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in heathen lands. In Tahiti a nation has been born in a day. The Sandwich Islanders have cast their idols to the moles and the bats. The spirit of Christianity has been shed forth in copious effusions upon Ceylon. India has received the word of life. In Burmah there are many delightful tokens of the near approach of that blessed period when idolatry shall cease, and the religion of Christ become triumphant. In Africa the waters of salvation are beginning to flow and to fertilize her moral deserts. In France and Germany the gospel has shed forth her pure and holy light. Even in China, where Satan has long fortified himself in his strong holds behind her imperial battlements, and utterly forbid the entrance of the gospel, preparations are now making to storm his castle, to take from him his armor in which he trusts, and to spoil his goods and divide the spoils. The western wilderness has begun to bud and blossom as the rose. In addition to this, the spirit of free enquiry has gone forth. The wants of the six hundred millions of heathen have become known, and their deplorable condition has affected the hearts and opened the hands of the pious and benevolent. Many of our pious youth have come forward and offered themselves for the missionary service. Missionaries have already gone, and are now going, to the four quarters of the globe, and their power and means of doing good are annually augmenting. The glorious work of evangelizing the heathen is commenced, and the holy enterprise will go on till the seventh angel shall proclaim that "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ." Now who manifest the most of the benevolent spirit of christianity, those who are engaged in the cause of Missions, or those who stay at home and oppose this work? The sum of all the foregoing is, that Universalism is highly objectionable. It is of the most pernicious moral tendency.

Now look at Universalism as it has existed in this country for the last twenty years. Many societies it is true have been formed, but many have dwindled into insignificance. Many have a name to live, but are virtually dead. Many have preaching but a few sabbaths during the year. Some have sold their houses of public

worship to other societies. And though some societies are in a prosperous condition, yet as a denomination they are on the wane.

Now look at the character of its preachers. Is their preaching in accordance with the commission given by our Saviour to his apostles? Is it the grand object of the preachers of Universalism to make their hearers practical christians; to make them love God with all their hearts and their neighbors as themselves? Do they not spend much of their time in ridiculing, slandering, and condemning other denominations? If they can hunt up a lie, or give chase to some defamatory insinuation, they desire no better business. They are fond of wielding the weapon of slander against their orthodox adversaries. Let any matter of fact be published, like the appendix to these Lectures, and let it be vouched by the most indubitable testimony, and you may not be surprised to hear them call it an orthodox lie. Do they not devote much of their public labors in defending the peculiar dogmas of their creed, and in explaining away those passages which seem to teach a contrary doctrine? I leave these questions for each one to answer for himself.

It is no pleasing task to say any such things of the religious principles or characters and preaching of any class of men. I make no personal reflections upon any one. Personal invective I consider both impertinent and hurtful. I do not ridicule Universalism. It is in itself ridiculous, and I have attempted nothing further than to expose it as it is. To point out the inconsistency and absurdity of an erroneous system, and to do it in a cool and dispassionate manner, is not inconsistent with the principles of natural and revealed religion. If I have in any instance deviated from this, I ask the pardon of my hearers.

I would have forborne to have said these things did I not believe that Universalism is one of the most pernicious heresies ever invented by man. But believing as I do, that it is of pernicious tendency to both civil and religious society, I cannot suppress what are obviously its practical consequences.

In places where this doctrine is newly broached, its corrupting tendency is counteracted by the force of early religious education,

and the prevalence of sentiments and habits formed under an evangelical ministry. Here its pernicious effects may not at first appear. But what would be the effect if this doctrine were to become the general doctrine of the day, and were it preached from sabbath to sabbath in all our congregations? What would be the result if all believed this doctrine and acted fully up to its principles? What would be the effect should a preacher from sabbath to sabbath address the prayerless, the impenitent, and the vicious part of his audience in something like the following language?— "Are any of you afraid of endless punishment? There is no such thing. This life is a state of retribution as well as of probation. Here virtue receives an ample reward of happiness, and here sin meets a competent punishment of misery. Punishment in the future state is not threatened in the divine word.

Men will not

The future

be punished in the future world for the sins of this life. condition of men will not be affected by the characters they have here formed. Are any of you afraid of hell? There is no such place of punishment. Hell means only the grave. It is only a false terror got up by the orthodox to scare people. All the terrors of the divine law are only works of mercy by which God is bringing the sinner to the bliss of heaven. The thunders of the divine power, the lightnings of his wrath, are so many loud and unequivocal proclamations of God's universal and impartial love to all his offspring. Let your hearts be at rest. Heaven is yours. In the midst of all your blasphemies, your extortions, your robberies, your murders, rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven. And should you find that by walking in the imagination of your own hearts your present misery is greater than your happiness, you have only to deliver yourselves from the distressing consequences of your guilt by putting an end to your life.

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Can you doubt what would be the effect of such preaching were it to become general? Would it not take off all fear and all restraint from the corrupt propensities of fallen natures, and be followed by the most deplorable dissoluteness of manners and morals? It is fitted to this end, and has already had this effect upon many. By embracing this doctrine, many of our youth have lost all sense of moral obligation, and have given themselves up to the most criminal excesses. Has it not then every work of what the apostle calls a "damnable doctrine ?"

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

And now in bringing these Lectures to a close, permit me to make one solemn appeal to your hearts and consciences. In addressing you upon these subjects discussed, I have proceeded upon the supposition that you, my dear hearers, were not fully confirmed in the belief of the final salvation of all men. On any other ground I should have considered my labor as almost in vain. For I have long regarded a confirmed Universalist as one of the most hopeless characters in the community. Should a ray of divine light beam upon his darkened understanding, and should he feel that he was resting upon a sandy foundation, the pride of consistency and regard to present comfort would lead him to hold fast his delusion. How difficult would it be for him to come down from the high stand which he has taken into the dust, and to acknowledge, after all his confident boasting, that he has been left to believe a lie? How hard to be assailed with the hiss of contempt from those who have congratulated him in being freed from puritanical prejudices! If doubts should sometimes force themselves upon his mind, is it not probable that the fear of the world's dread laugh, and the feeling of safety he loves to cherish, would lead him to hold fast his error?

Now I am anxious to warn you from following his steps. I would persuade you to shun the baneful influence of those errors which some are at the present day disseminating with great apparent zeal. Be not deceived by their pretensions to superior knowledge and penetration. Men of the strongest minds and of the most exten

sive literary attainments, have often fallen into the grossest absur'dities in their religious speculations, and then have employed all their wit, and sophistry, and learning, to maintain and propagate them. Some, confiding in their superior abilities, have been allured into their errors. But this betrays great mental weakness. Great men are not always wise and good men. They are as liable to err as any others. Hence you should not receive any opinion without strict examination. Look at it in all its bearings, and compare it with the Bible. Take the Bible, and not human authority, for your guide.

Be not biased in favor of error on account of the amiable moral character of its advocates. Men of the strictest morality have disseminated the most false and pernicious doctrines. A person may himself maintain an unsullied purity of outward deportment for the purpose of gaining the confidence of his fellow men, and inducing them the more readily to listen to and imbibe his erroneous doctrines. Hence those who teach them are to be shunned as corrupters of mankind.

Believe not the propagators of error, though they may make the greatest pretensions to liberality, sincerity, and impartiality. Such pretensions often deceive and prejudice the incredulous. Those who use such artifices, therefore, are the more dangerous, and their seductive influence is to be the more studiously avoided. "Cease,

my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge."

You and I, my friends, must soon die and go into eternity. After a few more revolving suns, and we must pass into the unseen world. There shall we know from joyful or woful experience what will be the future destiny of man.

Now, before you make up your minds to embrace that doctrine which we have been exposing, seriously ponder the thoughts that have been here suggested. In relation to a subject which involves the interests of the unseen world, and concerns our future and everlasting well-being, it becomes us to proceed with caution. A mistake here may prove fatal. Yield not to the mere dictates of feel

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