My Fourteenth Argument is from the

COMMANDMENTS OF GOD.

PROPOSITION.-1. God has commanded all men to love and serve him, and to love their neighbors as themselves. 2. God's commandments are equivalent to Promises, and must all eventually be fulfilled.

PROOF.-1. God has commanded all men to love and serve him, and to love their neighbors as themselves. "What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul."-(Deut. x. 12.) "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments, hang all the law and the prophets."-(Matt. xxii. 37-40.) These commandments are binding on all human beings! They will continue obligatory on the entire race of man, while their being shall endure. In whatever state of existence, in whatever world they may live, they will forever rest under the command, to love and serve God, and to love their fellow beings as themselves.

2. God's commands are equivalent to Promises, and must all eventually be fulfilled. This Proposition is based on the plainest dictates of reason. The fact that Jehovah commands his creatures to "serve” him, and to exercise the great moral principle of "Love" toward himself and all their fellow beings, shows that it is his desire, pleasure, and will, that all those who are thus commanded, shall yield obedience. It must be his determination to be obeyed. Shall not God's pleasure be accomplished-shall not his will be fulfilled-shall not his command be obeyed? 'My counsel SHALL stand, and I WILL do all my pleasure."—(Isa. xlvi. 10.) "He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou ?" (Dan. iv. 35.) Whenever the Law-maker or Ruler issues a commandment, he will cause it to be fulfilled, if he has the disposition, the right, and the power to do so. Do not human governments, and commanders of armies, cause their mandates to be fulfilled to the extent of their power? And if possessed of sufficient power, would they not cause all to yield obedience? That God possesses a disposition to be obeyed in his great commandments, is self-evident. If not, why issue them? That he has a perfect right to enforce his commandments, and bring all men to an obedience, in any way he thinks best, no one will dispute. Is it not right that all should love and serve their Creator, and love each other? "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right!"--(Gen. xviii. 25.) Is it not right he should make all his creatures do right? Is it not right, nay, is it not the duty of all parents, to make their children love and obey them? Will not the Parent of all, act on so plain a principle as this? Thus God has the Disposition, and has the

Right, [yea, it is his DUTY as the Great Parent of all the world,] to cause his creatures in due time, to yield obedience to his command, and love and serve him, and love one another.

Has Deity the Power to enforce his commandments? To contend that he has not this Power, is to contend that he is not God —that he is imperfect—that he is lacking in ability, resources and skill, to conduct the affairs of his government! I maintain that God is ABLE―abundantly, infinitely ABLE-to bring all into obedience to his commandments. The simple fact that he issued them, indicates ability to cause them to be obeyed! Or why issue them? The scriptures emphatically declare that God has this ability. "O Lord God of our Fathers, art not thou God in Heaven? and Rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the Heathen? and in thy hand is there not POWER and MIGHT, so that none is able to withstand thee?"-(2 Chron. xx. 6.) The Creator has power to do whatever he pleases with his creatures-"For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my POWER in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed, say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter POWER over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor ?(Rom. ix. 17-20.)

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God thus has the power to enforce his commandments, and to cause all men to love and serve him, and love one another!! Will he not exert his power and bring his creatures to yield this desirable obedience? I hope my opponent will not deny that God will eventually do this! I beseech him for his own reputationfor the love of Christianity-for the honor of God-not to take this ground! Do not, my brother for the sake of sustaining a favorite theory-and such a theory too; so cold, so cheerless, so unpromising, so gloomy and terrible-do not cast a disparagement so dishonorable and awful on the character of the holiest and best of beings, the "God of Love," as to maintain that he WILL NOT bring all his children, in the fulness of times, to love and serve him, and become knit together in love for one another, when he has an infinite abundance of POWER to do so? Would it not be absolute and fearful BLASPHEMY to utter a thought so abhorrent!!!

Thus God has commanded all men to love and serve him, and to love one another. He is desirous of being obeyed-it is Right he should be obeyed-he has ample Power to bring all to obedience. The conclusion is irresistible, that all will in due time, be brought into a condition of Supreme Love and Perfect Obedience!! The scriptures corroborate this glorious conclusion."After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and be their God, and

they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: For they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: For I will forgive their iniquity, and will remember their sin no more.”—(Jer. xxxi. 33, 34.) This passage is quoted, not so much for its Universality, as for the fact it teaches that God is able to make men-all mencome to the knowledge of the truth, and yield obedience to his commandments, whenever it pleaseth him. "All nations whom thou hast made, shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name. For thou art great, and doeth wondrous things: Thou art God alone.”—(Ps. lxxxvi. 9, 10.) "I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear, Surely shall say, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength. Even to him [God] shall men come, and all that are incensed against him, shall be ashamed.”—-(Isa. xlv. 23, 24.)

It being thus evident that God's commandments to love him and one another, will ultimately be obeyed by all men, these commandments become great and precious PROMISES of the arrival of a state of Universal Obedience and Love!! This will be a sonsummation of God's government, and Christ's reign, honorable to the Creator, worthy of the Redeemer, and infinitely desirable to angels and men!

In support of my position in this Argument, that God's Commandments are equivalent to Promises, I will introduce the testimony of one whose authority my opponent will not doubt-even JOHN WESLEY. In his discourse on the Perfection of mankind, he says: "There is a very clear and full promise, that we shall all love the Lord our God, with all our hearts. So we read, Deut. xxx. 6.—"The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to Love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul." Equally express in the word of the Lord, which is no less a PROMISE, though in the form of a COMMAND"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." No words can be more strong than these-no PROMISE can be more express! In like manner-"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," is as express a PROMISE as a command. And indeed, that general and unlimited promise which runs through the whole Gospel Dispensation-"I will put my laws into their minds, and write them in their hearts," turns all the commands into PROMISES, and consequently that among the restt-"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."-(Phil. ii. 5.) The command here, is equivalent to a PROMISE, and gives us full reason to expect that he will work IN us, that which he requires of us. When the Apostle says to the Ephesians-" Ye have been taught

by him, as the truth is in Jesus, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and to put on the new man, which is created after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness,"-(Eph. iv. 21-24)-he leaves us no room to doubt but God will thus renew us in the spirit of our minds, and create us anew in the image of God, wherein we were first created. The command of God given by St. Peter-"Be ye holy, as he that hath called you is holy, in all manner of conversation"—(1 Pet. i. 15.)-implies a PROMISE that we shall be thus holy. As God has called us to holiness, he is undoubtedly WILLING, as well as ABLE to WORK this holiness in us. For he cannot MOCK his helpless creaturescalling on them to RECEIVE what he never intends to give!!"

In these quotations, Wesley fully endorses the position I have taken, that God's commands, are indeed, promises; and that whatever he commands to be done, is in reality a promise that it shall in due time, be accomplished. Wesley also corroborates my argument, that God must eventually be obeyed; and that he himself will bring the human heart into such a state as he pleases; into such a condition as will conduce to cheerful obedience. He says there is "no room to doubt, but God will renew us in the spirit of our mind, and create us ANEW, in the Image of God, wherein we were first created." He also declares that, "As God has called us to holiness, he is undoubtedly willing, as well as able, to WORK this holiness in us!" Now as our Methodist brethren utterly abjure Calvinism, they must be willing to allow that whatever God himself, of his own accord, does for ONE man, he will in his own time, do for ALL MEN; and if he renews and creates anew, one soul, he will renew and create anew, ALL SOULS!-[Time expired.

[MR. HOLMES' EIGHTH REPLY.]

Gentlemen Moderators:-It is an occasion of regret to me, that Mr. Austin should take so much pains to make distinguished evangelical ministers express views they never held. What he expects to gain by such a course, I cannot possibly imagine. It certainly cannot increase his reputation for candor, or aid the defence of his cause, to be detected so frequently, in an attempt to extort concessions in favor of his views, by garbled extracts, or a perversion of the language of celebrated men. The opinion of Mr. Wesley, in regard to which Mr. Austin has just quoted him, is my opinion, and is the opinion of all evangelical ministers; it is, that God's commands have the force of promises-not promises, that his commands shall be obeyed, but promises, that those who are disposed to obey, shall have power to obey. Mr. Austin represents Wesley as saying, when God utters a command, that command has the force of an absolute promise, or pledge, that it shall be fulfilled. Nothing could have been farther from Wesley's views than this. My

friend cannot, if he tries, more directly misrepresent him, than by attributing to him such a sentiment. What Wesley said, and intended to say, is this: when God says to the sinner, "thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,"-this command has the force of a promise, inasmuch as it implies that if the sinner sets his heart to the work of loving God, he shall have power to enable him to fulfill the divine command, and so of all the other commands of God. Mr. Austin knows full well, that this is all Wesley designed to express, and yet he does not hesitate to attach another and very different meaning to the language of this great and good man, who would as soon have embraced Mohammedanism as Universalism. It is probably in this way, that so many Universalists have been led to expose their ignorance, in claiming Wesley and others as believers in their creed. I have heard it repeatedly and vehemently asserted, that Wesley was a Universalist, and by men too, who would think themselves insulted, were their intelligence called in question. Not long since, and not far from this place, a Universalist claimed Dr. Adam Clarke as a defender of his system, and offered to bet ten dollars that his writings furnished no proof to the contrary. The brother with whom the conversation was held, would not bet with him, but took the trouble to get the Dr's. Commentary, and read from it a few plain paragraphs on the point most contended for by Universalism; and even then he could scarcely convince him of his error. Where do these men get their false impressions, if not from their oracles, on whose lips they hang for instruction? and who, by a slight of hand process, adopted and systematically carried out, press men of other religious views, into the support of a cause which cannot be sustained upon its own merits.

In regard to my argument on the foreknowledge of God, Mr. Austin makes declarations which are really strange!! Is it the result of carelessness or design? I pretend not to determine. He says I strive to do away with divine foreknowledge, and still farther, that I try to prove--what God knows will take place, will not take place. Neither of these declarations are true. What I said on that point is as follows: First, knowledge is passive, and does not in itself determine the nature of an event. Secondly, there is a broad distinction between certainty and necessity; hence an event may be certain, without being necessary. God may know that some individual of this assembly, will go down to the centre of this village, before returning home. He knows this as a fact that will occur, simply, and only, because he is infinite in knowledge. But does the fact that God knows it, necessitate the action? Not at all; it is no more necessary than it would be if God did not know it. And this is true, if there is any truth in existence.

My friend also attempts an argument on what I said of the will of God. But he first misstates my view. I have not said, as he alledges, that God has no will of determination. All I designed to express on this point is, that God's will respecting the final condi