by the doctrine of endless misery,) or to return to non-existence, and to remain non-existent forever." "I foresee (the Creator tells them,) that some of you will violate my laws, and subject yourselves to my eternal displeasure; but this will result from no decree or purpose of mine, but from the incurable perverseness of such individuals themselves, in despite of all the efforts of my goodness to prevent it. Will you, then, that I prosecute my purpose of creating you, to live forever, and subject to the risk (which shall only be realized in regard to a comparative few) that your being shall be rendered eternally miserable by disobedience; or shall I abandon my purpose, forgo my benevolent plan, with all the incalculable amount of enjoyment to millions of millions which shall result therefrom, merely out of regard to the relatively small quantity of misery which is unavoidably incident to it?" The universal vote in such a case would have been, (as the Doctor thinks,) "Create us; we will prefer to exist and take the risk, rather than to continue in eternal nothingness; and if any of us shall be so ungrateful as to violate our obligations to thy goodand so perverse as to rush through every obstacle of thy grace down to final ruin, we shall deserve the result, and we consent to abide it-let us live!" ness, My dear reader, I trust you are not such a dolt as to be unable to perceive the fallacy in the above case; it consists, you must see, in supposing Jehovah reduced to the alternative of either creating some beings for final misery, or not creating them at all! If this is not absurdity, essential, quintessential absurdity, then is there no such thing in the universe. Moreover, it is very doubtful if that assemblage of intelligences would, in the case supposed, have rendered any such vote, even allowing the proposition to have been presented in the soft and guarded terms which the Doctor has employed. But how, according to his doctrine, stands the reality Certainly far less favorably than here represented. From the state of human society since the lapse of our first parents down to present times, (6000 years) I am warranted in saying, that if the notion of endless misery be true, ninety-nine hundredth's of mankind will be eternally lost! Would a multitude of beings deserve to be called intelligent, who should consent to accept of existence in view of any result approximating this? Would the Doctor himself consent to be the parent of any given number of children, out of which a proportion, answering te that of the human family which shall sink to eternal woe, should certainly be lost, ruined, abandoned to suffering and to infamy, forever and ever? Let him deliberately and conscientiously respond to this question, ere he again depicts his Creator's character in the hues of his dark and repulsive theology. MILLENNIAL HYMN. Oh Zion, arise! in thy glory appear, For the time of the singing of birds now is near, Too long have the harps of thine exiles been mute, For they said, "in the land of the stranger-pollute- But the time long foretold by thy prophets is near, When thine exiles, redeem'd, shall in Zion appear, No more, then, forever thy sun shall go down, Already the Gentiles are flocking to thee, From the ends of the earth, from the isles of the sea Oh hail, thou blest season! thou era of gold! DIVINE PUNISHMENT, ITS NATURE, ENDS, and CERTAINTY, HARMONIZED WITH THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF FORGIVENESS. "One of the most absurd features of the Universalian system," (once remarked a respectable minister to me, in a conversation on these subjects,) "is the notion, that in the divine economy, sin is never forgiven, in the sense implying an exemption from deserved punishment! You nevertheless (continued he) affect to believe in the scripture doctrine of pardon upon the term of repentance; but how sin can be pardoned, and at the same time punished, I confess, surpasses my comprehension !" And yet, reader, there is no real solecism in this case. We are constantly witnessing facts which confirm the theory, that to pardon an offence, and yet to punish it, are acts not incompatible with each other. The case of Mr. B. is in point: gambling was his besetting vice; he lost at the gaming table the whole of his once large estate; but he has become a christian, and of course abjured his former evil practices; he has experienced forgiveness. But has the property he lost been restored to him? By no means: this penalty of his former sinfulness he must continue still to endure-hence it is plain that, though pardoned, he has not escaped punishment. Mr. S. is another instance to the same effect: he used to indulge a violent propensity for strife; the lightest occasion would excite his combativeness, and a fight was his first impulse. He lost an eye in one of his quarrels, which led him to reflect on the madness of his conduct. He is now, after many struggles, entirely cured of his pugnacious propensities-he is a reformed man, and enjoys the consciousness that his sins are remitted. Still, he has not regained his lost eye; he must continue to abide the deprivation as a penalty of his past folly. A hundred cases of the kind might be instanced, if necessary, to show that forgiveness, or a liberation from sin, does not imply an exemption from the penalty due to it. The reformed debauchee, for example, who by years of indulgence had wasted his bodily and mental energies, and contracted diseases which either must shorten his days, or render them days of suffering to him; when he became a christian, did he find repentance to expel from his system these deleterious effects of a mispent life? No but it proved a means of preventing an increase of those effects; for when the cause ceased, it ceased to produce results. 66 Exactly accordant with fact, as above illustrated, is the teaching of inspiration upon this head. Speaking of the divine dealings with the rebellious Israelites during their sojourn in the wilderness, David says, "Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions." (Ps. xc. 8.) In the psalmist's estimation, therefore, the forgiving of sin was not held to be incompatible with the taking vengeance of it. "I will certainly chastise you for that act, my son,” (said father C.) “ it must not be allowed to pass with impunity." And father C. did chastise his son accordingly. The boy was subdued; he saw the evil of his conduct-sought his father's forgiveness, and obtained it. The old man kissed the tears from the cheek of his child, and pressed him to his bosom. See you now how the punishment of sin is reconcileable with its pardon? If you do, you understand the philosophy of forgiveness as it is exhibited in the scriptures. Wherein, then, (you will ask) consisteth the advantages of pardon upon this scheme?" They are great, my dear reader, and manifold; the pardoned are freed from their former vices, and, of course, from the effects that would follow from a continuance in them. They are recovered to virtue. Mr. B. no longer feels that fever of the soul arising from solicitude about the chances of the game. He is not startled from his nightly dreams by the phantoms of wretches whom his arts have reduced to penury, and their families to want of bread. By honest industry he is now repairing his own wrecked fortunes, and he therefore looks upon his wife and children with the satisfaction of knowing that he is no longer sporting with their interests and happiness for life. Such is the improvement in the condition of Mr. B. As to Mr. S., he is subject no more to bodily wounds and bruises; nor to agitations of spirit such as he experienced while a slave to angry pas sions. He is not now perpetually making to himself enemies of his neighbors, nor exposing himself to expensive and mortifying litigations he lives in peace within himself, and with all around him. Would to God that the whole of the two classes of sinners whom these gentlemen are designed to represent, would, by a like amendment, secure to themselves a similar change of condition! I have said nothing of their spiritual enjoyments, arising from a religious life: these are incalculable. Oh! the exquisite happiness of knowing that conscience, and God, and all the good of mankind, approve them! Both these gentlemen, you perceive, reader, have experienced forgiveness; but who can say that they have not also been punished? Errors in relation to punishment have naturally led to errors in relation to forgiveness. Those who have supposed the former to be arbitrary in their nature, have also well supposed that when God pleases, they can be dispensed with without injury to any body, or the contravention of any eternal principle; and that for giveness actually implies the setting aside these punishments. By the same class of theologians it is even gravely affirmed, that divine punishments are not designed for good to those upon whom they operate! proceeding as they do from infinite goodness, and operating as they do upon creatures who are the subjects of that goodness, (for "the Lord is good unto all,") yet they are not designed for good to them! I am at a loss whether to term this false philosophy, or no philosophy at all. But if for good" (do you say, reader?) "then it were better to commit the more sin, in order to experience the more punishment; the more of a good thing the better." Why, my most shrewd reader, it would be a good act in one to help you out of a quagmire; but you would not therefore jump into a quagmire for the sake of being helped out! Should we not deem a man an idiot if he broke a limb, for the mere sake of having it set by a benevolent surgeon? Now this will well illustrate the case; for the setting of a fractured limb, although a beneficial operation, is yet a painful one; and the same is true of the divine corrections. It is better, therefore, to avoid them by well-doing; yet, when they are demerited, it is better that they be experienced, how painful soever, since, coming as they do from a Being who is infinitely wise, just, and merciful, they cannot but be productive of merciful results. “And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with |