kindness to the erring children of men, are too abundant to enumerate, and every scriptuarian ought to be ashamed of that criminal negligence, or MORE CRIMINAL DESIGN, which is manifested by such unfair and deceitful quotations.

After exhibiting a total want of testimony for the support of your doctrine, in the strongest of your passages, I shall leave the examination of the remaining scraps to those whose attention is not directed to more important concerns. Every school boy of twelve ought to know, that two or three dislocated words are less proof of an important doctrine, than of a disposition to wrest the scriptures for an unrighteous purpose.

That the quotation from the 9th Psalm is quite impertinent, is evident, first, from its proving too much, if it prove any thing to the purpose; secondly, by examples from the same writer, exhibiting its evident meaning; and, thirdly, by concessions of able sholars, that its literal meaning does not justify the application. If you object that the authority already quoted applies to the term hell as translated from sheol, or hades, it is readily granted, for it is all which this subject requires; and this must be acknowledged, or the authority of Dr. Campbell, and other eminent scholars, deemed entirely nugatory. To suppose you ignorant of the strong ground on which the subject is placed by the concessions of the orthodox, and the labours of the learned, is to place you among the illiterate herd of religious mountebanks, who exhibit no more compunction for uttering curses upon their fellow-men, than for murdering the King's English. You know, or ought to know, that no form of expression used in the Old Testament, is allowed by able critics to apply to the subject of future misery. At all events, you certainly have been unfortunate in the selection of testimony from this source, even if it exists. Not a

single quotation, even in its mutilated state, either by itself, or in its connexion, hints at a future state of existence. A circumstance of some consequence in establishing so important a doctrine.

The terms Tartarus and Gehenna, which are translated hell in the common version, will receive due attention. My design is to examine your assertion relative to the Greek words rendered everlasting, eternal, forever, and forever and ever, in the next number. The truth of your assumption, that " There is no term in the Greek language to denote endless duration, if the words under consideration do not," will then be fully and fairly tested, by authority which a sense of decency alone, ought to render satisfactory. Perhaps the mere English reader will then be enabled to judge of the veracity of your statement, and in some measure of the situation of a doctrine, to maintain which, so much misrepresentation, and such palpable wanderings from truth are found necessary.

Yours,

CANDIDUS.

NO. 7.

To Rev. Joel Hawes,-Hartford,

SIR-My object in writing the present number, is, to invalidate your declarations respecting the Greek words aion, aionios, and the phrase eis tous aionos ton aionon, rendered eternal, everlasting, for ever, and for ever and ever. To these you allude in the following words ;"There is no term in the Greek language to denote endless duration, if the words under consideration do not."

With very little labour, four Greek words have been discovered, each of which expresses endless duration with as much more precision than these, as perfect knowledge is more absolutely certain than Utopian speculation. You grant, as every man must, that the subject indicates the signification, and communicates the force which is annexed to these words. Thus not only do your concessions, but those of all the learned, clearly and explicitly evince, that the subject qualifies these words, and not these words the subject. Hence as the use of these words cannot conclusively settle any point of doctrine, it must be made obvious in some other way. From this conclusion you have no method of escape. The terms, as is conceded, are evidently vague, indefinite, equivocal-then endless misery, if true, must rest on another foundation, composed of more indestructible materials.

The argument might soon be brought to a close, in view of your admission, by proving conclusively, by the most explicit and definite language of scripture, that sin and suffering shall cease, and that universal holiness and happiness shall succeed the reign of sin and misery. But my intention is not to preoccupate the ground which is reserved for the closing number. Your assertions respecting these words, will therefore come under consideration.

Aristotle, who was contemporary with Alexander the Great, declared, that more ancient writers than himself, called the time of a person's life, his aion. You say, however;

"With respect to the first, aion, when governed by the preposition eis, in which connexion it is always used when applied to the future punishment of the wicked, uniformly denotes endless duration."

An examen of but few words, will test the value of this broad assertion. Your own concessions stand in the most palpable contraposition of this statement..

Here you say that aion, when governed by eis, UNIFORMLY denotes endless duration. In the preceding section (sect. 3, Let. v.) you concede the point in the following words;

"Thus a servant for ever is a servant during life; an ordinance for ever, is an ordinance which continues during the entire dispensation of which it is a part.'

What a singular uniformity! If eis aion "uniformly denotes endless duration," whence did you derive the exception? If the exception be correct, where is the truth of your lemma? If this be uniformity, what is difformity? Another instance of such accommodating uniformity is not to be found within the scope of the English language, most certainly, and it is hoped in no other. But the reason of this malversation is obvious at the first blush. No ambiguity rests on the subject. In the face of previous concessions, this postulate is brought forward in support of a heathen tenet, by an unqualified assertion, that it is thus "always used when applied to the future punishment of the wicked! It was your duty first to prove the assumption you had made, and not thus to hide yourself behind the shadow of anonymous authority, without a particle of proof. If you have light on this subject, your duty is to produce it; let it shine.

Before exhibiting the revolting absurdities which flow from your theorem, some remarks will be offered on the following quotation;

"The phrase eis tous aionas ton aionon, commonly rendered for ever and ever, is used eighteen times in the New-Testament. In fifteen instances it is applied to the continuance of the glory, perfections, government and praise of God. In one it is used to denote the future happiness of the righteous; and in the other two, it is applied to the future punishment of the wicked. The probability then that in these two instances it denotes endless duration, is as sixteen to nothing."

*

Perhaps the expression may be uncourtly, but really, Sir, this continual use of the petitio principii denotes a weakness of argument, and a destitution of facts, if not of principle, which plainly indicates the desperate situation of your cause. Instead of proving the end. less punishment of the wicked, that is taken for granted, and the only question appears to be, whether this mode of expression points to the horrid catastrophe, not whether the doctrine is true!

The two cases which you consider as sustaining the position you have taken, will now be subjected to a brief investigation. One of the quotations, to which you probably allude, is found in Rev. 14: in the following connexion;

"And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, 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 he 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 torment ascendeth up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name."

The denunciation appears to be directed against the worshippers of the beast and his image. We read they have no rest day nor night, who worship, &c. Is any thing said, or intimated, respecting a future state? So far, all is in the present tense---who worship,

* If my information be correct, Mr. H. already anticipates the downfall of Calvinism here, as it has fallen in Geneva. If, in that city, where the father of this system had power to persecute, imprison, banish, and burn, the lived glare of fatalism be extinguished, well may he forebode, from its tabid state in this country, its final extinction. May the rising generation be able to write under this prophecy, probatum est.