affair, but is much to be dreaded by the sinner. At this point it may be proper to inquire, in what does the punishment for a violation of God's moral law consist? While we are told with much assurance that men are punished all their sins deserve in this world, we are somewhat at a loss to learn from Universalist authors how this punishment is inflicted. There seems to be a strange confounding of things upon this subject. In the Trumpet, No. 1089, is the following question proposed. "If, as Universalists contend, a guilty conscience constitutes the only punishment for sin, how can those with a seared conscience be adequately punished in the present life?" Mr. Whittemore replies, "Our querist has based his question on a false view of the sentiments of Universalists. How did he learn that they believed that a guilty conscience constitutes the only punishment for sin in this life? Has he learned it from them or from their enemies? Suffer us to say, we do not believe that such an opinion is entertained by any them. A guilty conscience is no desirable companion on the journey of life, and it may be regarded as a punishment of guilt; but no one affirms that it is the only punishment. Are there not many other punishments? Poverty, degradation, disease brought on by sin, the loss of confidence and respect of our fellow creatures, imprisonments, &c., &c., &c., are not all these the punishments of sin in this life?" But Mr. Witherell, who, it seems, we must consider good authority in the order, (Sec. IV.) informs us that the hell Universalists believe in consists in mental sufferings, (p. 11,) and who has not heard from Universalists of the hell of conscience?

We purpose now to take a view of human suffering arising from different sources, and see if we can possibly conceive of the sinner as adequately punished in this life, for his actual sins against God. Let us consider men first, as physical beings. That men who violate the laws of their physical nature suffer, is true; but is this the method God takes to punish sin? Is physical suffering a sure indication of actual sin against God?

Wicked men may, and often do violate the laws of their physical and organic nature while sinning against God, and suffer as a consequence. The pious, too, often violate these laws, in doing good while influenced by the purest of motives, and of course incur no guilt. Other circumstances being equal, the man who breaks a limb in the act of taking life, experiences no more pain than the man who does the same thing in the act of saving life. A vast amount of physical disease comes upon the human family independent of their own agency. The wickedness and ignorance of parents often entails disease upon their innocent and virtuous offspring; and little children, incapable of moral action, are often subjects of extreme suffering for months together. Physical suffering is the result of a violation of physical laws, and these may be violated either with or without our own agency. Universalists very generally adopt a deceptive mode of reasoning upon this subject, by confounding the mere natural effects of sin with its punishment. (Sec. XLIX.) The Jews rejected Christ, the true light, and greater darkness came upon them. This was the natural effect, but not the punishment for this sin. Although they thus deceive the unthinking, by thus confounding things, yet to serve their purpose at times they are obliged to admit the distinction; for they tell us that the Jews were punished for rejecting Christ nearly forty years after, when Jerusalem was destroyed. If, as has been asserted, sin is its own punishment, then all other punishments, whether human or divine, are unjust and cruel; for if all have been punished, why should they be re-punished? Mankind, in practice, universally reject the idea that sin punishes itself. Every parent who applies the rod to a child for a fault, rejects it. Every civil magistrate, in passing sentence upon a criminal, rejects it. God himself, as often as he punishes transgressors, rejects it; and thus makes the distinction for which we contend. We observe, then, a wide difference between suffering for sin, and suffering from the effects of sin. The innocent may suffer from the effects of sin, or in consequence of it; while none but the guilty, or the

guilty, as did the Saviour, What folly, then, to account

one who takes the place of the (1 Pet. 3: 18,) can suffer for sin. physical suffering the penalty of God's law against actual sin, since the innocent experience it as well as the guilty. Man is a social being. He possesses that nature and those feelings, which render him capable of society. Shall we look in this direction for God's penalties against sin? In the social relations are the righteous always exalted, and are the wicked always cast down? A competency of worldly substance is desirable in human society; but is this secured only to the good? Thousands of the purest spirits upon earth have been found in poverty's vale, suffering for the necessaries of life, while some of the wicked have prospered in the world, and have had more than a reasonable heart could wish. Ps. 73: 7. Marriage forms an important relation in society; but do the good always derive comfort from this relation, and does it always prove an evil to the wicked? We see the pious and affectionate wife, suffering by the conduct of a perfidious, brutal, and drunken husband; while the faithful, indulgent, and pious husband, is tormented all his days with a faithless, brawling, and discontented wife; while, on the other hand, some of the irreligious find much comfort in the conjugal relation. Pious parents often suffer by the wickedness of their children, and pious children are often afflicted by the ungodliness of parents; while some of the wicked derive comfort from these relations.

We might name other things in the social state where the same inequality exists; but enough has been presented to show that not only the wicked, but the righteous suffer in their social relations, which establishes the point that these sufferings cannot be God's penalty against sin; for no innocent person will suffer that. As it regards the providences of God, so dark and mysterious are many of them, that it is not always safe to judge of a man's moral condition by what we witness of God's dealings with him in this life. Job's friends ran into this error, and supposed he must have been a very wicked man, or he

would not have suffered as he did; when, in fact, he was preeminently holy. The truth is, this is a state of probation, and not of strict recompense; hence the inequality apparent in the Divine administration in this world. God causes his sun to shine not merely upon the good, but upon the evil also, and his rain descends upon the unjust as well as the just. Matt. 5:45. It is not in man's social relations, then, that we are to look for the infliction of God's penalties against sin; for observation, experience, and the word of God unite in pressing upon us the fact that some wicked persons prosper in these relations, while others who are pious suffer in them. Furthermore, such has been the corrupt state of the world, as its history abundantly shows, that true piety has often called down upon its possessor all manner of cruel sufferings by imprisonment, rack, and otherwise, while many of the wicked have escaped such visitations. Man possesses conscience, or, as it has been denominated, "moral sense." Does he suffer from this source all the penalty of the moral law in this life? Some assert that he does. we deny, and submit the following, which might be greatly extended, to show the folly of such an assumption. It is a fundamental principle of modern Universalism, that no man escapes any just punishment for sin; and of course if the punishment for sin is confined to the conscience in this life, and if there be a just administration, every one must be punished in exact proportion to his crimes. To show that this is impossible, let us suppose two cases. A man becomes acquainted with the fact that a neighbor has a large sum of money, and resolves on murdering him to secure it. He follows him into a dark avenue, and in fifteen minutes from the time he formed the purpose, his neighbor is a dying man, and the murderer himself senseless by his side, in consequence of a death shot given in self-defence by his murdered victim. Now, according to the theory we oppose, that murderer could have suffered but fifteen minutes in his conscience, if we date his crime back to the time he formed the intention; and when we take into the account the excitement

This

connected with such an act, we cannot conceive of very acute suffering during that short period.

Another case. A man has the same opportunity, forms the same purpose, and in the same space of time murders his neighbor, but secures the money, escapes himself, and survives his murdered victim twenty years; and not only suffers from conscience, but suspicion is fixed upon him as the murderer: he is arrested, examined, thrown into jail for six months or more to await the sitting of the court, has his trial, and undergoes all the fearful apprehensions of a death upon the gallows. Proof, however, fails, and he is cleared by the court, but is not cleared from the just suspicions of the entire community. In these two cases the crimes are equal, but are the punishments equal? Does the man who lives twenty years after the act of murder, suffer no more in his conscience than the one who dies in the act?

If we look this subject in the face, we shall see most clearly that either God's ways are not equal, or else that there is future punishment, and the Universalist notion is false. And then, as if to cap the climax of absurdity, this dogma teaches that the man who dies in the murderous act becomes as the angels of God in heaven; while the one who survives, yet no more guilty, suffers a Universalist hell in this world for twenty years! That the moral sensibilities become blunted by a continual course of sin, so that there is less suffering from conscience as the sinner advances in crime, is confirmed by experience, common observation, and the Bible. Indeed, all writers upon moral science have taken this view. The following is from Wayland: "The man who habitually violates his conscience, not only is more feebly impelled to do right, but he becomes less sensible to the pain of doing wrong. A child feels poignant remorse after the first act of pilfering. Let the habit of dishonesty be formed, and he will become so hackneyed in sin, that he will perpetrate robbery with no other feeling than that of mere fear of detection. The first oath almost palsies the tongue of the stripling. It requires but