the end from the beginning,' and with a full and clear compre sion of the entire whole which man would ever be or do or su He deliberately chose this existence for us in preference to existence, and this He could not have done honorably unless it positively certain to His mind that this existence as a whole better than non-existence.

o It will be observed that I have been careful to specify, not that human existence, as a whole, shall be good, in order to jus the creative act, but that this shall be the case also in referenc each individual of the race. Justice and right have no regar numbers. For God, to confer a good upon a thousand, would justify Him in conferring an absolute evil upon fifty, or even one individual. The great Rule of Divine rectitude is require be applied just as sincerely and just as fully to the fifty, or to one, as though there were no other beings in the universe. A it would be inconsistent with that rule to give an existence to men, which it was known would prove an infinite curse to them then would it be equally inconsistent to give such an existenc any one individual. It is not the number to whom it is given w makes the act wrong, but the simple fact that the gift is, on whole, an evil, and not a good. This would make the wrong same in principle whether there were one individual or millions.

I would call especial attention to this consideration, from the that most orthodox writers, and our author also, if I unders him, seem to take it for granted that any plan or process w eventuates in the final good of the greater portion of manking perfectly right and just, although the final and infinite loss of remainder is clearly contemplated and foreseen by it. Thus, it f justifies the Divine character in Dr. Beecher's view, for God to men the ability to determine their own ultimate fate by their own will, if it be seen that a very large proportion of them in the e cise of this ability will finally secure their own highest welfare, though the remainder utterly perish.

This infinite risk must be hazarded. It is necessary to the good of those who are saved; and the attainment of this end by saved justifies the plan, though the rest are lost. It is worse t useless here to go talking about the merits of these lost individu and how they deserved to be damned, and actually chose it ou their own free will. This is pushing into the discussion enti another matter, and one wholly foreign to the question now at is I will attend to this matter in its proper place, but I will not sent to have it thrust in here where it evidently does not bel It is not the moral character of man that we are discussing, but moral character of God, and I do not wish to have attention dive from this true issue until it is fully disposed of. The real ques

before us is, can the Divine Being, consistently with the great moral rule which we are applying to him, adopt a plan of existence for us, which contemplates as one of its foreseen results the infliction of an infinite curse upon even one individual? It is a question as to what He should do, not as to what man may come to deserve after he is created. At the period to which the question points us, there was no such thing as man existing. And the question is, shall he exist at all, and if so, how, and under what circumstances? It has reference to the Divine free will, and not to the human free will. And I claim that, in this case, the Divine rectitude is violated if such a plan of existence is freely chosen as contemplates the infinite loss of a single human soul.

And it does not help the matter in the least to say that the plan was called for by the best good of all the rest, even. Does equity or honor allow of the sacrifice of one to the interests of any number, even, when all occupy a common ground of equality in the beginning? And it is evident that prior to their creation they did all stand alike. No one could be rightfully preferred to another in the Divine mind, and the laws that bound him to make existence (in case he gave it) a good to any, equally bound him to make it, on the whole, a good to each and every individual of the race.

I would ask any good man-I would respectfully ask Dr. Beecher -whether, in case the question were submitted to him, he would accept of an existence for himself, however high or great or glorious it might promise to be, if he knew, at the same time, that it was purchased by a hazard which would prove fatal, infinitely fatal, to a single human soul? For myself, I ask no such existence. I should scorn to take it if it were offered to me. Nay, I should loathe the intense selfishness which would make me hesitate in this case!

Equally confident am I that his decision would be the same if the offer were made to himself. He might feel that God had 'redeemed and regenerated him; but this gives him no relief.' • His distress is not on his own account.' 'He feels as if he could not be bribed by the offer of all the honors of the universe to pretend to worship or praise a God whose character he cannot defend.' Such is his own confession. And while it does honor to his own soul, it shows that he would never be willing to accept an existence for himself purchased by the adoption of a Divine plan in which infinite ruin was foreseen as the result to a single human soul.

The following facts, then, seem to be fully substantiated :

1. Inasmuch as God deliberately chose for man an existence, preferring it to non-existence for him; and inasmuch as he is just and good in all things, this existence must be a blessing. Men, therefore, never were exposed to infinite or endless hell-torments.

2. This principle here adopted as a rule for the Divine guidance,

does not forbid him to permit any amount of finite evil or suffer because existence would be, even then, an infinite good, as a who

3. No plan of existence could be rightfully adopted which cle contemplated the final ruin of even a single soul, although such might appear to secure the best interests of the great body."

As to what is often alleged respecting "the grea good of the whole," we wish to offer a few rema though the subject is perhaps already well enough posed of by Mr. Ballou's suggestions, and by his app to the practical decision which conscience gives of case. One of the most favorite pleas to excuse the in tion of endless punishment, is, that it may be requisit the greatest good of the whole. Who knows, it is ask how many orders of beings there are above us and be us? or how they may be affected by exhibitions of Divine government in us? It may be that they, or so of them, need an example of infinite or eternal pen for sin, to illustrate the awful sacredness of God's 1 or at least in some unknown way to maintain the har nious relations of the Universe. Here, let us observe this does not claim to be more than bare hypothesis; do not recollect to have seen any attempt to make out to specify, such a need,-except by President Edwa whose abominable specification will probably never be peated again. The hypothesis is, that, for all we kn there may be such a need, though we can not see it; that we therefore are not competent to say that the inf tion of endless punishment is inconsistent with Div goodness, since there is a possibility of its being necess to the highest interest of the whole,-which highest in est of the whole, it is added, is the grand object sou by perfect goodness. Now, this plea, mere hypothesis it is, rests only on an inaccuracy in popular use of guage; an inaccuracy which does no harm when i employed about any whole that is personally identi but which misleads on the very point essential to present case. The greatest good of the whole, or of Universe, is what the plea proposes; and, strange to sa proposes with the sole purpose of excluding a part of whole, a part of the Universe, from all share in that good for it will not be pretended that they who suffer end

punishment get any of the good. Of course, what is here called the whole, or the Universe, is neither; it is only a part, though perhaps the far greater part. And the hypothesis, when correctly stated, is this: that the endless punishment of a part may be necessary for the highest good of the other part, say the greatest part; and that the good of this greatest part only is what perfect goodness seeks, at the infinite expense of the smaller part. How does the plea stand, now that it is uncovered of its disguise?

We should not have meddled with such a verbal inaccuracy, were it not for the confusion of moral principle which it happens to involve in the case before us. In other cases, a similar form of language may lead to no error of thought. We say, for example, that the greatest good of our existence, as a whole, may be the best attained through our experience of some evil in the earlier part of it. And here, no mistake of the real meaning is occasioned, because there is the same personal identity throughout the part and the whole; the same conscious being who suffers the evil receives also the good derived therefrom. But to group a Universe of creatures into two classes, calling the greater class the whole, and promoting its good by the irremediable sufferings of the smaller class, this is another affair altogether, differing to the very bottom in principle. It is not mere void abstractions, such as "class," "part," or "whole," that goodness, honor, and equity have to do with; it is with the individual persons, who fill those otherwise empty categories.

Among particular topics, discussed at considerable length in Mr. Ballou's work, there is one of greatest importance to all the relations of practical life, as well as to the whole body of religious doctrine; we mean, the moral obligation to feel for sinners and to seek their real good. Were we to select the point on which the saddest confusion of thought commonly prevails, we should fix on this. It seems that Dr. Beecher himself, who has placed the general principle in so clear a light, falls at times into forgetfulness of it, while attempting to justify the infliction of endless punishment. He endeavors to set eternal retribution on such a ground as that "no moral sympathy shall react against it."

VOL. XII. 12

"It is really worth the price of his book to know how this f accomplished. The tricks of Blitz and Anderson are mere cl performances when compared with it. His position is as follow

All sin springs from selfishness, as its root. Selfishness lea cruelty. This is its essential character. Now, to defeat cruel poses, which is done in punishing the guilty, shocks no bene feeling, because a deep christian experience so reveals the mali nature of sin, as to throw it out of the pale of lawful sympa To punish it, implies in God no cruelty, but the reverse." reader may be tempted to ask here, . . . . whether it is th only that is thrown out of the pale of lawful sympathy-or the ner? True, the question, if fairly considered, may show tha plausible phraseology quoted means little more than the pre change' of the magician. But it will intrude itself; and is haps, not wholly undeserving of an answer. If our author only to the former-if he means to say, as a strictly gramm construction of his language might allow, that it was the sin which was undeserving of sympathy, I have no particular obje to urge against it. It would hardly be expected, I presume, by one, that wickedness itself would excite much sympathy except totally depraved and vicious minds; but there might be a diffi in perceiving how sin, if thus impersonal, could be punished. any rate, if it can be, even let it be, as long and as severely thought proper. No pious minds will be much excited about this case. But, if he refers to the latter, at the same time,wishes us to understand that the sinner, as well as the sin, is malignant a character as to throw him, as well as it, withou lawful pale of sympathy, then the ruse in the terms is very rent. By choosing a form of expression which throws the pers the sinner out of sight, and brings the sin, as the only prom thought, before the mind alone, a virtuous indignation is easil cited, and no sympathies awakened to react against it. A clever performance, truly!

But, seriously, for the subject demands it-is it-can it b sible that a good christian clergyman should talk of the sinn being without the proper pale of sympathy? What, pray, himself doing daily-aye, nightly, to some extent, I doubt What-except toiling, praying, taxing soul and heart and bra their utmost powers, to save sinners? Is not his life consecra this work? And are not his affections, and all the better ele of his being, absorbed in devotion to it? Does he not love-n sins-but the sinner? Does he not feel for him pity, compa tenderness, and sympathy? Dare he affirm that he feels noth this kind? Or, if he does, that it is wrong to do so? Or, he claim that these are merely human feelings, common to the ent state, indeed, but to be gotten rid of before we enter withi