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for this purpose, by the more intelligent, and the learned defenders of orthodoxy? Not one half of them. After all, it seems as if this impossible and mischievous article of the creed, exists more in name than in reality, even on the most authoritative seats from which it is spoken, The various eminent commentators of the popular school, have one by one rooted up the venerable fastenings, until there is not one but they themselves have shivered and loosened to its foundations. We do not say that any one of these distinguished scholars have 'explained away' and abandoned the whole; but that, among some dozen or twenty of the most brilliant luminaries of the Church, the total insufficiency of every one of these passages to sustain the scheme of eternal vengeance, has been REPEATEDLY shown.

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But, whatever degree of conviction these few passages we have exhibited, carry to the mind, of the truth of endless punishment and sinfulness; are the almost innumerable scriptures which contradict and disagree with such an interpretation of them, to be wholly disregarded? Is it no part of the business of the endless-miserian, acknowledging the Scriptures to be of divine and supreme authority, to reconcile apparently conflicting passages? certainly as palpable to him as to us, that endless torture is as incompatible with universal and never-changing Mercy, as it is possible for any two opposing propositions to be. No one will deny that the latter is taught in the Scriptures with tenfold more plainness and plenitude than the former. Why are the oft and variously asserted axioms of the Bible, supplanted and trampled upon by an overweening devotion to a few parabolic, mystic, poetic, idiomic, proverbial, and localic sentences?

Be impressed, reader, with the overwhelmning strength of the Scriptural foundations of Universalism. Examine and study for yourself, and mark how the evidences accumulate upon you, growing up heaven high,-'Pelion upon Ossa.' Mark the unbroken, the steadily strength ening and brightening chain of testimony from the creation to the patriarchs, from the patriarchs to the kings and

the prophets, from thence to the Messias and the apostles. Survey the golden links which comprise the glorious bond between the desecration of the tree of life at the beginning, and its restoration at the end, re-established and effectual for the Healing of the Nations,'-when Jesus shall have drawn all unto him without distinction, (comp, Rev. xxii. 17, with John vi. 37,) when he shall have crushed the serpent's head, when there shall be no more curse,' nor 'pain,' and 'God Himself shall dwell with [or, in] Men,' being 'ALL IN ALL!'

What perceptible loss would we sustain to have as many of our proofs stricken out from the Bible as the dogma of unceasing sin and torments is rested upon? Indeed we should scarcely miss them. Let us ask, on the other hand, where would the doctrine of endless misery be without the Hebraic Gospels of Matthew and Mark, -or, if only the Epistles of Paul constituted the New Testament? On the contrary, what would the doctrine of Universalism be affected, were those two Gospels taken away, or all the Gospels? Annihilate the Prophets, and we have abundance of Universalism in the Psalms, -or vice versa. Annihilate either of the Testaments, and the other will furnish ample justification of its principles, Obliterate all the Scriptures save Paul,-aye, save the Epistle to Romans, and the temple of Universalism is still immutable! Their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being the judges.'

SCRIPTURAL DEMONSTRATION

of the Variability of the Scriptural Words, Forever. Everlasting, &c.

The three English terms Forever, Everlasting, and Eternal, are interchangeably translated from the same words in the original of the Scriptures, and are therefore exactly synonymous in meaning; so that whatever pertains to either of them, pertains also to them all.

There are but two words in all the original text of the Scriptures, from which those three terms are rendered, -and these two indeed are one,-being mutual, identical equivalents of the Greek and Hebrew,-Aion and its derivatives of the Greek, and Olim of the Hebrew,

The true import of the words olim and aion, when their meaning is not fixed by any associate noun, as they stand alone, independent of connection,-is simply, as nearly as they can be represented in English, lasting, endurant, continuant, abiding, long, (old and ancient when applied tothe past,)—the noun form, duration, continuance,age,-the adverbial, ever, always. The etymology of those terms, designates this, and these English words we have named may be proved to be as exact correspondencies to the original, as almost any words of one language, especially of the indefinite character of these, may be represented by in another.

These words then, imply a period of existence or duration which is variable, which the words of themselves do not fix, which is always to be determined by the nouns which they qualify.

There are scores of such indefinite words in all langua

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ges;-such as the English great, heavy, high, valuable, distant, &c., whose special meaning is always dependent upon the nouns with which they stand connected. Think of the infinite difference of magnitude which a single term suggests when we contrast successively, a great apple, a great house, a great mountain, the great Saturn, a great man, and THE GREAT GOD! Trinity steeple is high; yet when we speak of the height of Andes, do we imply that Andes and Trinity are of equal height? or when we call the heavens high, do we imagine them to be no loftier than the Andes? Reflect then upon the infinite disparity of duration implied, between an everlasting Priesthood, and THE EVERLASTING JEHOVAH! between 'endless genealogies,' (1 Tim, i. 4,) and the 'ENDLESS LIFE' of Christ,(Heb. vii. 16.)

The translators of our authorized version, being perfectly sensible of this ambiguity of sense involved in olim and aion, have manifested the fact, by a frequent rendering of them into English words of corresponding indefiniteness.

In twenty-five several places, the identical original word which is relied upon to prove the eternity of punishment,-is translated old, and of old. To have translated olim, etc. by eternal and eternity, in these places, which they should have done, if, as many in eagerness to maintain endless misery insist, the word invariably means eternity, would be palpable impropriety and foolishness.

Six times in the English Bible is this word translated ancient and this is six more proofs of its variability.

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is also translated long, four times; world, three times in the Old Testamant, and THIRTY times in the New; alway(s, five places; never, thirteen places; any, three places; lasting, once; perpetual, nineteen; continuance, once; outcasts, once; ever, five times; and age(s, five times.

Every one of these instances is a proof of the doubtfulness of signification that attends this word which is sometimes so confidently relied upon to establish the eternity of torments. The force of this is not to be evaded. If olim and aion necessarily involve the idea of endless duration, we protest against its dozen, various, equivocal renderings, anusis that one uniform word expressive of that sense,

be substituted throughout the Scriptures, wherever the originals occur. Clearly, if they are invariable, as the objec tion declares, our version is brim full of false translations of this kind, and our requisition is perfectly reasonable. If. this is true, and the Scriptures consistent, surely the objec tor can have no fears for the result.

But no one would by any means consent to this, for to do it would bring out those words eternal and eternity so frequently, that its changeableness would immediately be ap parent, and all confidence in the truth of endless misery destroyed, while it is only based upon so fickle a word.

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The endlessness of Deity, and of future happiness, while we of course acknowledge them to be taught where olam and aion are joined to them; yet, unlike endless misery, they do not rest on these alone. Several other terms, such as Immortal, Incorruptible, Unfading, Undying, Endless, Far-more-than-Eternal, Without-End, &c., are superadded to assure us of the eternity of heaven.

Again, although our translators have designated by different words, the distinction of meaning which aion, &c., evince when they are applied to 'things seen and temporal,' and the Being and Attributes of God, in MANY places; yet there are a large number of instances remaining in which the translation of those words where they stand plainly connected with earthly matters, is given in the English terms everlasting, and forever; words which do not readily convey to us the sense of limited duration; yet, the connec tions of which clearly demand that interpretation.

We find the word forever connected in the Scriptures, once with cast off, twice with darkness, twice with torment; we find the word everlasting associated with burnings, contempt, fire, punishment, destruction, and chains, once each; and the word eternal, joined once with fire, once with condemnation. These are the grounds of endless misery; upon these three words, occurring in such connection but thus few times, is based the bloody, the diabolical fabric of Endless Iniquity and Torment. We deny that interminable duration is intended in either of these instances of the use of the words olim, &c., and give the following reasonS

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