doubt of their expressing the punishment of the wicked and its being declared of the one that it dieth not and of the other that it is not quenched is the same as their being declared to be endless. It can be said of no man on the principle of universal salvation, that it were good for himnot to have been born, as whatever he' might endure for a season, an eternal weight of glory would infinitely outweigh it. An impassable gulph between the blessed & the accursed equally militates against the recovery of the one as the relapse of the other. If some shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on them, if those who die in their sins shall not come where Jesus is, if their end be destruction, and their portion judgment without mercy, there must be some who will not be finally saved.

IV. Those passages which imply that a change of heart, and a preparation for heaven are confined to the present life.

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near, let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.--Because I have called and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded, I also will laugh at your calamity and mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation, & your destruction cometh as a whirlwind;

shall go forth to view them, doomed by the just judgment of God to eternal death. And this their punishment is represented by two metaphors, drawn from the different ways of burying the dead in use among the Jews. Bodies of men, interred in the earth, are eaten up of worms, which dieth when their food faileth; and those that are burned, are consumed in the fire which extinguishes itself when there is no more fuel added to feed it.But it shall not be so with the wicked; their worm shall not die and their fire is not quenched. These metaphors, therefore, as they are used by our Lord, and by the prophet Isaiah, paint the eternal punishments of the damned in strong & lively colors.""By the worm that dieth not' may be denoted the continual torture of an accusing conscience, and the misery naturally a. rising from the evil dispositions of pride, self will, desire, malice, envy, shame, sorrow, despair, and by the fire, &c. thepositive punishment inflicted by God."Bensony

when distress & anguish cometh upon you, then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early but shall not find me.. Then said one unto him, Lord are there few that shall be saved? And he said uns

to him, strive to enter in at the straight gate: for many I say unto you will seek to enter in and shall not be able. When once the master of the house hath risen up and shut to the door and ye begin to stand without and to knock at the door, saying Lord, Lord, open unto us: he shall answer and say unto you. I know you not whence you are

-Depart from me ye workers of iniquity-there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth-While ye have the light believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. While they (the foolish virgins) went to buy, the bridegroom came: and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut.We beseech you, that ye receive not the grace of God in vain-Behold now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation-to day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God-lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance though he sought it carefully with tears-He that is unjust let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous let him be righteous still; and he that is holy let him be holy still.*

"According to these scriptures there will be no successful calling upon the Lord after a certain period; and consequently no salvation.-Whether there be few that shall ultimately be saved, our Lord does not here inform us; but he assures us that there will be many who will not be saved, or which is the same thing, who will not be able to enter in at the straight gate. None it is plainly intimated will be able to enter there who have not agonized here. There will be no believing unto salvation but while we have the light; nor any admission into the kingdom unless we be ready at the coming of the Lord.

*Isa. lv. 6, 7. Prov. i. 23, 38. Luke xiii. 24, 29. John xii. 36. Mat. xxv. 5, 13. 2 Cor. vi. 1, 2. Heb. iii, 7, 11, 12, 15, 17. Rev. xxii. 11.

The present is the accepted time-the day of salvation, or the season for sinners to be saved. If we continue to harden our hearts through life, he will swear in his wrath that we shall not enter his rest. If we turn away from him who speaketh from heaven, it will be equally impossible for us to obtain the blessing, as it was for Esau who had sold his birthright. Finally, beyond a certain period there shall be no more change of character but every one will have received that impression which shall remain forever, whether he be just or unjust, filthy or holy!!!”

We have now completed what we intended to advance in favor of endless punishment. From the whole of which it appears, that there is a contrast, kept up in the scriptures between the final states of the righteous & the wicked: and as the happiness of the one is endless, the misery of the other must be endless, or the scriptures involve absurdity! It also appears that the strength of the terms used in relation to the punishment of the wicked authorises the conclusion that it will be endless! It likewise appears that the doctrine above asserted is implied in various passages, which are totally inconsistent with the idea of universal salvation and finally, that the necessary qualifications for a state of glory and happiness, can only be obtained within a certain period, over which men may pass, and so never obtain them!-The natural and necessary consequence of the whole is, that some will be finally impenitent and that such shall receive endless punishment!!!

UNIVERSAL SALVATION

CONSIDERED, &C.

PART II,

Examiner Observed:

A REJOINDER TO THE EDITOR OF THE EXAMINER'S "RE›PLY" TO THE FOREGOING.

No. I.-Wherein it is considered, whether salvation Emplies deliverance from the punishment due to sin.

We have read and attentively considered what the editor has written in "reply" to our numbers. And though we are ready to reciprocate an acknowledgement of his candor, in the general; we are not convinced by his arguments. Believing it possible to expose their fallacy, and sustain the ground we have taken, we crave his patience, and that of his readers, while we prosecute a review of the whole.

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We shall first consider what our editor has written in reply to our observations upon the natre of salvation. And we are fairly at issue" it sees, upon this question, is there any salvation from the punishment due to sin? It appeared to us that the writer we were examining in attempting to prove the negative of this question confounded the ideas of incurring and actually suffering the penalty of the divine law. But as our editor explains his meaning, it is " that if the penalty of the divine law is incurred, and that penalty is endless death, it surely will be inflicted." (Vol. 1. p. 128.) We have no material objection to accepting his explanation, and if the princi

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ple as explained be true, it is capable of distinct proof but whether he has offered any convincing evidence on the subject we shall see hereafter. In explaining what we Considered the meaning of those passages which speak of our being rewarded according to our works we remarked that it was not being punished as we must have been without a mediator, but consisted in our being rewarded or punished, according to our having received or rejected the mediator." In reply to this our editor asks "if our being rewarded according to our works is not being punished what is it?"-(Ibid.) The gentleman certainly knew that we believed it to imply the punishment of the finally impenitent-and that our observation is in nowise against punishment in our view of it-why then does he ask this question? But he thinks " being punished according to our deeds, by no means supercedes the necessity of a mediator.”—(Ibid.) But the enquiry is, whether it is any part of the work of the mediator to save from deserved punishment-this we shall see hereafter. He proceeds,

the force of the argument under consideration appears to preclude all punishment for sin, save for the sin of rejecting the mediator. "-(Ibid.) We will explain our views of this subject a little more at length. That all sins unrepented of, will be punished in a future state we do not doubt. This impenitence and infidelity, is in fact, a rejecting of the remedy provided-and it will be for this reason that all the sins of the impenitent will finally stand against them-so we may properly say, it is for rejecting the mediator, that sinners will be finally punished. But he adds, "they who never heard of a mediator cannot be justly punished for rejecting him."—(Ibid) As to those who never heard of a mediator, it will doubtless "be accepted of them according to what they have, and not according to what they have not." It must be through the mediator that they are accepted on the improvement of their talent. for" none cometh to the father but by him," he is emphatically" the way.” "the way." But if they abuse the light they have, the improvement of which would be accepted through Christ,-this is in some sense rejecting the mediator and they are justly punished in proportion to the light they have sinned against.

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But scripture supports that there is punishment for other sins as well as for this." He here introduces Heb.