our 
 profit," and that the chastisement afterward yieldeth 
 
PERVERSIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 127 
 
 the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which 
 are exercised thereby." Heb. 12 : 10, 11. Christians 
 have often found it true ; while sinners have, like 
 Pharaoh, been as often hardened beneath their chas- 
 tisements. John tells (Rev. 16 : 9) of men who " were 
 scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of 
 God ;" and of others (v. 10, 11) who " gnawed their 
 tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven 
 because of their pains and sores, and repented not of 
 their deeds." 
 
 Number 89 quotes another passage which is in its 
 very phraseology expressly limited to Christians, to 
 those who " walk in the light." With his usual fair- 
 ness, and according to the approved Universalist 
 method, Mr. W. quotes only this clause, " the blood of 
 Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." 1 John 1 : 7. 
 The whole verse reads thus : " But if we walk in the 
 light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with 
 another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth 
 us from all sin." Comment is superfluous. 
 
 Number 90. " For this purpose the Son of God was 
 manifested, that he might destroy the works of the 
 devil ;" i. e. his plans of wickedness and control over 
 men's hearts. 1 John 3 : 8. In Christ's followers this 
 object is accomplished ; and the argument of this verse 
 is, that therefore he who lives in sin is no follower of 
 Christ. Many do live in sin, and die in sin. The 
 text says not a word of the purification, much less the 
 salvation, of all souls ; only insists that Christ's fol- 
 lowers must be pure. While the next verse but one 
 tells us of " the children of God," and " the children 
 of the devil," with their distinctive marks. 
 
128 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 Number 91. " And this is the record, that God 
 hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his 
 Son." 1 John 5:11. Were it consistent for the 
 Universalist to apply this or any other of these texts 
 concerning Christ to future salvation, how ridiculous 
 to bring forward this passage in proof that all men will 
 enjoy that eternal life. 
 
 Number 92. " And every creature which is in heav- 
 en, and on earth and under the earth, and such as are 
 in the sea, and all that are in them heard I saying, 
 Blessing, and honor, and glory and power, be unto him 
 that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for- 
 ever and ever." Rev. 6 : 18. However speciously this 
 is used, no text is really more foreign to the purpose. 
 It does not bear on the question ; and even Universal- 
 ist writers* have rebuked each other for inconsistency 
 in citing it. But they continue the practice down to 
 the present time.f 
 
 The connexion is this : John saw in vision, the seal- 
 ed book on the right hand of God, containing the 
 future destiny of Christ's church on earth, and wept 
 because none was able to open it. At length, the 
 Lamb that was slain took the book : and as he was 
 about to break the seals, all heaven and earth resound 
 with joy. The Revelator first beholds the four beasts 
 and four-and-twenty elders, break forth in songs ; then 
 all the angels take it up ; and. in bold figure, he repre- 
 sents all the universe as echoing the joy; — "Every 
 
 * H. Ballon, 2nd, and Rey. Mr. Sturyer; quoted in George on Univ. 
 p. 58. 
 
 + See Univ. " Tracts," by A. C. Thomas and T. B. Thayer, 1856, 
 p. 10. 
 
PEEVERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 129 
 
 creature'''' — not all men — all created things, rational 
 and irrational, animate and inanimate, including those 
 " under the earth and in the sea," join the joy and 
 praise. The thing which is proclaimed in Psalm 148th, 
 (and other passages) where " dragons and all deeps, 
 beasts and all cattle, creeping things and all fowl," are 
 called on to praise the Lord, is here represented as ful- 
 filled ; and they all seem vocal with the praise of God 
 and the Lamb, in sympathy with heaven. Neither the 
 connexion of the passage nor its particular expressions, 
 permit it to be applied to the final salvation of all men 
 in heaven. 
 
 Number 93 quotes Rev. 15 : 4, " for all nations shall 
 come and worship before thee," — one of the many 
 declarations of the wide extent of Christ's kingdom on 
 earth in the latter days. 
 
 Numbers 94 and 95 quote, separately, two consecu- 
 tive verses. " And I heard a great voice out of heaven, 
 saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, 
 and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his 
 people, and God himself shall be with them, and be 
 their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from 
 their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither 
 sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more 
 pain ; for the former things are passed away." Rev. 
 21 : 3j 4. But of whom is this predicated ? Here, the 
 author of the Plain Guide, and the author of the Book 
 of Revelation, disagree ; the former refers it to all men, 
 the inspired writer predicates it only of the inhabitants 
 of the " New Jerusalem." 
 
 Three verses further, the sacred writer affirms, " he 
 that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be 
 
 9 
 
130 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 his God and he shall be my son. But the fearful and 
 unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and 
 whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters and all 
 liars, shall have their part in the lake which burnetii 
 with fire and brimstone ; which is the second death." 
 
 Number 96 alludes again to the exhortation to pray 
 for all men, specifying " kings and all that are in 
 authority," and quotes also the passages, " if we ask 
 anything according to his will he heareth us," 1 John 
 5 : 14 ; and, " the desire of the righteous shall be grant- 
 ed," Prov. 10 : 24. Such an argument for the final 
 salvationof all men, does not even require a passing 
 notice. 
 
 Number 97. " In whom believing ye rejoice with 
 joy unspeakable, and full of glory." il Peter 1:8. As 
 the hearer would never guess the point of this quota- 
 tion, I would inform him that the argument is this : 
 the believer in Christ could not thus rejoice, if all men 
 were not to be saved. And this is " evidence from the 
 Scriptures " for the final salvation of all men ! 
 
 Numbers 98 and 99 neither quote nor refer to any 
 passages of Scripture. 
 
 Number 100. " And when all things shall be subdued 
 unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject 
 unto him that put all things under him, that God may 
 be all in all." 1 Cor. 15 : 28. This passage is one of 
 several that announce the final, undisputed sway of 
 Christ and God over willing subjects and conquered 
 foes. It does not declare a voluntary submission of 
 all ; the language of text and context clearly implies a 
 different subjection of some. The previous express- 
 ions, " he shall have put down all rule, and all author- 
 
PERVERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 13J. 
 
 ity, and all power ; " he must reign till lie hath, put all 
 enemies under his feet," clearly intimate that a portion 
 of that subjection is a forced and not a voluntary one. 
 The Mediator's kingdom shall extend till, as cheerful 
 subjects or conquered, crushed and despairing foes, all 
 things shall be subdued unto him — such is the Biblical 
 representation — and then he will resign the delegated 
 Mediatorial Kingdom, the one triune God shall reign 
 supreme, and shall be seen to be Sovereign of the Uni- 
 verse. 
 
 Such, in its fullest extent, is the Scripture evidence 
 adduced by the advocates of Universalism. It has 
 been collected, matured and revised by one of the old- 
 est living champions of the system ; and comprises all 
 the " Scripture evidence " brought forward by its advo- 
 cates. How preposterous the attempt ! How pitiful 
 the parade ! How contemptible the sophistry ! Scarce- 
 ly any of these passages, you perceive, have even the 
 semblance of an allusion to the final salvation of all 
 men. Nothing could be further from the point. They 
 declare certain attributes of God ; the greatness of 
 Christ's work, or the freeness of his offers ; the ulti- 
 timate spread and triumph of the gospel on earth — 
 millenial times ; the blessings and the prospects of be- 
 lievers ; or the final and open subjugation of friend 
 and foe beneath his sway ; — but utter no word of final 
 salvation to the wicked. And then what serpent wind- 
 ings in quotation : now lopping off a sentence in the 
 middle, lest it should say too much ; now forcing 
 together fragments from difierent portions of the Bible, 
 to see if three can be twisted into a shape which no 
 one of them will take ; now rending apart four consec- 
 
132 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 utive verses, to frame four separate arguments, and 
 applying tliem to the whole human family, when in 
 fact they were uttered of God's OAvn pegple ; contin- 
 ually tearing passages from all their surroundings, to 
 pervert them, yea, even culling a phrase from the mid- 
 dle of a verse to apply it to God, when the text applies 
 it to man ; turning over the same promise six different 
 times to make as many arguments — all false ; quoting 
 more than twenty passages concerning Christ's work, 
 to prove final salvation, yet denying that Christ's work 
 has anything to do with our state in a future world ; 
 quoting passages concerning " eternal life " and the 
 " kingdom of heaven," for the same purpose, and yet 
 elsewhere denying their reference to a future state ; 
 cutting apart a connected passage of ten verses, to re- 
 fer the middle of it to the future world, and the begin- 
 ning and the end to ancient Jerusalem ; and greedily 
 pouncing on every text that speaks of all men, all 
 things, all nations, to wrench from it, however absurd- 
 ly, this soul destroying doctrine : — : — how it reminds us' 
 of him who taught that fatal knowledge of good and 
 evil to our common mother, in the garden, and who 
 quoted Scripture to our Savior in the wilderness. 
 
 Do not imagine these things to be peculiar to Mr. 
 Whittemore. I have tracked him closely, for the rea- 
 sons already given, and that it might not be said these 
 things were culled from the whole body of Universalist 
 writers. Similar devices — many of the very same per- 
 versions, inconsistencies, garblings of texts and ridicu- 
 lous expositions, can be cited from Hosea Ballon, Syl- 
 vanus Cobb, I. D. Williamson, A. B. Grosh^and the 
 tracts published by A. C. Thomas and T. B. Thayer 
 
PERVERSIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 133 
 
 during tlie present year. I think my hearers will 
 admit that this method of reasoning is not unfairly ex- 
 emplified in the argument of him who proved the duty 
 of suicide, from Scripture, thus : " Then Judas went 
 and hanged himself," Matt. 27 : 3, 5 ; " go, and do 
 thou likewise," Luke 10 : 37. 
 
 The whole process is palpably built on two supposi- 
 tions, which seem to be fundamental to the preaching 
 of Universalism — first, that the hearers are singularly 
 ignorant of the Bible in its connexions, and, second, 
 that they will not intelligently compare these teachings 
 with the Bible, nor even the preacher himself at one 
 time, with the same preacher at another. It certainly 
 seems to be characteristic of the system — no doubt with 
 individual exceptions — recklessly to bring forward any 
 passage, or statement, or argument, which, it is suppos- 
 ed, will tell for the time being— however unfounded, 
 however inconsistent. Hence the ever-shifting phases 
 of the system ; hence the difficulty of knowing what 
 it is at any one time. It is anything — it is everything 
 — it is nothing, — as the case requires. It adapts itself 
 to the mental and moral state of its willing dupes. 
 One is quoting Scripture which another is affirming to 
 be irrelevant. Tlie same man at one time quotes what 
 at another, for a special purpose, he discards. He 
 freely uses arguments that are utterly incompatible 
 with each other and with the system as elsewhere 
 taught, yea, as taught by himself. He holds one thing 
 to-day — perhaps to-morrow he denies it — and the next 
 day reaffirms. The whole system is a dense, drifting 
 fog, in which nothing is fixed but its fatal darkness, its 
 deadly delusion. 
 
134 LECTUEES ON UNIVEESALISM. 
 
 You are astounded at the recklessness of these pro- 
 cedures, and ask how I can account for it. I, too, 
 have been amazed at it. It seems to me here that the 
 snare is spread in sight of the bird, and that never did 
 cloven foot more visibly protrude, than in these deceit- 
 ful handlings of the word of God. 
 
LECTURE FIFTH. 
 
 THE UNIVERSALIST ARGUIVIENT, AFFIRMATIVE. AP- 
 PEAL TO GOD'S ATTRIBUTES, AND HUMAN PASSIONS. 
 
 Matt. XV: 13, 14. But he answered and said, Every plant which my 
 heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them 
 alone : they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead 
 the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. 
 
 I HAVE considered the Universalist argument, in its 
 attempts to restrain the word of God from teaching 
 future punishment, and to constrain it into teaching 
 universal salvation ; — and the failure of both attempts. 
 I come now to consider those extra-scriptural and 
 un-scriptural considerations, witli which the system 
 undertakes to override the refractory scriptures, and 
 which constitute the main stress of its seductions, — the 
 blind leading the blind. 
 
 III. The third poition of its claims consists of in- 
 ferences from the character and attributes of God. In 
 truth, as you have perceived, much of its so-called 
 scripture reasoning, is merely the quotation of some 
 passage about God's character, and an assertion biiilt 
 upon it. 
 
 So far as reasoning is concerned, this is the main- 
 stay of the whole system : — " God is love, God is good, 
 God is merciful ; therefore he will not punish forever. 
 God is our Father, and how shocking it would be, 
 were a human father to be so unrelenting!" — Who 
 
136 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 ever read, heard, or heard of a Universalist argument 
 m which this did not form the crowning and exultant 
 appeal, the grand pedestal on which all its shallow 
 reasonings and deceitful handlings of God's word, 
 rested for support ? It is not what God says he will 
 do ; but what they know he will do and he will not do. 
 Thus these men, who are every day surprised by the 
 conduct of their fellow- men among whom they live, 
 but of whom they cannot say certainly what they may 
 do to-morrow, understand God almighty so thoroughly, 
 and know all about him so well, that they can tell 
 what he will do through all eternity. And not only 
 so ; but they know so much better than does God him- 
 self, that they cannot suffer him to speak for himself. 
 And when he endeavors to speak of eternal and ever- 
 lasting vengeance, Mr. Whittemore stops it off at once, 
 by saying that where that word is applied in the 
 scriptures to punishment, it " should be restricted to 
 limited duration." The thing must not be mentioned; 
 — ^it cannot be permitted. 
 
 This theme, — that of God's love and kindred topics, 
 — is the theme that is spread out like a screen in front 
 of all their arguments, and covers their straggling 
 rear. Thus, Moore and Williamson devote whole 
 chapters to this and kindred themes, before venturing 
 to* touch the Scripture argument. And the one insists 
 that we should start with this foundation principle, 
 and exclude from our credenda everything that stands 
 opposed to it, — as, he says, does future punishment ; 
 and the other says he is prepared to reject any and 
 every doctrine or practice that is opposed to it — as he 
 also declares future punishment to be. 
 
THE SCRIPTURES OVERRULED. 13T 
 
 Now observe, in the first place, the presumption of 
 such a bold position, even were there no word from 
 heaven to guide us. What astounding audacity, that 
 the creature of yesterday, baffled daily by the thin 
 characters and plans of his fellow-worms, and stumbled 
 at every step of his path over the mysteries of God's 
 world, though they lie at his feet, should set himself 
 up as the infallible interpreter of God's plans and 
 doings through all coming eternity ; — and not only so, 
 but ask his fellows to risk their all on the infallibility 
 of his knowledge of the great and unsearchable One. 
 And think you, friend, when you have embarked your 
 soul's hopes for eternity on Ballon and Whittemore's 
 bold assurances — think you, are you quite sure, that 
 God will stand bondsman to these men's promises 
 through all eternity ? The very neighbor by my side, — 
 from my knowledge of his character, in a thousand 
 supposable cases I cannot tell what definite thing he 
 will do ; much less a Napoleon or a Cromwell. How 
 then can I speak for God ? How his combined wis- 
 dom and justice and holiness and goodness, — all of 
 them as far above me as the heavens above the earth 
 — how these stupendous attributes will act in the 
 greatest emergency of this complicated Universe, ex- 
 cept as he informs me, I no more can tell, than I can 
 grasp that Universe in my hand. 
 
 And still more presumptuous and insane, the at- 
 tempt to take this position in the presence of God's 
 word ; and to control the very utterances of God's 
 word. For this is precisely their position, " First 
 principles should govern our investigations." " God 
 is love. In view of this simple declaration, which 
 
138 LECTUEES ON UNIYERSALISM. 
 
 expresses a truth universally important, we should 
 carefully exclude from our credenda," says the one. 
 " Love," says the other, " is the the very essence, the 
 life and soul of the gospel ; and I am prepared to 
 reject any and every doctrine and practice, as anti- 
 Christian, that is opposed to this." " The word ever- 
 lasting," echoes the third, " when applied to punish- 
 ment, ought, above every other case, to bear the sense" 
 of " limited duration." That is, God must never, in 
 such a case, be permitted to mean as he says. Now, 
 how preposterous to set up these inferences from G-od' s 
 attributes, against the overwhelming tide of denuncia- 
 tion contained in God's word. Is it not as though 
 some piping gnat should set up his paltry whine, to 
 drown God's voice as he thunders in the heavens, — as 
 though some petty bulrush should lift up its head to 
 stop the course of God's great cataract, as it mightily 
 heaves itself over its rocky rampart, in ceaseless flow ! 
 It is insane. It is Hosea Ballou and Thomas Whitte- 
 more trying to muzzle God Almighty ! 
 
 But the position that we are safe by reason of God's 
 love, rises to absolute madness in the presence of God's 
 providence. It flies in the face of his daily dealings. 
 It is idle to declaim that God's love, conjoined with his 
 wisdom and his power, must — yes must is the word — 
 must finally exclude all sin and suffering from the 
 Universe, — in presence of the appalling fact that God's 
 love and power did not exclude it from his Universe at 
 first. There would seem reasons of tenfold strength, 
 why He should never have suffered sin and sorrow to 
 come where all was peace ; and, but for the fact, who 
 would not have said it was, from the nature of God, 
 
THE SCRIPTURES OVERRULED. 139 
 
 impossible ? But He has suffered it ; and has shown 
 us how unsearchable are his ways, — how little we 
 know him. We know of his plans only what he tells 
 us. Sin and sorrow came into a universe at peace. 
 They are here. And in view of that fact, all our 
 arguings about their departure, are ground into dust, 
 and blown to the winds. Six thousand years has God 
 looked calmly down, while the wail of guilt and woe 
 from hundreds of millions of human beings, has been 
 continually ascending before his presence ; — and who 
 can tell us when it shall have an end ? 
 
 It is vain to tell us that God is our Father, and that 
 because a human father would not do so and so, there- 
 fore God will not do it. The crash of the earthcpiake, 
 the dirge of the pestilence, the moan of starvation, the 
 groan of disease, the cry of desolation, break on our 
 ear in discords of anguish, and give the lie to the 
 assertion. The human frame has sometimes fainted 
 at the mere sight, and the human spirit lost its balance 
 in the prospect, of single insfances of the suffering 
 which God calmly beholds, yea, and sends from the 
 heavens in myriad numbers, day and night, through 
 all time. God is our Father ; but these plain facts 
 show that he is as different from a human father, as a 
 holy God is from a sinful man. " Would a father on 
 earth consign his children to poverty, shame, sickness, 
 loss of reason, and death attended with the most 
 afflicting circumstances ? Would a father on eartli 
 choose to plunge his children in the ocean, and leave 
 them to the mercy of the tempest ? Would he set a 
 child's house on fire, while he was buried in soft 
 slumber, and consume him in the flames ?"* Yet so 
 
 * Parker's Lectures, p. 46. 
 
140 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 does our merciful Father. I find I cannot sit in judg- 
 ment on God's goodness and its modes of action. The 
 ruin of this world is quite as inexplicable to me, as the 
 ruin which shall follow if the oifers of rescue are re- 
 jected. Indeed, these offers of rescue relieve my mind 
 of all difficulty in regard to those who reject them. 
 When God has mercifully interfered, and in melting 
 tones entreated the sinner to accept deliverance, — 
 solemnly warning him on the word of his God, of 
 the consequences of refusal, — I cannot but feel that 
 here, at least, every difficulty is cleared up. Good- 
 ness is satisfied. It is enough. If the sinner will 
 spurn the offer, impartial goodness as well as justice 
 may even require, for aught I can say, that God 
 should protect his children by the penalty and the 
 impassable barrier. It is not impartial goodness, 
 to waste all our kind efforts on those that spurn 
 them, and leave the grateful and obedient exposed, 
 — to foster the wolf at the flock's expense. Not 
 only justice, but even goodness to a whole universe 
 that looks to God for safety, may require the great 
 Shepherd at last to smite the wolf with a remediless 
 wound, for the safety of the flock. And when he pro- 
 claims it to be so, there is nothing in the exhibition of 
 his goodness here to invalidate the statement ; while, in 
 the dreadful shades of sin and misery with which God 
 has suffered this world for six thousand years to be 
 draped, I read flat contradiction of every assertion that 
 is founded on the goodness of God, against the sin and 
 miser} of the world to come. 
 
 Is it said, God cannot suffer such a waste of the 
 , human family ? I answer, cast your eyes over the 
 
THE SCRIPTURES OVERRULLED. 141 
 
 world and see how the vast majority of the race are 
 even now suffered to waste themselves as men ; how 
 few, how very few, attain the true moral or even intel- 
 lectual standard of one made in God's image ; and 
 how many make wreck of all their humanity. Yet 
 God suffers it to be so. 
 
 Am I told that sin is not a sufficient evil to entail 
 such enormous consequences ? I point you back to a 
 single sin in an Eastern garden, long ago, that brought 
 death into the world and all our woe,— that for six 
 thousand years has scattered its bitter fruits, from that 
 Asiatic garden through all lands of the earth, and down 
 through all tiuiC. 
 
 Do you say the time of future punishment is out of 
 all proportion to the duration of the sin ? I answer, 
 " the atrocity of a crime depends on the importance of 
 the law, and the sacredness of the authority that is 
 violated, and not at all on the length of time occupied in 
 its perpetration."* A man may earn an imprisonment 
 of fifty years in the same length of time as a dollar 
 fine. Even in this world of imperfect retribution, is 
 the punishment no more enduring than the sin ? — or 
 do men sometimes in an hour, commit iniquities from 
 which through life they never recover ? Has not the 
 sin of a moment sometimes made a man a wanderer 
 and an outcast all his days ? 
 
 And remember too, that they who do not in this life 
 repent of sin, sin on forever. Transgression goes on 
 . coeval with penalty. Sin begets sin. It forever re- 
 news itself, and swells its curse. The process rolls on. 
 Sin and misery go, hand in hand, down the dark vale 
 
 *Ib. p. 41. 
 
142 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 of eternal horror. Thus even in the present hfe, — pro- 
 bationary though it be, — in our ■ great cities, some 
 unfortunate creature of guilt and shame, by one sad 
 lapse begins to drain all the bitter dregs of a downward 
 life. By a kind of necessity, which yet involves her 
 own free choice, she throws herself further and further 
 from the path of virtue and of peace ; she becomes 
 more deeply, desperately sinful and forlorn, and the 
 way of return shuts more hopelessly on her view, as 
 she goes sinking, still sinking in sin and micery, till 
 she closes a scene of earthly woe and despair, known 
 only to herself and God, — the very vestibule of infinite 
 misery. Such is no doubt the natural course of all 
 sin, — unless supernaturally arrested by the grace of 
 God. Our God, in his great mercy, has interposed mz^ 
 this tvo?'ld, to suspend the doom and arrest the ruin. 
 Suffering has no reformatory power, but in a world of 
 grace and spiritual help. Here, God gives the needed 
 help. Now is the time to escape the doom. We are 
 passing the only spot in our endless journey, — this lit- 
 tle life, — where the hand from Heaven reaches down 
 to our aid. Reject that proffered hand throughout this 
 life, and it reaches down no more ; it leaves us to jour- 
 ney on evermore in sin and sorrow. So hath he told 
 lis plainly, — and God knows his own mindj he is not 
 man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he 
 should repent. • 
 
 Does the objector now turn and say that God's pun- 
 ishment always attends on the offence, and the threat- 
 ened transfer to distant times and places cannot be 
 true ? I answer again, look around you in this life, 
 and see also how continually God is so dealing with 
 
THE SCRIPTURES OVERRULLED. 143 
 
 men here — delaying vengeance ; how their sin often 
 finds them out away from its early home. Think of 
 such instances as his, — that man of learning, fair fame, 
 and otherwise of moral life, whose one great crime lay 
 hid for fourteen years, while he was enjoying the 
 esteem of his fellow-men ; then found him out and 
 dragged him to the scaffold. Recall those cases, where 
 the sins of a man's youth have haunted him to distant 
 lands, and burst upon him in his old age, to bring him 
 to his grave in ignominy. 
 
 Nor will it avail to maintain that as God is love, all 
 his punishments must be remedial and reformatory, — 
 and that above all, they never can be remediless and 
 hopeless. The facts of Providence put their unan- 
 swerable negative on this assertion. Such is not God's 
 love in this life, — except to his loving friends. It is 
 not so. How many a crime, with its penalty, leaves a 
 man woi'se off than before, his recovery far more diffi- 
 cult and unlikely. This is commonly the case with 
 the greater crimes. Not only is the spirit hardened by 
 the punishment, but the path of recovery is hedged 
 up, and the criminal goes on sinking deeper at every 
 step. Even under their castigations, evil men and 
 seducers wax worse and worse, and their case grows 
 more desperate. The man is, bij the very course of Prov- 
 idence^ branded and outlawed \yj his punishments, and 
 sink's down, feeling that his case is hopeless, — that it is 
 too late, too late ; and sometimes no persuasion can 
 remove the sullen despair. Benedict Arnold and 
 Aaron Burr, and many a criminal and prostitute in our 
 cities, have found no place for repentance. And many 
 a course of vice has been visited with disease, from 
 
144 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 which repentance could bring no remedy ; and happi- 
 ness and life have worn away in siiifering and despair. 
 So far as this life is concerned, God often inflicts remed- 
 iless woe. The truth is, God puts men on trial here ; 
 and often the earlier are to the later portions of this 
 present life, in a less degree, as he has threatened that 
 the present life shall be to the world to come. He sets 
 life and death before us, bidding us choose life. But 
 if we will spurn his advice, he lets us reap the conse- 
 quences ; and he will not interpose. He trifles not. 
 And if the bed prove shorter, at last, " than that a 
 man can stretch himself thereon, and the covering 
 narrower than that he can wrap himself therewith," i^ 
 is the bed which the man made for himself, against 
 God's remonstrances. In it shall he lie ; and the Uni- 
 verse shall feel the justice of God. He brought his 
 fate, forewarned, upon himself. — So the path to heaven 
 and the road to hell are pointed out. God solemnly' 
 warns his creature that he is making his final choice ; 
 urges him to heaven by all that is winning and all that 
 is fearful : then suffers him to take and drink his cho- 
 sen cup, — though he drain it to the dregs. 
 
 Against these solemn truths I not long since heard 
 the following preposterous assertion : that " no matter 
 if the man did rush upon his fate ; God was bound to 
 prevent his misery, if he had the power. That if a 
 man sees another drowning, he is bound to rescue him 
 at all hazards, even though the other wish to drown. 
 We condemn him if he do not. So God must do to 
 the perishing sinner, or he is unworthy of our love." 
 And a great appeal was made to our human sensibili- 
 ties against a Being who could witness such terrible 
 
THE SCRIPTURES OVERRULED. 145 
 
 sufferings and not relieve them. And I thought, where 
 can this declaimer have lived all his lifetime, that he 
 can so madly assert what every day's observation filatly 
 contradicts ? And in the midst of the bold statement 
 that because human sensibilities are overwhelmed at 
 the sight of great anguish, even so must be God's, — 
 my thoughts wandered to those fearful facts furnished 
 by the records of medical science, in which God has 
 visited vice with lingering disease, that burnt like a 
 fire in the bones, devoured the frame by inches, made 
 the victim an object of horror to his friends, and for 
 weeks or months was dragging him to the grave through 
 such ceaseless, intolerable anguish, as I could not have 
 seen inflicted on my worst enemy for an hour. And I 
 thdught also of a very different case — the sufferings of 
 one who died a few years since in Salem, Mass.* A 
 visitor in 1845, described her thus : " The room was 
 so dark that before my eyes were accommodated to the 
 change, I could only see a figure dressed in white, sit- 
 ting upon the bed and rocking to and fro. This motion 
 was attended by a sound like the click of wooden 
 machinery, which arose, as I afterwards discovered, 
 from the bones as they worked in their loosened 
 sockets. She had just given me her hand, when a 
 spasm seized her, and it was twitched suddenly from 
 my grasp. It flew some four or five times with the 
 greatest violence against her; and, with a sound which 
 I can only compare to that made by a child who has 
 been sobbing a long time, in catching its breath, she 
 threw up both her arms, and with a deep, guttural 
 groan was flung back upon her pillow, with a force 
 
 * Miss Sarah Parbeck. 
 10 
 
146 LECTUEES ON UNIVERSALIS M. 
 
 inconceivable to one who had not witnessed it. The 
 instant she touched the bed, she uttered that piercing 
 shriek again, and sprang back to her former position, 
 rocking to and fro, with those quick, heart-rending 
 groans, which I had heard while standing at the door. 
 It was several minutes before she could speak ; and 
 then there was none to answer. Both my companion 
 and myself were choked with tears. I became faint, 
 and trembled with sudden weakness ; a cold perspira- 
 tion stood on my face. The objects in the room began 
 to swim around me, and I was obliged to take hold of 
 
 the bedside for support She afterwards told me, as 
 
 if in apology for her screams, that when she was hurled 
 back upon her pillow, both shoulders were dislocated, 
 and as they sprang back into their sockets, the pain 
 was beyond endurance and extorted from her those 
 shrieks. Her sentences were broken, uttered with 
 much difficulty, and frequently interrupted by the 
 terrible spasm I have described above. Yet this was 
 her quiet state ; this the time when she suffered least. 
 Day after day, night after night, '■'■ fourteen weary years''' 
 then had " dragged themselves along, whilst her poor 
 body had been thus racked." No relief, no hope of 
 relief except that which death should give. And that 
 relief, 1 think, was deferred for some years longer. 
 Yet she was then and habitually in a heavenly state 
 of mind ; and I know not that this suffering was the 
 fruit of any peculiar transgression of hers ; but only 
 part of the general woe that sin has brought into our 
 world. Think upon that trying scene and ponder. 
 
 Listen to the incessant whimper and howl of Uni- 
 versalism, that God will relent because he is our 
 
THE SCKIPTURES OVERRULED. 147 
 
 Father, and the punishments he threatens shock all 
 the sensibilities of a human parent ; — and then hold 
 up beside it such appalling /«c^5. What human father, 
 if in his power to relieve, would have permitted that 
 suffering a year — a week — a day — an hour — a minute ? 
 It broke down the stranger's heart in an instant. But 
 year after year, God, our Father, looked qviietly on 
 and relieved it not. Listen to the audacious assertion 
 that God is bound to relieve the suffering even of him 
 who recklessly and willfully rushes on his doom; — 
 and then gaze on this scene where even the loving 
 child of God, by reason of her participation in the 
 common guilt and curse of sin, though now herself a 
 penitent, lay racked with such intolerable anguish, as 
 caused the cold sweat to stand on the stranger's brow 
 to see, and as shocks all your sensibilities to hear, — 
 while for years and years, that seemed ages to her, 
 God did not relieve her by cure nor even by death. 
 No ; nor would he suffer the friends around to stop 
 those sufferings, though one grain of strychnine would 
 have done the work forever. Now, it seems that God 
 can and does lay even on the penitent sinner, a load of 
 protracted anguish, that could weary out the sensi- 
 bilities of a whole world of human parents. It is a 
 portentous presage of the awful penalty which, not- 
 withstanding the recoil of perverted sensibilities, he 
 may inflict on the impenitent sinner, who, against all 
 God's warnings and entreaties, shall have rushed on 
 his fate ; — and of the calm, unyielding. Godlike perse- 
 verance with which He that is not a man that he should 
 lie, neither the son of man that he should repent, will 
 fulfill every threat that he has uttered, however dis- 
 
148 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 tressing to the contemplation. Such facts, a great 
 multitude of them, of which the world is full, grind into 
 atoms all this declamation about God, drawn from the 
 case of human parents and human relentings. In the 
 presence of such facts, as well as the threats of God's 
 word, they stand rebuked as the ravings of lunacy, 
 and almost the drivellings of idiocy. 
 
 So manifestly futile are these reasonings of Univers- 
 alism, whether concerning the Scriptures or the char- 
 acter of God, — so transparent are their sophistries to 
 the enlightened mind, that we find, at length, 
 
 IV. Its most effective appliance is its appeal to the 
 sympathies, principles, and passions of impenitent men. 
 Here is its stronghold. Here, the tribunal to which it 
 brings its decisive appeal. 
 
 When all else is unavailing, — when Scripture proves 
 intractable, and reasonings about God's -mercy break 
 down before the facts of God's providence, — Univers- 
 alism has one resort that, with a considerable class of 
 men, will seldom fail. . It carries its case down to the 
 desires of the sinful heart: it appeals to human deprav- 
 ity. In the fallen soul it finds a strong ally. Accord- 
 ingly, we need not expect that this chosen belief of the 
 sin-loving heart will die out wholly from the earth, till 
 the heart's love of sin dies out. 
 
 " Is not the doctrine of eternal misery," exclaims 
 the Universalist preacher to his congregation, " a hor- 
 rible and a frightful doctrine ? Does it not make your 
 blood run cold ?" Doubtless it is both frightful and 
 frightening to very many in his audience. Certainly 
 it is alarming to those who are lovers of pleasure more 
 than of God, to the Sabbath-breaker, the drunkard, the 
 
THE SCRIPTURES OVERRULED. 149 
 
 profane, the adulterer, the rum-seller, the fraudulent 
 dealer ; jes, and to all "whose hearts are bent on reject- 
 ing Christ, and living wholly for this world. It has 
 personal terrors to them all. Therefore many of these 
 persons on the Sabbath flock to hear some man who 
 shall boldly deny that " frightful " truth, and give 
 them comfort in their chosen schemes for the week to 
 come. They come for their weekly anodyne, to quiet 
 the sting of sin. But the doctrine had no personal 
 terrors for Edwards or Payson or Brainerd or Judson, 
 — however much they might deplore the folly of those 
 who would rush upon their fate. 
 
 " My brethren," saysHosea Ballou,* " there is peace 
 in believing and joy in the Holy Ghost. But is there 
 any peace or joy in believing in this doctrine of never- 
 ending misery ? There surely is not." And very 
 possibly one general " Amen " in the hearts of his 
 hearers, may have echoed the experience of the speak- 
 er. Doubtless the doctrine disturbed their quiet. 
 And the case, as he puts it, well illustrates the differ- 
 ence between the peace of the believer and that of the 
 modern Universalist. The true believer has a peace 
 in believing-, — belie'V'ing in Christ — a joy in the Holy 
 Ghost ; — the Universalist finds a peace which depends 
 on disbelieving the doctrine of eyidless misery. The 
 case is well put. An Edwards, notwithstanding his 
 ^dews of God's holiness and awful justice, could enjoy 
 a heavenly peace, contemplations of God and his glory, 
 which, he tells us, were " sweet beyond all expression;" 
 
 * Lect. Serm., p. 102. The reader will observe the characteristic 
 sopliism in the double meaning of the word " believing." 
 
150 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 he could live in a state of joy unspeakable : yet, to 
 Ballon and Whittemore and Thayer and Thomas and 
 Williamson, there can be no " peace nor joy," unless 
 future punishment can be cast aside.* And to this 
 rooted desire of every godless soul, — to this over- 
 whelming interest and sympathy of sin, do these 
 writers and preachers continually present their case 
 with triumphant air. " Would you do so ? Would 
 you desire it be so ? Is it pleasant to you to contem- 
 plate ?" — are questions which they put with as much 
 gravity to their audience, as though every soul in that 
 miscellaneous group were a bosom-friend of Jesus 
 Christ, a sharer in all the sympathies and a chief- 
 counsellor of the holy God. 
 
 " If you had the requisite power," inquires Rev. A. 
 C. Thomas, " would you not deliver the whole family 
 of man from sin and misery ? If you were the final 
 judge of all, would you doom a single soul to endless 
 woe ?" And again : " Can you join heartily the an- 
 gelic host in singing, ' Glory to God in the highest !' 
 without believing in the salvation of the whole family 
 of man ?" Again he says : " Can you heartily adore 
 the Being who, you believe, will doom some of man- 
 kind to never-ending woe ? You cannot. I know you 
 cannot."* Doubtless this writer understands the class 
 of characters to which his appeal is made, and can 
 safely vouch for them. There are many men of 
 whom he can safely say they cannot, he knows they 
 
 * See Wliittemore's Plain Guide, p. 51, argument 85 ; Thomas & 
 Thayer's Tracts for the People, 1856, pp. 4, 16, 20, etc.; End. Pun. 
 Exp., p. 31. 
 
 t Tracts etc., pp. 3, 4, 14. 
 
THE SCRIPTURES OVERRULED. 151 
 
 cannot, adore a God of holiness and justice, — a God 
 threatening future punishment to the wicked. Such 
 men can very easily be found. They can be found in 
 a great many places where the name of God is often 
 heard — but not in tones of " adoration." But such 
 men's feelings are no very reliable criterion of the 
 feelings and character of God, They now believe, or 
 try to believe, that God will save all men alike ; yet 
 the place where they are accustomed to " adore " him 
 is not known. 
 
 It is a very frail reliance, to rest one's hope on the 
 supposition that God's views of sin and holiness are 
 much the same with the average views of those who 
 listen eagerly to the preaching of Universalism. There 
 have been men, and that, too, a great host of the best 
 and most devotional men that the world has seen, who 
 could both believe this doctrine and adore the God 
 who declares it, — who have gone loving, and rejoicing, 
 and obeying, and adoring through the world, and have 
 left a track of heavenly light behind them, — who have 
 manifestly communed with God below, and beyond all 
 question gone to "join the angelic host" and com- 
 mune with Him on high. Not to such men could this 
 preacher say, " I know you cannot heartily adore the 
 Being, who, you believe, will doom some of mankind 
 to never-ending woe." No ; he speaks to, and he 
 speaks for, a very different class of men — many of 
 whom, he not only knows cannot heartily adore an 
 avenging God, but knows equally well that they do 
 not now heartily adore any God at all. It is to such 
 a quarter the appeal is carried ; and there God's word 
 is overruled. 
 
152 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 Sometimes the hearer's very sinfulness and love of 
 sin are ajjpealed to, not obscurely, as a pressing reason 
 for disbelieving endless punishment. Says Rev. T. B. 
 Thayer, of Lowell : " Consider all the loeaknesses and 
 imperfections of poor human nature, and all the temp- 
 tations with which it is tried from without and within ; 
 consider also the many painful struggles, the many pe- 
 riods of keen suffering endured in this life ; and then 
 add to all this, that the life which is to follow is to be 
 one of unvarying and interminable suffering — and can 
 you believe it just and merciful and right ? Remem- 
 ber how little a thing is the sum of life, and how great 
 a thing is eternity .... How absolutely horrible and 
 frightful is the thought, that the faults and follies of 
 this moment of existence are to be visited with indes- 
 cribable woe and torment, sweeping over us in a cease- 
 less tide of utter and hopeless desolation, on and forever 
 on in the never-ending roll of ages ! and this permitted, 
 inflicted by God, a just God, and a Father ! Once 
 more, can you believe it ?"* There you have the appeal 
 almost in its nakedness ; sin is melted down to " weak- 
 ness, imperfections, faults and follies," excused by its 
 " temptations " and hardships here ; its terrific doom 
 set forth in words not one whit more " frightful " than 
 those which God employs — and then what is the con- 
 clusion ? Is it, — " flee from the wrath to come," — es- 
 cape the terror, — abandon your sins and be safe in 
 Christ ? — No, no ; the cry is, " can you believe it ?" 
 Believe it not ; care not for it ; dismiss your fears ; go 
 on unconcerned. You are weak, and imperfect, and 
 
 * Tracts for the people, p. 19. 
 
THE SCRIPTURES OVERRULED. 153 
 
 tempted, and prone to faults and follies ; — discard the 
 horrible and " frightful doctrine." 
 
 In the same strain, Rev. A. C. Thomas, on the ground 
 that idiots, not being accountable, cannot be in danger 
 of punishment, directly appeals to his readers whether, 
 if the choice were given them, they would nOt prefer 
 idiocy for life, with its exemption from danger, to the 
 possession of reason with " the mere possibility of an 
 eternity of misery." He answers his own question, 
 " plainly thou wouldest choose idiocy."* And William- 
 son, as we have seen, declares, — " had it been left to 
 my choice, I would not for worlds have accepted the 
 gift of life, even with the possibility of its coming to 
 such a horrid catastrophe."! In other words, this ar- 
 gument — for argument it claims to be — is a pressing 
 plea for the rejection of the doctrine, founded on men's 
 intense love of sin — a love so mad, that rather than 
 repent and obey God, and thus make sv.re of eternal 
 life, it would prefer idiocy or annihilation ! For ob- 
 serve, the choice proposed is not between idiocy or 
 extinction, and the necessity of punishment, — but "the 
 mere possibility''^ of it, with every opportunity to 
 escape by turning unto God. The way is open. Clirist 
 has died to save the sinner. The Holy Spirit is ready 
 to help him to heaven. God the Father calls, " Who- 
 soever will, let him come." And yet here comes a 
 
 pretended preacher of the gospel, and urges tlie sinner 
 by that very opposition to G©d, so intense as to prefer 
 idiocy or extinction to eternal life on condition of 
 faith, repentance and obedience, — urges him, I say, by 
 
 \ 
 
 * Tracts, p. 16. t End. Pun., Ex. p. 31. 
 
154 LECTUEES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 the very intensity of that opposition, to cast off all fear 
 before God, and defy the plain warnings of God's 
 word. 
 
 This is the mode in which sinful men are made to 
 feel that while cleaving inflexibly, as they now do, to 
 the love and practice of sin, tremendous interests com- 
 pel them to spurn the doctrine of future retribution. 
 Instead of pressing them to renounce their sins, the 
 preacher presses them to renounce that doctrine. And 
 by confession of many a converted Universalist, no 
 argument has ever weighed so heavily on his mind, as 
 the desperate determination and gloomy necessities of 
 his own love of sin. 
 
 To these attachments, and interests, and principles 
 of the sin-loving heart, the system is continually mak- 
 ing its wily appeal. Not alone when it asks its " candid 
 hearers " to judge whether the doctrines of God's word 
 accord with the feelings of their own hearts and the 
 maxims of human life ; but in all its sneers at the 
 over-righteousness of orthodoxy, its easy moralities, 
 its complicity with questionable indulgences, its pro- 
 posed abrogation of the separation between church and 
 congregation, — in these and other modes, it aims to 
 enlist the whole force of human depravity in its behalf. 
 And when some bold blasphemer dies, and his comrades 
 gather round to pay the last sad rites, awe-struck in 
 their own sinful course, not seldom is the voice of the 
 preacher heard, soothing the involuntary fears of the 
 evil heart, at that solemn hour, with the assurance that 
 the departed brother is " made alive in Christ ;" — 
 and encouraging his boon companions to go and inscribe 
 on his tomb, " Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.'* 
 
THE SCRIPTURES OVERRULED. 155 
 
 But the most artful and one of the most wicked 
 things, is when the very dead are summoned, so to 
 speak, to help destroy the living, and a man's love for 
 some ruined soul is made an argument for ruining his 
 own soul. It has been often and plausibly said, — and 
 the remark has sometimes made deep impression on 
 minds in peculiar circumstances — " I could not be 
 happy in heaven, if I knew my friends were in hell." 
 If I were to meet the remark as abruptly as it is made, 
 I should say to one who utters it, " Very likely you 
 could not ; for if you love those sinful friends — even 
 though they be father or mother or wife or children — 
 better than you love a Holy God, you certainly could 
 not, and you certainly will not, be happy in heaven. 
 Your statement is the statement of an unregenerate 
 man. You will not enter heaven, if Christ's words 
 are true." But in those who are truly his disciples, 
 Christ has made provision for even this sad, sad case. 
 For he has told us that except we love him better even 
 than all these friends and relatives, we cannot be his 
 disciples ; and if we do so love him, will not the infinite 
 resources of that Almighty Friend become surety for 
 our consummate happiness, even though other friends 
 should have chosen to abandon his society and ours 
 forever ? Even on earth, have there not been virtuous 
 and chosen friends, who, happy in each other's love andin 
 the path of duty, though renounced by all their earthly 
 relatives, have led a life of serenity and joy ? Much 
 more shall the kindred of the Lord of Glory, — they 
 towards whom he stretches forth his hand and saith, 
 " Behold my mother and my brethren" — in the bless- 
 edness of his love, and in the vast circle of the lovely 
 
156 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 and the loving gathered round him, rejoice with joy 
 unspeakable and full of glory, whoever else may have 
 refused to come and join that blessed throng. If God 
 were able himself to be happy, in his own fulness, 
 through the ages before the first creature sprang into 
 being, much more will he know how from that infinite 
 fulness to fill up the heart of his loving child, in the 
 midst of the whole family that is named of Christ, and 
 in his own heavenly home. 
 
 We may even discern, in some degree, how it shall 
 come to pass. Our whole condition will have immensely 
 and inconceivably changed in the other world. God 
 will have wrought, in the Christian, the spirit of un- 
 bounded confidence, of perfect and cheerful acquies- 
 cence in all the decisions of his justice, holiness and 
 wisdom. The love of the saint for his God and Savior 
 will have ripened into complete maturity, and God will 
 be to him an infinite source of joy ; his affections, 
 " that veered between good and ill," that were won 
 partly by worthy and partly by worthless qualities, will 
 have learned to love only what is good, and to conform 
 fully to the mind of God ; the mixed qualities of lost 
 men will have given way to unmixed sinfulness, cast- 
 ing off all the restraints of life and breaking forth in 
 open rebellion ; the christian heart will so fully see the 
 glorious mercy of God, reviewing his gracious efforts 
 to save sinners, and their own free and final rejection 
 of his tender love, — that the whole aspect of things 
 will have changed beyond expression or conception. 
 
 Look at the history of the heart, even in the present 
 life. God has wisely so made us, that our sufferings, 
 much as our friends may sympathize or, at times, suf- 
 
THE SCRIPTURES OVERRULED. 157 
 
 fer with us, do not take away from them all the comfort 
 of life, especially the happiness of duty. Our sufferings 
 may be intense and protracted, and may draw on their 
 kindest feelings ; yet if our friends are not in fault, 
 their life is not drained of all its joy. Far less, if those 
 sufferings are our own unmitigated fault, incurred 
 against warning, and entreaty, and every better influ- 
 ence. The christian father's heart may be often drawn 
 out in painful -anxiety for his wandering, reckless son ; 
 but if no christian influence had been wanting in the 
 training, and when every effort of kindness has been 
 exhausted on him, and he has trampled on it all, — 
 much as that father's heart may lament, he can still 
 press forward in the life of duty, rejoicing in God, and, 
 on the whole, a happy man. The love of a long-sufler- 
 ing wife, may, in this world, be so thoroughly wearied 
 out by abuse, and her sense of the utter, inexcusable 
 wrongfulness and vileness of her husband's course be- 
 come so clear and strong, that when tlie man whom 
 she once dearly loved, rushes at last on his earthly 
 doom, his fate shall inflict no further wounds on her 
 heart. 
 
 Conceive now the sanctified heart to be finding its fill 
 of bliss in God, — the affections to be forever purified 
 of sinful alloy, — the soul to be rejoicing with unbound- 
 ed trust in the wisdom and righteousnes of God, — the 
 judgment cleared up to behold the unwearied efforts 
 of Christ, and the stern final rejection 'of them all ; — 
 conceive the mixed character of the sinner to have 
 burst from its earthly restraints and thrown off all its 
 relics of loveliness , — and every difficulty, or fear that 
 the happiness of heaven will be embittered by sympa- 
 
158 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 tby with hell, vanishes away. God will take care of 
 heaven. 
 
 Such is the nature of the appeal with which Uni- 
 versalism presses every earthly propensity and affection, 
 and the love of sin itself, to discard the doctrine of an 
 endless retribution. It is its most powerful appeal. 
 And a mighty hold it often takes of the human heart, 
 because the inner citadel of the human heart contains a 
 traitor to the Holy God. But effective as it may be with 
 the traitor in the heart, it is feebler than an infant's 
 moan against the plain declarations of Him whose 
 " word shall not pass away, though heaven and earth 
 pass away." 
 
 Here I arrest my discussion of the Universalist ar- 
 gument. I have shown you a portion of the multifari- 
 ous threats of God's word, asserting, in more varied 
 shapes than you or I could invent, the endless suffering 
 which God will inflict on the wicked ; and the pitiful, 
 inconsistent, and deceitful attempts of Universalism to 
 evade them. I have set before you the still lamer and 
 equally deceitful attempt to force a few texts of scrip- 
 ture into the service of the system. I have shown you 
 how the chief argumentative dependence of the sys- 
 tem — the inference from God's love and paternal kind- 
 ness — is presumptuous in itself, recklessly audacious 
 as against God's word, and utterly breaks down in the 
 presence of God's daily Providence. And I have also 
 pointed out to you its ultimate resort and surest reli- 
 ance, — ^its appeal to human interest and passion, to 
 unsanctified sympathies and desires. The thing is 
 rotten in every timber and every brace. And he who 
 
THE SCEIPTUEES OVERRULED. 159 
 
 embarks his eternal destinies in such a vessel, and 
 sinks forever at the trying confluence of time with 
 eternity, must have heard the creaking of his miserable 
 hulk all his voyage through. 
 
 But the gates of heaven are now wide open. God 
 does indeed love his creatures with a benevolent and a 
 rational love. Yea, God so loved the world, that he 
 gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on 
 him, might not perish but have eternal life. labor 
 not with such unavailing toil to rear the frail structure 
 that shall perish as the spider's web at the giving up of 
 the ghost. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
 shall be saved. Commit your soul unto him in hum- 
 ble faith and love, and he will keep that which thou 
 hast committed to his care ; and though he come with 
 his mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on 
 those that know not God and obey not the gospel, it 
 shall not harm one hair of thy head. It was no " ly- 
 ing spirit," but the mouth of the Lord of Glory, that 
 said in his last solemn message, " Preach the gospel to 
 every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall 
 be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned." 
 
 Repentance of sin and faith in Christ are the only 
 safety. Even the false teacher is sometimes forced to 
 feel it.* In the town of Chelsea, Vermont, the daugh- 
 ter of a Universalist lay on the sick-bed, sinking slow- 
 ly toward the grave. She had been strictly educated 
 in her father's faith, and never permitted to hear the 
 preaching of evangelical religion. During those de- 
 clining days and weeks, she pondered in her heart her 
 
 * The following incident was told me by the Eev. J. M. Coburn, of 
 this city. 
 
160 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 relation to God and the eternal world. She called lier 
 father to the bed-side, — " Father, are you sure that I 
 shall go to heaven ? " " Oh, yes, I guess so," some- 
 what lightly replied the father. • " But do you knoio 
 that I shall go to heaven ? " " Yes, my dear, I think 
 you will," he still evasively replied, shrinking before 
 the pointed question and the fearful responsibility. — 
 " Father," solemnly continued the dying girl, gazing 
 earnestly in his face, " Father, I cannot trust my soul 
 on guess-work ; Oh ! I must know that my soul is safe !" 
 He could not pacify her ; and at length he said, " Rev. 
 Mr. H. is in town, and we will send for him." Mr. H. 
 came. The same agonizing questions were put and re- 
 iterated, — " Do you knoiv that I am going to heaven ? " 
 — and similar evasive replies were made ; for that man, 
 preacher of the soul-destroying doctrine though he 
 was, could not, and, in that trying hour and that sol- 
 emn presence, dared not tell that struggling spirit he 
 knew that heaven should be her portion. Perplexed, 
 and unable to satisfy lier troubled heart, at length he 
 took the word of God, and, turning away from all the 
 chosen themes and texts of his customary preaching, 
 that Universalist minister sat and read to the dying 
 girl those passages that point the sinner to the Lamb of 
 God as his only hope, and promise eternal life unto all 
 that believe on Jesus ; — in short, he laid before her, in 
 the words of God, the very basis and conditions of the 
 evangelical hope, " the hope toward God through Je- 
 sus Christ." He went his way. The good seed took 
 root. It was a plant of our Heavenly Father's planting. 
 She that had never heard an evangelical sermon, pon- 
 dered alone on those words of God. The spirit of God 
 
THE SCRIPTURES OVERRULED. 161 
 
 wrought evangelical faith in her heart, and she rejoiced 
 in the hope of the gospel. Again she sent for her 
 father — " Father, it is no guess-work now; I know that 
 my Redeemer liveth, and my sou? is safe in his hands." 
 And with kind invitations to her father to come also 
 unto Christ, with cheerful, peaceful repose on her 
 Savior, she passed away, rejoicing in the full assurance 
 of faith. It is the name and work of Jesus Christ that 
 sustains the sinking spirit. " Neither is there salva- 
 tion in any other ; for there is none other name undor 
 heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." 
 But if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the 
 ditch. 
 
LECTURE SIXTH. 
 
 THE MORAL TENDENCIES OF UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 Ezekiel XIII : 22. Because with lies ye have made the heart of the 
 righteous sad, whom I have not mode sad ; and strengthened the hands 
 of the wicked that he should not return from his wicked way, by prom- 
 ising him life. 
 
 In discussing the system called Universalism, I have 
 endeavored to present only the most indispensable con- 
 siderations, and to compress the subject into the short- 
 est limits. Much of my material remains unused. In 
 my statement of the system, I have employed incontes- 
 table evidence, — the printed statements of its ablest 
 doctrinal writers, of the most modern date. Some 
 other features of the system, quite as bad, or worse, I 
 have refrained, thus far, from presenting. I have 
 pointed out the nature and character of the system ; 
 some of the more obvious marks of its falsehood ; and, 
 in detail, the futility of its argument, — both of its at- 
 teiripts to break down the Scripture threats, and to find 
 Scripture authority for itself, or even to make a case 
 out of the boasted appeal to God's love and paternal 
 character ; and its final resort to impenitent desires and 
 passions ; — an utter failure in every particular. I now 
 wish to apply to it the criterion of this passage of Scrip- 
 ture, and speak of 
 
 THE MORAL TENDENCIES OF UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 I shall show that its moral tendency is worthy of its 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES. 163 
 
 parentage and its advocacy ; — while it saddens the 
 heart of the righteous, it " strengthens the hands of 
 the wicked that he should not return from his wicked 
 way, by promising him life," 
 
 Here, however, let me make a distinction between 
 the system and the personal character of many of its 
 advocates. Whatever may be the moral tendency of 
 a doctrine itself, it does not follow that it will show 
 itself in every one of its adherents. Thus, infidelity 
 unquestionably tends to licentiousness and corruption, 
 and wherever it has full scope, as once in France, it 
 will break forth in all its power. But u.nder the 
 restraints of New England society and law, under the 
 influence of early education, and the absolute necessi- 
 ties of his position as a religious teacher, I suppose Mr. 
 Theodore Parker to be a man of good, if not irre- 
 proachable moral life. So, whatever are the tenden- 
 cies of Universalism, and whatever the character of a 
 great portion of its adherents, there is no reason to 
 doubt, that in our larger places, especially, it numbers 
 many honorable men and women, — persons who never 
 have given themselves the trouble to look closely into 
 a system that meets the desires of the unchanged heart. 
 I presume that some of those, even, who have listened 
 to my discussion, have been nearly as much surprised 
 as my own congregation at the facts I have presented. 
 As the Roman Catholic doctrine is a dangerous depar- 
 ture from the truth, and its priesthood we consider un- 
 questionably corrupt, yet have no doubt that there 
 have been and are manj good Christians among the 
 laymen ; so here, there are laymen for whom one feels 
 much more respect than it is easy to feel for the minis- 
 
164 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 try as a body. Indeed, I know of one man, the leading 
 Universalist in the tomi of N., in this State, whose 
 notions are so high that he has repeatedly said he had 
 never met a Universahst minister whom he was pleased 
 with, or could respect ; and though there is a Unitarian 
 meeting in the place, he is a regular attendant at an 
 evangelical church. So, I cannot doubt, there are in 
 this city men and women, who, if they understood the 
 bearings and hidden workings of the system, would 
 run from it as from the pestilence ; and who now are 
 troubled with many a misgiving in view of the mixed 
 group around them, and the strange exhibitions that 
 tliey see. At the same time, a multitude of others love 
 it, no doubt, for just what it is. 
 
 In attempting to discuss the present subject, I feel a 
 difficulty. It is a system whose full workings none 
 can fathom who has not been through it. There is so 
 much that is deceptive about it, and so many of its 
 worst effects lie beyond the range of respectable society, 
 that the picture must be inadequate. Still, a good 
 Providence has smiled on my attempts to get authentic 
 information, till I have secured quite as much as I can 
 use on the present occasion. 
 
 It should also be remembered that the system is of 
 comparatively recent origin, and being held by a small 
 minority, has been continually kept in check. 
 
 What are its moral tendencies ? — From the nature 
 of the case, what must they be ? Surrounded with 
 temptations, and filled with perverse inclinations, but 
 restrained by the voice of conscience and the fear of 
 God's threatened vengeance, what must be the effect 
 on any man, of hearing every Sabbath as the central 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES. 166 
 
 and absorbing truth of the gospel, " live just as you 
 please, and it shall all be well hereafter." 
 
 And here let me pause to notice a small sophistry 
 worthy of the system. Universalism, it is said, makes 
 known immediate punishment, and therefore must be 
 far more effective than the proclamation of a distant 
 penalty. I answer, it does not 7nake known immediate 
 punishment ; all the present penalties of sin, men 
 know without Universalism ; it does not add one atom 
 to their knowledge : — the thing that Universalism does, 
 is audaciously to assert that this present punishment is 
 all there is. That is its function and influence. 
 
 Again it is said, Universalism insists always on love ; 
 and love is the most potent agent of obedience. I ask, 
 tvhat love ? Answer, — it harps on this string, " God 
 loves all men alike, the sinner as well as the saint." 
 Whether that kind of talk about love is fitted to pro- 
 duce obedience, let any man judge. As to any love 
 in man for God, — Universalism is so far from practi- 
 cally insisting on it, that it tells him it makes not a 
 shadow of difference with his prospects hereafter, 
 whether in this life he exercise that love or not. 
 
 Such are the principal modes in which the system 
 undertakes to break the force of the appalling facts 
 which I am about to present. As arguments, they cer- 
 tainly are on a level with the rest of the system. 
 
 To facts now let us appeal ; and see the moral ten- 
 dency of the system, first as a code of doctrine ; secondly, 
 as a system of preaching and propagation ; thirdly, as 
 an influence in the community. 
 
 I. Its moral tendency as a code of doctrine. 
 
 1. Its movement has been downward from the begin- 
 
166 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 ning. It began in this country with John Murray, who 
 held to strict Calvinism ; except that he taiight that all 
 men were elected to eternal life. Before John Murray 
 diedjHosea Ballou denied Christ's divinity and vicarious 
 atonement. Murray refused to acknowledge him as a 
 Christian, and Murray's society refused to hear him 
 preach. But the movement went on, and, when Mur- 
 ray's generation passed away, the rejection of Christ's 
 divinity became general. Ballou became editor of the 
 principal Universalist Journal, and in the year 1818, 
 after he had been twenty-seven years in the ministry, 
 
 he openly denied all future punishment ; the first 
 
 man in the history of the world, so far as is known, 
 holding to a future state at all, and denying all con- 
 nexion of our conduct here with our condition there. 
 The moral sense of the denomination revolted, and a 
 sharp conflict arose. But so effectually did he use his 
 organ that the moral sense gave way, and as early as 
 1829, according to Mr. Whittemore,* there were few 
 comparatively among preachers or people, who believed 
 in any future punishment ; and in 1849, according to 
 Ballou himself, none who dwelt upon it in their preach- 
 ing. Meanwhile, the system has gradually dropped 
 everything distinctive in the teachings of the Bible : — 
 not only the great doctrines of grace, and all influence 
 of Christ's work on the world to come ; but also the 
 collateral teachings, such as the divine sanctity of the 
 Sabbath, the influence of prayer, the existence of an- 
 gels and of a personal Devil, the essential difference of 
 human character, and in many instances, as will pres- 
 ently appear, the fact of miracles. With whatever 
 
 * Mod, Hist. Un. pp. 439—41. 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES. 167 
 
 exceptions, such has been the doctrinal history of the 
 system. I therefore proceed to show that, notwith- 
 standing its outAvard professions, 
 
 2. The present position of the system is strongly 
 infidel or close upon it. Let us take a look, for once, 
 inside of the curtain. In the year 1847, on the third 
 and fourth days of November, the Boston Association 
 of Universalists held a meeting at Lynn, Mass. In 
 order to cover over the real spirit of the denomination, 
 and urged by certain exigencies, the following Resolu- 
 tion was introduced : " Resolved, That this Association 
 express its solemn conviction, that in order for one to be 
 regarded as a Christian Minister, with respect to faith, 
 he must believe in the Bible account of the life, teach- 
 ings, miracles, death and resurrection of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 That resolution could not be passed on the spot ; 
 but was suspended four weeks to another meeting held 
 December 1st, — and then passed. But take notice — 
 nine members of that association in good standing, 
 one of whom, J. W. Hanson, is now editor of the 
 " Gospel Banner" in Maine, felt themselves aggrieved 
 by that resolution ; and eight of them published a 
 " statement of facts " in regard to it, letting us in a 
 little behind the curtain, and showing what the Bos- 
 ton Association was in 1847. This testimony, observe, 
 is not given by men outside, nor even men who had 
 left, but by men then, and most of them now, inside 
 the denomination and in good standing, yea prominent. 
 To this resolution, nine ministers present were oppos- 
 ed, (one voting affirmatively to move reconsideration) 
 and five more who were absent ; while two, at least, of 
 
168 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 those voting for it, had elsewhere distinctly denied the 
 miracles of the New Testament, and some of the ma- 
 jority (so they said,) considered the resolution as a 
 mere expression of opinion, not calculated to disfel- 
 lowship any preacher. It is also a significant fact that 
 the Rev. John Prince, (now of Essex Ms.,) in order to 
 defeat the whole movement prepared the following 
 amendment; "Resolved that this Association express 
 its solemn conviction, that in order for one to be re- 
 garded as a Christian minister, with respect to faith, he 
 must believe in the entire Bible account of the birth, 
 life, teachings, miracles, death, resurrection, and as- 
 cension of the Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 It will be perceived that this amendment, inserts 
 three additional words, requiring belief in the entire 
 Bible account of Christ, including his birth and ascen- 
 sion. Mr. Prince sought opportunity to introduce this 
 amendment, which he is confident would not have 
 passed ; but the debate was purposely restricted and 
 " muzzled," and after a discussion of only three hours, 
 in which no one was to speak but once, or more than 
 fifteen minutes, the vote on the original resolution was, 
 in his language, " absolutely grabbed^'' lest the amend- 
 ment, if introduced, should defeat the whole move- 
 ment. 
 
 Mr. P. is confident that the original resolution would 
 not have carried at the first meeting. E. H. Chapin 
 strenuously opposed it ; though himself believing in 
 miracles, he denied the right to pass the test. Hosea 
 Ballou (Sen.) was in favor of indefinite postponement 
 provided a record of the fact were omitted from the 
 published minutes. But when the adjournment had 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES. 169 
 
 taken place, and the eyes of the world were turned to 
 the pending question, he threw his influence in favor 
 of the Resolution, — and it was passed. 
 
 Nine, then, refused. But the majority carried it. — 
 What was the position of the majority ? Were they 
 ready to exclude from the ministry men who did not 
 believe the Bible account of Christ ? Not at all. Says 
 Rev. J. Prince, (one of the eight) " some who voted 
 for it say that they regard it only as an expressioyi of 
 opinion, not as a measure virtually to exclude any one 
 in particular from the fellowship of the order, or as an 
 attempt to drive any one away from the Universalist 
 ministry. Had they viewed it otherwise, they say they 
 should not have voted for it." What then was the ob- 
 ject ? Mr. Prince affirms his solemn conviction that it 
 was but " a screen " before the denomination, and an 
 effort to over-awe the freedom of the younger minis- 
 ters. Rev. D. H. Plumb (another of the eight, now 
 preaching at Warren, Ms.) says, " I stand now (Feb. 
 1848) just where I stood six years ago, when I obtain- 
 ed letters of fellowship and was ordained. No ques- 
 tions were asked me then in regard to belief. I believed 
 In Universal Salvation then, and I do now. This was 
 regarded as the only real essential of a Universalist. 
 The manner in which he was induced to believe it, — how 
 it would be brought about, — what would intervene be- 
 tween the present and its final accomplishment, were 
 all regarded as questions of secondary importance, and 
 were never to my knowledge put." In conformity with 
 this statement, we actually find Hosea Ballou saying, 
 " we deem it proper to consider all who embrace this one 
 item of faith " (the final holiness and happiness of all men) 
 
170 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 " as Universalists, however they may differ" hi other 
 respects.* Mr. W. M. Fernald (another of the eight) 
 reports Hosea Ballou, Senior, as saying to him, " that 
 ' we could not, with our reason, helieve in miracles as 
 above the workings of nature ; that it was best 7iot to 
 say much about it ; that if any were so imprudent as to 
 broach it now, they would have to bear all the brunt of 
 the battle, and those who come after would reap all the 
 good.' On relating the impression I received from this 
 conversation to a talented clergyman, he remarked that 
 he agreed with the venerable gentleman .... this was 
 a proof of his wisdom ; that he probably had not seen 
 the time when the world could bear these views, and so 
 had not pi'oclaimed them." In conformity with this 
 " wisdom " of his, we find the same Hosea Ballou, a 
 year or two later than this, publicly advising young 
 candidates for the ministry to ask themselves whether 
 they believe the Bible account concerning Christ and 
 his works and resurrection. 
 
 But Mr. Fernald adds : " One of the most popular 
 clergymen in the denomination, not sixty miles from 
 Boston, assured me in his study last Spring, that he 
 did not believe that Christ was even raised bodily from 
 the dead." Mr. Fernald contemplated preaching to a 
 very popular society, and was about to send them word 
 by the pastor of the church, as follows: " ' Please tell 
 the people that I am a rationalist ; that I do not be- 
 lieve in the miracles as above nature, — many of them 
 I do not believe in at all — not even the bodily resur- 
 rection of Christ.' ' Fernald,' said he, ' don't send 
 
 * Voice to Un. p. 25. 
 
MOEAL TENDENCIES. 171 
 
 any such word. Go tell them you are a Christian, 
 and there are not ten men in the society that will care 
 what you believe.' Such was the advice and remarks 
 of this highly esteemed clergyman." Mr. Fernald 
 asserts that those entertaining these views are not the 
 obscure and uninfluential alone, but " they are among 
 the first in the order, — the most talented, influential 
 and popular." 
 
 And in regard to the Resolution adopted by the 
 Association, not only are we informed that some min- 
 isters voted for it who privately denied the miracles, 
 but Mr. Prince says of the lay delegates who voted for 
 this test, viz., assent to the " Bible account" of Christ 
 — I know that some of them voted for it as they inter- 
 pret it — construing the " Bible account " to mean 
 " true account," and therefore leaving the question 
 what is the truth of the case, undecided. He also 
 calls attention to the guarded phraseology of the Gen- 
 eral Universalist Convention, in their Profession of 
 Belief, which only avows that the Scriptures " contain 
 a revelation" (not that they are a revelation) — a phrase 
 under y^hich, as he well remarks, " Universalists of 
 every different shade of belief respecting other points 
 of doctrine than universal redemption, could most 
 cordially unite." And he refers, in proof, to the Rev. 
 L. C. Browne, who warmly commends that Profession 
 of belief, yet openly rejects the Scripture narrative of 
 Christ's miraculous birth. « 
 
 Rev. J. W. Hanson, now editor of the " Gospel Ban- 
 ner, (another of the eight,) bears testimony thus: 
 "That the principle, which, when logically carried 
 out, results in Rationalism, is very general in the body, 
 
172 LECTUEES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 is veritably true. There is not a single Universalist 
 preacher who believes that Christ ever cast out devils 
 or demons from a human being. They believe that 
 those who were operated upon by the Savior, were 
 insane or epileptic, and yet the Bible says nothing of 
 the sort. The Universalist Commentary may say that 
 Christ cured men of epileptic fits ; the Bible says he 
 cast out devils y* 
 
 Here is a moral picture for you : — Young men ad- 
 mitted to the Christian ministry without a question 
 whether they receive the Bible teachings concerning 
 Christ aiid his works and resurrection (or, indeed, a 
 question on any point of faith whatever, except the 
 final salvation of all men) ; eight members of the lead- 
 ing Association openly rejecting even such a test ; the 
 majority who carried the Resolution, giving up the 
 rem'ainder of the Bible — and passing the Resolution 
 expressly with no design of excluding the deniers from 
 the ministry ; the most venerable member of the den^- 
 ination privately discarding the miracles, but conceal- 
 ing his opinion for prudence^ sake ; the talented and 
 influential denying the resurrection of Christ, and 
 affirming that not ten men in the congregation will 
 care what a rank infidel believes, if he only calls him- 
 self a Christian ; and the mass of the ministry tinged 
 
 * Ml-. Hanson also gives the following reply of" Father Ballou," as 
 resting on unquestionable authority : At the close of one of his public 
 ministrations, many years ago, being asked by the son of his host, " ' what 
 do you make of the account of the devils which were driven into a herd 
 of swine V ' Ah !' said the old gentleman, ' I was always sorry they put 
 that story in.' " 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES. 173 
 
 with such accommodating and evasive views even of 
 the gospel narration.* 
 
 Numerous confirmatory statements could be given. 
 The noted 0. A. Brownson, who at one time was a 
 Universalist preacher and editor, afterwards stated 
 that it was very common for the clergymen with whom 
 he was then acquainted, to speak of Universalism as a 
 " stepping-stone," as the best weapon to destroy the 
 orthodox, do away the clergy, and to prepare the way 
 for something better. Of the 2,500 subscribers to the 
 Universalist paper he conducted, it was presumed that 
 more than half were skeptics or skeptical. And he 
 had conversed with hundreds of professed Universalists 
 who would own to him that they supported Universalism 
 only " because it was the most liberal sentiment they 
 could find, and because it was better than Deism to 
 
 * The above statements are all of them from this very valuable docu- 
 ment, the "Statement of Facts," dated, Boston, Feb. 5, 1848. Of the 
 eight authors of the Statement, the Universalist Companion and Regis- 
 ter, for 1856, gives the names of five as ministers, now in good standing 
 in the denomination : Rev. C. Spear in Boston, Rev. D. H. Plumb at 
 Warren, Ms., Rev. J. Prince at Essex, Ms., Rev. W. G. Cambridge in 
 Boston, and Rev. J. W. Hanson at Augusta, Me., now editor of the 
 Banner. The other three I do not distinctly trace, except as I learn 
 from the Universalist Quarterly for June, 1856, that Mr. Fernald has 
 abandoned Universalism by going entirely beyod it ; — he holds that " the 
 wicked will be eternally wicked and happjj." 
 
 For my copy of this important " Statement," I am indebted to the 
 kindness of Rev. N. D. George. I wrote to Rev. J. W. Hanson, of the 
 Banner, for a copy, and received a very courteous reply, but not the doc- 
 ument. I am happy to add that Mr. Hanson now endorses its state- 
 ments. In his letter, now lying before me, under date of " Gardiner, 
 May 23, 1856," he says of the "Statement of Facts," "Its contents 
 were facts, but of no great value." Our opinions of their value differ. 
 
174 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 put down the orthodox."! Are there no other places 
 where leading members of Universalist societies are 
 infidel ? 
 
 Abner Kneeland, once a Universalist, and afterwards 
 an Atheist, stated that he reached the last position only 
 bj carrying out those principles of interpretation, 
 which, when a Universalist, he brought to the Bible ; 
 and affirmed explicitly that Universalism is but a 
 " stepping-stone " to infidelity 4 
 
 Hon. Charles Hudson, once a Universalist preacher, 
 afterwards a member of Congress, wrote thus : "As 
 far as my observation has extended — and it has not 
 been very limited, having visited scores of societies — 
 it is my firm opinion that more than two-thirds of the 
 males who are warmly attached to the doctrine of no 
 retribution, are not believers in tlie essential facts of 
 Divine Revelation."* A letter now before me, written 
 by a preacher of the gospel in Rockingham county, 
 recently a Universalist in Maine and well acquainted 
 with the ministry of that denomination in Maine, states 
 thus (under date of May 17, 1856): "They, the min- 
 istry, will not confess to strangers that they deny 
 inspiration and miracles and regeneration and a special 
 or general providence, yet such is the fact. One of 
 the most spiritual in Maine is as much an infidel as 
 Parker, and would have to stand with him if he con- 
 fessed his belief, yet he is their most acknowledged 
 spiritual-minded man.f 
 
 t Review of Whitman's Letters in the Monitor, quoted by M. H. 
 Smith, p. 249. f Smith's Un. Ex. p. 243. * Quoted in Smith's Uni- 
 versalism Examined, p. 293, etc. For Mr. Smith's OM'n abundant testi- 
 mony I shall simply refer to the A'olume itself, t Mss. letter of Rev. Jas. 
 M. Palmer of Newmarket — by whom I amauthorized to use the statement. 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES. 175 
 
 Listen also to a voice from New York : The same 
 " Statement of facts," already quoted, gives a letter 
 "written from the State of New York, to Mr. Prince, 
 (dated Nov. 10, 1845,) a part of which reads thus : 
 " Brother Prince, When I became a Universalist, fif- 
 teen years ago, I embraced what is now called Parker- 
 ism. Since that time, I have not believed in the 
 theology of the Jews, nor in their morality. I have 
 not believed in the infallibility of the prophets. 
 .... I have not believed in an age of miracles, nor a 
 
 monopoly of inspiration I have never concealed 
 
 my views on these subjects ; but I have never said very 
 much about them, except by incidentally incorporating 
 them into my sermons When I became a Uni- 
 versalist, I supposed that these views were generally 
 embraced by the denomination. True, I knew that 
 one preacher at the West very strongly opposed them, 
 and that he made himself very unpopular with his 
 brethren by doing so. . . . Possibly, when the final vote 
 is taken, there will be found more ' infidels'' among us 
 than was even supposed." 
 
 Nay, distinct intimations of this position are to be 
 found even in their published defences, as when Asher 
 Moore, after admitting that all infidels believe the doc- 
 trine of eternal punishment to be in the Bible and for 
 this reason reject it, significantly asks, " And when such 
 is declared to be the doctrine of that book which pro- 
 claims good tidings of great joy that shall be to all 
 people ; who can blame a man for pausing to inquire 
 before he believes ?" And when Williamson asserts, 
 "Now man does see some truths by his own reason and 
 he knows them to be true ; hence he is authorized to 
 
176 LECTUEES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 reject any and every doctrine that contradicts these 
 first principles ;" — and four pages further, he informs 
 us that " reason most sternly forbids the idea of end- 
 less woe" or " even the possibility of it" under the gov- 
 ernment of God. So also Thayer, vi^hen he makes this 
 bold alternative : " One of two things is certain — ^if 
 God is the Father of all men, endless misery is false : 
 or if endless misery is true, God is not the father of all 
 men, and the Bible is false.'''' And the General Con- 
 vention of Universalists in the United States has pur- 
 posely left the door open to " Universalists of every shade 
 of belief^'' (as Mr. Prince well expresses it,) by declar- 
 ing as their Profession of Belief in regard to the Bible, 
 — not that the Holy Scriptures are a Revelation from 
 God himself — but that they " contain a revelation of 
 the character of God, and of the duty, interest, and 
 final destruction of mankind." But who made that 
 Revelation, whether God or man, and in what portions 
 of the Scriptures it is " contained," the General Con- 
 vention of Universalists say not. They even make this 
 confession easy to every capacity, by requiring only 
 " an expressed or implied assent.":]: The whole system, 
 in its influence and bearing, is but an ill-disguised 
 scheme of infidelity. 
 
 3. As a code of doctrine it is also deceitful and un- 
 manly in its course. You have heard the pitiful 
 perversions of Scripture, and the wretched disregard 
 of all consistency in argument, with which the system 
 is sustained by some of the leading writers. Those 
 
 X Moore's Univ. Belief, p. 52. Williamson's Endless Pun; Ex. pp. 24, 
 28. Tracts for the people, p. 51. Universalist Companion for 1857. 
 " Constitution of Gen. Convention," Art. 6, Section 5. 
 
MOEAL TENDENCIES. 177 
 
 writers are not singular. My examinations have im- 
 pressed me continually with a painful sense of their 
 dishonesty and sophistry. Audacious misrepresenta- 
 tions and misstatements concerning facts are character- 
 istic. And with this is joined a singular concealment 
 and deception, concerning the inner features of the 
 system. Bad as is the Universalism of the books, you 
 do not get it all there. In this lowest deep there is a 
 lower still. There is a Universalist system, it seems, 
 out of sight. Here are men rejecting the inspiration 
 of the Bible, the narrative of Christ's miracles, and of 
 his resurrection, yet retaining their standing in the 
 ministry ; here are such men even as E. H. Chapin 
 and T. S. King, publicly denying the " moral right to 
 pass such a test ;"* here are other men voting a belief 
 in these things necessary to a minister, yet averring 
 that they mean not to reject those who disavow them. 
 Here is the father of the denomination frankly confess- 
 ing, in private, principles which he dared not avow in 
 public, — and other men endorsing his wisdom ; while 
 popular and leading men of the denomination frankly 
 own their disbelief of Christ's resurrection. So, Abner 
 Kneeland was known by his ministerial associates to 
 have renounced his faith in the Bible for years before 
 he did it publicly, and he went on as one of them.f 
 Says my correspondent, " they will not confess these 
 things to strangers, yet such is the fact. They deny 
 all miracles — inspiration — regeneration — the immor- 
 tality of the Soul. They believe that when we die we 
 become extinct, and then in the resurrection, be it 
 sooner or later, the Soul is created anew. This latter 
 
 * "Statement of Facts," pp. 1, 4. t Smith's Un. Ex. p. 248. 
 12 
 
178 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 statement is true of Universalists, although our people 
 do not know it generally."* Indeed so serpentine is 
 the system, it is impossible to hold it to anything ; and 
 it is only when there is a strife within, or a departure 
 of some one from the body that we can see its inner 
 life. For example, — there is a certain preacher of the 
 system, who in his last conversation with a Congregation- 
 al minister, some years since, was a Restorationist. 
 Not many months ago, in conversation with an intelli- 
 gent Orthodox physician, being closely pressed, he was 
 inclined to admit some future punishment ; but, a few 
 days later, he calls him aside to say that he did not 
 know whether there would or would not be any future 
 punishment ; then in a conversation with a Baptist 
 minister, not six months since, he denies in so many 
 words that he is a Restorationist ; afterwards, another 
 Congregational minister hears him publicly endorse, 
 in a story, the position that impenitent persons were 
 in heaven at the time of the funeral sermon ; members 
 of his own congregation affirm that he does not believe 
 in any future punishment ; and then all of a sudden 
 he affirms, or seeins to affirm, that he does.f What 
 sort of a system is that ? A system with such a ser- 
 pentine track is worthy of its origin. 
 
 II. I said, the moral tendencies of the system might 
 be seen in it^ method of preaching and propagation. 
 
 * Mr. Palmer makes this statement more particularly of those within 
 his acquaintance, and at the time of his acquaintance four or five years • 
 ago. He has since spoken to me of the constant vacillation of the de- 
 nomination, rendering it difficult to say what the same men hold for any 
 length of time, t The testimony of all these persons is at hand. One 
 of them is the writer of these lectures. 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES. 179 
 
 Let me not dwell on this point. Is not its style of 
 preaching low and contentious ? * Does it spend its 
 chief strength in trying to make men love G-od with 
 all their hearts, and their neighbors as themselves ? 
 Does it labor and toil to m ake men virtuous and pure, 
 as Christ also is pure ? Does it seek to form the youth 
 to lofty plans and aspirations, and to reclaim them 
 from the tempter's power ? Is its whole influence a 
 blessing to young men, and a restraint on all forms of 
 vice in the community ? Or is it the chief burden of 
 its preaching, to dispel all dread of sin, and all over- 
 righteousness, and to ridicule and abuse other denom- 
 inations ? Is it perpetually seeking to get into a wran- 
 gle with those who do apply the restraint of Christ's 
 gospel to the love of sin ? And how long could its 
 preachers hold out to preach, were there no Orthodoxy 
 to fight with and to furnish themes ? Is there an in- 
 stance in New Hampshire, indeed, how many instances 
 are there in the whole country, of a Universalist 
 church with permanent preaching, except where one or 
 more evangelical churches had been first established, 
 or establishing, to which it might attach itself like a 
 barnacle and swim, or fasten itself like a leach to draw 
 blood ? And were all the evangelical pulpits to be shut 
 up, how long would it be before Universahsm would 
 preach its last sermon ? And its weekly battle — is it 
 against iniquity or against orthodoxy ? Does it aim 
 chiefly at making men love God, or hate Calvmism ? — 
 
 * A few such preachers as E. H. Chapln and others must be cheer- 
 fully excepted ; the remarks apply to a large portion of the denomina- 
 tion, and probably to nearly all of the rural preachers. Would that 
 exceptions were more numerous. 
 
180 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 And which does it most effectually accomplish ? Does 
 it flourish by opposing sin, — or by winking at it ? Does 
 it depend for acceptance on the qualities that Paul 
 requires in Timothy and Titus, — or on its jovial quali- 
 ties, its good-fellowships, and odd-fellowships, its boon 
 companionships and high times, and all that sort of in- 
 fluence ? What annual denominational gatherings in 
 this city are never made perfect without the dance, and 
 sometimes witness whole heaps of them who were not 
 slain with the sword ? Let those who have seen it 
 most and know it best, make answer. 
 
 III. But I pass, thirdly, to consider the moral ten- 
 dencies of Universalism, as an influence on its hearers 
 and the community. 
 
 There are many men of wealth, some of respectable 
 standing and high general character, who for reasons 
 of their own choose to support that system. Some of 
 its supporters, indeed, see through it from end to end. 
 But some were educated in that belief. Others, for 
 the sake of their friends, wish to find it true. There 
 are many others, some of them young and lively, 
 who know little about the real character of the system, 
 and have never reflected on its influence ; but who 
 have floated into the current around them, and are 
 sporting in it as a kind of summer sea. Let such in- 
 dividuals consider themselves exempted, so far as they 
 deserve, from my general remarks. 
 
 As a general moral and religious influence, Uni- 
 versalism has both a negative and a positive influence. 
 There are some things it does not do, and some that it 
 does. 
 
 1. There are some things it does not do. (1.) It 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES. 181 
 
 does not lead to the confession of Christ before men. 
 Now the apostles formed churches, ohserved the or- 
 dinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and made 
 arrangements to maintain mutual Christian conference, 
 and purity of life. So has evangelical religion invari- 
 bly done. Not so does Universalism. The formation 
 of a church is the exception and not the rule. Whit- 
 temore himself admits, after Ballon 2nd, that " more 
 than two-thirds " of their congregations have no 
 churches.* The truth is, the thing is not attempted, 
 I believe, except in the larger places, where respecta- 
 bility renders it necessary. And there, how meagre 
 the number of those who are willing to go through 
 even the form of confessing Christ — although both 
 Whittemore and Ballon, Senior, propose to abolish all 
 distinction between church and congregation,! and to 
 have the whole congregation join in the ordinance, just 
 as the whole community, says Ballou, "joins in cele- 
 brating our national independence." But the congre- 
 gation doubtless feel, as was once said to Smith, that 
 i/ifl^ would "be carrying the joke quite too far." And 
 well they may, when the leader himself endorses the 
 sentiment of Ballou 2nd, that he " has doubts of the 
 existence of ordinances in Christianity."^ And the 
 very latest intelligence is, that the proposed oblitera- 
 tion of the line between church and congregation is 
 begun. " In several of the Western States," says the 
 Universalist Companion for 1857, " we are reorgan- 
 izing. Societies and churches are organized under 
 one Constitution, and are termed ' Churches.' This is 
 
 * Plain Guide, p. 326. t lb. p. 332. Voice to Un. p. 20. X Plaia 
 Guide, p. 325. 
 
182 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 as it should be," adds the editor.* Happy times, in- 
 deed, for Universalism, when the distinctive badges o^ 
 Christianity are laid aside ! 
 
 (2.) It does not lead men to earnest prayerful study 
 of God's word. At most, it leads men to cull out isola- 
 ted passages from the Bible. It presumes that they do 
 not habitiially and devoutly search the Scriptures, or 
 it would never venture on such reckless perversions as 
 I have exposed in your presence. And where men 
 have gone prayerfully and humbly to the Bible, willing 
 to be taught, there are abundant instances in which 
 they have abandoned Universalism. 
 
 (3.) It does not lead to habits of prayer. At the 
 time when Matthew Hale Smith first published his 
 book, he wa^ able testify that neither himself nor any 
 minister of that denomination, whom he knew, had 
 observed family prayer. f Adin Ballon, quoted in the 
 same volume, also asserted that his former brethren 
 regarded family prayers, blessings at meals, " as idle 
 ceremonies. "I After the publication of his book, some 
 change was introduced, to stop the mouths of the or- 
 thodox. But I infer that it could not have been very 
 extensive or lasting. My informant from Maine says 
 thus : " Among Universalists, (and I am very well ac- 
 quainted with the ministry,) I never ■ knew a person 
 who prayed, except the ministry, and they never ex- 
 cept officially or when pressed to it in private. "§ Why 
 should they? Says the Rev. 0. A. Skinner, "The 
 change which our devotions are intended to make, is 
 upon ourselves, not upon the Almighty." || Prayer, 
 
 * Un. Comp. for 1857, edited by Rev. A. B. Grosh, p. 48. t Univ. 
 Ex. p. 227. X lb. p. 296. § J. M. Palmer. || Univ. 111. and Def. p. 
 831 ; quoted from N. D. George. 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES. 183 
 
 as an asking of God, is made a meaningless form. 
 And for a genuine prayer-meeting, such 'as is found in 
 thousands of evangelical churches in the country, in 
 the whole Universalist denomination where are there 
 twenty — yea, regularly maintained for a series of 
 years, may I not safely ask, where is there one ? It 
 does not naturally lead men to pray even on the death- 
 bed. The Universalist may pray there, but it is of no 
 account ; he has no need of it, — there is nothing to be 
 gained by it, on his system. A few years since, a 
 stone-cutter of Manchester, a strong Universalist, who 
 had parted from his wife because he could not keep 
 both his wife and his bottle, went home to Bedford 
 sick, and declining toward death. As he was about 
 to pass away, his mother told him that his end was 
 near, and asked him to say the Lord's prayer. " I 
 won't," was the answer. The mother urged — but she 
 gained no other reply than " I won't." And so he 
 died. Now I say, that was consistent Universalism. 
 He was at his last gasp ; there was nothing to gain in 
 this world, not even any further influence on himself: 
 in the next world it would make no difference whether 
 he prayed or not, or what he did : so he died consist- 
 ent, and said, " I won't pray." 
 
 (4.) Universalism does not lead to Missionary efforts 
 or reformatory labors. Christian denominations push 
 forth among the heathen, and are dotting the world 
 with their sparks of light. Universalism' s missionary 
 labors are confined to crusades against Christian 
 churches. For a considerable time, the denomination 
 was opposed to Sabbath-schools, and to the temperance 
 movement ; and though necessity compelled a change 
 
184 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 on both those points, I suppose it is safe to say, that 
 more opposers of temperance are found in the few 
 Universalist societies of New England than in all the 
 evangelical societies put together, — though the latter 
 are scores of times more numerous. 
 
 (5.) Universalism does not reform the vicious. The 
 evangelical churches can point to hundreds and thous- 
 ands of vicious men reclaimed, by conversion, to a vir- 
 tuous and holy life. They can point even to profligate 
 men, formerly of the Universalist belief, made exem- 
 plary by conversion. Now there are moral men among 
 Universalists, but where are the men who have been 
 made so by their Universalism ? Where is the man 
 who can stand up and say, " I was a drunkard, a gam- 
 bler, profane, licentious, a Sabbath-breaker, prayerless : 
 but I became a Universalist, and instantly I lost all 
 relish for these things." Among the multitude of dis- 
 solute persons to whom Universalism has free access, 
 where does it point to a single trophy of the kind ? 
 Where is there a dissolute young man in this city, that 
 has been reformed by embracing Universalism, or 
 restrained in vice by attending Universalist preaching ? 
 Show us the man. 
 
 Nay, friends, Universalism does none of these things, 
 and every one of you knows it. But there are 
 
 2. Some things which it does. 
 
 (1.) It often marks the transition of a nominal 
 Christian to a prayerless, ungodly life. Let an ortho- 
 dox man turn Universalist, and, if he prayed before, it 
 is quite certain he will soon cease ; or let such a man 
 become vicious, and the probabilities are that he will 
 turn Universalist or open infidel. The second Univer- 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES. 185 
 
 salist society of Lynn is a case in point, where, at its 
 formation, nearly all its leading members were Metlio 
 dist backsliders, men who had lost their religion. 
 
 (2.) It enlists the warm support and sympathy of 
 the vicious, in their sins. When such men follow their 
 inclinations, unrestrained by considerations of relation- 
 ship, business or respectability, if they go to any meet- 
 ing, it will be to a Universalist one. When I was a 
 boy, that was the mark by which I used to learn of the 
 occasional coming of a Universalist preacher to the 
 town. The way sparkled with all the ruby faces of 
 the town. There were indeed some respectable men 
 among them, — but Universalism, and Universalism 
 alone, was sure to call out the drunkards, and profane. 
 They went to hear ; and returned — to their cups and 
 their oaths. And that is the difference between the 
 preaching of Christ, and of Universalism. We are 
 sometimes told that the publicans and harlots went to 
 hear Christ ! Yes, but under his preaching, Christ 
 said, " the publicans and harlots went into the kingdom 
 of heaven ;" but under Universalist preaching, the 
 drunkards and profane go back to the kingdom of hell. 
 And so notorious is this sympathy and support from 
 men in their sins, that when Mr. Stevens, of Barnet, 
 Vt,, informed my friend of a great public controversy, 
 in Danville, Vt., between a Universalist and an ortho- 
 dox preacher, and added that the friends of the one 
 party resorted to the hotel and held grand carousals 
 there, his auditor had no occasion to ask whose friends 
 they were. 
 
 (8.) Universalism actually produces in the bulk of 
 its hearers an entire indifference to vital religion. On 
 
186 LECTUEES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 this point hear their own men : Rev. J. George of the 
 State of New York, (said by the editor of the Gospel 
 Banner to be one of the best ministers,) in June, 1849, 
 writes thus to that paper : Speaking of the claims of 
 vital religion upon the heart, he says, " it is a shameful 
 truth that this important demand of the gospel is 
 almost entirely neglected in the denomination. Vital 
 piety, a new heart, and a prayerful and holy life, as the 
 first obligation in the New Testament, has but few ad- 
 vocates in the order."* Is there a man living that 
 dares deny his statement ? Even Mr. Whittemore was 
 constrained to confess, " The morals of the Univer- 
 salist woidd, and must, in the very nature of things, 
 be purer than the morals of those operated upon by 
 different opinions, were it not that he makes his religion 
 too much a thing; of theory and too little a thing' of 
 practice. This is the fault of many Universalists."t 
 It must be confessed, I think, a slight religious defect, 
 when a denomination's purity of morals is a " thing of 
 theory " and not " a thing of practice." 
 
 Accordingly it is remarkable that from those who 
 have abandoned Universalism, there comes one unani- 
 mous testimony to its entire destitution of all religious 
 life. Says Rev. J. M. Palmer of his former acquaint- 
 ances, " Of course there are some noble-minded men ; 
 but I know of no one who seems to me a Christian, or 
 who approximates thereto. I feel that they are set 
 forth in the Bible generally, as ' men of corrupt minds, 
 reprobates concerning the faith ' — 'in all whose 
 thoughts God is not.' " Now, members of evangelical 
 
 * Gospel Banner, June, 1849. Quoted from George's Univ. not of 
 the Bible, p. 383. t Plain Guide, p. 283. 
 
MOEAL TENDENCIES. 187 
 
 denominations, Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregation- 
 alists, and others, are continually interchanging their 
 ecclesiastical relations ; but whatever their preferences, 
 they never fail to feel and testify to the christian integ- 
 rity and deep-toned piety of the great bulk of the 
 church they have left. On the other hand, they that 
 abandon Universalism, never fail to testify that the 
 system has no religious life. Their agreement is 
 remarkable. Even the Universalist Quarterly Review 
 admits the agreement ; for in speaking of Mr. Fernald, 
 (who abandoned the denomination by outstripping 
 them,) it commends him, as having, with few excep- 
 tions, little in common with the vulgar herd of apos- 
 tates, who in times past sought to malign the party 
 they had deserted."* 
 
 As I once sat listening to a Universalist discourse, 
 and gazed around on the faces of those who were 
 greedily devouring the promise of eternal life, I had a 
 curious thought pass through my mind, and it was 
 this : Suppose all these young men and women were 
 actually this moment transferred to heaven, the heaven 
 of God, where Christ and all the holy dwell in holy 
 bliss forever — and suppose, by some unaccountable 
 arrangement, the gates of heaven were left unclos- 
 ed, and the way open down to the dancing halls, and 
 oyster shops, and liquor saloons, and similar places 
 here below — how many of these persons would be 
 
 found in heaven at the end of fifteen minutes ? 
 
 No, my hearers, Universalism does not cultivate a 
 relish for holy pleasures, for the presence of God and 
 Christ, and all the good. 
 
 * Un. Quarterly for Jan. 1856, p. 104. 
 
188 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 (4.) Universalism has led, and is constantly leading, 
 multitudes of men into every species of iniquity. It 
 takes off all efficient control. On this point I have a 
 mass of evidence, the evidence of facts ; and the only 
 difficulty is to select. 
 
 What kind of e^adence do you want, and from what 
 quarter drawn ? Shall it be from those who once 
 preached the doctrine ? Listen then to Lewis C. Todd, 
 of Herkimer Co., N. Y., once a zealous editor and 
 preacher of Universalism, afterwards a Methodist : " 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 the necessary restraint and giving latitude 
 to thousands whose propensities and passions needed 
 restraint, whereby they have indulged in criminal pur- 
 suits, and gone to perdition." When this testimony 
 was published in the Millenial Harbinger, the editor of 
 that periodical added, " I am personally acquainted 
 with some four or five Universalian preachers, who 
 have joined the church of Christ of which I am a mem- 
 ber, who all say that Mr. Todd speaks their experience, 
 or who all concur with him in their opinion."* Paul 
 Dean of Boston, who left the denomination in 1828, 
 Ohas. Hudson, member of Congress in 1843, and Adin 
 Ballou, have lifted up a similar testimony in regard to 
 the moral tendency of the doctrine. Mr. Smith gives 
 the names of more than twenty ministers, who have 
 borne similar witness. f 
 
 Would you have the confession of a body of Uni- 
 
 * Arvine's Cyclop., sec. 424. 
 
 t Univ. Exam. p. 293. Extracts are given in the volume. 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES. 189 
 
 versalist ministers themselves ? In the month of 
 July, 1835, so says the Trumpet of July 11th, the Uni- 
 versalist Convention of Maine, passed a resolve recom- 
 mending to the societies of Maine, " that no man known 
 to be addicted to the habit of drunkenness, or gam- 
 bling, or profane swearing, or who is an unbeliever of 
 Christianity, should be appointed to office in the socie- 
 ties."* Would it not be high times, when the Maine 
 Conference of Congregational mi nisters should need to 
 pass such a vote ? 
 
 Will you hear a warning from the prison ? Listen 
 then to the Rev. J. B. Finley, (Methodist,) chaplain 
 of the Ohio Penitentiary from 1846 to 1850. Says he 
 " I found s ome hardened infidels in these dungeon 
 cells. They were steeped in crime ; and their souls 
 were as hard as the granite rock. They had been 
 cursed and ruined by bad books, .... and most of 
 them had gone to infidelity through the convenient 
 do9rway of Universalism."§ Again, " I consider Uni- 
 versalism the worst form of infidelity. Nearly all the 
 prisoners have been infected with it, while in their 
 career of vice. Nothing else, they say, could have 
 held them up in crime at the risk of life at every step 
 they took, but the conviction which they tried hard to en- 
 tertain, that after a life of stealing, house-breaking, rob- 
 bing, plundering and murder, they would certainly go 
 to sit down with the patriarchs in heaven ! Oh, what 
 a soul-damning error ! It has ruined millions of the 
 human family ! " Again, ( p. 122, ) " To-day we had 
 -a great many visitors and among them a large number 
 
 *Quoted byN. D. George, p. 384. t Memorials of Prison Life p. 31, 
 
190 LECTURES ON UNIYERSALISM. 
 
 of Universalist ministers. The latter looked through 
 the prison with great interest. I thought in my heart 
 as they were going round, that their doctrines had 
 sent many of these wretched men to this fearful place ; 
 and this was a fact that I could prove by a score of 
 confessions, perhaps twice or three times a score, given 
 me by the convicts themselves. About thirty of these 
 inmates are here for murder. How cruel, how wicked, 
 how unjust, said I to myself, as these ministers were 
 walking about, to commit these thirty men to this 
 gloomy prison during life, for the meritorious act of 
 sending an equal number of their suffering fellow- 
 mortals from the cares of this world to the everlasting 
 joys of heaven. Oh, folly ! what a doctrine of devils 
 is this ! what a responsibility have these men assumed ! 
 I was glad to find, that, as soon as their character be- 
 came known, they were looked down upon by many of 
 the degraded prisoners themselves." Thus testifies 
 Mr. Finley. And he furnishes a narrative given by one 
 of the prisoners, who having tried Atheism, and after- 
 wards Deism, in vain, was at length pacified in his ca- 
 reer of crime by the preaching of a Universalist minis- 
 ter.* 
 
 Would you hear a voice from the death bed of a 
 converted profligate ? Listen to Nathan Dyer, (of Steu- 
 ben, Washington Co., Me.,) who died on the 11th of 
 April, 1835, sending his dying testimony to the con- 
 gregation, that Universalism, the doctrine of his life, 
 was a fatal and soul-ruining system. He had tried 
 hard to discard the Bible wholly ; he could not resist 
 the evidence that it came from God. " He was led to 
 
 * Id. pp. 113—117. 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES. 191 
 
 enquire whether he could not be a believer in Christi- 
 anity, and yet deny all that he deemed offensive in its 
 doctrines, and uncomfortable in its restraints." He fell 
 in with Universalism : it fulfilled the condition. It 
 promised him impunity in sin. Shrinking from all 
 discussions, and from all Scripture that implied eternal 
 punishment, he hugged Universalism to his heart, and 
 plunged madly in a course of vice, from which he rest- 
 ed not till God's arrow pierced his vitals. Then, in 
 that lingering disease, he was led by his own reflec- 
 tions to see his ruin, to embrace the cross, and lift up 
 his word against the awful delusion that had buoyed 
 him up in sin.* 
 
 Would you have a warning from the death-bed of 
 the hardened profligate ? Listen to the words of the 
 dying Universalist, Frost, of Sherburne, Mass. See 
 him running down three years with consumption, yet 
 frightfully profane and reckless to the very last ; and 
 saying that he wanted no funeral sermon, and cared 
 not how they disposed of his body, — he should be well 
 off.f 
 
 Would you hear the testimony of the dying mother 
 of three profligate sons, — all of whom had separated 
 from their wives without divorce, two of whom were 
 living with other women, and one if not two of whom 
 had been in jail for theft ? Listen, then, to the sad 
 
 wail of the dying Mrs. , of Salisbury : — "When 
 
 my husband became a Universalist, it was the ruin of 
 my sons. "J 
 
 Would you desire the witness of intelligent observers 
 
 * Rider's Lectures, p. 274, etc. t Furnished by Rev. T. P. Sawin. 
 I The author is responsible for the fact. 
 
192 LECTURES ON UKIVERSALISM. 
 
 in large places ? In a large inland city of New Eng- 
 land, several reliable men, some of tliem having pecul- 
 iar means of knowledge, have stated to me that most 
 of the members of the Universalist church in that place 
 are more or less in the habit of using profane language ; 
 and the intelligent keeper of a restaurateur, though in- 
 clined to speak favorably of the Universalist minister 
 there, yet in the same conversation volunteered to my 
 informant (a Baptist minister,) this remark : " Him- 
 dreds of young persons are going down to destruction 
 
 through the influence of Mr. ," the Universalist 
 
 preacher. 
 
 Would you hear from the duelist the night before 
 he was shot ? Hear Jonathan Cilley, Member of Con- 
 gress from Maine, in conversation with a pious lady, 
 in Washington, the night before he was killed by 
 Graves of Kentucky. " He confessed that, with the 
 religious views that the lady entertained, he should be 
 deterred from fighting the duel. But as a Universal- 
 ist, he had nothing to fear ; if he shot his antagonist, 
 the world would justify him ; but if he was killed, his 
 soul would immediately ascend to heaven."* 
 
 Would you hear the testimony of the suicide ? Lis- 
 ten to the letter of Cyrus C. Crawford of Plymouth N. 
 H. He was a Universalist and the son of a zealous 
 Universalist. Detected as a counterfeiter, he lay in 
 Lowell jail awaiting his trial, in 1840. He wrote 
 a letter to his mother, saying, " he had got into trouble — 
 trouble for life — and he thought he would get out of 
 it in the shortest way." " He bade his friends farewell 
 till they should meet in an unknown world where 
 
 * tJn. Exam. p. 325. 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES. 193 
 
 parting is not known."* And so like a consistent Uni- 
 versalist, who preferred the free range of Paradise to a 
 seven-foot cell with an iron bedstead, he made his leap, 
 as he thought, into heaven. 
 
 Would you hear from the suicide nearer home ? In 
 the summer of 1854, in the city of Manchester, two 
 young women, under the influence of disappointment, 
 one day dressed themselves in white, plunged into the 
 upper canal, and perished. Those two young women, 
 but a Sabbath or two before, had gone and heard a 
 discourse teaching that all men go to heaven ; and in 
 their conversations with a friend of theirs, who stated 
 it to the Rev. J. M. Coburn at the time, they had 
 affirmed that " they should go right to heaven, and it 
 was best to get rid of trouble." 
 
 Now, as a fearful comment on all this, read in the 
 Trumpet, where Thomas Whittemore gravely argues, 
 that the punishment of suicide " lies in the intention 
 to commit it " and all takes place beforehand ; — and 
 listen to Rev. A. B. Grosh, in the Magazine & Advo- 
 cate, questioning whether suicide even has always an 
 evil intention !f 
 
 Now in reply to these cases and the like, I know we 
 shall hear the customary declamation, that men of all 
 religions are guilty of crime. But, I beg you will ob- 
 serve, that has nothing to do with the question : I 
 have cited these sad facts, not in proof that Universal- 
 
 * George, p. 391. Smith, p. 324. 
 
 t Trumpet No. 676 ; Mag. ami Advo. Vol. 8, p. 358. Quoted by 
 Rev. N. D. George, p. 318. Hosea Ballou advocates the view that tuc 
 punishment of suicide takes place at the time and in the act. Whittc- 
 more's Life of Ballou, Vol. 3. 
 
 13 
 
194 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 ists commit crime, but that their Universalism ivas 
 the actual, direct and avowed encourag-ement to their 
 crime. And I have given yon facts, and not theories. 
 
 Bear in mind that such are the influences of this 
 pernicious system, notwithstanding its limited number 
 of preachers, notwithstanding all the counteracting 
 restraints of the law and of a preached gospel all 
 around ; — and you can well agree with a distinguished 
 judge in the Middle States, who replied to the Univer- 
 salist minister thus : " This, sir, I do believe, that 
 were all clergymen to preach this doctrine that you 
 preach, there would soon be a hell in this world, if not 
 in the next." 
 
 Thus you perceive, my hearers, that this system is 
 consistent with itself from beginning to end. In its 
 nature and its character ; in the obvious marks which 
 it wears on its front ; in its inner economy of life, its 
 argument — its deceitful method of dealing with God's 
 word ; in its perversion of God's attributes and its 
 appeal to human, unregenerate passions ; and in its 
 actual moral tendencies, the slime that tracks its way ; — 
 all is in keeping. Can you wonder that men who un- 
 derstand that system in all its windings, loathe, and 
 abhor, and despise the system, however fair may be the 
 standing of many of its adherents. Can you wonder 
 that the Rev. J. B. Finley should call it " the doctrine 
 of devils," and the Rev. J. M. Palmer should say, " it 
 is worse than Deism ?" Can you wonder we feel that 
 when a young man puts himself under the power of 
 that heresy, there is little hope of him for the world to 
 come, and great danger of his ruin in the present life ? 
 Or that to its preachers, whatever their personal char- 
 
MOEAL TENDENCIES. 195 
 
 acter, yet in their official capacity, we assign the words 
 of the prophet, " With lies ye have made the heart of 
 the righteous sad whom I have not made sad ; and 
 strengtliened the hands of the wicked tliat he should 
 not return from his wicked way, by promising him life." 
 And now let me advise the members of my congre- 
 gation, never to countenance the preaching of that 
 system by your presence. There is nothing to be 
 learned, as you well know. The system, as you are 
 well satisfied, is false. Leave it in its rottenness. I 
 went once to hear it deal with Scripture. I went, 
 however, not from curiosity, but for purposes of use 
 and duty. That duty now is done ; — for I have ex- 
 posed to you the corrupt and corrupting character of 
 the system that denies a future retribution. 
 
 Let us live, my hearers, henceforth, in view of the 
 great and awful truth to which our minds have been 
 turned in this discussion. Let us remember habitually, 
 " it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this 
 the judgment" — that " we must all appear before the 
 judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive 
 the things done in his body, according to that he hath 
 done, whether it be good or bad." Death rolls on 
 apace ; and as death leaves us, the judgment finds us. 
 
 Do I speak to some adherent of the system ? And 
 shall it be in vain, my friend, that I have shown you 
 the system in a light in which you have not seen it 
 before — its hollowness within — its sophistry and dishon- 
 esty — its dangerous and immoral tendencies — the cha- 
 otic condition of its very ministry, not daring publicly 
 to avow the sentiments they hold, but ever moving- 
 downward and downward, till their infidelity breaks 
 
196 LECTURES ON UNI VERBALISM. 
 
 out of its hiding-place. Shall it be in vain that you 
 look in on their vacillation and discordance ? And 
 when these men stand up to be sponsors for God to all 
 eternity — dare you trust your hopes to such blind 
 guides ? " If the blind lead the blind," said the Sav- 
 ior, " both shall fall into the ditch." 
 
 Remember there are times when some of these men 
 are troubled at heart with their own doings. They 
 may, they must, speak boldly abroad, when their souls 
 quail within. It is not in human nature to defy the 
 whole force of God's word, without fearful misgivings. 
 Within the last six years, there died in Pittsfield, Mass., 
 a rich but very dissolute man, — a Universalist. Just 
 before the funeral, the Rev. Mr. H., a Methodist min- 
 ister, visiting his brother the Universalist preacher, 
 found him walking his room, apparently in great dis- 
 tress. " What is the trouble," inquired the Methodist. 
 " Ah," replied the Universalist, " they want me to put 
 that man into heaven, but he is not there, he is not 
 there !" You will not be surprised to learn that the 
 preacher soon left the Universalist ministry. But why, 
 oh ! why did he not tell that profligate that he would 
 not go to heaven, before he died ? 
 
 Oh ! what an awful responsibility rests on him who 
 flatters men that they shall surely enter heaven, when 
 every step takes hold on death and hell ! And what a 
 meeting in that other world, when the deceiver and his 
 victim — he that recklessly preached, and he that greed- 
 ily heard, the soul destroying doctrine — shall gaze in 
 each other's faces, and shall read, written in lines of 
 eternal despair, — " The unrighteous shall not inherit 
 
 THE kingdom of GoD !" 
 
LECTURE SEVENTH. 
 
 EESTORATIONIST VIEWS AMONG UNIVERSALIS TS. 
 
 Matt. XXV : 46. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment 
 but the righteous into life eternal. 
 
 In these words does the Lord Jesus Christ describe the 
 duration of human retribution, — everlasting punish- 
 ment, and life eternal. And my hearers will take 
 notice, that though our English version employs two 
 different words, — "everlasting" and "eternal," — the 
 term used in the original Greek is in each case pre- 
 cisely the same. It is, moreover, the very same term, 
 which, elsewhere in the New Testament, (Rom. 16 : 
 26,) describes the duration of God's own existence, 
 when he is called " the everlasting God." 
 
 The solemn narration, of which this forms the con- 
 clusion, sets forth the final judgment. The Son of 
 Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels 
 with him. He shall sit upon the throne of his glory, 
 and before him shall be gathered all nations ; and he 
 shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd 
 divideth his sheep from the goats. The sheep, his own 
 chosen flock, he sets on his right hand ; he calls them 
 " ye blessed of my Father." They are " the righteous," 
 They include not merely those who may have known 
 the Savior in person, but the righteous through all 
 time ; for their Christian offices had been rendered, not 
 unto him, but unto " the least of his brethren." The 
 
198 LECTUEES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 kingdom awaiting the righteous, was " prepared for 
 them before the foundation of the world." Those 
 whom he sets on his left hand, he calls " ye cursed." 
 They had not withholden from Christ in person, but 
 they had refused the offices of piety towards him in 
 the least of his brethren. And, as the home of the 
 righteous was prepared before the foundation of the 
 world, so, we are told, the wicked are commanded to 
 depart " into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and 
 his angels." " And these shall go away into everlast- 
 ing or eternal punishment, but the righteous into life 
 everlasting or eternal." Thus the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 in the same breath, declares the duration of the pun- 
 ishment of the wicked, and of the rew^ard of the right- 
 eous, by the very same word, — and that, a word than 
 which there is no stronger in the Greek language to 
 denote the coming eternity of God. Enough, then, 
 that the pains of hell shall be coeval with the happiness 
 of heaven, — and both of them with the ceaseless years 
 of God. 
 
 Against this and other plain declarations of God's 
 word, as we have seen, there is a considerable body of 
 men, who, though pretending to receive the Bible, 
 boldly deny that there shall be any punishment at all 
 after death. Their doctrine I have sufficiently shown 
 to be no obsolete thing, but a living system of the 
 present day, the published doctrine of the Universalist 
 denomination. No different doctrine has for many 
 years been distinctly put forth in the printed volumes 
 of the denomination. So far as can be ascertamed, it 
 still holds undisputed possession of the great mass 
 of the Universalist pulpits and periodical literature. 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS, 199 
 
 It is the stated spiritual food of tlie denomination. 
 There are some in the denomination, however, — the 
 smaller and better portion, — who do not deny all 
 future punishment, but only its eternal continuance. 
 As the latter view is much less glaringly absurd than 
 the former, and is far more respectable in its social 
 position and influence, it is not unusual for those who 
 hold it, to persuade others and perhaps themselves, 
 that it is somewhat prevalent. And it is not an un- 
 heard-of thing, for those who do not hold this view, 
 when hard pressed with the low character of their own 
 system, to beat a temporary retreat behind the shelter 
 and the respectability of Restorationism. In order, 
 therefore, to meet the device, I propose, in the present 
 lecture, very brieflj^ to consider the subject of 
 
 EESTORATIONIST UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 To do this satisfactorily, requires that I first sketch 
 the history of the system ; after which I will examine 
 its foundation. 
 
 I. The history of Restorationist views among Uni- 
 versalists. 
 
 John Murray was a Restorationist. So were Win- 
 chester and Mitchell ; and so were the great body of 
 Universalists until the year 1818, or nearly forty years 
 ago. They believed in punishment after death ; but 
 in the final " restoration" of all men, without except- 
 ion, to endless blessedness. About that time, Hosea 
 Ballou openly announced the theory, which he had 
 held in private, that " beyond this mortal existence, 
 the Bible teaches no other sentient state but that 
 which is called by the blessed name of life and immor- 
 
200 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 tality."* Mr. Ballon was then editor of the principal 
 Universalist journal, and he used his organ so effectu- 
 ally that he soon carried nearly the whole denom- 
 ination with him. Many individuals, indeed, opposed 
 his doctrine, complained of his unfairness in excluding 
 them from the use of his journal, and threatened se- 
 cession. A separation did take place in 1828, when 
 the believers in future punishment organized them- 
 selves into a distinct body, called Restorationists. The 
 Restorationist movement, as a separate affair, was un- 
 successful. Dr. Baird affirms that " the Restorationist 
 preachers in the United States hardly exceed twelve or 
 fifteen in number, and their churches are even fewer."f 
 It is not to be understood, however, that all who 
 held Restorationist views, joined this separate move- 
 ment. But it is a sad commentary on the character 
 of the adherents of Universalism, that in twelve short 
 years from the time when Ballou first broached his 
 system, the great body of Universalists came over to 
 his views, and but a small minority continued to avow 
 their belief in any future punishment. This is Mr. 
 Whittemore's own showing. His Modern History of 
 Universalism was published in 1830. During the pre- 
 vious year he had written letters to prominent Uni- 
 versalist preachers in different parts of the country, 
 inquiring what proportion of the denomination around 
 them denied all future suffering. He quotes the 
 answers of eleven different persons,^ residing in seven 
 different states of the Union. In no instance did the 
 
 * Whittemore's Mod. Hist, of Un. p. 438. t Religion in America, 
 (N. y., 1856,) p. 565. J Modern History of Universalism, pp. 439 — 
 441. * 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS, 201 
 
 writer declare that a majority held to future punish- 
 ment. And according to the total testimony, the 
 believers in future discipline in the denomination, 
 were both insignificant in number, and quite indif- 
 ferent upon the subject.* 
 
 From that time onward, the ultra Universalist ele- 
 ment seems to have completely occupied the field ; and 
 Restorationism, so far as it has existed in the denomi- 
 nation, has been quite thoroughly muzzled. The stan- 
 dard books and, with faint exceptions, the periodicals, 
 have distinctly taught no different doctrine from that 
 of Ballon and Whittemore, for a quarter of a century. 
 
 * The strongest case for Restorationism was given by Rev. W. A. 
 Drew, of Maine, who said, " I should think that a majority of our breth- 
 ren would not affirm jDositively, as their settled belief, that thei'e will, or 
 will not be punishment hereafter. The other half may be pretty equally 
 divided on the subject." " Of the ministers, five are open disbelievers o* 
 any future punishment ; eight profess to believe it, but most of them do 
 not seem to be strenuous about it : and the remainder are studiously 
 silent on the subject." 
 
 Rev. S. R. Smith, of Clinton, N. Y., after giving it as his opinion that 
 believers in future punishment are "not as numerous as those who reject 
 the doctrine," adds that "this is a subject on which very little interest is 
 felt, and is seldom agitated by the preachers." 
 
 Rev. A. B. Grosh, then of Lancaster Co., Pa., thought that not more 
 than a fifteenth or twentieth part of the denomination around him be- 
 lieved in any future punishment. 
 
 Alexander McRae, editor of the Libei-alist, in Wilmington, N. C, 
 writes : " Universalists in this state, with but few exceptions, believe ki 
 no punishment after death." 
 
 Rev. J. Kidwell, a travelling preacher in Ohio and Indiana, says : 
 " There is but one preacher within my acquaintance, calling himself a 
 Universalist, who believes in any future punishment, and there are but 
 few private individuals." 
 
 Rev. J. C. Waldo of Cincinnati, says that he learns from a Mr. R. 
 who is thoroughly acquainted in every section of this country, that " the 
 Restorationists are comparatively nothing." 
 
202 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 A good illustration of the state of things, is found in 
 the case of Rev. Russell Streeter. It seems that in the 
 year 1844, he wrote, in the Universalist Watchman, a 
 series of letters " to a Young Minister," in which he 
 objected to the views of Ballon, and contended for fu- 
 ture accountability. The Gospel Banner of Nov, 1844, 
 commenting upon the fact, says, " He is a Restoration- 
 ist, and always has been. The number of snch in the 
 denomination is not small, but their desire for the 
 peace of the order has caused them to be more careful 
 than some of different views have been, as to commit- 
 ting the order to their opinions." Now I have in my 
 possession a work by this same Russell Streeter, entitled, 
 " Familiar Conversations, in which the salvation of all 
 mankind is clear/?/ exhibited and illustrated.^'' The edi- 
 tion which I have was printed in the same year, 1844 ; 
 but so careful was this Restorationist not to commit 
 the denomination to his opinions, that I have looked 
 through it in vain to find an intimation of his peculiar 
 views. And (on page 76) he distinctly " denies that 
 there is any difference which deserves to be called es- 
 sential," among Universalists. In 1849, as you remem- 
 ber, Mr. Ballou asserted, " Though there are some now 
 who believe in what is called future retribution, we 
 know of none who pretend to prove it by Divine reve- 
 lation, or dwell upon it in their preaching." The ex- 
 perience of Rev, Mr. George will also be remembered, 
 who, within a few months, inquired in vain at the Uni- 
 versalist book-store in Boston, for any volume issued 
 by the denomination, teaching future retribution ; and 
 sought in vain for the doctrine in their catechisms. 
 Still it has been supposed bj some, that within a 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS, 203 
 
 very few years, (some four or six,) Restoratioiiist views 
 have been reviving in the denomination. It may be 
 true that some leading men are desirous to rise from 
 the deep degradation of bald Universalism. If so, 
 they are feeling their way cautiously, and, thus far, 
 can show no land-marks of their progress. There have 
 always been Restorationists in the Universalist ministry, 
 but they have commonly held their places on condition 
 of holding their peace. For respectability's sake, many 
 of the ministry might wisli to teach some future pun- 
 ishment ; but the motley group that compose their con- 
 gregations, will not endure it, and they dare not preach 
 it. Since, however, the majority of the American 
 Unitarian Association have avowed their belief in the 
 final Restoration of all men, probably many Universal- 
 ists have been encouraged with the hope of becoming 
 connected with a denomination which occupies a much 
 more genteel position in society ; and have been em- 
 boldened by their support to look favorably on the long- 
 proscribed doctrine. And there have even been a few, 
 a very few, instances of interchange and union between 
 the churches of the two denominations. 
 
 Entirely incredulous of any essentially different state 
 of things, in the denomination at large, from that to which 
 Mr. Ballon testified seven years ago, and which Mr. 
 George ascertained a fcAv months since, I determined 
 to go to head-quarters for information. Accordingly, 
 since my previous lectvires were delivered, I wrote to 
 three prominent members of the denomination, who, 
 as I supposed, held the Restorationist view ; Rev. E. 
 H. Chapin of New York, Rev. T. Starr King of Boston, 
 and Rev. Eli Ballou of Montpelier, editor of the Chris- 
 
204 LECTUEES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 tian Repository, I asked them if they would refer me 
 to some book or treatise, that advocates the views of 
 the Restoratioiiists. Mr. Ballon first replied to my in- 
 quiry ; and in a very courteous note, dated Sept. 25, 
 1856, he mentions three books which teach that doc- 
 trine, viz : Winchester's Dialogues, Petitpierre on the 
 Divine Goodness, and T. Southwood Smith on the Di- 
 vine Government. In a postscript, he adds that he 
 presumes these books are "out of print," but probably 
 they could be found and borrowed. Do you ask, when ■ 
 were these books written ? The first was published in 
 1788, sixty-eight years ago ; the second in 1786, or sev- 
 enty years ago ; and the third in 1816, forty years ago. 
 He was right in his conjecture that they were out of 
 print ; I have sent in vain to New York and Boston to 
 procure a copy of the latest and ablest of the three, 
 written by a man who afterwards turned infidel. — Jn 
 his postscript, Mr. Ballon adds "R. Streeter's Conversa- 
 tions " to the list ; but I have examined that volume, 
 and do not find the doctrine there. He also mentions 
 that he encloses me a copy of his paper containing his 
 views, and an article from the Ambassador. But the 
 paper has, for some reason, failed to reach me. These 
 are all the references which he could give me. Now 
 in view of these facts, when in the course of his letter 
 he expresses the opinion that " probably most of the 
 preachers of the Universalist Denomination hold the 
 doctrine of future discipline," I certainly think he has 
 given a very singular proof of his opinion. A very 
 odd denomination this, in which '■'■most " of the preach- 
 ers hold a doctrine, the principal volumes in defence of 
 which were written from forty to seventy years ago, 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS. 205 
 
 and which are now out of print and out of the market ; 
 while for years the market has been, and now is, flood- 
 ed with works denying the doctrine which " most " of 
 these preachers hold, — and yet selling, edition after 
 edition.* A very singular denomination ! While 
 therefore I wovild speak respectfully of Mr. Ballou, I 
 must correct his opinion by his facts. 
 
 From Rev. T. S. King, also, I received a highly 
 courteous reply, dated Sept. 29, 1856. He referred 
 me in general for " strong presentations of the argu- 
 ment for Universal Salvation," to the collected works 
 of Rev. Hosea Ballou, and Rev. I. D. Williamson, both 
 of them deniers of future punishment ! f He said, 
 however, that if I was inquiring for the Restoraiionist 
 doctrine distinctly, he did not at present recall any 
 single work in its defence, but that treatises bearing 
 on it might be found in the Universalist Quarterly 
 Review. In regard to that Review I will speak pres- 
 ently. This is all the information Mr. King could give 
 me.t 
 
 Mr. Chapin never replied to my inquiry. But not 
 long afterwards, being in New York, I went to the 
 Universalist Book-store, kept at the entrance of his" 
 church, and inquired for Restorationist books. The 
 clerk, in response, pulled out from a miscellaneous 
 
 * The seventh edition of Cobb's Compend was published in 185-1 ; the 
 third and stereotype edition of Ballou's Lecture Sermons, in 1854; 
 Whittemore's Plain Guide had sold in 1851, to the number of 10,000 or 
 12,000; and so on. These books there is no difficulty in finding now. 
 
 t Mr. Williamson at times seems inconsistent with himself. 
 
 % The infoi-mation sought and obtained in these letters, it will be per- 
 ceived, was entirely of a general and public nature — the existence of 
 certain books and treatises. I wish to speak of these gentlemen, also, 
 with entire respect — though strangers to me personally. 
 
206 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 pile of dingy pamphlets, a treatise purporting to have 
 been written by Jeremy White, chaplain to Oliver 
 Cromwell, and published (after his death,) in the year 
 1707, one hundred and forty nine years ago ! " But 
 have you nothing else ?" " Nothing," was the an- 
 swer ; and I thought I could understand why I never 
 received a reply from Mr. Chapin, to my inquiry. 
 
 Foiled thus to get on track of Restorationism, I fol- 
 lowed Mr. King's suggestion and turned to the Quar- 
 terly Review. I examined all the numbers of that 
 periodical for the years 1855 and 1856, without find- 
 ing article or paragraph, that distinctly advocates pun- 
 ishment beyond the grave. The moral tone of the 
 periodical is higher than that of Whittemore or Ballon, 
 but during these two years it contains no Restoration- 
 ism. Without exploring further, I turned back to the 
 Number for January, 1853, which, I had been told, 
 contained a noted article, by Mr. King advocating this 
 view. . And in an article of fifteen pages on the theme 
 " What must I do to be saved ?" — I find two, or most 
 three, sentences which somewhat distinctly avow the 
 opinion that the consequences of men's actions may 
 follow them into eternity. Two of these sentences, 
 however, are encumbered with a " perhaps." The 
 third sentence reads thus : " Heaven and hell are dif- 
 ferences of degrees ; Eternity is the onward sweep and 
 development of the life of time." 
 
 The same number of the Review contains an article 
 by Hosea Ballou, 2nd, on the " Condition of men after 
 death." And it affords an instructive insight into the 
 state of the denomination, to find three-fourths of his 
 article devoted to combatting three notions concerning 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS. 207 
 
 tlie future state : — first that it is attended with a loss 
 of personal existence or self-consciousness — a kind of 
 absorption or virtual annihilation ; second, that it ig 
 accompanied by a loss of all knowledge of our former 
 selves — a virtual annihilation and re-creation ; third, 
 that it is introduced by a "suspension of existence for 
 thousands of years." Having settled these questions in 
 the negative, he at last advances timidly to that '■^eye- 
 sore of a question^ whether the experience and charac- 
 ter of the present life will have any effect on us after 
 death." With great caution and circumspection, he 
 maintains the affirmative. He even cites scripture to 
 shov/ that good men will feel the effect of their self- 
 denying lives ; and two passages to show, that "the 
 consequences of a disobedient and impenitent life seem 
 also to be traced into the future state." One of these 
 refers to the "spirits in prison," who, "it was tlie thought 
 of St. Peter," continued under '■^disadvantage^'' from 
 the time of Noah to the time of Christ. Mr. Ballou 
 amply apologizes for touching this "eye-sore," by in- 
 forming us (on p. 48,) that if we keep "the profound- 
 er sentiments unimpaired in which so much of the 
 vitality of our [Universalist] faith lies, it is compara- 
 tively of little consequence how we decide the ques- 
 tion of temporary rewards or punishments hereafter ;" 
 and also (on p. 51) that it does not seem to him "a 
 subject of primary importance."* 
 
 Though for the last two years, at least, the Review 
 has mended its manners, and scrupulously refrained 
 
 *■ On page 7 of these lectures, the editor of the Quarterly is inadver- 
 tantly spoken of, as advocating no future punishment. I wish here to 
 make the correction. 
 
208 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 from disturbing the " eye-sore^''' we are told by the 
 Rev. A. B, Grosh, that " thus far it has not paid its 
 way.''* 
 
 The truth is, whatever a few leading ministers may 
 desire for respectability's sake, or from conviction, the 
 mass of the denomination will not hear of any future 
 punishment. It is not the thing they pay the preacher 
 for ; it is not in the contract. They want " smooth 
 things," and smooth things they will have. More than 
 one Restorationist minister, it is well known, has kept 
 his place by keeping silent on his belief. The people 
 " cared not what he believed," if he did not preach 
 future punishment. And should the Universali&t min- 
 istry, as a body, go over to Restorationism, and openly 
 urge their doctrine, they will simply leave their places; 
 the denomination will never follow them. A few Uni- 
 tarian pulpits may be opened before the more educated 
 of them ; — and the Univcrsalist pulpits will be shut be- 
 hind them. The mighty gravitation, which in twelve 
 short years dragged the whole sect down from the 
 plane of Restorationism into the abyss of Universalism, 
 will hold it where it fell. It contains elements that no 
 human power can raise. The mass of its congregations 
 will never hear of any punishment beyond the grave, 
 whether from an orthodox or a Univcrsalist preacher. 
 A significant reply was given in this vicinity, not many 
 months ago. A member of a Univcrsalist Congre- 
 gation stoutly maintained that the preacher whom 
 he had heard for years, did not believe in any 
 future punishment. Being informed a few days after, 
 that his preacher, under an emergency, had expressed 
 
 *Un. Comp. for 1857, p. 34. 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS. 209 
 
 or seemed to express Restorationist views — " Well, if 
 he believes in future punishment, / don't," was the 
 brief and significant reply. And whatever may be the 
 transient resort of emergencies, doubtless that preacher 
 will never venture habitually and earnestly to press 
 upon the men who compose his congregation, the con- 
 sequences of their present lives in another world, as a 
 divine teaching, and a theme of momentous practical 
 concern, — until his mind is fully prepared for another 
 field of labor than the Universalist pulpit. The 
 demand for Ultra-Universalism will never cease till 
 man's opposition to God's law ceases ; and the demand 
 will create a supply. 
 
 Notwithstanding the scarcity and timidity of Restor- 
 ationist views in the Universalist denomination, the 
 discussion of the subject will not be complete, without 
 some examination of 
 
 II. The foundation of the system. The Restoration- 
 ist scheme, as now held in the Universalist sect, main- 
 tains that all suffering is inflicted for the good of the 
 individual sinner, — that it is solely for discipline and 
 reformation ; that this suffering will in many cases ex- 
 tend an unknown period into the other world, but will 
 in all cases bring the sinner to holiness and happiness. 
 On this particular scheme — remedial and temporary 
 punishment or suffering beyond the grave, — I remark, 
 
 1. The doctrine depends and must depend chiefly on 
 other grounds than Scripture declarations. It is essen- 
 tially extra-scriptural. It does not, and it cannot, 
 venture to meddle much with those texts that speak 
 specifically of the condition of men beyond the grave. 
 If they are allowed to teach anything, they teach 
 
 14 
 
210 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 a great deal too mncli for Restorationism. Either 
 of two courses might be adopted with them. — ■ 
 They may be taken in -their full meaning and fu- 
 ture reference ; or their future reference may be 
 recklessly denied. It is difficult to take a half-way 
 position, admitting the reference to future punishment, 
 and then restricting their meaning. The humble 
 Christian takes them as they are ; the ultra-Universal- 
 ist makes a clean sweep of everything. He denies that 
 eternal life, or the kingdom of heaven, or the judg- 
 ment, ever refer to another world. " Eternal " and 
 " forever," not only do not denote eternity, — they do 
 not even enter eternity, they do not pass out of 
 this world. He makes thorough work, by denying all 
 rewards, as well as punishments, hereafter. For he 
 saw that if the terrible tide of retribution were once 
 suffered to flow in another world, it might flow on, — 
 and " forever " might be indeed forever. He saw that 
 when he began to amputate the word of God, he might 
 far better cut it clean off at the trunk. Hosea Ballou 
 well expressed the dilemma, when he said, — " We 
 know of no passages of Scripture, which imply the ex- 
 istence of either sin or punishment in the future state. 
 Could we find any such testimony, we should then need 
 Scripture proof that such sin and punishment will have 
 an end, in order to be consistent Universalists." In 
 truth, it was only by boldly carrying out the principles 
 on which the earlier Restorationists restrained the 
 Scriptures, that the whole denomination sunk in a 
 dozen years into low Universalism. So U7itenable is 
 that middle position, on Scripture grounds, that Mr. 
 Ballou, as we are informed in bis Life by Whittemore, 
 
RESTORATTONIST VIEWS. 211 
 
 was for years in the habit of cliallenging any one to 
 produce a passage that taught any punishment hereaf- 
 ter. He probably was confident that he could push the 
 Restorationist, by his own principles, from his position. 
 He must go farther, or not so far. He must deny that 
 any future punishment, or admit that eternal punish- 
 ment is taught in the Scriptures ; or he must let 
 
 the Scriptures alone. For the Scriptures do not speak 
 of semi-eternal punishment. 
 
 Modern Restorationists seem to have learned the 
 lesson. They make little appeal to the Bible in sup- 
 port of their peculiar tenets. Those who constituted 
 the majority of the American Unitarian Association in 
 1853, distinctly admit, " It is our firm conviction that 
 the final restoration of all is not revealed in the Scrip- 
 tures, but that the ultimate fate of the impenitent 
 wicked is left shrouded in impenetrable obscurity, so 
 far as the total declarations of the sacred writers are 
 concerned ; the doctrine of the final restoration of the 
 wicked is, with them, " a consistent speculation of the 
 reason and a strong belief of the heart." They there 
 fore say that they " cannot emphasize it in the fore- 
 ground of their preaching as a sure part of Christian! 
 ty, but only elevate it in the back-ground of their sys- 
 tem, as a glorious hope which seems to them a warran- 
 ted inference from the cardinal principles of Christian- 
 ity as well as from the great verities of moral science." 
 
 The theory of Rev. T. S. King, as exhibited in his 
 article on " What must I do to ba saved," seems in its 
 essential features to be nearly as independent of Scrip- 
 ture authority, as was the system of Plato. He teach- 
 es that salvation is not rescue from an outward danger, 
 
212 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 nor the purchase of an inherita nee ; it is only a spirit- 
 ual state. Our characters constitute our heaven or our 
 salvation. There is no hell but evil, no heaven but 
 goodness. Our redemption is internal; we get the 
 heaven we earn, only what we earn, and just as much 
 as we earn. And all which the mercy of God can do 
 in the case is to furnish the opportunity and means for 
 our own culture. The path of vice is a gradual de- 
 scending slope into spiritual degradation and death — 
 a slope, the inclination of which depends on the human 
 will, and which perhaps keeps the same angle into 
 eternity. The path of virtue does not open into a 
 paradise of rewards ; a man's holiness is his heaven 
 and his salvation here ; and the holiness he carries 
 with him through the tomb, gives him rank and con- 
 stitutes his salvation at the commencement of his fu- 
 ture career. When therefore a man seriously asks 
 himself — ' What must I do to be saved ?' the true an- 
 swer will be, conquer your most seductive temptations, 
 wrestle steadily against your principal weakness, bring 
 up the level of your life by stopping the peculiar out- 
 let through which your "^drtue leaks away ; fortify your 
 character on the side of your prevailing poverty and 
 need,* Such, in his own language somewhat condensed, 
 is the substance of this brilliant writer's noted article. 
 And though garnished, here and there with a Scripture 
 phrase, by way of decoration, can a scheme of more 
 unmitigated Deism anywhere be found ? What one 
 tenet of superhuman origin has the system ? Let us 
 accord all credit to the system for the strenuousness 
 
 * UniT. Quar. Kev., Jan. 1853. 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS. 213 
 
 with which it insists on virtue ; but if there he one 
 feature in it, for which it is more dependant on Scrip- 
 ture authority than was the system of Plato, we would 
 be glad to know what it is. This, however, is the most 
 attenuated form of Restorationism. 
 
 Hosea Ballou, 2nd, though inclined more to Scrip- 
 ture authority, is manifestly wary of adducing texts 
 concerning " future discipline." He cautiously cites 
 two or three passages which " seem " to him to imply 
 that good men reap some benefit hereafter from their 
 labors and self-denials here ; and two only, by which 
 " the consequences of a disobedient and impenitent 
 life seem to be traced into the future state." One of 
 these latter passages is that concerning " the spirits in 
 prison," 1 Peter 3 : 18—20 ; the other, 2 Cor. 5 : 8—10, 
 containing these words ; " For we must all appear be- 
 fore the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may 
 receive the things done in the body, according to that 
 he hath done, whether it be good or bad." He does not 
 venture to quote a passage that indicates the length of 
 future punishment ; but dispatches the whole subject 
 thus : " Other texts might be quoted in point, did it 
 seem to us a subject of primary importance."* 
 
 And doubtless the advocates of Restorationism will 
 henceforth be, as they now are, wary of citing Scrip- 
 ture texts. For when the Scriptures are once permit- 
 ted to speak on the subject of future punishment, it 
 is difficult to arrest their fearful tide of testimony. I 
 proceed, then, to remark that 
 
 * Id. pp. 48 — 51. The reader will see why no attempt is made to 
 deal with the books of "Winchester, Petitpierre and Southwood Smith. — 
 Their present authority would be at once denied, as it was by Whitte- 
 more twenty-five years ago. See George on Un. p. 380. 
 
214 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 2. The doctrine is involved in insuperable difficulties, 
 even upon principles of reason and facts of Providence. 
 
 It asserts two things : that all the suffering of the 
 sinner is but a discipline for his good ; and that it will 
 surely result in his perfect holiness and happiness. — 
 Were not the Bible in the way, neither of these points 
 could be sustained by evidence. 
 
 The statement that all punishment is only for the 
 individual good of the offender, is a gratuitous assump- 
 tion. And not only so ; it is false both to the intuitive 
 moral conviction of man, and the clear course of God's 
 Providential government. Our moral conviction that 
 sin deserves punishment, has no respect whatever to 
 the welfare of the offender. God has so made us that 
 when we see crime, or are guilty of it, our conscience 
 says it deserves punishment ; if it be atrocious crime, 
 that decision is vehement and indignant — it stirs a 
 whole community. It looks not first even to the wel- 
 fare of society — it looks not to the offender's reforma- 
 tion. It fixes its gaze on the nature of the crime, the 
 demerit of the act, and says, " it ought to be punished." 
 So far is that sense of ill-desert from regarding the 
 offender's happiness, it declares that his happiness ought 
 to be diminished. We may labor to recover him from 
 sin, that he may incur no more ill-desert ; but the spon- 
 taneous judgment of the moral sense is that, aside 
 from all ulterior considerations, guilt deserves punish- 
 ment. The offender's good has nothing to do with that 
 judgment. 
 
 The providence of God repudiates the principle. 
 His obedient children are indeed blessed by afflictions. 
 But it is notoriously otherwise with the great mass of 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS. 215 
 
 vile men, tliroiigli this whole life. Except where the 
 peculiar reformatory influences of Christ's gospel are 
 brought to bear, suffering makes men worse. The 
 more miserable, the more malignant and reckless and 
 sinful. What countless mviltitudes of cases could be 
 cited, in which men and women have sunk lower and 
 lower in ferocious and desperate sin, even as the pen- 
 alty of their sins came gathering heavily upon them, 
 until life went out in utter moral darkness. God does 
 send on men a vast amount of suffering, which mani- 
 festly does them no good whatever. And how many 
 unprincipled men are there in every community, now 
 held to respectability by their outward connexions of 
 comfort and enjoyment, whom, were they stripped to- 
 day of wealth and health and friends and position and 
 pleasure, and all outward respect and hope, you would 
 see to-morrow give themselves up to all iniquity. 
 
 And yet, this is a world of grace and hope. Even 
 in this life of hope, oi partial hardening, and of better 
 influences, suffering proves reformatory, in general, 
 only to less hardened souls. As men grow bold in sin, 
 suffering itself commonly serves but to develope new 
 and more appalling forms of guilt ; especially so, when 
 they are given up to each other's society, and respect 
 itself is gone. 
 
 While, therefore, this doctrine, in its principle, is 
 not sustained by the native moral convictions, as a 
 theory of events, it is contradicted by the facts of 
 this life. 
 
 But the difficulties are not exhausted ; they increase 
 as we look beyond this world. Where shall these im- 
 penitent wicked find their society, in order to reform ? 
 
216 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 Certainly not with the children of God ; that would 
 mar heaven. It must then be with each other, A 
 strange reformatory scene ! The place where all the 
 most awful criminals that the world has seen in all 
 ages of history, and where only those who are outcasts 
 from holiness and God are gathered together, — God's 
 great state' s-prison, without either chapel or chaplain, 
 where no holy society nor holy influence ever enters, — 
 is assuredly the last place in all God's universe to send 
 men for repentance, — men who, when less guilty, and 
 surrounded with every good influence, and every help 
 and hope, yet resisted the calls of Christ ! The knowl- 
 edge of human nature in deep guilt and desperate 
 emergencies, and in the worst of all society, casts no 
 shadow of light, nothing but deep gloom, on the pros- 
 pects of lost men ; it gives all probability to that fearful 
 Scripture, " they gnawed their tongues for pain, and 
 blasphemed the God of heaven." When all the appli- 
 ances of a world of probation, of hope, of Christian 
 society, of spiritual help, of comparative ease of mind, 
 prove unavailing, — what, alas, is to be expected from 
 the companionship of devils, from the withdrawment 
 of God's spirit, from incessant remorse, from loss of 
 earthly restraints and mutual respect, — from despair ? 
 Surely, until the devil and his angels are fit guides to 
 holiness, and until ages of cursing and blasphemy tend 
 to train the soul for angelic praises, hell is no place to 
 prepare for heaven ! And Ballou himself makes a fatal 
 admission, when he grants in regard to the " s||irits in 
 prison," who had been disobedient in the time of Noah, 
 that " the disadvantage under which they continued down 
 to the time of Christy was occasioned by their former 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS. 217 
 
 obstinacy."* For if not one hundred nor two hundred 
 years alone, but twenty-three long weary centuries 
 could roll away in suffering and sin as the fruit of that 
 *' former obstinacy," what becomes of the boasted re- 
 formatory power of suffering ? what of the appeal to 
 God's mercy ? And what shall prevent other ages on 
 ages rolling by, and leaving them still in sin and woe ? 
 — ^For the Scripture says not one word of their re- 
 pentance, f 
 
 But the difficulties are not ended. If their former 
 obstinacy occasioned a " disadvantage " of at least 
 twenty-three hundred years, what of all their subse- 
 quent obstinacy ? Does that go for nothing ? or does 
 God visit that also with " disadvantages ?" And at 
 that rate when will their sufferings have an end ? — 
 They have been going on in sin. God left them to go 
 on. It was therefore not unjust in him to suffer it, 
 nor is it unjust in him to punish it. Indeed, we might 
 
 * Univ. Quarterly Rev. Jan. 1853, p. 49. Mr. Ballon is editor of the 
 Review, and President of Tufts' College. 
 
 t Mr. Ballon would probably imply that " the spirits in prison " were 
 liberated in the time of Christ. But God's word says no such thing. 
 He also holds, as I suppose, that Christ preached to them while they 
 were in prison. But the intelligent reader of Scripture will observe that 
 the apostle says that " by the spirit " Christ preached to them, — that they 
 are described as disobedient " in the days of Noah," — and that the same 
 apostle (in 2 Pet. 2 : 5,) speaks of Noah as "a preacher of righteousness." 
 Putting these things together, we have this natural and Scriptural ex- 
 planation : Christ, by the spirit, and through the instrumentality of 
 Noah, preached to the spirits now in prison, while " the long-suffering of 
 God waited in the days of Noah." So Paul said, " As though God did 
 beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to 
 God." To take for granted that the preaching was in their prison, much 
 more, that it delivered them from prison, is a naked assumption without 
 evidence. 
 
218 LECTURES ON UNIYERSALISM. 
 
 put tlie whole case of endless punishment on this 
 simple ground : " If God may without injury permit a 
 creature to fall into sin to-day, and punish him for it, 
 why may he not do the same to-morrow, and so on 
 through every day or period of his existence ?"* And 
 the God who could deliberately permit that sinning 
 and suffering to revolve its wretched round during 
 that vast period from the days of Noah until Christ, 
 from hundreds of years before the period of authentic 
 history, while empires on earth were rising and falling, 
 and the earth itself was growing old, — is it at all in- 
 credible that the same God should suffer it to continue 
 down beyond the range of all earthly history, when 
 these empires and the earth itself have passed away ? 
 May he not make good his word ? and is there not a 
 terrific probability that " everlasting punishment " 
 may be everlasting ? When once the beginning of 
 future punishment is conceded, there rests on those 
 who encourage the smner with the hope of its termina- 
 tion, a mighty responsibility to prove their assertion by 
 most indubitable evidence. And when they once ad- 
 mit that punishment continues generation after gener- 
 ation, century after century, and chiliad after chiliad, 
 is not the prospect dark as midnight, that it may go on 
 forever and forever ? 
 
 Indeed, the doctrine of limited future punishment 
 for discipline, so far from clearing up the mercy of 
 God, only embarrasses the case. It supposes a needless 
 and wanton severity. If there be actual wrong in sin, 
 calling for vengeance, if the claims of a violated law 
 
 * Edwards on the Salvation of All Men, 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS, 219 
 
 of ineffable value, and the offended dignity of an insult- 
 ed God, justly demand fearful and endless woes, — we 
 can at least comprehend the case. Those sufferings 
 are a doom. They roll on because they are forever to 
 roll on. All is in keeping. It is not mercy : it is jus- 
 tice, holding on the even tenor of its way. But that 
 mere mercy, with resources such as could arrest Mary 
 Magdal*ene and Saul of Tarsus, in a moment, should 
 yet deliberately choose to inflict ages and ages of suf- 
 fering, to bring to repentance those whom it might at 
 once have delivered, is, according to the first princi- 
 ples of Restorationism, inexplicable and inconsistent. 
 Those sufferings are inflicted without necessity and 
 without justification, unless they are inflicted for some 
 other end than the sinner's reformation — they are a 
 wanton exercise of cruelty. For, that repentance 
 might have been secured at a much less fearful rate. 
 And if the Restorationist deny that mercy could save 
 the sinner, except by the discipline of ages, let him see 
 to it lest he deny God's power to save him at all. 
 
 There are other formidable difficulties attendant on 
 this scheme. But I omit them, that I may proceed di- 
 rectly to show that 
 
 3. The system is totally overthrov>ai by the word of 
 God. 
 
 The fundamental position that all punishment, or 
 rather suffering, (for the system repudiates all proper 
 punishment,) is designed simply for the offender's good, 
 is not only unsupported by Scripture ; it is at open war 
 with its spirit and its speech. The Bible makes abroad 
 distinction between the sufferings sent upon the believ- 
 er, and those upon the ungodly. The one is visited 
 
220 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 with " correction " and " chastisement " mingled with 
 *' pity," and for his " good;" the other is threatened 
 with "wrath," "fury," "vengeance," "judgment 
 without mercy." The one class is called "blessed" 
 under their sufferings, — " Blessed is the man whom 
 thou chastenest, Lord ;" the other class is called 
 "accursed" in their pains, — "depart from me, ye 
 cursed, into everlasting fire." The Scripture 'distinc- 
 tion is as broad and plain as words can make it. But 
 this doctrine would confound the whole difference of 
 sentiment and language. According to its teaching, 
 " God's raining upon the wicked ' snares, fire and brim- 
 stone,' is synonymous with sending upon them sancti- 
 fying mercies ! The threatenings against the ungodly, 
 of ' indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish,' 
 refers to the distribution of various sorts of blessings ! 
 The Scripture expression, 'fierce wrath of God,' 
 must mean simply, fierce goodness of God. And 
 the ' fiery indignation which shall devour the ad- 
 versaries,' is the same as fiery mercy which shall save 
 the adversaries !" Away with such abuse of speech ! 
 All the utterances of God's word toward the pertina- 
 ciously wicked, are in conflict with the first principles 
 of the system. It finds no support in the Bible except 
 by misappropriating God's promises to his saints. 
 
 That this punishment beyond the grave shall result 
 in the purification of the wicked, any more than it has 
 effected that of the devil and his angels, with whom 
 their lot is cast ; or that their punishment shall ever 
 have an end ; — of this, not a distinct intimation is 
 brought or attempted, from the Bible. The most that 
 is done is to appeal to God's attribvites, and cite a few 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS. 221 
 
 passages to show in general that all men will be saved ; 
 and both of these attempts we have seen to be falla- 
 cious. Not a text can be cited, that intimates either 
 the purifying power or the termination of that admit- 
 ted suffering. And the Restorationist is in that dilem- 
 ma, on which Ballou the elder gave them warning, of 
 conceding the fact of future punishment from the Bible, 
 and then needing scripture proof of its termination ; — 
 but, alas, without finding that scripture proof. 
 
 The Bible gives no hint of the existence oi probation 
 beyond the present life ; but much the contrary. When 
 we appear before the judgment seat of Christ, we are 
 to " receive the things done in the body." Into this 
 world, Christ came with the offers of life. Here men 
 are called on to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 they shall be saved. It is here that by " patient contin- 
 uance in well-doing," men are to gain " eternal life ; " 
 and they who are " faithful unto death" shall receive 
 "a crown of life ;" here the wicked "treasure up wrath 
 against the day of wrath and revelation of the right- 
 eous judgment of God.' ' The preaching of the gos- 
 pel on earth, becomes " a savor of life unto life," and 
 "a savor of death unto death." After death is the 
 judgment. " Fear him, who after he hath killed, hath 
 power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him." 
 In this life, in this life only, does God's word locate 
 the probationary state of man. 
 
 The Bible neither proposes nor intimates any means 
 of deliverance from the doom of the lost. By contin- 
 ual implication and by open declaration, it denies all 
 remedy. " How shall we escape," is the swelling bur- 
 den of its admonitions, " how shall we escape, if we 
 
222 LECTURES ON UNI VERS ALISM. 
 
 neglect so great salvation ? " " What shall it profit a 
 man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own 
 soul?" "Lord, are there few that be saved ? " said 
 one to the great Redeemer. " Strive to enter in at 
 the strait gate," was his solemn reply, '-for many, I say 
 unto you, shall seek to enter in and shall not be able." 
 And he warned him of the time "when once the master of 
 the house hath risen up and shut to the door," and all 
 knocking shall be vain. " Let us therefore fear,'* 
 echoes the apostle, "lest a promise being left us of 
 entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come 
 short of it. Let us therefore labor to enter in to that 
 rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbe- 
 lief." He tells us of those to whom " there remaineth 
 no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking 
 for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall 
 devour the adversaries," And he adds, " it is a fearful 
 thing to fall into the hands of the living God." 
 
 Indeed, a Divine and awful sense of the irretrieva 
 bleness of human destruction but for the death of Christ, 
 and of the sinner's remediless ruin, unless he in this life by 
 faith lay hold on Christ, seems to flow like a rushing 
 stream through the word of God, — and to enfold the 
 whole plan of redemption like a vast atmosphere of 
 gloom into which light breaks only from the cross. It 
 gives meaning to Clirist's mission, potency to God's 
 warnings and urgency to the gospel invitations. It can 
 no more be dissipated by dealing with individual pas- 
 sages, than the gloom of midnight can be scattered 
 from the whole heavens by the glimmer of farthing 
 candles. It heaves the heart of the sacred writer ; 
 and hg exclaims, " knowing therefore the terror of the 
 
RESTORAO^IONIST VIEWS. 223 
 
 Lord, we persuade men." It is that remediless ruiiij 
 which gives priceless value to the gospel, and depth of 
 meaning to " the unsearchable riches of Christ." 
 
 But the Bible is not only burdened in general with 
 the awful sense of human danger ; it speaks in articu- 
 late terms of the hopeless destruction of the sinner. 
 And it should not be forgotten, that when Christ and 
 his apostles spoke to the Jews of any punishment here- 
 after, it would not have been necessary for them to 
 declare its eternity. That was conceded by their hear- 
 ers ; no other idea could enter their minds. The Phar- 
 isees held to endless punishment ; even Whittemore 
 affirms they " are well known to have believed in it.* 
 For Christ and his apostles, therefore, to assert future 
 punishment, though they had said nothing of its dura- 
 tion, would have been equivalent to declaring its eter- 
 nity. It could have been understood in no other way. 
 But they did not leave the matter so. In a great 
 variety of ways they taught that punishment would 
 never end. They taught so plainly as not only to make 
 that impression on the minds of Christians, for the past 
 1800 years ; the infidel also finds it plainly there. 
 " All skeptics," says Asher Moore, the Universalist, 
 " suppose the Bible to teach the doctrine of endless 
 misery." How can they help supposing so ? For the 
 Scriptures speak in many and varied forms. They 
 describe it by the various positive terms, eternal, ever- 
 lasting, forever, forever and ever ; the very same and 
 only terms that denote the duration of heavenly bless- 
 edness — sometimes in the same connection and the 
 
 * Plain Guide, p, 43, 
 
224 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 same sentence ; the very terms employed, and the 
 strongest that the Greek language furnishes, to describe 
 the extent of God's existence. They declare it in neg- 
 ative forms that deny all termination : " He will burn 
 the chaff with unquenchable fire ;" — " cast into hell 
 where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched ;" 
 " it shall not be forgiven unto men neither in this world 
 nor in the world to come." They state it both negative- 
 ly and positively in the same sentence ; " hath never 
 forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation ;" — 
 " shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on 
 him ;" " there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but 
 a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery in- 
 dignation, which shall devour the adversaries." They 
 describe it as a final exclusion from heaven : " The un- 
 righteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God ;" 
 " whither I go, ye cannot come." They describe it as 
 an irreversible doom : " the door is shut," and they 
 that knock without hear the voice, " I know you 
 not ; " " whose end is destruction." It is the ces- 
 sation of all enjoyment, with an impassable barrier 
 between the sinner and heaven : " Son, remember that 
 thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things and 
 likewise Lazarus evil things ; but now he is comforted 
 and thou art tormented. And besides between you 
 and us there is a great gulf fixed .... neither can they 
 pass to us that would come from thence." It is a doom 
 so dreadful, as to make existence itself a curse : "it had 
 been good for that man if he had not been born ;" — 
 and yet, had a final eternity of bliss been before him, 
 even though he should first suffer for millions of 
 years, it had been an infinite benefit to be born. 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS. 225 
 
 The Bible declares these things, not alone by passing 
 and incidental reference, but also of set design and 
 special aim. In the solemn passage from which my 
 text is taken, the single theme of Christ was to set 
 forth the final retribution ; and here he declares the 
 reward of the righteous and the doom of the wicked to 
 be alike eternal. A similar directness of aim and an 
 appalling force of reiteration, is found in Mark 9 : 43. 
 " If thy hand oifend [ensnare] thee, cut it off: it is bet- 
 ter for thee to enter into life maimed, than, having two 
 hands, to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be 
 quenched ; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is 
 not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off; it 
 is better for thee to enter halt into life, than, having 
 two feet, to be cast into hell, into the fire that never 
 shall be quenched; where the worm dieth not and 
 the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend 
 thee, pluck it out : it is better for thee to enter into 
 the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two 
 eyes, to be cast into hell-fire ; where their worm dietli 
 not and the fire is not quenched." Here the eternity 
 of future punishment is set forth m terms that admit 
 no evasion. " Our Lord's argument here turns upon 
 the infinite disparity between the temporal and eternal 
 pains. Duration is the only point to be illustrated. 
 And fuiite is here set in contrast with infinite dui'a- 
 tion. And this infinite duration is expressed by a vari- 
 ety of epithets, which are, of all others, the most 
 plain, determinate and unexceptionable."* It dieth 
 not, it is not quenched, it is unquenchable, and (as 
 
 * Emerson's Works. 
 15 
 
226 LECTURES ON UNIVERSALISM. 
 
 given in Matthew) it is " everlasting." Ponder now 
 the speaker's point, — this accumulation of terms, and 
 the emphasis of his threefold repetition ; consider the 
 mode in which his hearers from their previous belief 
 were sure to understand him : — and if our Lord did 
 not mean to be understood to affirm the absolute eter- 
 nity of future punishment, in the name of common 
 sense and common honesty, let me ask, what did he 
 mean? 
 
 Here I suspend the argument from Scripture, not 
 because it is exhausted, but because this is enough. — 
 One objection, I wish, in closing, to meet. It has been 
 said that eternal punishment is unnecessary. To this 
 it has been often and well replied, that is for God to 
 say, and not for us. We are no judges. The necessi- 
 ties of a government reaching through immensity and 
 eternity, is beyond our scope. God's own rights and 
 dignity, the actual enormity of sin, the exigencies of 
 the universe, may render it alike incompatible with 
 justice and benevolence in the Great Magistrate of 
 such an empire, ever to restore his prisoners. The 
 quiet of the universe, the full exhibition of his own 
 character and the power of his government, the right 
 and adequate impression on all his creatures, the eter- 
 nal holiness of the holy, may be concerned. Is God 
 so uncompromisingly holy, and does he hate sin with 
 such a hatred, as he declares ? Is revolt against his 
 authority, guilt of damning dye ? Yea, is he a God of 
 truth, and will he fulfill the threats he has made ? — 
 " Can he reign over fallen creatures gloriously to him- 
 self?" Or can the powers of darkness break up the 
 essential perfection of his eternal schemes ? — These and 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS. 22T 
 
 others are momentous questions, for which the answers 
 may be found only in the irreversible, endless infliction 
 of tlie penalty of his law. 
 
 But I go further. Does not the very necessity for 
 such an argument as this — does not the utter defiance 
 of the Universalist position, show positive necessity for 
 the never-ending display of God's chastising power? 
 The very rights of his throne are contested, and prob- 
 ably will be contested to all eternity — his right to ful- 
 fill his word and execute the penalty of the law. Here 
 are multitudes of men on earth, denying his right to 
 govern his universe as he has declared he will govern 
 it ; some of them contending desperately and even 
 ferociously against the penalty which Christ asserted, 
 declaring it " the utmost malignity,"* " infinite malig- 
 nity,"! " the most horrid cruelty,"^ " unmingled and 
 unmitigated cruelty, red as blood and black as hell, 
 without one redeeming ray of pity, mercy, or justice ;"^ 
 and even plainly intimating that the Being who could 
 fulfill it, must be a Ijloody Nerc,|| a tyrant, a mon- 
 ster,^ and an arch-fiend.** They live, they die, they 
 enter eternity, in this state of relentless hostility to the 
 rights and claims and declarations of God. Doubtless 
 Satan and his angels, too, deny that right, and stand 
 in eternal collision with this fundamental principle of 
 God's government. Such being the case, may it not 
 be the only alternative left even to God himself, eter- 
 nally to assert that right by eternally stretching forth 
 his hand to chasten that desperate rebellion, — that 
 
 * Whittemore. t Cobb, t Thomas. § Williamson's Exposition, p. 
 102. II lb. End. Pun. Ex. p. 57. 1[ Univ. Quar. Rev., Jan. 1855, p. 83. 
 ** lb., Oct. 1856, p. 333. 
 
228 LECTURES ON UNI VERBALISM. 
 
 relentless war upon the authority of his throne ! It is 
 a sad and awful thought. 
 
 My task is ended. I have endeavored succinctly to 
 set forth the baselessness of Universalism. In so do- 
 ing, it has been my duty to exhibit the doom that 
 awaits every soul not found in Christ. It is not my 
 doctrine. J did not make it. I am not responsible 
 for it. I cannot unmake if I would. The doctrine of 
 eternal punishment is God's doctrine : He takes the 
 responsibility now — he will take the responsibility in 
 the day of judgment. Men may reject it ; but it is in 
 God's word. And since it is there, it is neither mercy 
 nor wisdom to hide the truth. It is not your doctrine. 
 You cannot destroy it if you would. Your resistance 
 and denial can make no difference with the fact, — but 
 it may make an eternal and fatal difference in your 
 prospects. 
 
 But oh ! why should you resist it ? It cannot harm 
 you, if your heart rests on Christ Jesus for salvation; 
 for neither life nor death, nor things present nor things 
 to come, shall then be able to separate you from the 
 love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. You need not 
 forever perish. Oh ! why should you spend your 
 strength in foolish and fatal struggles against the irre- 
 sisti])le ordinance of God, instead of fleeing with all 
 your might to the arms of Christ the Savior ? Should 
 you take up your final abode in that home of eternal 
 sorrows, it will not be because the door of heaven was 
 shut against you, nor because you were not warned to 
 flee from the wrath to come, nor because long years 
 were not given you here, in which to make your peace 
 
RESTORATIONIST VIEWS. 229 
 
 with God. . Lo, the voice comes from heaven, " Live, 
 for I have found a ransom — turn ye, turn ye, for why 
 will ye die." And while I utter the message of woe 
 from God, the voice of Christ himself seems to break 
 on my ear, — " For God so loved the world, that he 
 gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth 
 oh him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 
 " And the Spirit and the bride say. Come. And let 
 him that heareth say. Come. And let him that is 
 athirst come ; and whosoever will, let him take the 
 water of life freely." Soon you will be brought face to 
 face with the tremendous issues of eternity. Oh ! 
 spend not your fleeting strength in wrangling against 
 the holy bar of God, but in hastening to the Cross 
 of Christ ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 1 . .. The Universalist quai 
 .- line 17, strike out the word., The b 
 
 ° terly ^^■, ^^, the .m'ds in parenthesis after 
 On page 13, line 28, strike out tu 
 
 "Banner.' ,.„.ofum'' to destination. 
 
 ., a 229. last line but one, ciian^L 
 
/ 
 
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