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versalians complain of their opponents for their belief in future punishment? He says, man cannot love or hate from choice, any more than he can believe or reject according to his pleasure." Now, if we held such a view of faith and the affections, we should deny future punishment also, and not only future punishment, but punishment of every description, both in time and eternity; but we would not be universalists, nevertheless. We would be consistent and adopt Robert Owen's no praise, no blame system at once.

The truth is, the better we become acquainted with universalism, the more we are persuaded that it is either Calvinism, stript of its reprobationary features, or Deism in disguise. Is it not evident that if we have no choice, as to the objects of our affections or the subjects of our belief, that we can neither believe nor love the truth, until God shall cause us to believe and love it; and if Deity should not cause us to believe and love the truth, must we not remain unbelievers and haters of the truth, until death? If this is the case, we want to know how mankind can be punishable for their conduct, either in time or eternity?

Universalians raise a mighty outcry against limitarians, as they are pleased to call them, for supposing that God will punish men eternally for their sins; our doctrine is, that it is no worse to punish a sinner in eternity if he remains a sinner, than it is to punish him in time: but universalists hold that God punishes men for doing what they cannot help doing, and say at the same time, that sin is according to the will of God. "For if any thing is done against the will of God, what provi dence or omnipotence does it leave him?" We used to think that there was no moral turpitude attached to an action which cannot be avoided, likewise, we were under an impression, that when a man was engaged in performing the will of God he was a saint and not a sinner. Certainly we are under an obligation to universalism for putting us straight in these

matters.

The last particular I shall notice in Mr. Spear's puerile

performance, is what he says in his concluding remarks: “Finally, all good beings are universalists in practice. A parent who is kind to all his children, is a universalist in the family circle; a magistrate who is impartial in the distribution of justice, and is guided by mercy in his decisions, is a universalist in the discharge of his official duties."

What! a universalist when he consigns one culprit to the gallows and another to the penitentiary during life! Now this is all that we claim in behalf of our Maker's government. When sinners become confirmed in wickedness, so that the safety of society becomes endangered, to dispose of such offenders, so that they can do no more mischief, must be perfectly right.

But, how this magistrate's conduct accords with Mr. Spear's universalism is a mystery to me. Where justice is administered with mercy, that mercy has the culprit for its object: but where justice is administered without mercy, the public good is the object. Now we would be pleased to hear Mr. Spear or some of his friends explain how much mercy there is in the decision of the magistrate who consigns one culprit to the gallows and another to the penitentiary, during life.

A good parent may be equally kind to all his children, and yet be under the necessity of disinheriting a part for profligate conduct, in order to secure the happiness of the rest, or to put them into Mr. Roger's damp, dark cellar, and feed them on crust and water.

ESSAY VII.

Answers to 213 questions, proposed by Abel C. Thomas, Pastor of the Universalian Church, Philadelphia.

Question 1. As we are required to love our enemies, may we not safely infer that God loves his enemies?

Answer. God is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. He changes not: whom he once loves, he never ceases to love, though there is a very distinguishing peculiarity between his love to the righteous and the wicked: the former are the objects of his delightful regard; not so with the latter, though they are the objects of his benevolent regard: but does Mr. Thomas intend to infer that God will take his enemies to heaven? The language of inspiration is, "Bring hither those mine enemies, that would not have me to reign over them, and slay them before me."

Q. 2. If God loves his enemies, will he punish them any more than will be for their good?

A. The above question supposes that punishment is never inflicted with an eye to the public interest, but only for the benefit of the individual offender; whereas it is for the maintenance of happiness and for that alone, that punishment is ever inflicted under any righteous government, or by the influence of any righteous principle. If punishment reforms the offender, God will punish him no more: but if it fails to produce this salutary effect, it must then be continued to prevent the injurious influence of sin upon others; whether it benefit the offender or not.

Q. 3. Would endless punishment be for the good of any being?

A. Suppose it would not be of any advantage to the individual sinner, yet if it is necessary to prevent his destroying

the harmony and happiness of society, public good requires it. This question, like the foregoing, seems to suppose that none but the sinner himself is interested in his punishment, and that it is inflicted entirely for him, without any regard to society: whereas, though goodness has the reformation of the sinner in view, yet justice must punish, to secure the general welfare, so long as the offender continues to multiply his crimes. Do our state governments punish men with a view to their reformation only? Is it not done to deter others, by way of example, and to put a stop to the injurious effects of their evil conduct? Even confinement is a mercy to an incorrigible sinner, who would make himself, as well as others more miserable when running at large.

Questions 4 and 5 need no answer. God does not punish because he does not love his creatures; but for the sake of good government. A father who loves his family will not let one perverse child destroy the happiness of the rest, and although his bowels of compassionate mercy yearn over the obstinacy of a disobedient child; yet if the happiness of the rest of the family can be secured no other way, he must banish the offender from the comforts of his father's house.

Q. 6. As love thinketh no ill, can God design the ultimate evil of a single soul?

A. This question is predicated upon the old stale doctrine, that nothing comes to pass but what God designed should be. If man by abusing his moral power, unfits himself for the service of God and the enjoyment of happiness, who but himself is to blame? God never designed the ultimate evil of a single soul. Man could never have known what moral happiness was, without being in possession of moral liberty. If an abuso of that liberty renders him miserable, he cannot be made happy by taking that power from him.

Q. 7. As love worketh no ill, can God inflict, or cause, or allow to be inflicted an endless ill?

A. Still the same idea. If man suffers eternally God must te to blame, and not man, for the consequences of his wrong

conduct. The bible every where shows that God has done every thing that a God could do, consistent with the nature of his government, and the moral agency of man, to save the family of Adam from misery: and the same book as plainly shows that man may forfeit, by unbelief and sin, all that has been done for him.

Q. 8. As we are forbid to be overcome of evil, can we safely suppose that God will be overcome of evil?

A. We suppose an allusion is here made to the apostle's exhortation, not to be overcome of evil, but to overcome evil with good. The apostle was here guarding his brethren against giving way, when injured by others, to the influence of those angry passions that nurture strife, and advises them to let the meek and peaceable spirit of christian forbearance enable them to overcome the injury or evil, as he terms it. Now what similitude could any reasonable man discover between that unrelenting vengeance that men's angry passions urge them to inflict on one another, and that holy indignation that causes Deity to punish those whose wickedness scatters firebrands, arrows, and death, throughout society. The one is the cause of misery, the other is the means made use of to circumscribe its limits.

Q. 9. Would not the infliction of endless punishment prove that God had been overcome of evil?

A. If the Almighty, in inflicting punishment, was influenced by the same principles that the apostle was guarding against, it would so prove, whether inflicted in time or eternity. Again. Is the magistracy of a nation overcome of evil when, to secure the rights of society, they have to consign the culprit to death or the penitentiary.

Q. 10. If man does wrong in returning evil for evil would not God do wrong were he to do the same?

A. When God inflicted death on our first parents and their unoffending offspring, this was returning evil for evil; when God drowned the old world, this was returning evil for evil;. when God rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah,