Hear again, Rev Thomas Boston, an orthodox divine of a past age, in his work entitled "Four-fold State." "The godly wife shall applaud the justice of the judge, in the condemnation of her ungodly husband. The godly husband shall say amen! to the DAMNATION of her who lay in his bosom! The godly parent shall say hallelujah! at the passing of the sentence of their ungod ly child. And the godly child shall, from his heart, approve the damnation of his wicked parents, who begot him, and the mother who bore him."--(p. 336.)

Thomas Vincent, a Calvinistic Clergyman who preached in London, in the 17th century, indulges in the following strain : "This will fill them with astonishing admiration, and wondering joy, when they see some of their near relatives going to hell; their fathers, their mothers, their children, their husbands, their wives, their brethren, their sisters, their intimate friends and companions, while they themselves are saved! * * * * Those

affections which they now have to relatives out of Christ, will CEASE; and they will not have the least trouble to see them sentenced to hell, and thrust into the firey furnace." If the affections which professing Christians now cherish towards those connected with them by the dearest ties, will cease hereafter, and they be brought to view with indifference the endless agonies of those they now love, will not their feelings become hardened? Will they not have exchanged a heart of flesh for a heart of stone?

President Edwards, formerly of Princeton College, New Jersey, who stood at the head of the orthodox ranks in the last century, makes use of the following language: "The sight of hell's torments will EXALT the happiness of the saints forever. It will not only make them more sensible of the greatness and freeness of the grace of God in their happiness, but it will really make their happiness the GREATER, as it will make them more sensible of their own happiness. It will give them a more LIVELY RELISH for it. It will make them prize it more." Again says President Edwards-"When they shall see how miserable others of their fellow creatures are, who are naturally in the same circumstances with themselves-when they shall see the smoke of their torments, and the raging of the flames of their burning, and hear their dolorous SHRIEKS and CRIES, and consider that they, in the mean time, are in the most blissful state, and shall surely be in it to all eternity, how will they rejoice!"

I might quote many pages of this kind of sentiment. But this must suffice. Must not the heart be brought into a condition harder than adamant, to feel that in heaven, they can find added happiness, a higher zest for enjoyment, in contemplating the damnation of the dearest objects of their affections? Parents, husbands, wives, children, brothers, sisters, how do you relish the prospect thus held out before you ? How do you like a doctrine, that pre

547

sents such enjoyments for your acceptance? Can you approve a sentiment which declares every particle of love between you is to be annihilated? This must be a correct description of the feelings of the saints in heaven, if the doctrine of endless punishAnd how hardening must be the effects of such doctrines on those who really believe them, and enter into their spirit!!

ment is true.

?

This is the way that the doctrine ought to be preached, if it is of God. These were bold, honest and faithful preachers of it. Why should it not be so proclaimed now? If it is true, it canWhy does not my not be preached in a manner too pungent! friend opposite, and those clergymen generally who profess to believe in endless wrath, preach it now, as it was a century ago The reason is perfectly obvious. It is because they DARE NOT! The public heart would loathe and spurn it with abhorrence, were it presented at this day, in its true, genuine colors. The partialist clergy perfectly understand this, and hence attempt to conceal its odiousness!

Look through the pages of Ecclesiastical History, yea, and of profane history too, for the effects of this doctrine on men's hearts. You will find that all that has been done to disgrace Christianity -every thing wicked, corrupt, malicious, and cruel, which has been transacted under the garb of religion, has been done by believers in this doctrine of endless wrath! Under the influence of what doctrine did professing Christians engage in fierce persecutions-dye their hands in each other's blood, simply for a difference in religious faith? Under the influence of what doctrine did professing Christians march by hundreds of thousands to the Holy Land, and butcher multitudes of Mahometans, because they did not believe in a Christ, of whom they had never heard, except in mere name? Under the influence of what doctrine were the fires of martyrdom kindled? Under the influence of what doctrine was the cruel Inquisition, with all its infernal enginery of torture, reared and put into operation-crushing the bones of heretics, and tearing them limb from limb? Under the influence of what doctrine was it, that innocent men and women were hung for witchcraft-Quakers banished and put to death-and Baptists All these It was whipped? These questions admit of a single answer. enormities were committed by believers in eternal woe. the vengeance, and venom, and hate, of which this doctrine is the double-distilled concentration, that embittered and poisoned the hearts of those who took part in such bloody and cruel transactions. These deeds of blackness were the legitimate fruit of the malign influence of such a doctrine on ignorant and bigotted men. Oh, God! oh, Christ! what untold abominations has this sentiment urged men to commit, in the name of thy compassionate and peaceful religion!!

My Ninth Negative Argument is, that Endless Misery destroys

the Parental character of God. The scriptures represent God as a Father-as the Father of all men. It is true, they also speak of him as a Ruler, a King, a Judge; but over and above thesehigh above them, stands his relationship as a Parent. All men are connected with God, in the same manner that the son of an earthly monarch is with his father. The doctrine of Endless Punishment describes the Most High as acting in a manner of which the most depraved earthly parent would blush to be guilty. It represents him as deliberately, and voluntarily, placing his children where he knew they would be exposed to perils of the most terrible description-yea, where he saw vast multitudes of them would stumble into endless sin and agony!! Would any earthly father do thus? It represents him as exposing them to this doom without any necessity, or any call for it. He could have allowed them to remain uncreated, if he had pleased. It would have caused no evil, no injury, no harm to any, had he permitted them to sleep on in peacefnl non-entity! But instead of such a poor privilege, this libellous doctrine represents the heavenly Parent as urging them into being, and placing them all on the dizzy precipice of eternal wretchedness-plainly seeing and fully knowing that countless millions of the ignorant and deluded creatures, would plunge off into the black gulf of never ending perdition!! I ask again, would any earthly father urge his children into such a condition? It represents the Heavenly Father as enduring the frailties and follies of his erring children for a little season, and then throwing them from him in anger, in hate and revenge, and turning on them the thunder-bolts of Omnipotent wrath-crushing them down with almighty power, and wreaking infinite vengeance upon them!! And this, not during a moment, or a day. or a year only, but throughout eternity!! It declares he will hear his offspring cry, and agonize, and lament, and call upon him, as their Father, and appeal to his love and pity for relief from their agony; but that he will remain perfectly unmoved, without one feeling of compassion, or one throb of mercy! Yea, it insists he will hear them beg for an opportunity to repent, and become obedient, dutiful and loving children; but, horrible to conceive, he will not grant this most reasonable and consistent request!! No. It absolutely says he will not even allow them the wretched favor of falling into annihilation, but will compel them to live forever, that he may forever have the opportunity of tormenting them! In the name of heaven, I ask my brother opposite, if it is not time to hesitate presenting God to the world in such a blasphemous light! I ask the fathers and mothers of this audience, if an earthly parent would conduct in a manner so abhorrent? Does not this doctrine place the Heavenly Father even below the worst parent earth ever saw ?

Brother Moderators! The very vulture which delights in blood, will exhibit tenderness towards her young. She will line their

nest with the softest down-will feed them by day-cover them with her wings by night, and watch over and protect them, until they are able to provide for themselves? In mercy's name, must the Heavenly Father be represented as exhibiting LESS tenderness for his offspring. The poet YOUNG describes the enormity of these representations of the Parent of the world, in the eloquent and forcible language he puts into the mouth of one supposed to be lost:

"Father of Mercies! why from silent Earth,
Did'st thou awake and curse me into birth!
Tear me from quiet-ravish me from night!
And make a thankless present of thy light?
Push into being a reverse of thee,
And animate a clod with misery?

And this, my help, my God, at thy decree?
Nature is chang'd and Hell should swallow me.
And canst thou then, look down from perfect bliss,
And see me plunging in the dark abyss?
Calling thee FATHER, in a sea of fire?
Or pouring blasphemies at Thy desire?

With mortal's anguish wilt thou raise Thy name,
And by my pangs omnipotence proclaim?"

-[Time expired.

[Young's "Last Day," Book 111.]

[MR. HOLMES' SIXTH SPEECH.]

The language the gentleman has just quoted from Young, is put into the mouth of an objector, such as skeptics and Universalists, who, repudiating the voice of revelation, claim a more liberal and enlightened theology, asserting injustice in the operation of the laws of the moral universe. If Mr. Austin had also quoted the reply, he would have shown, what he evidently wishes to avoid, the triumphant manner in which the great poet chastises the Infidel, and refutes his railing accusations against the divine government. Take the following as a specimen :

If, then, that double death should prove thy lot,
Blame not the bowels of the Deity:

Man shall be blessed, as far as man permits.
Not man alone, all rationals, Heaven arms
With an illustrious, but tremendous power.
That power denied, men, angels, were no more
But passive engines, void of praise or blame.
A nature rational, implies the power

Of being blessed or wretched, as we please;
Else idle reason would have naught to do:
And he that would be barred capacity

Of pain, courts incapacity of bliss.

Heaven wills our happiness, allows our doom;
Invites us ardently, but not compels.

Heaven but persuades, almighty man decrees ;
Man is the maker of immortal fates.

Man falls by man, if finally he falls;

And fall he must, who learns from death alone,
The dreadful secret-that he lives forever.

(Night Seventh.)

From the manner in which the gentleman has quoted Dr Young, it would seem to be his design to convey the impression that this celebrated author was a Universalist. And here I am reminded again of the list of Universalists, or distinguished men, claimed as Universalists paraded before us a day or two since; and perhaps I shall not have a better time than this, to remark somewhat more respecting it. I have asked him where he got that list, but have received no satisfactory reply.

MR. AUSTIN.-I have said I obtained it from the Ancient History of Universalism, and various other sources.

MR. HOLMES.-Yes, " and various other sources," one of which is the " Universalist Almanac," from which, I find by examination, the gentleman has drawn many things, asserted so confidently in this discussion, but resting upon no foundation. That a very few of the individuals named, supposed future punishment would terminate, is probably true, but as to the great majority, they were not Universalists in any sense, and it is an injurious, not to say willful slander upon their reputation, to name them in such connection.

Mr. Austin has claimed Watts as a Universalist, and yet, in his great zeal to represent the orthodox doctrine of endless punishment in as revolting a light as possible, he has found it convenient to quote a passage on that subject from Dr. Watts. This is very consistent. But Watts' writings on religious and other subjects, are too well known to the world, to admit of his being passed off as a Universalist, unless it be among those who are too ignorant to know by their own reading that such a man ever lived. His celebrated hymn commencing with,

"Broad is the road that leads to death,
And thousands walk together there,"

is itself sufficient to vindicate him from the suspicion of Universalism. Not long since, and not far from this place, a certain Universalist preacher, discoursing on the signs of the times," quoted the first verse of this hymn, probably without knowing who was its author. He thought, however, the idea conveyed was a great absurdity-adding, it ought to read thus:

Broad is the road that leads to life,
Aud thousands walk together there,