LECTURE FIFTH.

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THE UNIVERSALIST ARGUMENT, AFFIRMATIVE. PEAL TO GOD'S ATTRIBUTES, AND HUMAN PASSIONS.

Matt. XV: 13, 14. But he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

I HAVE considered the Universalist argument, in its attempts to restrain the word of God from teaching future punishment, and to constrain it into teaching universal salvation;-and the failure of both attempts. I come now to consider those extra-scriptural and un-scriptural considerations, with which the system undertakes to override the refractory scriptures, and which constitute the main stress of its seductions,-the blind leading the blind.

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III. The third portion of its claims consists of inferences from the character and attributes of God. truth, as you have perceived, much of its so-called scripture reasoning, is merely the quotation of some passage about God's character, and an assertion built upon it.

So far as reasoning is concerned, this is the mainstay of the whole system:-" God is love, God is good, God is merciful; therefore he will not punish forever. God is our Father, and how shocking it would be, were a human father to be so unrelenting!"-Who

ever read, heard, or heard of a Universalist argument in which this did not form the crowning and exultant appeal, the grand pedestal on which all its shallow reasonings and deceitful handlings of God's word, rested for support? It is not what God says he will do; but what they know he will do and he will not do. Thus these men, who are every day surprised by the conduct of their fellow-men among whom they live, but of whom they cannot say certainly what they may do to-morrow, understand God almighty so thoroughly, and know all about him so well, that they can tell what he will do through all eternity. And not only so; but they know so much better than does God himself, that they cannot suffer him to speak for himself. And when he endeavors to speak of eternal and everlasting vengeance, Mr. Whittemore stops it off at once, by saying that where that word is applied in the scriptures to punishment, it "should be restricted to limited duration." The thing must not be mentioned; -it cannot be permitted.

This theme, that of God's love and kindred topics, -is the theme that is spread out like a screen in front of all their arguments, and covers their straggling rear. Thus, Moore and Williamson devote whole chapters to this and kindred themes, before venturing to touch the Scripture argument. And the one insists that we should start with this foundation principle, and exclude from our credenda everything that stands opposed to it,-as, he says, does future punishment; and the other says he is prepared to reject any and every doctrine or practice that is opposed to it-as he also declares future punishment to be.

Now observe, in the first place, the presumption of such a bold position, even were there no word from heaven to guide us. What astounding audacity, that the creature of yesterday, baffled daily by the thin characters and plans of his fellow-worms, and stumbled at every step of his path over the mysteries of God's world, though they lie at his feet, should set himself up as the infallible interpreter of God's plans and doings through all coming eternity;-and not only so, but ask his fellows to risk their all on the infallibility of his knowledge of the great and unsearchable One. And think you, friend, when you have embarked your soul's hopes for eternity on Ballou and Whittemore's bold assurances-think you, are you quite sure, that God will stand bondsman to these men's promises through all eternity? The very neighbor by my side,— from my knowledge of his character, in a thousand supposable cases I cannot tell what definite thing he will do; much less a Napoleon or a Cromwell. How then can I speak for God? How his combined wisdom and justice and holiness and goodness,-all of them as far above me as the heavens above the earth -how these stupendous attributes will act in the greatest emergency of this complicated Universe, except as he informs me, I no more can tell, than I can grasp that Universe in my hand.

And still more presumptuous and insane, the attempt to take this position in the presence of God's word; and to control the very utterances of God's word. For this is precisely their position. "First principles should govern our investigations." "God is love. In view of this simple declaration, which

expresses a truth universally important, we should carefully exclude from our credenda," says the one. "Love," says the other, "is the the very essence, the life and soul of the gospel; and I am prepared to reject any and every doctrine and practice, as antiChristian, that is opposed to this.” “The word everlasting," echoes the third," when applied to punishment, ought, above every other case, to bear the sense" of "limited duration." That is, God must never, in such a case, be permitted to mean as he says. Now, how preposterous to set up these inferences from God's attributes, against the overwhelming tide of denunciation contained in God's word. Is it not as though some piping gnat should set up his paltry whine, to drown God's voice as he thunders in the heavens,-as though some petty bulrush should lift up its head to stop the course of God's great cataract, as it mightily heaves itself over its rocky rampart, in ceaseless flow! It is insane. It is Hosea Ballou and Thomas Whittemore trying to muzzle God Almighty!

But the position that we are safe by reason of God's love, rises to absolute madness in the presence of God's providence. It flies in the face of his daily dealings. It is idle to declaim that God's love, conjoined with his wisdom and his power, must-yes must is the word— must finally exclude all sin and suffering from the Universe, in presence of the appalling fact that God's love and power did not exclude it from his Universe at first. There would seem reasons of tenfold strength, why He should never have suffered sin and sorrow to come where all was peace; and, but for the fact, who would not have said it was, from the nature of God,

impossible? But He has suffered it; and has shown us how unsearchable are his ways,-how little we know him. We know of his plans only what he tells us. Sin and sorrow came into a universe at peace. They are here. And in view of that fact, all our arguings about their departure, are ground into dust, and blown to the winds. Six thousand years has God looked calmly down, while the wail of guilt and woe from hundreds of millions of human beings, has been continually ascending before his presence;-and who can tell us when it shall have an end?

It is vain to tell us that God is our Father, and that because a human father would not do so and So, therefore God will not do it. The crash of the earthquake, the dirge of the pestilence, the moan of starvation, the groan of disease, the cry of desolation, break on our ear in discords of anguish, and give the lie to the assertion. The human frame has sometimes fainted at the mere sight, and the human spirit lost its balance in the prospect, of single instances of the suffering which God calmly beholds, yea, and sends from the heavens in myriad numbers, day and night, through all time. God is our Father; but these plain facts show that he is as different from a human father, as a holy God is from a sinful man. "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 slumber, and consume him in the flames ?"* Yet so *Parker's Lectures, p. 46.