DOCTRINE OF MODERN UNIVERSALISM CONSIDERED; In a Series of Essays, ADDRESSED TO A CHRISTIAN PUBLIC. BY JEREMIAH L. LESSLIE. Hearken unto me, ye men of understanding: far be it from God that he should do wickedness, and from the Almighty that he should commit iniquity.-Job, xxxiv, 10. ZANESVILLE, OHIO: Printed for the Author, by Parke & Bennett. 9941 PREFACE. IN presenting the following work to the notice of an enlightened public, the author feels that he is bound in justice to himself to request the exercise of candor on the part of his readers in several respects: First; He is not a member of the " Corps Literati," and therefore his style cannot be expected to be that of an Addison or a Blair: Secondly; His avocation at the time he wrote the work being that of a keeper of a public house, forbade the opportunity and leisure necessary to the study of abstract and metaphysical reasoning, therefore although his style may not be so pleasing, nor his reasoning so clear, as it might have been under different circumstances, he hopes that his performance will not be the subject of severe criticism. His introduction is longer than was intended at its commencement, but in mak*ing the quotations upon which his charges against universalism are established, he found some particulars that were not sufficiently attended to in the body of the work; he was therefore compelled to use a few arguments in the introduction: this will account for its length. He hopes his readers will overlook the defects in his manner of writing, and attend, with the candor of sincere inquirers after truth, to the arguments he has advanced, and should they find any erroneous opinions presented in these essays he will take it kindly to have them honestly pointed out. Having taken all the pains that his situation and circumstances would admit of to avoid error himself, he cannot take it unkindly, (if he has fallen into any,) to have it pointed out to him in a friendly way. In conclusion he would say to his universalian readers, that whatever they may think of his manner of addressing them, it is not his wish to wound the feelings of any human being; if his satires are thought to be too caustic permit him to say they are not intended to provoke ire, but to combat what he honestly thinks to be error; he therefore wishes it to be distinctly understood that the severity of his remarks is not intended for universalists but for universalism. In this investigation he has only availed himself of a right he willingly accords to others, viz; that of endeavoring to expose what he conceives to be error, in his own way. If he has, from having misunderstood any of the arguments of his opponents, charged them with errors which they have not embraced, he is willing to do them justice so soon as the same shall have been clearly pointed out in some of the numerous periodicals with which they are flooding the country. He is well aware that both sides of a contradiction cannot be true, and he is equally certain that truth can never be put out of countenance by candid investigation; and if ever the time does come when the leaders of the people are to see eye to eye, truth must be investigated in a very different spirit from that in which it has been too generally done throughout the christian world. Zanesville, OHIO, June, 1836. THE AUTHOR. |