adoption of the most puerile reasoning, and self-destroying conclusions.

It has been said, that "inconsistency is a badge of error. The maxim appears self-evident-it is acknoweged by you in charging the Universalists with inconsistency, and with having "no uniform charac ter." I shall examine a portion of your statements, by comparing them with others, and with scripture testimony. Should they bear this test, I am a false ac

cuser.

You say "come what will in the future world, it will be well with the righteous." If by the righteous you mean the saved, as I presume you do, let us hear your ideas of salvation.

"If men are punished in the present life according to their deserts, then Universalism is false. This asserts that all men are saved. Saved from what? From nothing, if they endure the full penalty of the law. It is absurd to talk of men as experiencing salvation, after they have received all the punishment due for their offences, and have thereby fully satisfied the demands of divine justice. Free punishment and free salvation are totally inconsistent with each other. "Which then will the Universalist assert? If he says all are freely saved, then none are punished as they deserve; and if not punished in this life, they may justly be in the life to come."

I have perused and re-perused this quotation for the purpose of rescuing it, if possible, from the ridiculous consequences which it clearly involves. According to my understanding, this paragraph imports, that if men are punished in this life according to their deserts, they must also be punished in the life to come; for you assert, that they can be saved "from nothing, if they endure the full penalty of the law." You again say, that those who are freely saved, are not "punished as they deserve; and if not punished in this life, they

may justly be in the life to come." The query is now proper-How do you know that "" come what will in the future world, it will be well with the righteous?" You have laid down the principle, that the saved, are freely saved-and saved, too, from the consequences threatened against transgressors. On your own system, then, if they are not punished in this life, they may justly be in the life to come. I ask now for the safety of your saved, who, not suffering in this world according to their malefactions, as you say they do not, are exposed justly to suffer for them in the life to come. Whether God will exhibit less justice in the future, than in the present life, is left for you to answer. Your words are these.

"Now let me ask, is there any such distinction made between the righteous and the wicked in the present life, as is implied in the character of God as a rewarder?"

Not only do you here deny, in the most express terms, that the wicked are punished in this life, but the argument which you would deduce from the statement is, that in the future world, the vicious will experience the unmitigated vengeance of an incensed, omnipotent Jehovah. But did you foresee the consequences of your unsupported statement? You exhibit the strongest repugnance to that meaning of the term salvation, which "merely signifies deliverance from the power, and not from the curse of sin." If by the curse of sin you mean the penalty threatened to the disobedient, where are your sanctions? The thunders of Mount Sinai, "the intimations of conscience, and the natural apprehensions of men," which at times you hold out as motives for obedience, are reduced to the whispering zephyr of a summer evening. But for what purpose do you ever hold them up to the gaze of men? is it to make them virtuous? You represent a life of virtue as a life of suffering, and a life of vice as

a life of pleasure. Nor this alone. Your ipse dixit has already decided, that the virtuous cannot be saved, as "it is absurd to talk of men as experiencing salvation, after they have received all the punishment due for their offences." But are not all men sinners? In contrasting the happy effects of vice, and the miserable effects of virtue, in this life, either the righteous have, or have not received for their demerits; or were they never sinners? If they have-if suffering be meted to them in this world, it must be in the coming, on your own hypothesis. If they have not been rewarded, or punished, in the present world, the justice of God may find them out in the coming. In one case, they are hopeless-in the other, a peradventure, a mayhap, of still suffering the due demerit of their sins, hangs like a portentous cloud over their future prospects. Take the sentiment which way you will, and if it make any christians, they must be gloomy, doubting christians, and "he that doubteth is damned," or in perplexity, dread, and frequently in despair.

If, then, on your own scheme, salvation cannot be experienced but by hell-deserving wretches, and those who are saved, are unjustly saved, the contingency is in favour of the sinner, and those who heartily believe in your theory, have no possible motive to become virtuous. If to be saved, their demerits must entitle them to suffer in regions of hopeless despair-and if a life of virtue in this world lead only to a bed of thorns; what nameable cause, either in this or a coming world, offers a solitary motive to virtue ?

You have written a long paragraph in the face of scripture, and daily observation, to maintain the doctrine of future retribution, as a deduction from your proposition, that virtue does not bring its own reward here, and that vice does not, and cannot, receive the penalty attached to the breach of God's law in the present state. If your argument be good, it will bear

carrying to its legitimate result. If sin produce happiness in this life, it proceeds spontaneously, and as a necessary effect, from the principle of disobedience; in which case the restraint was opposed to the creature's happiness; or, God tacitly gives countenance to the infraction of his law, by rewarding, on the spot, every law-breaker. If the former be true, and "principle is eternal," the same effects will most certainly follow this cause, in whatever world we may be placed. If the latter be true, then God must change, or he will always thus reward the transgressor, and thereby reduce his law to a mere nullity; an orthodox quibble, as you have represented it. I shall close this subject for the present, by the application of an invention, or an adopted form of speech, found in your ninth Letter.

"Look at facts. Has not sin existed on earth for six thousand years; and multiplied sorrow, and pain, and death, to an almost inconceivable extent? Is all this consistent with the goodness of God? No Universalist, I suppose, will deny that it is. How then does he know that misery in the future world is not consistent with the same goodness? Guilty men in the present life endure a great amount of suffering :why then may they not endure the same in the life to

come?"

Now, Sir, will you be pleased to "look at your facts?" You state as fact, in the form of a question, "are not the recompenses made to either class in the present state, very imperfect, and far from corresponding with their respective characters ?" Here is a most excellent opportunity for the display of your [orthodox] logic. "Is all this consistent with the goodness of God?" No Calvinist, I suppose, will deny that it is. How then does he know that "the recompenses made to either class, in the future state" will not also be " very imperfect, and far from corresponding with

their respective characters?" If you can consistently shake off this sophistical and fallacious conclusion from your own premises, in this case, perhaps you will not forget, that an argument which proves too much, is far more hazardous than silence.

It occurs to me at the moment of writing, that in speaking of the safety of the righteous in a future life, you did not dwell on the modus operandi by which they have obtained, or will obtain, this character.

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on the Calvinistic plan, (and surely you profess Calvinistic principles) it must be by sovereign, irresistible, discriminating grace; by imputing to them, as sinners, a righteousness to which they have not the shadow of a title. You must accede to this, or renounce every pretension to consistency, and to Calvinism also. If then, without the least foresight of faith or good works," "God having, out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity elected some to everlasting life,' will bestow the blessedness of a happy immortality on them, while his wrath will crush all the non-elect; perhaps we may be informed what their righteousness had to do in this affair, which had been pre-determined" from all eternity." If you wrote the quotation as an Arminian, permit me to inquire once more, in your own words, "from what are they saved?""

A few words more, in the way of interrogation. In polemics, do you "hold a language public, and a lan guage confidential?" Do you maintain that any are saved for their works? and if so, from what are they saved? and are they on a different footing in realms of blessedness, from those who are saved from deserved punishment, because God chose to save them? and if one individual be saved in opposition to the demands of justice, why will not all be saved on the same unjust principle? And, if one be saved on this principle, the intimations of conscience, and the