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OF

UNIVERSALISM.

OR A

Defence of Orthodoxy

AGAINST THE HERESY OF UNIVERSALISM,

AS ADVOCATED BY MR. ABNER KNEELAND,

IN THE DEBATE

IN THE UNIVERSALIST CHURCH, LOMBARD STREET,

JULY, 1824,

AND IN HIS VARIOUS PUBLICATIONS,

AS ALSO IN THOSE OF MR. BALLOU, AND OTHERS.

THE PROFITS OF THE IMPRESSION TO GO TO THE FUNDS OF THE YOUNG MEN'S DO-

MESTIC MISSIONARY SOCIETY, COMPOSED OF DIFFERENT DENOMINATIONS.

BY W. L. M'CALLA

PEILADELPHIA: PRINTED BY JOHN YOUNG, 34, NORTH THIRD STREET.

.....

M3

Eastern District of Pennsylvania, to wit:

Be it remembered, that on the twenty-fourth day of January, in the forty-ninth year of the Independence of the United States of America, A. D. 1825, WILLIAM LATTA M'CALLA, of the said District, hath deposited in this Office the Title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as Author, in the words following,

to wit:

"A Discussion of Universalism; or a Defence of Orthodoxy, against the "Heresy of Universalism, as advocated by Mr. Abner Kneeland, in the Debate in "the Universalist Church in Lombard-street, July, 1824, and in his various pnblica"tions, as also, in those of Mr. Ballou and others. The profits of the impression "to go to the Funds of the Young, Men's Domestic Missionary Society, composed "of different denominations. By W. L. M'Calla."

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, " An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the times therein mentioned ;"-And also to the Act, entitled, "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies during the times therein mentioned," and extending the Benefits thereof to the Arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints."

Clerk of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
D. CALDWELL,

PREFACE.

SHORTLY after my arrival in this place, last May, infor mation was received from various quarters, that Mr. Kneeland had long been in the habit of defying the armies of the living God, and of glorying in their silence as the effect of conscious guilt and error. Aware of my own weakness, but confiding in the Great Head of the Church, it was impossible to conceal my desire that he would challenge me. A mutual friend gave him an intimation of my willingness to accept a personal invitation, but without effect. His general challenge was then made the ground of a correspondence which terminated in a public conference. This was not, by any means, intended to supercede the necessity of a printed defence, but to excite the public attention to such a work, and to make it more worthy of their patronage, as well as to silence the audacious boasting of this enemy of God and man. He soon betrayed a great anxiety to terminate the debate. After several unsuccessful efforts, he cut it short by virtually closing the door of his desk upon me. Sickness and the heat of the city soon obliged me to retire to the country. This was called a retreat, and it was boldly and publicly denied that the doors of the church were shut upon me. To settle these points, an offer was made to resume the discussion, which offer he was very far from accepting. To retrieve their loss, a Universalist preacher, a pretended stenographer, was employed to write the debate in such a way as to transfer the victory from one side to the other. Although he at first promised verbal accuracy, he at last professed to give the argument only: but this was as far beyond his capacity as it was contrary to his wish. The performance of his enterprise with fidelity and ability, would have been much more gratifying to me and my friends than to him and his. Yet every one conversant with such matters, knows that in such discussions, an argument is more diluted than it should be when committed to paper; and that it is not necessary to record repeated refutations of the same error, which were made necessary in debate, in order to meet the extemporaneous and reiterated effusions of heretical sophistry. Although the employed stenographer professed to do justice to my argument, he has been guilty of such omissions and interpolations, transpositions and alterations, as were calculated to destroy it. While, for the sake of perspi

cuity and precision, I take the liberty of arranging and condensing the matter of the discussion, in such a manner as is suitable to written composition, the hearer will see that real justice is done to the argument on both sides. As my opponent has had a full opportunity of speaking for himself, so, in revising and correcting the work of his employed Reporter, he has had a full opportunity of writing for himself. To copy all that he has published, through his stenographer, for himself and for me, is not my design. Any one who has read those drowsy pages will readily excuse me, and any one who has not, may see a fair specimen in the piece signed Long-hand, published in the Democratic Press, of Sept. 22nd, and copied in No. 21, of the Introductory Documents in this work. This is one of the least important of many newspaper publications connected with this controversy, with which it is thought proper to occupy the first part of this volume. For reasons explained in the introductory documents, its bulk will also be increased by additional matter both in confirmation and refutation; and the latter of these shall now take the precedency, as the arguments of my opponent are all before me, in what he calls "as faithful a re-port as ever was made.”

INTRODUCTORY DOCUMENTS.

No. 1.

THE CHALLENGE.

In the Philadelphia edition of Buck's Theological Dictionary, by Edwin T. Scott, 1823, Mr. Kneeland, under the article Universalists, boasts that several works written by himself and Mr. Ballou, "have never been answered." He was also in the habit of giving challenges from the pulpit, and he and his followers were in the practice of boasting that they were not accepted. In a note attached to his 8th Lecture, he says, " at each publication, the learned clergy have been respectfully called upon to shew wherein these statements are incorrect. They have not seen fit to do it; and it is believed, for this good reason, because they know the statements are true. As, therefore, the most important facts contained in this Lecture have been more than thirteen years before the public, and yet remain uncontroverted, they now come forth with this additional evidence of their truth. Because it is fair to presume (the facts here stated being so important in themselves to the cause of religion) that if they could have been contradicted, with any colour of evidence, they would have been before this time." The following are extracts from the preface to his Lectures, viz. "The work has had an opportunity to be fully tested by public opinion; and notwithstanding the substance of the eighth Lecture (which is the most important of any in point of doctrine,) has been before the public nearly twenty years, and it is now more than five years since this work was first publish. ed, yet no one has attempted to point out a single error, in relation to the facts as herein stated, or to shew that any of the arguments are either unfounded or inconclusive. This is considered as a silent acknowledgement, that in the opinion of the clergy generally, the work is unanswerable: otherwise, being so often and so respectfully called upon to consider the doctrine and arguments here advanced, and point out the errors, if there be any, it is difficult to account

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