TO REV. MOSES STUART, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SACRED LITERATURE, IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AT ANDOVER. BY WALTER BALFOUR, OF CHARLESTOWN. Prove all things.'-PAUL. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY B. B. MUSSEY, 29, CORNHILL. G. W. STACY....PRINTER. 1833. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1833. BY WALTER Balfour, in the Clerks's office of the District Court of Massachusetts. gift INTRODUCTION. THE following letters, were published in the Universalist Magazine, in the years 1820, and 1821, and signed 'An Inquirer after truth.' They were addressed to MoSES STUART, associate Professor of Sacred Literature, 2 in the Theological Seminary at Andover. In presenting them to the public, now in a small book, and with my real name affixed to them, a brief statement of the circumstances which gave rise to them, seems to be necessary. Without this, some might suppose, they were written since I became a Universalist, whereas they were expressly written to avoid becoming one. Until the year 1819, a serious thought never occupied my mind, that the doctrine of endless punishment might be false. In the belief of this doctrine I had been educated from my childhood. The books I read; the preaching I heard; and all my religious intercourse; tended to deepen my early impressions, that it was scriptural. Believing it to be so, I had preached it for several years both in Scotland and America. In the course of my reading, I had perused several books on the subject of universal restoration, but they only tended to confirm me in the belief, that endless punishment |