LECTURE FOURTH.

THE UNIVERSALIST ARGUMENT, AFFIRMATIVE.

SCRIPTURE CITATIONS.

Matthew IV: 5, 6, 7. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot againt a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

The arch-enemy of souls could not only deny, for the ruin of our great ancestor, the plainest teachings of God; he even quoted Scripture to our Savior, to cut off the only hope of a ruined race.

In the preceding discourse, I exposed the attempts of Universalists to break down those Scriptures which speak of future punishment-a rock against which they ceaselessly beat, and fall in spray. I quoted, without comment, a portion of that appalling array of Scripture testimony; I showed you, from standard Universalist writers, the avowed determination to destroy all such testimony; and gave you specimens, quoting volume and page, of the absurd and sometimes dishonest methods in which that determination is carried out. I now proceed to consider,

II. The attempt to bring Scripture proof for the doctrine of Universal Salvation.

The passages of Scripture adduced by Universalists to sustain their system are usually very few indeed. Sometimes they adopt a more ambitious course; and then the texts are mostly of the following kinds : First, certain passages which declare God's love, mercy, or parental goodness, only, and say not a word on the question at issue; passages, therefore, utterly irrelevant, but which they attempt to force into their service by an inference;—being a merciful God, say they, he will not punish forever. Secondly, certain passages which speak of the greatness of Christ's work, or the sufficiency of his atonement, but which have no bearing on the question whether all the individuals of the human race will avail themselves of it, and be saved by it; passages, moreover, which they are wholly precluded from using, because they distinctly deny that Christ came to save men from any other evils than those of the present life. Thirdly, certain passages which speak of the spread of the gospel through the earth. Fourthly, certain passages which teach the universal dominion of God and Christ over willing subjects and conquered rebels; and which they assume, against the express statements of Scripture, to be only over willing subjects. Fifthly, a few passages descriptive of the final state and blessedness of the righteous, which they violently wrench from their connexion and apply to all

men.

There may be a few passages not covered by this description; but it comprises the great mass of their Scripture references, at their utmost extent. Most of them have palpably no reference to final happiness in heaven, and scarcely a dozen have any appearance of

it. In truth, Mr. Cobb, Mr. Williamson and Mr. Moore, cautiously abstain from the attempt to adduce more than six or eight passages of scripture to this point, and some of these wide of the mark. They prefer to rest the case chiefly on general reasoning,— reasonings of their own. This, indeed, is the more ordinary range of the Universalist argument.

Mr. Whittemore, however, is more ambitious, if not more wise; and he attempts to manufacture a "hundred arguments" from the scriptures, in favor of the final holiness and happiness of all men. These arguments, after having been some years in circulation, were retouched by their author to his satisfaction, and incorporated in the stereotype edition of his Plain Guide. To show you how desperate and forlorn is this most ambitious of attempts to frame" scripture arguments," I will follow him somewhat closely through* And I think you will observe as I proceed, that the wrenching process is quite as violent in its endeavors to force the final happiness of all men into these passages, as in its labor to expel the doctrine of future punishment from the class we have already considered.

The chapter is entitled :

"What evidences do Universalists adduce from the scriptures in support of their belief in the eventual holiness and happiness of all men?"

"Evidence from the Scriptures," is the word; so let

*This course will at the same time meet the Scripture quotations of the other writers, which are all included in Mr. Whittemore's greater display.

it be. Not inferences, not declamations about what God must do, because he is so good and wise—and so on; but what he says he will do-not what Mr. Whittemore says, but what God says. See, then, after the great champion has ransacked the Bible, and remodelled and stereotyped his argument, let us see what he brings us.

Argument No. 1 contains this text of scripture, "He hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on the face of all the earth." Mr. Whittemore has indeed added half a page of Universalist talk about God's "benevolence," but we are listening for scripture and not Whittemore, and here is the solitary scripture. And what does it teach? Simply the common origin of the whole human family. Of their destiny here or hereafter, not a word, not a shadow of an implication. So vanishes number one.

"Have we not all one

Number 2 is like unto it. Father? Hath not one God created us?" Certainly; a most important truth; but having no more reference to final salvation, than to infant baptism.

Number 3. "Behold all souls are mine, saith the Lord; as the soul of the father so also the soul of the son is mine." "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein." That is to say, God is the owner of all men and all things: how he will dispose of them, we learn elsewhere those who refuse to acknowledge his authority, he will punish.

Number 4. "Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession" (Ps. 2: 8.) "The

Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hand" (John 3:35). The first of these passages declares the spread of Christ's gospel and power through this earth; the very next verse asserting that his enemies he will break with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel," a verse which Mr. W. discreetly omits to quote. The other verse, as the sentence before it shows, simply declares the commitment of all gifts and grace into Christ's hands; or the investment of him with all qualifications and authority for the fulfilment of his mission, as when he says, "All power is given unto me in heaven and earth." This verse also stands in a connexion most unfortunate for Universalism. The next verse reads thus: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him."

Number 5. "Thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." Precisely so: he will give eternal life to those very persons whom the Father hath given him; and to no more.

Number 6. "All that the Father hath given me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out." A precious assurance indeed, to "those who come "" unto Christ; "he will in no wise cast out." But alas for the multitude that will not

come.

Now, as the passages separately contain no intimation of Universal salvation, the author tries a little legerdemain upon them. Two of these detached passages he joins together, deliberately perverts the first