should perish forever. In the 20th verse of the 24th chapter, the historian says, "and when he looked on Amalek, he took up his parable, and said, Amalek was the first of the nations, but his latter end shall be that he perish forever." To deny the truth of these parables could be expected from none but an infidel, and in Proverbs 26: 7, Solomon assures us that no wise man will lame them, by believing a part to be truth and a part fiction. "The legs of the lame are not equal; so is a parable in the mouth of fools."

But we have already observed that another of their rules of exposition is that a scriptural declaration must have a right extent of reference and address. My opponent says,* "the punishment of Gehenna is never threatened to the Gentiles." He denies that Christ "threatened with the punishment of Gehenna, any others than Jews." Mr. Balfour says "that not a word about Hell or Gehenna is said to the Gentiles by any of the inspired writers." He says "that all that is said about Gehenna in the way of threatening or in any other shape was spoken to Jews: Jews and they only were the persons addressed when speaking of Gehenna It is not once named to the Gentiles in all the New Testament, nor are any of them ever threatened with such a punishment."+ Their object is to shew that hell does not mean the eternal misery of every unbeliever, but only the temporal calamities of the Jewish nation, in the destruction of Jerusalem. To prove this they state what need not be disputed, that the inspired discourses about Gehenna were addressed to Jews only. Their conclusion is, that these discourses refer to them only According to this rule no part of the Bible can relate to Ireland or Philadelphia, because not addressed to their inhabitants. Most of the Scriptures were originally addressed to the Jews, yet a great portion of them refer either expressly or implicitly to the Gentiles. Can it be supposed that the poor in spirit, the meek, the mourners, the merciful, the peace-makers, the pure, and the persecuted among the Gentiles, cannot be happy because the beatitudes were addressed to the Jews? Our, Saviour once said to certain Jews, "He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." Because this was not addressed to Gentiles personally, have they therefore no part in either salvation or damnation? Our Saviour intimates that those who are unwilling

*Minutes, p. 177. Section 2d and 3d.

to part with an offending hand, or foot, or eye, shall "be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched." Are none but Jews unwilling to forsake their sins? If Gentiles resemble them in character, they must partake of their punishment. Our Saviour says to the Jews, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers! how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" Are no serpents and vipers to be found among the Gentiles? I should guess that all the hissing which we have had against the truth in this house has not come from Jews. If, then, unbelievers of all nations are the Children of the old serpent, it may be truly said of them, that they cannot escape the damnation of Gebenna. Neither will it avail in proof that Gehenna relates to the destruction of Jerusalem, to say, as Mr. Balfour has done in his 4th section, that John, who wrote after that event, "omits all our Lord's discourses in which it is mentioned;" since he has also omitted the sermon on the Mount and the apostolic commission above quoted, and many other things which relate to Heaven as well as Hell, to salvation as well as perdition.

It has already been announced that the Universalist polemics require that our proofs should be uttered by what they esteem a right number of authors, a right frequency of repetition, and at the right times. My opponent, on this subject, speaks as follows: Paul "never once made use of this term Gehenna or hell in all his preaching. Ah! Paul, have you preached the whole counsel of God? and yet we cannot find this wonderful term in all your preaching!!! Now, my hearers, I ask you, how could Paul preach the whole counsel of God, and yet not preach the Gehenna or hell of my opponent, if this doctrine of hell be contained in any part of the counsel of God?"* Although Mr. Balfour admits that our Saviour threatened unbelieving Jews with the damnation of hell, yet, in his 4th section, he sees no reason even for them to fear, because the Apostles "were commanded to preach the Gospel to every creature," and "they addressed the worst of characters, but to none of them did they ever say, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" To prove the same point he tells us in chap. 2. sect. 2, "that the word Gehenna or hell is used by our Lord, and by James, but by no other person in the New Testament." "Near the close of Section 4th, he says, "Now let it be supposed, that by this

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expression, our Lord meant endless misery in a future state. I ask is it possible our Lord should only mention this once? I ask again, can it be believed, that he who said on the cross,Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,' should have ceased, but with his dying breath, to warn these men that such a place of endless misery awaited them? I ask once more, is it possible that he, who, when he beheld the city, wept over it,' on account of temporal calamities, in which it was soon to be involved, should shed no tears in anticipating the endless misery of its wicked inhabitants?" From this it would appear that, with such characters, the authority of our Lord, or of an inspired Apostle is not sufficient. They will believe nothing but what has been declared by all the sacred college, very often, on all important occasions, and especially in the hour of death. In the second section of Balfour's first chapter, he leaves "it to any candid man to say, if Hades be a place of torment after death, whether our Lord would only mention this once." In the same section of the next chapter, he asks, “how is it to be rationally accounted for, that our Lord only once during his whole ministry, should say to the unbelieving Jews, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? if by this he meant future eternal punishment?" The same question might be asked concerning Paradise as a place of happiness, although the one time that our Saviour used this word was in his dying hour. Yet it is evident that those who will thus limit the Holy One will not believe when all their arrogant demands are complied with: for his unbelief still continues, although, according to his own acknowledgment,* Gehenna is twice called in Mk. 9th, the fire that never shall be quenched.' He observes that "properly speaking, this expression occurs no less than five times; for it is three times said, by way of addition, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." In another place,+ he appears to think that twelve repetitions are not sufficient to entitle their authors to credit. His words are the following; viz. "Admitting for the present, that it occurs twelve times, and in all these it is certainly used to express a place of eternal misery, it deserves notice, that this is not so often in the whole Bible, as it is used by many preachers in a single sermon ;" and he might have added, as Mr. Balfour repeats this miserable subterfuge, in a single chapter.

*Chap. 1, Seet. 3. † Chap. 1, Seet. 2.

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UNIVERSALIST PRACTICE.

Having said thus much of their principles of interpretation by which they have imposed upon themselves and others, a word or two concerning their practice may not be improper. Although their antagonists may accompany their scripture authorities with elaborate explanations and arguments, they scruple not to accuse them of quoting naked texts, without argument: yet when it suits their purpose, they can glory in perverting detached passages of scripture without explanation. In the 201st page of Mr. Ballou's Treatise on Atonement, he says "Time would fail me, to write one half that might be quoted from the prophets on this subject. I ask for no explanation, on their testimony; if what they say do not prove my doctrine, I will not have recourse to explanations." As he is a professed writer on dark sayings, proverbs and parables, he ought to know what was revealed to Solomon in the introduction to his Proverbs; where we are taught that it is the part of a learned man who has attained to "wise counsels, to understand a proverb, and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings." My opponent, however, incorrectly attributes to me as a crime, the very thing of which his favourite boasts so vainly; and lest he should not be believed for the want of sufficient repetition he gives it to us often enough. He accuses his antagonist of stating texts "without any argument to prove his interpretation of them correct;" of bringing "text after text without attempting to prove his interpretation of them to be correct by fair argument;" of giving" passage after passage without any argument or explanation;" of giving "a continued series of quotations without any argument to prove the meaning which was attached to them." &c. &c. &c.* These groundless assertions appear intended to reduce his antagonist to a level with a man who repeatedly confesses that he has not wherewith to occupy his sluggish periods.

There is one very remarkable feature in the practice of my opponent. Sometimes he can scarcely converse, preach or print, without a perpetual recurrence to the dead languages. A sermon published by him this year, is quite richly interlarded with Hebrew. In this wonderful production, he tries to give the people some acquaintance with Hebrew radicals. In a note he informs them of the distinction in the

*Minutes pp. 272, 181, 216, 236, 77, 58.

genders of Hebrew nouns; and what must have been very important to those who did not know one letter from another, he informs them that "the reader, must read all Hebrew words from right to left."* He has referred to debates which he has had in the Commissioner's Hall with laymen and apprentice boys. These men were more remarkable for honesty and good sense than for biblical literature. It is well known that he was in the habit of appealing to the original scriptures with such disputants as could not follow him thither. This he does in letters written to one of these apprentice boys, dated Feb. 14th and March 8th, of the present year. In the latter of these he parades his several Latin versions, the same literary ware, which, like a pedlar with his pins and needles and buttons and combs, he has displayed before this assembly. Having endeavoured in vain to weaken the confidence of his young correspondent in our common version, and to get him to adopt my opponent's new translation, which he ridiculously pretends is a correct translation of Griesbach's Greek Testament, he plainly lets him know in a letter of Feb. 16th, that he must admit Griesbach, of which he knew not one word, or their correspondence should close. "Then" says he, “have I put an end to this discussion." After thus making the sacred originals a sine qua non to a discussion with a youth who knew nothing of them, he proposed to me, in the commencement of our dis

* See his 18mo: Compendium of a Sermon, p. 13.Also, in the 126th page of the Minutes, Mr. Jennings has, in a note, given us a good deal of Greek and Hebrew, accompanied with the following instructions for those, who like, himself, could not read these languages, viz. "The Hebrew words which are written in the Hebrew characters, are read from right to left. These remarks may be of some use to the unlearned, and for them alone they are designed." As it is a notorious fact, and one which has been publicly acknowledged, that Mr. Jennings never read nor wrote a word of Hebrew or Greek in his life, it is easy to see that this note was penned by the same wiseacre who wrote the Compendium of a Sermon. Yet Mr. Jennings begins the note by saying that "the Reporter writes the Hebrew without the points." This is a worthy disciple of a man who expects to teach unlearned readers to pronounce his " Hebrew words which are written in Hebrew characters" by simply telling them that these words " are read from right to left." It would not be a greater evidence of that imbecility to which the understanding is reduced by an overweening pedantry, if he were to expect a land-lubber to navigate a frigate from here to England, by being simply informed that he was to sail from West to East.

† Minutes p. 42.

See "Letters of Correspondence between the Rev. Abner Kneeland and William Justice.”