S. King's "Two Discourses," by Rev. Dr. Thomas Whittemore, in the Universalist Quarterly and General Review, October, 1858. Dr. W. says: "It seems to us impossible to preserve the public reverence for the Bible if we suffer ourselves to speak about it as Mr. King has done." "The four Gospels, according to Mr. K., are mere shreds and tatters of what Christ taught. His manner of teaching was so peculiar, and so poetical, and fanciful, that it is quite a wonder that we have even those tatters." "He (Mr. K.) speaks of God choosing to instruct the Church through a few fragmentary flashes of poetry. Good God! What

an idea of revelation! What an idea of Jesus as a teacher! He has lost sight of 'the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.'" p. 377.

Inasmuch as nothing but the clearest conviction that this doctrine of endless retribution is revealed in the Bible would allow us for a moment to believe and inculcate the fearful truth, which all who believe it receive with the most solemn awe, it awakens confidence and friendly feeling to think that the most of those who will read this article, thus regard the testimony of Scripture, explained by the ordinary rules of language, to be of binding authority.

I have also been led to think of this denomination as including many who are much exercised in their minds on the subject of future punishment. It is a welcome effort to show such individuals that some of their thoughts with regard to this subject and its advocates are perhaps disproportioned and

exaggerated. The most of those who believe in future, endless punishment have far more peace of mind with regard to it than they appear to have who deny it; for with evangelical believers it sinks into its just proportion in the universal government of God, as the State's Prison, Courts of law, Officers of Justice, blend, like the tonic element of iron in the blood, into the life of a commonwealth with its virtuous and happy homes, its hundreds of thousands of joyous children, its churches, its products, its whole prosperous tide of affairs. Though hell is not the central figure in the religious ideas of evangelical Christians, the belief in future, endless retribution does exert its powerful influence upon us. We know that it is capable of vast abuse, as we see illustrated in the direful influence of its perversion by the church of Rome. But we find it explicitly revealed, and "knowing, therefore, the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men. If it were preached still more affectionately and plainly by us, conscious of our ill desert and of our obligations to redeeming love, there would be a nearer approach to the apostolic model. Our prevailing associations with this doctrine, we are happy to say, are those of deliverance, through the atoning death of the Son of God. It is in connection with this sacrifice for us that we always endeavor to preach it; so that we trust we may say concerning our system of faith, as it is said of heaven, "The Lamb is the light thereof. While we believe that the contemplation of future misery apart from the cross of Christ would be hurtful to the mind and

heart, we also feel that it cannot be of healthful tendency with our moral natures to base our religious associations mainly on the one idea of opposition to endless punishment. An evil thing, real or imaginary, which we inordinately, or upon wrong principles, oppose, has a retroactive influence on our minds and hearts, corresponding to its own baleful nature. It is with such views that I now write, not, prin cipally, with antagonists in my mind, though my statements will meet with antagonism; so that if any are persuaded by counter statements that these views are unscriptural, they will do me the favor, at least, to think of me as their sincere well-wisher and friend, and as one who has the same eternal interests embarked in this question as themselves. Let us also keep in mind that mere argumentation never convinces men of Spiritual truths, but that there must be on our part an experience, wrought by the Holy Spirit in answer to prayer, to interpret things aright, which otherwise will be stumbling blocks and foolishness. But without further preface, I proceed to my argument.

SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENT.

I. THE SCRIPTURES TEACH THAT THERE 18 A PENALTY FOR DISOBEDIENCE AWAITING THE FINALLY IMPENITENT.

This is plainly declared in Rom. ii. 5-12, 16: "But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, honor, and immortality, eternal life; But unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath; tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile; But glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good; to the Jew first and also to the Gentile; For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law,-In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel." The parenthetic passages omitted here, which occur before the last of these sentences, are a direct assertion of the full accountableness of the heathen world to the tribunal of God, for their sins against their consciences and the light of nature. I take this whole passage of

Scripture as a revelation of a future judgment and retribution, in which all men are to be judged and treated according to their works.

The ideas which are presented of heaven, both by Christ and his apostles, come to us through objects of sense. Every one supposes that by these images, as for example, " sitting with Christ at his table in his kingdom," "new wine," "beholding his glory," and "gates of pearl," "streets of gold," "harps" and "crowns," it is intended to give us the idea of the highest pleasures of which our natures, body and soul, shall in another world be capable. We never subtract any thing from these images of heavenly joy, saying, They are only metaphors; we rather say, Language here is intensified, to convey the ideas of future happiness. And as we believe that we shall have bodies in heaven, "like unto Christ's own glorious body," we are never unwilling to think that there will be enjoyments adapted to the body with the soul, spiritual, of course, in both cases, and yet beautifully distinguished but capable of blending, as in this world. This way of representing unseen things to us is not so much "Oriental" as the only possible way, at present, of communicating spiritual objects to our understanding.

But while the attractions of heaven suffer nothing by reason of criticisms upon the language in which they are presented, some do not use the same tolerance, nor apply the same principles of interpretation when they read or speak of future punishment. Here, they say, all is metaphorical, Oriental; they