torment men on earth, will be left in the earth where they originated," and "the future life shall be to all a ceaseless blessing."

Rev. Hosea Ballou informs us that "the apostle [Paul] did not believe in a state of sin and misery after the resurrection;" that "we are certified that all that die live unto God in the resurrection, and are children of God, equal to angels, and can die no more." He also asserts, "It is plain from the scriptures that all sin, all wickedness, and all evil doings are the works of the flesh; and there appears no more reason for supposing that the effects of these works are to extend into the immortal state, than for supposing that the effects of wholesome or unwholesome food are to extend to that state."§

Rev. Sylvanus Cobb, editor of the "Christian Freeman," asserts that "the resurrection state is, without any limitation or reserve, as the state of the angels, of God in heaven;" there is "no room for the notion that there will be an immortal state, in which men will continue in sin and shame." He says, "Jesus Christ and his apostles urge the doctrine of suitable rewards and punishments pending the conduct of men ; but they never give out the idea, that a future immortal state of existence is either to be bought or sold by the doings of men in time." Rev. A. C. Thomas, in "Tract" No. 5, fully sets forth the same doctrine.

Says Rev. Asher Moore, "We therefore conclude that the punishment for sins is in the same state of being where men transgress the law of God."**

*Exposition, pp. 18, 19. † Lecture Sermons, p. 86. Id., p. 329. §Id., p. 335. ¶Compend of Divinity, pp. 317, 318. **Un. Belief, p. 177.

Says Rev. O. A. Skinner, "So far as admission to endless glory is concerned, the saint and sinner stand on a perfect level."*

In full conformity to these views, Rev. A. B. Grosh, editor of the "Universalist Companion," writes in 1856, "God has established his judgment in the earth, where it is needed-where differences exist—where men sin-where they should be called to account, tried and punished. God's judgment is in the earth. In the earth men are rewarded;" "the scriptures never speak of men going out of this life, or leaving this earth to go to judgment, but always of God and Christ coming to the earth to judge men." He affirms that "Christ is now judging every man according to his works," and that Christ's kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, spoken of in the scriptures, is on the earth alone.†

Not to multiply quotations, hear the statement made by Rev. N. D. George, of the Methodist denomination in his recent work on Universalism: "We have in our possession a large number of books, sermons and tracts from their ablest ministers, and in them all there is not a single effort to teach future rewards and punishments; but on the other hand the doctrine is uniformly combatted by those authors, and the future-state reference of those texts which Restorationists formerly employed to teach future punishments, is denied. We called a short time since at the Universalist book-store in Boston, and inquired if there was any book on sale

*Universalism Illustrated and Defended, p. 266. Quoted from Rev. N. D. George's "Universalism not of the Bible," p. 231.

†Un. Com. for 1856, pp. 16, 17, 18, 19.

in which future punishment is taught, or if any one in the denomination had issued such a book. The man in attendance said he knew of no such book issued among them. Their approved Catechisms, used in their Sabbath Schools, do not teach it. They are before us by Balch, Bacon, Skinner, Adams, and S. R. Smith, not one of which even intimates that there is anything to be dreaded by the sinner in the future world."*

We are occasionally told that there are some in the denomination, who believe in limited future punishment. But the men who unequivocally dwell upon it in their teaching or their preaching are not easily to be found. In 1841, Mr. Balfour testified that though he had been twenty years in the denomination, "he never heard it preached but once, and the preacher hardly said enough about it to let his hearers understand that he believed this doctrine." If there are

those who believe it, they do not teach it. And when you ask who believes it, it is somebody else. Whittemore says there are some who believe it, but he is not one. Moore and Williamson imply the same; but they are not the men. Ballou speaks of some; but he is not one. And what is more, in 1849, he knew no man who did dwell upon it in his preaching. Nor could book or tract be heard of at the Universalist book-store in the metropolis of New England, in which future punishment is taught.‡

*P. 382. This work of Mr. George was published the present year; it is a work of wide research and deserves a wide circulation.

Quoted from the Christian Messenger, July 17, 1841, in M. H. Smith's "Un. Examined," p. 217.

When hard pressed by argument, Universalists sometimes avow

I fortify this point with copious proof, because this is the very Universalism on which I propose to lecture, the doctrine which denies all future punishment. It is the characteristic doctrine of Modern Universalism, that all men alike are raised to blessedness and glory.*

To this, all else is shaped. In truth, all else is of very little separate account, being only and obviously the scaffolding of this one all-absorbing theme. To Restorationist doctrines. A popular preacher not long since was understood by intelligent hearers to avow the Restorationist view. But I had heard the same man, not three months previous, publicly endorse the sentiment that a young man who died impenitent, and, as the story went, was consigned to the world of woe by the Orthodox funeral sermon, was actually in heaven at the time of a second funeral sermon, preached by a Universalist at the father's request.

*It is a common thing for members of the denomination to convey the impression that Restorationist views are widely prevalent among them; and I find that many of my brethren have supposed it to be so. But where is the evidence in book or treatise? Where is the Universalist pulpit in which the doctrine is openly taught and enforced? Where has the Universalist funeral sermon been heard, in which it was not expressed or implied that the deceased, whatever his character, had gone straight to heaven?

I do not question that individual preachers—I know not how manymay privately hold, but I am very confident they do not publicly teach and promulgate Restorationism. If there are such men, it is still true of them as in Nov. 1844, when Rev. Mr. Drew, (then editor of the Banner, now Professor in the Tuft's Universalist College,) said of them in the Banner, "Their desire for the peace of the order, has caused them to be more careful than some of different views have been, as to committing the order to their opinions." They have been careful indeed;-"the order" is nowhere committed to their opinions-it is everywhere, so far as one can learn, “committed to the doctrine of no future punishment." Probably no evangelical writer has more thoroughly investigated their views than Rev. N. D. George, and his testimony is as follows: "For twenty years past, I have been a close observer of the modifications, tactics, and general operations of the order of Universalists, and having availed myself of their periodicals and books, by their principal men, I

show, however, how thorough-going is the system in rejecting all that Evangelical Christianity receives, and lest any should imagine it only an incidental difference of systems otherwise alike, I add some of the subordinate lineaments. The leading writers to whom I have referred, are bold and open in denying the Trinity, and, of course, the Supreme Divinity of Christ.*

They reject with scorn and even mockery the doctrine of a Vicarious Atonement. Moore pronounces it "a mere medley of injustice, contradiction and absurdity,

preposterous and shocking to all the moral sensibility of our nature." The doctrine, Williamson says, is "unjust in theory, impossible in fact, and pernicious in practice." Ballou, Cobb, and others are equally outspoken.

The system denies the existence of a personal Devil;§ the fall of man, the entire innocence of the first pair, and the entire moral delinquency of their descendants.||

am fully satisfied that, whatever a few of its advocates may profess in certain localities, no future punishment is the doctrine of the Universalist body in the United States, the exceptions being very few. There is but little regard among them for the future punishment views of the Restorationists. The force of their teachings for years, has been against them." Un. not of the Bible, preface, p. 6.

*Ballou's Voice, p. 32; Cobb's Compend, p. 169 and onward; Williamson's Exposition, p. 23, etc.

† Pp. 133, 135. Ex., p. 44. § Voice, p. 33. "Lect. Serm.," p. 73. "There is no other way to account for the first transgression than by admitting a constitutional imperfection in the agent." Lecture Sermons, p. 65. "There appears no authority for the common opinion that the first transgression produced a radical change in the moral constitution of man, or in consequence of the first sin man became totally depraved and altogether opposed to all good, and inclined wholly to all evil." Ib., p. 73. See, also, Cobb, p. 423; Moore, p. 91.