those who admit the genuineness of the epistle, this chapter is supposed to have been a quotation from some ancient apocryphal book,, and the Apostle might not mean to give authority to the doctrine, but to argue with his readers upon known and allowed principles!" So it seems of no avail for us to prove the genuineness, authenticity and inspiration of our authorities, if even a nameless heretic can be quoted, by whom it is supposed that the writer did not mean what he said! Thus do these modern Pharisees and Sadducees make void the law of God by their traditions and impious conjectures.

Besides these things, they demand in our authorities, what they or their friends suppose to be the right words and phrases, subject, and sense; with a right extent of reference and address; by a right number of authors, and a right frequency of repetition; and that at what they suppose to be the right times. In Hebr. 7: 16, we find the word endless or indissoluble in connection with life. In the 223d page of my opponent's lectures, he says, "if this word could have been so much as once found connected with death, in the same manner as it is here connected with life, it would have given more support to the doctrine of endless misery, than all that is contained in the Bible besides." He now asks,+"why did they [the inspired writers] not make use of this term about the meaning of which there could be no dispute?" He makes the same high sounding demands concerning the phrases which is, in Isa. 45: 17, translated world without end. He says, "If he [his antagonist] can, let him, find the passage in which the words are found in connection with punishment, misery, or death, and again I say, I will give him the argument, and our discussion will end." Thus my opponent will not believe the truth, however plainly declared in Holy Writ, unless it is revealed in such words and phrases as he shall dictate; and he takes care to dictate such as he thinks can never be found in that connection. Neither would he yield, if all his demands were complied with; as is evident from his refusing so to do, when through the suggestion of a friend, Ps. 9:5, was quoted, in which the Hebrew phrase¶ used in connection with punishment, is, according to his own acknowledgment, equivalent to the expression used in Isa. 45: 17, in connection with happiness.

*

ακατάλυτος Minutes, p. 105.

+ Minutes, pp. 175, 181, 252.

עד עולמי עד 4 לעולם ועד !

After one Universalist has directed the inspired penman what word to use, it is no wonder that another should dictate the subject of his whole discourse. Balfour, in the 3d section of his enquiry, will not admit that the "damnation of hell," spoken of in Matt. 23: 33, can mean an eternal punishment, because the whole discourse is not exclusively confined to eternal subjects. He says that it "occurs in the fullest and plainest discourse ever uttered by our Lord concerning the temporal miseries coming on the Jewish nation." "How comes it to pass that if the damnation of hell means eternal misery, it should only be introduced in such a discourse?" It might as well be asked how our daily bread" can mean bodily nourishment, when spiritual blessings are evidently the chief subject of the Lord's prayer. Throughout the whole Bible, temporal and eternal things are connected as they are in 1 Tim. 4: 8, where godliness is said to have the "promise of the life that now is; and of that which is to come."

But if these writers cannot keep the Apostles from mingling different subjects in the same discourse, they are determined to remedy the evil, by giving to their works what they consider the right sense, or in other words, by giving to the Scriptures whatsoever sense will best suit their views of Universalism,even if it should attach to Christ and his apostles the charge of error. This, in fact, appears to be the real object of their distinction between the theocratical and popular sense of Scripture. Balfour in his 2d section, declares that the Jews in the time of Christ, believed falsely in future punishment; and that our Saviour's language with regard to Lazarus and the rich man, "was only availing himself of their popular belief, to shew them the obstinacy of their unbelief." In the next section he informs us that all our Saviour's language concerning Abraham's bosom, and the place of torment in this conspicuous passage "is merely brought in as a part of its imagery," and that, on such subjects, it is not our Saviour's design to adhere strictly to the truth of things." If by this distinction or any other, Mr. Balfour could prove the Son of God a liar, he would doubtless be congratulated by all the devils in hell, and by many of his brethren on earth. Of the felicitations of one of them at least, he would be absolutely certain. In a pamphlet, entitled "Presbyterianism versus Presbyterianism" published by my opponent, in the year 1819, you find him asserting in the 16th page, concerning the plainest historical and doctrinal declarations of Scripture, "all this is popular

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language, and is true only in a popular sense;" that is in a "false" sense, as he afterward explains it. By the aid of this distinction, he inculcates that all those passages which are usually perverted to the defence of Unitarianism and Universalism are to be understood in the theocratical or true sense; and all those which convey most plainly the essential doctrines of Christianity are to be understood in the popular or false sense. Upon the ground of this distinction, furnished him by Mr, Balfour, he asserts "that God does whatever his creatures do," that God "is not resisted at all;" that "whenever the consequences of the actions of man are beyond his foresight or motive, those consequences cannot be imputed to him, but must be imputed to God alone;" that "man, considered as an instrument in the hands of God, is altogether passive." "This system considers man as having nothing to do." Man, in this sense of speaking, is altogether passive, and acts only as he is acted upon." By this plan, my opponent has, in page 16, ascertained the theocratical faleshood of all those passages "in which men are said to go astray like sheep, or to return again to the great Shepherd; to resist the Spirit of God, or to yield obedience to his law; to be lost or to be saved"!!!" It is in the popular [that is the false] sense, only, that men can be subjects of either praise or blame." "In this sense, be is no more accountable than the axe is accountable to the man who useth it, or the saw to the hand which shaketh it."*

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After my opponent thinks that he has hewn down all the cedars of Lebanon by this newly invented weapon, he sits down with the self complacency of a certain character who "eateth and wipeth her mouth and saith I have done no wickedness." He even boasts. in his 22d page, that he has done much good. "Thus," says he, "according to this system, being well understood, and these rules adhered to in construing the Holy Scriptures, all those contradictions in language, and confusion of ideas, which are so obvious in other systems of divinity, are completely done away." He thinks that by denying the purity of God, the depravity and accountability of man, and the doctrines of perdition and salvation, we are to understand better, that revelation which was given for the express purpose of teaching those very truths which he denies! No wonder that Dr. James P. Wilson, of this city, said, in his printed animadversions upon *Sec pp. 16, 18, 20, 22.

+ In 1820. !

the pamphlet which contains these sentiments, that "the principles of this Universalist appear to be nefarious, beyond a parallel."

But as this way of contradicting the Scriptures by admitting their truth in a popular sense, is rather an unpopular thing among the churches, some writers have given to this popular or false sense, a more plausible name, by calling it parabolical. You would scarcely expect this from Mr. Balfour after his telling us that "a parable, like a fable, is designed to impress on the mind, in a pleasing manner, some important truth." He admits that they may be used to establish a "particular doctrine of christianity," but prudently remarks that "the utmost caution should be observed in reasoning from them," for this purpose. Yet when he comes to examine a particular case, instead of establishing a "doctrine of christianity," or discovering an important truth," he takes it for granted that the dialogue between Abraham and the rich man is "a fiction," and pretends that thus far we agree with him; and he charges us with inconsistency for believing in opposition to him, that the account of the rich man being in torment is "a fact." In the next paragraph he gives this assumed position that the narrative is paraboli cal as one reason why we should not believe "what is said about Hades being a place of torment." In another place, he says concerning the rich man, "But if this is only a supposed person, I ask those who may differ from me, to prove that the person is a real being. If they advocate the torment to be a reality, they onght first to prove the person tormented in Hades to be not a parabolic person, before they draw the conclusion that the torment is not a parabolic torment. The first must be proved before the last can be admitted; for a person must exist before he can be tormented in any place. If the person mentioned is a real being, and the torment he complains of a reality, and not a fictitious or parabolic representation. we have a right to demand why every thing in this account is not considered a narrative of facts, and not a parable."* According to this extract from one of my opponent's favourite authors, a parable cannot be a narrative of facts; a parabolic representation is a fictitious representation, and nothing can be truly predicated of a parabolical person, because he is only a supposed person, and not a real being. Is this like impressing "upon the mind, in a pleasing man

* Section 2d.

N

ner, some important truth?" This rule was invented to stamp with the seal of fiction, every important truth which stands in the way of the heretic. By this rule Mr. Ballou, in his first Lecture on the Parables, proved that the axe which “is laid unto the root of the trees," will not even penetrate the outer bark, much less prostrate them in the fire. In his second, he has shewn that there is no danger of the wicked being consumed like chaff in unquenchable fire; and in his third, that they need not fear having their bodies cast into hell as a place of torment. All these passages of Scripture are, in his view, parabolical, and fictitious of course. For the same reason, he and my opponent reject our Saviour's account of the day of judgment, which Mr. Ballou, in the 174th page of his Treatise on Atonement, has styled the "parable of the sheep and goats." He also thinks that he has closed the impassable gulph, not as Curtius did, (for he is probably more like the Jewish rich man, than the Roman hero,) but by pronouncing it a parable, that is, a fiction.

But let us apply the rule as held by these characters, to some familiar cases. Mr. Ballou has not, I believe, told us that the ten commandments were a parable, but he might as well have done it, as to have made a fiction of Luke 16: 18, "Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery; and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband, committeth adultery." This is Mr. Ballou's 37th parable. Of course he must consider the husband and wife parabolical persons, and not real beings. Then all that is said about marrying, divorcing, and marrying again, is only a fictitious representation Would not this make void the law of God? Besides much doctrinal and practical instruction, we have in the 78th Psalm, a long and strictly true history of God's people for many hundred years. But in the second verse, the inspired writer calls it a parable. Is it therefore a fiction? In the 23d and 24th chapters of Numbers, the Spirit of God foretells the future habitation, increase, prosperity and triumph of his people Israel, and the advent and kingdom of Christ. The inspir, ed writer repeatedly calls these predictions a parable. Because Israel is mentioned in a parable, had this people no real existence? Was the star that should come out of Jacob only a "supposed person," or an imaginary being? And was his coming a mere fictitious representation? But remember that it was not more positively declared that Christ should come, and his people prosper, than that his enemies