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This is another characteristic of the Universalian views on the subject of God's Punishments, which is peculiar to them. That the doctrine of endless woe is inconsistent with this principle of the due apportionment of rewards and punishments, is very evident, and indeed, repudiates it in several ways, as we will show. According to that doctrine, an individual suffers the same eternal doom who dies in one sin, as he who has committed a million. The curse is alike an endless curse, upon the young man or woman, and upon the adult. It is the same where the temptation was great, and the mind weak, and motive good, and the sin apparently just fiable, and where all these circumstances were directly the reverse. The same for the pilfering of an apple, or for an irreverent word, as for a parricide. The same where the man has been reared under circumstances altogether favorable to the cultivation of his moral nature, and where another is necessarily wicked from being born and bred in the midst of misery and crime. One person is a pious, exemplary, industrious, honest, and amiable man for half a century, and then his appetite is treacherous, overcomes him,his life is cut off during a midnight revel at the bowl, and his spirit is plunged into an abyss of infinitely greater, and endless suffering. Another is a reckless, depraved, and desperate being, a complete slave to all the evil passions, who, after a long career of undiminished criminality, goes to the anxious seats, gets converted, dies, and goes to heav en. Here are two sisters, twins, dying together in each other's arms upon the same couch; one has done just a sufficient number of good works in her life-time to entitle her to immortal joys; the other has performed one less, and must therefore descend to hopeless perdition. One child who has just attained the line of accountability,' dies in some act of wilful wrong, and sinks to hell; another child, who is a day younger is a participant of the same deed, and is killed through it, at the same instant, but rises to heaven. A dies and is saved. having committed 9999 sins, and performed 10000 deeds of righteousness; escaping all the endless misery due for his sins. B dies. having sinned 10000 times and performed 9999 good works; but B is eternally

damned for his sins, and also eternally deprived of all reward for his 9999 acts of goodness! Strange, that such oblique and unworthy notions of Divine Justice, should ever obtain credence among sensible men and reverent Christians!

Can they who covet this world's worthiest goods,
Wealth, honor, power, knowledge, rank, or aught,
Merit eternal torment for the sins,

Wherewith are link'd the world's prosperity,

And human glory,'—(Festus.) [things allow'd of Heav'n?
Is that a doom which the All-Just shall judge
Meet for the spirit of immortal Man,
And only equal to the transient wrongs
That clayey beings, in an evil world,
Involuntately brought, in blindness do?
Say nought of what the human soul may claim
Of natural compassion from its God,
Through His divine, indissoluble ties,

Of Maker, Father, Friend, Preserver, God ;-
Say nought of human weakness, evil's strength,-
Of the wise purposes of Heaven with Ill,-
That sin and misery go hand in hand,
And serving sin, man only harms himself,
And not Jehovah ;—take not into account
The sacrifice propitial of the Son,
For all the guilt of man ;-consider not
The might of God and wisdom, adequate
To save the most sin fallen of the race
And give them angel-spirits ; set aside
The nobler glory that redounds to Him
From triumphs of His love and holiness,
Than from the arm of dread Omnipotence
Employ'd to wreak revenge, to curse and crush
The works of its own skill, and build a throne
Of endless sin and woe;-waive all of these,
And let the precept harsh, of tooth for tooth,
And it for ill, punctiliously exact,
Measure with rigid hand the desert woes
That the most criminated soul hath earn'd
Which God hath ever fashion'd,—and then say,
If endless, endless, GOD-ENDURING pains,
Continued still unsparing when the earth,
And moon, and planet-orbs, and sun,
And system-hosts unto the infinite depths
Where very Omnipresence fades away,
Shall all have moulder'd to their primal chaos
From worn-out weariness of being ;—say,

If such a recompence would not dismatch
The fair award of justice, as the High,
The Infinite, All-Universal God

Is greater than thyself, or as thy life
Is briefer than Eternity?]

Divine Punishments are FOR HUMAN SAKE, and not for the purpose of pacifying any imaginary satisfaction which the Broken Law is supposed to demand, because the evils of men are only self-injurious, they cannot work out any harm to Deity, or to the things of Heaven.

'Do they provoke Me to anger? saith the Lord; do they not [rather provoke] themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?'---Jer. vii. 19.

'Can a man be profitable unto God, as he that is wise may be profitable unto himself? Is it any pleasure [benefit] to the Almighty that thou art righteous? or is it gain to him that thou makest thy ways perfect? Will he reprove thee for FEAR of thee?'---Job xxii. 2--4.

'If thou sinnest dost thou injure Him? or if thy transgressions be multiplied, what hurt dost thou unto Him? If thou be righteous, what givest Thou Him? or what receiveth He at thine hand? Thy wickedness may harm only a man, as thou art, and thy righteousness profit only the son of man.'---Job xxxv. 6--8.

'Thou art my Lord, my goodness extendeth not to Thee, but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent.' ---Ps. xvi. 2, 3.

"Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,

Who risk the most, that take wrong means or right?
Or Vice, or Virtue, whether blest or curst,

Which meets contempt, and which compassion first?
Count all th' advantage prosp'rous Vice attains,
'Tis but what Virtue flies from and disdains;
And grant the bad what happiness they would,
One they shall want, the consciousness of good.
O, blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below,
Who fancy bliss to vice, to virtue, woe.

Who sees and follows that great scheme the best,
Best knows the blessing, and will most be blest;
But fools the good the most unhappy call,

For ills or accidents which be for all."-Essay on Man,

The Iniquities of Man, through the Misery wl ich they entail upon him, are so ordered by the care and wisdom of Providence, that they shall in some measure, work out their own cure.

'Thine own wickedness shall CORRECT THEE, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee; know therefore, [by grievous experience,] and see, that it is an evil thing and a bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that My fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts.'-Jr. ii. 19.

'I will feed them with their own flesh, and they shall be drunken with their own blood, [they shall be surfeited and intoxicated with their own filthiness,] as with sweet wine; and ALL FLESH shall know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.'-Isa. xlix. 26.

'Behold, is it not of the Lord, that the People shall labor in the very fire, and that the People shall weary themselves for very vanity? For the Earth shall be FILLED with the Knowledge of the Glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.'-Hab. ii. 13, 14. 'Then shall ye remember and your your own evil ways, doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations. Thus saith the Lord God, in that day I shall have Cleansed you from all your iniquities.'-Ezek. xxxvi. 31--33.

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'Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, -- that thou may'st remember and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord.'-Ezek. xvi. 61--63.

The parable of the Prodigal Son, (xvth Luke,) affords a beautiful and striking illustration of this principle.

"Crime, misery, and evil are in earth,
Falsehood, mistake, and lust. But if the soul,
In the eternal world shall yet be taint,
The Spirit shall provide effectual cure.
Some eminent in virtue shall start up,
Ev'n for the succour of perversest souls:
The truths of their pure lips, that never die,
Shall bind the scorpion Evil with a wreath

Of everlasting flame,

Until the monster sting itself to death !"-SHELLEY.

PROPOSITION THIRTY-FOURTH.

The Transitory Existence of EVIL was Fore-Known and Fore-Appointed of the Lord, and thus is not an Irremediable or Almighty Principle, but is entirely Subject to Infinite Power and Wisdom, and was Ordained for the ultimate attainment of a more superlative degree of Universal Glory.

1st. That the Evil Principle is a Divine Agent.

"Happy the man who sees a God employ'd,
In all the good and ill that checkers life;
Resolving all events with their effects,
And manifold results, into the will

And arbitration wise of the Supreme."-CowPER.

PROOFS.

'Behold I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth the instrument for his work and I have Created the Waster to Destroy.'—Isa. liv. 16.

'I am the Lord, and there is none else! I form the Light, and Create Darkness; I make Peace, [Good,] AND CREATE EVIL. I, the Lord, do all these things.'-Isa. xlv. 6, 7.

'Shall we receive Good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive EVIL?'-Job ii. 13.

'Shall there be EVIL in a city and the Lord hath not done it?'-Amos iii. 6.

'The Lord hath Created even the Wicked for the day of Evil.'-Prov. xvi. 4. 'God, in whose hand is our breath, and WHOSE are all our ways.'-Dan. v. 23. For, 'In Him we live, AND MOVE, and have our being.'-Acts xvii. 23.

'Affliction cometh not forth from the dust, neither doth Trouble spring out of the ground.'—Job v. 6. 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.'-Job i. 22. Yet all the sore afflictions which it was the misfortune of this good man to suffer, are in other places, ascribed to a personification called Satan, (i. 6--12; ii. 1--8; xxiii. 14, &c.) Granting the actual existence of a

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