obtained; If not, you are empannelled as a jury to decide that my pledge has not been redemed. Should this be your decision, it is but reasonable that you present the points wherein I have failed, which you are requested to do in justification of the verdict.

In noticing the assertions of Mr. H. relative to the doctrine taught by Universalists, they are termed in this Review, absolute, UNQALIFIED, FALSEHOOD. Here assertion is met by assertion; as such, one is worth precisely as much as the other. Mr. H. has not offered a solitary fact to support his-he cannot. He knows that the reverse of his position can be supported in the most demonstrative manner. If he do not, let him appeal to facts, and settle the question of his veracity at once.

The deductions which are considered self-destructive, are those which he has drawn from the supposed immoral tendency of the doctrine. To settle this conclusively, appeal has been made to historical facts, and the concessions of the Fathers of the Protestant Church. The persecutions, the massacres, the murders, and general immoralities of both Catholics and Protestants stand out in bold relief against the foundation principle of orthodoxy, with the broad day-ligtht of demonstration; and the writings, the lives, and confessions, of Luther, Beza, Calvin, Musculus, Melancthon, Bucer, with the explicit testimonies of Bishop Burnet, Erasmus, Strype, and others, are absolutely irresistible. Thus then, admit that inference drawn from the conduct of professors, is the certain criterion for judging any creed, (agreeable to his theory) and orthodoxy is proved false. And that modern orthodoxy does not redeem the character lost by our progenitors; we shall see in a subsequent part of this number.

In support of the statement, that Mr. H. has handled the word of God deceitfully, nothing more is requi

site than to read his quotations, and compare them with the Bible. But, setting aside all other instances, he has brought forward two citations in proof of the fact and the time of a future judgment, involving the main point in dispute, both of which are garbled, as appears, for the very purpose of imposing upon the ignorant, the very people for whom, by his own confession, these Letters were written. But in addition to this fact, he has not even deigned to note either book, chapter or verse, in which they are to be found. Important as the subject is deemed, he has not esteemed such malversation below the cause for which he has written. I now ask with confidence, is my pledge redeemed?

But the time has now come when the tables must be turned on my opponent.-After writing eight long letters, and losing himself in the mazes of his own imaginations, he appears at last to be embarrassed, as the commencement of his ninth Letter expresses in the following words;

"In pursuing the subject before us, I have felt no small embarrassment from the fact that Universalists possess no uniform character. They are restorationists, destructionists, strict universalists, or fatalists, as will best serve their purpose, which is, at any rate, to get rid of the doctrine of endless punishment."

I have no room to make observations on this specimen of assertion, but the inquiry is suggested, whether Christians [or General Baptists] who believe in the annihilation of the wicked, and are properly termed destructionists, are Universalists? All Calvinists are fatalists, but no Calvinist is a Universalist. But the paragraph is brought forward that Mr. H. may be judged by his own words;

I feel constrained to regard the doctrine in question with much suspicion, because it stands opposed to the dictates of conscience and the natural apprehensions

of men. By whatever name you please to call it, whether conscience, reason, or the direct monition of God, it is not to be denied that there is something in the mind of man, or in the circumstances of this earthly existence that forebodes the same punishment to the wicked in another world, which is denounced against them in the Bible." "In every age, and on every side of the globe, men have generally believed that in the future world the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked punished.' "The amount of what I would say under this head is this, the foreboding of future punishment to the wicked, which has prevailed in every age and among all nations, is strong presumptive evidence that they will be punished; and decisive evidence that universalism is inconsistent with the views which men naturally have of their own deserts, and of the divine character."

Let us remark, that a favourite doctrine of this Calvinistic Arminian, is the total depravity of man by nature, the entire absence of all moral good, or the ability to perceive truth, and that by ordinary generation, he sinned in Adam and fell with him in this first transgression. Of the consequences to which we are liable through the evil of the nature given us by God, Dr. Edwards gives a glowing description, from which the following is extracted; "When you come to be a firebrand of hell, you will be a firebrand in two respects; viz. as you will be all on fire, full of the fire of God's wrath, and also as you will be all on a blaze with spite and malice towards God." Let us not forget, that the natural apprehensions of totally depraved man, fully agree with the scriptures, in foreboding "the same punishment to the wicked in another world, which is denounced against them in the Bible." Nor does the testimony of these totally depraved wretches stop here; this foreboding is "decisive evidence that Universalism is" false, or in other words, "inconsis

tent with the views which men naturally have of their own character!"

Without pausing to inquire, whether the heathen nations have uniformly, or generally, believed in a future state of existence,* it may not be amiss to ask, if all nations have been blessed with a plenary revelation from God,† on this life and soul of orthodoxy? If they have, why send missionaries to convert them? If not, why does Mr. H. bring in the apprehensions of men in proof of a tenet, for which he in vain looks to scripture? But granting the premises in full, let us see the result. Speaking of the antediluvians, and the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, and in view of the arguments for Universal Salvation derived from the goodness of God, Mr. Hawes asserts;

"So Noah would have reasoned, had he been a Universalist; and so doubtless the antediluvians did reason when warned by that preacher of righteousness, of the threatened judgment. So Lot would have reasoned, had he been a Universalist; and so did reason the inhabitants of Sodom."

Notwithstanding the absurdity of supposing that the whole antediluvian world, save eight, became Universalists, with all their natural apprehensions, the absurdity is heightened by taking into account the following sentence; "The doctrine of future punishment is so ungrateful and trying to all the feelings of the natural heart, that nothing but the fullest evidence of its truth could induce men generally to believe it.”

*Dr. Young says "The heathen world confessed, that they rather hoped than firmly believed in immortality." Cicero confesses that when in the shades of Tusculum, absorbed in reflection, he fully believed in immortality; but when he was in the uproar of the city, and the bustle of the forum, all these convictions melted away. When this was the condition of the learned and contemplative, what must have been the belief of the majority!

Mr. H. says, "The fact and the duration of a future punishment are purely matters of revelation,"

But the dilemma into which these vague assertions have brought this champion of human misery, is not yet fully exhibited. The natural apprehensions of men, with the fullest evidence of the truth of his foundation principle, with all its sanctions and barriers, as acknowledged by Dr. Scott, were "unable to affixboundaries to the swelling tide of human depravity." Alas! that this Babel of human invention should fall before the weapons prepared for its defence.

In answer to the declarations of Universalists, relative to the prejudices of men against the doctrine of Universal grace, Mr. H. opposes the following assertion;

"As to the doctrine being opposed by the prejudices of men, this is so far from true, that it is every way adapted to please and gratify the desires of the natural heart. If the doctrine were true and revealed in the Bible, all men would gladly embrace it. Nothing could be more agreeable to every candidate for eternity, than an assurance of the final happiness of all mankind."

In the very face of this paragraph, I am constrained to say, that I know

"Men that make

Envy and crooked malice, nourishment,” and who, though they believe themselves" candidates for eternity," appear to rejoice over the prospect of witnessing the torments of the damned," as if in anticipating the horrid catastrophe, they were more sensible of their own happiness.

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Respecting the gratification of "the desires of the natural heart," I shall only say, that if it be so, the heart must be unnatural which is not pleased in the prospect of universal holiness and happiness. Paul speaks severely of those who are without natural affection," whom he ranks with the worst characters

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in the Bible.