NO. 9.

To Rev. Joel Hawes,-Hartford.

which

you

SIR-In passing over your production, my attention has been arrested by a portion of the eighth Letter, in endeavour to establish the fact and the time of a general judgment, beyond the possibility of doubt." Language so positive led me to examine the subject with some particularity, and the result of my labours will furnish matter for the present opportunity. The steps by which I arrived at the conclusion will be laid before you, with as much brevity as the importance of the subject will permit. The following quotation contains what you appear to consider as abundant proof; this will now be examined.

"I shall close this part of my subject, with requesting your particular attention to two passages of scripture which appear to me to establish the fact and the time of a general judgment beyond the possibility of a doubt. It is appointed unto men once to die, AND, [but] after this the judgment. The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves, shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation. These passages are plain and decisive: and though I might pity and pray for the man who, after having read them, should deny a future judgment, I should not attempt to convince him. If he believe not God, he would not be convinced by man.'

The disingenuous mode of quoting the scriptures which you have seen proper to adopt, has already been a subject of animadversion, and I regret to say, that the present instance is marked by an evidence of design, so palpable, that one must read his Bible with the utmost negligence, not to perceive it. Those who

read with an intention to arrive at the truth, will readily determine, whether such an obvious dissociation of language results from a desire to promote the cause of righteousness. The first of these passages which you term plain and decisive, commences, as may be observed, in the midst of a sentence, and concludes in a very objectionable manner, by omitting the concluding member, without which the former is utterly incomprehensible. Are you willing to risk your character as a scholar, on such a palpable violation of the just rules of interpretation or to dislimb a sentence in this manner, without the least regard to the grammatical connexion ?-and are you not aware that this system will support Atheistical principles as certainly as Christians?

The first quotation is clipped out of its connexion, Heb. 9: 27. That and its succeeding context read as follows;

"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation."

It is not a little remarkable, that you have substituted the copulative and, instead of the disjunctive but ; and yet, garbled and interpolated as it is, you present it as a plain and decisive passage, and by way of strengthening it, add-"and though I might pity and pray for the man who, after having read them, should deny a future judgment, I should not attempt to convince him." As to the substitution of and for but, I shall merely remark, that if it were not designed, you will do well to read your Bible more, and the systems of men less, before you shall again introduce a distor ted passage in support of a sentiment, so deeply affecting the character of God, and the happiness of his offspring. Perhaps no people bearing the Christian

name, are so often and so causelessly accused of núisquoting scripture as Universalists. With how good a grace this charge comes from you, without a fact offered in its support, will be seen when the charge shall be brought to your door.

If you understand the relative use of as and so, used in the forecited passage, your own conscience must convict you of gross malversation, or the most consummately stupid negligence. As it is appointed— so Christ. So, what? Why, according to your mode of argumentation, as men die a natural death, and are afterwards judged to endless misery-so, in like manner, Christ is or must be judged in a post mortem state of existence. Revolting as this must appear, it is a fair, nay, an indisputable conclusion from your premises. The absurdity of this deduction is so obvious, that we will seek for a better-a worse will not probably come in our way.

But before attempting to elucidate the subject by examining its connexion, let us examine its length and breadth as applied in defence of your theorem. To give every advantage to this hypothetical use of the text, we shall admit the proposition, that the phrase "after this the judgment," signifies, that all men, after the dissolution of the body, are to undergo a judicial trial, and consequent sentence. In this view of the argument, we must understand the terms judgment and condemnation, as synonomous, and as a brief mode of expressing the phrase, endless misery. To allow less than this would render its use in support of your system a mere nullity; to allow the meaning suggested would prove too much, and destroy every distinction, by resulting in universal damnation. Every one who reads the text must perceive that the apostle makes no distinction, and if the text is any thing to the purpose, the subjects of the judgment, and those of natural death, are identically the same, and equinumerant.

Let us concede, then, that the citation expresses the doctrine for which you contend, and the result is as dreadful as the most sanguine advocate for the diffusion of misery could desire.

But leaving this self-destructive view of the subject, let us turn to the sure word of prophecy, and search for the true meaning of the passage thus wrested to your own destruction. In doing this, we shall find the harmony of the scripture resulting in the blessing of God on the whole human family, to which examination your attention is now solicited.

This epistle appears to have been written by a Hebrew, of the Hebrews, and to the Hebrews. To the Jews he exhibited himself as a Jew, by quoting their rituals, and appealing to the prophecies which they acknowledged, for the proof of Christianity; and thus he demonstrated in the most lucid manner, that the legal ceremonies were but a shadow of GOOD THINGS* to come." After drawing a parallel between the Abrahamic covenant and the Christian-the priests under the law, and Christ, he shows by the text, that, as by the typical cleansing of the high priest under the law, the judgment of the people was life; so, Christ really suffered that death which was shadowed under the law, that he might cleanse the people by better sacrifices, to the possession of the blessings of the New Covenant. The difference between the two covenants is represented in the 8th chapter thus;

"For finding fault with them, [the Jews] he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and

*The reader, by examining the whole epistle, will discover that the apostle is labouring to turn the attention of his brethren from the Jewish ceremonial law, which was annulled for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof, to the Christian dispensation, the substance which was merely shadowed by the rituals of the Mosaic economy.

with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people; and they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more."

We here discover the excellency of the new, in comparison with the old covenant; and observe the vast superiority of the high-priest of our profession, over those of the Aaronic dispensation. In drawing the parallel, the apostle is careful to inform us, that "in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made

of sins every year." To show that the ceremonial purification by the blood of bulls, and of goats, and the sprinkling with the ashes of an heifer was merely typical, and that the preference given to the christian dispensation was for a good reason, he gives us facts, and draws inferences, in the following language;

"For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; [age] but now once in the end of the world [age] hath he appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."