of time occupied in its perpetration. How long must a man refuse to accept of God's eternal favor, offered gratuitously, to deserve to lose it? If he gives up the everlasting favor of his Maker for one moment (and none will deny that this is offered to him in the gospel,) it cannot be proved that he deserves ever to receive it.

3. It is alleged that the creature is finite, and therefore cannot deserve an endless punishment.

To this I reply, that his powers of sinning,are not more limited than are his susceptibilities of suffering-hence there is no more reason why his punishment should not be endless, than there would be, if his powers were indefinitely increased. He can now resist infinite authority.

Besides, God cannot certainly be under any obligation in justice to reclaim a sinner. We have seen men in this world living in sin, sixty, eighty, and ninety years; when instead of being reclaimed, they have been growing more wicked and more miserable. We never think it inconsistent with the justice of God, that he does not reclaim them. Neither can we conceive that it would be inconsistent with justice that they should remain sinners another century, and another, and another-in short, God cannot be under any obligation ever to reclaim them from sin--there is no injustice in leaving them to live in sin and misery to all eternity.

To conclude this topic, I remark, that the same objections arise against men's being saved on the ground, that it is not just that they should be eternally punished, as were raised against the last argument. If they are saved because justice requires it, then there is no special favor in their salvation, and no forgiveness; and no deliverance from the curse of the

law through Christ. From all this, is it not evident that if the doctrine of Universal Salvation can be sustained at all, it must be sustained on other grounds than by reasoning from the claims of justice?

II. We come now to consider the argument drawn from the universal goodness of God.

Doctor Chauncey, one of the advocates of Universal Salvation, states his argument (if argument it may be called) in the following words

"It is high time that some generally received doctrines should be renounced, and others embraced in their room that are more honorable to the father of mercies, and comfortable to the creatures whom his hands have formed. I doubt not, says he, it has been a perplexing difficulty to most persons, (I am sure it has been such to me,) how to reconcile the doctrine which dooms so great a number of the human race to eternal flames, with the essential absolute perfection of the Deity."

Mr. Whiston, in speaking on the same subject, says, "this doctrine, (that is, the doctrine of eternal punishment,) supposes God to delight in cruelty."

"All who have heard our modern Universalist preachers, know that this is also a principal argument with them. They represent that God cannot be good, unless he saves the whole human race, and we have often heard their followers express themselves in these words, when speaking with those who hold the doctrine of eternal punishment, “ your God is my Devil." This is in fact, taking the same ground assumed in the last noticed argument, that it would be unjust, ultimately to cast off any of the human

race.

For an answer to this view, we refer you to the reasonings just gone through with. But if it be said that though men deserve in strict justice, to be eternally punished, yet, because God is infinitely good, and because his compassion is boundless, all will be saved; then we reply; if this ground be taken, it is clearly admitted, that pure, strict justice would doom some men to endless misery. Then the eternal misery of some is consistent with the goodness of God; for justice is certainly consistent with goodness. But it is said if God is good, we cannot conceive that he will leave any to eternal suffering. We may just as well say, if God is good, that we cannot conceive he will permit any real suffering in the universe; for if he can admit it for a day, a year, a life, he may on the same principle, an hundred years after death, and then another, and so on without end. So, in fact, if divine goodness require that suffering should cease, it requires just as really and certainly, that it ought never to have been admitted into the system.

But it is said that the eternal misery of any part of the human race cannot be for the good of the Universe.

This is the very thing to be proved by Universalists. Let them show that the moral government of God will be better sustained without an eternal exhibition of divine justice, and the argument from divine goodness will amount to something.

There is another branch of this argument, which those who believe in Universal Salvavation seem to me to be determined never to relinquish, though it may be answered to a perfect demonstration. It is this-it would not be

acting like a father on earth, if God were to doom sinners to endless torment.

Let me reply by asking, and is it like a father on earth, to inflict the temporal calamities which God often brings upon the children of men? Would a father on earth consign his children to poverty, shame, sickness, loss of reason, and death, attended with the most afflicting circumstances? Would a father on earth choose to plunge his children in the ocean, and leave them to the mercy of the tempest? Would he set a child's house on fire, while he was buried in soft slumbers, and consume him in the flames? What would you think of me, if I should present such a strain of declamation, to prove to you that God never does bring such calamities upon men? Yet the argument would be just as good for the purpose, as it is to prove that God will not inflict eternal punishment upon some part of mankind. Do you say that these earthly calamities result from our own folly and improvidence, and the general laws of creation? So, for ought that can be shown, does eternal punishment result from the same things. It is not necessary to dwell upon this argument, as what we have said on the justice of God is a reply to most of the arguments drawn from divine goodness.

III. We come now to inquire whether the atonement of Christ affords a solid ground of argument, in favor of the universal salvation of mankind.

On this point it is readily conceded that Christ has, by his death on the cross, made an atonement for all men. John said of him, as he saw him coming, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. Paul

says, We see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor; that he, by the grace of God,should taste death for every man-and again, There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all. And the apostle John said, if any man sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.These passages plainly show that Christ died for all men without exception-for Judas as well as for Paul-for the hardened reprobate as well as for the humble penitent. The question before us is, does this universal atonement secure the salvation of all mankind? Those who hold the doctrine of Universal Salvation say it does. Their argument is, Christ died to deliver all men from the curse of the law, and consequently all will be delivered.

Before proceeding to examine this argument, I beg that you will take notice of this one thingthe argument gives up the ground that a salutary discipline is the whole of the curse of the law, and that men will be saved by enduring that curse. It also relinquishes the notion that sinners may suffer all that the law requires in a limited time, and so may be saved on that account. It also gives up the idea, that God would not be good if any be lost, because it pleads for salvation as something not deserved, coming to all as a purchased pardon, and a deliverance from deserved punishment.

In reply to the whole argument drawn from the death of Christ, I will show you in few words, that the atonement was made, not to