myself that such despicable services as mine would be rewarded with endless blessedness. O, that we who wander here below, might consider this! A deceitful pride that clings to our corrupted nature, makes us imagine our goodness great and our wickedness small. Hence it happens that we more easily believe that we shall be endlessly rewarded than endlessly punished.

3. The salvation of Jesus Christ furnishes a new reason to confirm the eternity of punishment. If we inquire why Christ came into the world, why he suffered, and why he died? the answer which the Scriptures return is, The infinite justice of God could in no other way have been satisfied. An infinitely offended God must be reconciled by an infinite sacrifice. If it is asked farther, whether there was no other means of reconciling God, the Saviour himself answers, No: Ought not Christ to have suffered. these things and to enter into his glory?'-Luke xxiv. 26. But this doctrine is completely overthrown by those who deny that the torments of the damned will be endless. It is obvious that they who are cast into hell, have no part in the salvation of Jesus Christ, and so must be considered as lying under the curse, which he would by his death have taken away. If we say that Christ died for all, we only say that all men could be saved through Christ, if they would. The merit of Jesus, and the mercy of God, are extended to all men, to all the inhabitants of the earth, while they live here. Now if it is true that the damned cannot confide in the salvation of Jesus, and if it be also certain that they will not be tormented without end, then it obviously follows, 1. That the justice of God cannot need an infinite ransom. For according to this principle, the justice of God can be satisfied with a finite punishment. And when the time of their torment comes to an end, then the damned as well as the saved will enter into the joy of their Lord. 2. That it was by no means necessary for Christ to come into the world to save men. For according to this opinion, the torment which every man must endure for a time after he has sinned, would have freed him from the wrath of God just as well as the atonement of Christ. 3. That the sufferings of Jesus were not infinite. For if it were true that the torment of the damned has an end, then an infinite suffering was

not necessary to free them from it. How any one reconcile these things, I do not understand. Were I concede an end to the punishment of the damned, I sho immediately begin to doubt the satisfaction and salvati of Jesus Christ, which are the only ground of our hop and happiness. But if I believe that hell endures with end, then I recognize the necessity of the salvation Jesus Christ, and at the same time give equal weight the justice and the mercy of God.

Perhaps some one will say: It is on account of the in nite redemption of Jesus Christ, that God accepts t finite punishment of the damned, as a sufficient satisfa tion. If Jesus had not died, the punishment would ha been endless, but now that he has died, a limited punis ment is enough. To this I might render several repli but I will make but one. Either the damned in hell exe cise faith, or else the merit of Christ, without faith in hi is the means of their salvation. But no one will ever a sert the first; for, he that believeth shall be save The last contradicts the whole Bible, and would open t way to heaven for all the godless, heathen, Jews a Turks. How well would it be to adhere to the simplici of faith!

4. Consider the state of the damned as we will, so lo as they are in hell, this doctrine can have no force in Either the godless sin in hell, or their punishment reform and purifies them, till they become fit to enter into heave Choose which you will. If you say, they sin while they are hell, I do not see how their punishment can come to an en For so long as one continues in disobedience, so long al will the punishment of disobedience continue. But t majority of the friends of this doctrine choose the latt alternative. They say that the punishments of hell are be considered as purifying. It is this fire which tak away the impurity that prevents the ungodly from bein happy. When should I have done, were I to give all th answers in my power to this view? But I will conte myself with one reply. If the punishment of the wicke is a correction, a purification, then it is no punishmen but a medicine. Does any one call that a punishmen when a disagreeable medicine is prescribed by which is to free himself from a painful disease? Would th

evil doer be punished, if the magistrate should, by means of a hot iron, cure his tooth-ache, or by opening his skull remove the headache? According to this, there is no punishment of hell, and in God is there no justice whatever. Can we call that the operation of wrath or justice, by which God only frees men from their miseries? I should call it love. I think he would deem himself deserving well, who should cure a lame man unable to walk in a splendid garden, although the cure was effected by a painful process. In a similar manner would the condition of the damned become daily more and more tolerable. The more they were relieved of their impurity, the lighter, better and more tolerable would their condition daily become. Yea, and what is still more absurd, they would begin to love God in hell! I say nothing here how I can not understand why so long a process of purification is necessary. Is not God powerful enough to accomplish it in a moment? Or is something more than a word from the Almighty necessary to this work?

After having sufficiently proved a truth, it is not necessary to take much trouble in considering objections. I think little can be said in reply to what has here been offered, and hence I may well pass objections in silence. A few conceits of weak man, are of no force against a clearly proved and revealed truth. Meanwhile I will give to the friends of this doctrine, two things to reflect upon, by means of which one can easily refute all objections.

The first is this: We are men. Our understanding does not reach far. But God's attributes and perfections are infinite. Hence it follows that we can not comprehend them. What then are we doing, fools that we are, when we judge of these attributes aside from the Scriptures. What are we doing when we say so freely: This is contrary to the goodness or the justice of God. Let us wait till eternity gives us more light, and remember meanwhile that we are but dust.

The second consideration is: That the punishments of hell, although they have no end, will still not be equally severe upon all, but more tolerable upon one and less so upon another. Jesus has clearly revealed this truth to us. Luke xii: 48. Matt. xi: 24, 25. The justice of God also

F

demands it. All do not sin alike, and hence all will be punished alike. These two considerations will prep us to answer every thing else. How happy should we if we took more pains to escape hell, and less to fath its nature and condition!"

Thus ends this famous Tract. Of its merits men judge differently, at the present day, as they did a cent and a quarter ago. It is a plausible, well written arti in defence of a very bad cause. The Scripture argum here introduced with so much confidence is the same t has been repeated again and again since the time Augustine. The words "everlasting" and "eternal" applied to punishment, and therefore punishment is ab lutely endless! This constitutes the bone and sinew the whole argument. Our learned author indulges in criticism on these words, and introduces no consideratio to show that when applied to punishment they necessa bear the sense in which he employs them. All this generously assumed, and the conclusion drawn as from best established premises. In this field of argument the mish doctrine of transubstantiation and several other li absurdities, would be triumphant. Every one at all c versant with the Bible, is well aware that the words "ev lasting" and "eternal" are applied to a great variety of s jects, and express periods as different as very brief tim and eternity itself. It is not a little remarkable that the a vocates of endless punishment have not discovered that words here referred to, are used in the Old Testament relation to punishments obviously temporal, as frequen as they are in the New, in reference to what they alle to be endless.

The other considerations upon which Mosheim dwe may have had great weight at the time this tract appear but I flatter myself will be looked upon with less favor the present day. They are sheer subtleties and hair-sp tings, which we should hardly expect from so eminent man as our author. What shall we think of such prop sitions as these: If punishment is not endless, then divine justice is not equal to the divine benevolence mercy. If the punishment of the wicked is not endle then the happiness of the righteous cannot be so. I

reward of our imperfect services is, endless felicity, therefore the punishment of our sins must be endless torment' ?

It is gratifying to see that Mosheim was not altogether insensible to the abhorrent character of the doctrine he labored to defend. He clearly perceived that any human ruler who should act on such principles as this doctrine ascribes to God, would be justly regarded as a tyrant, whose government all men would instinctively shun. He therefore denied all consequence to reasonings from human affairs to the divine, and recognized something in the simple fact that God is infinite, that throws him entirely beyond the reach of our faculties, and leaves us, if we will consider it, without the power of judging of his attributes and perfections at all. If infinite justice and goodness be something so unlike what we call justice or goodness among men, that we can form no just conception of what they require or will do, then there is an end to all our religious knowledge, and no man can say whether God be a being of infinite love, or a monster of cruelty and hate.

It will be observed that our learned author found a variety of reasons why men rejected the doctrine of endless torment and believed in the final salvation of all. The principal of these turned upon the weakness or depravity of man, that is, upon the simple fact that they were either fools or knaves. Others were somewhat more flattering. He thought God had made some men with so much sympathy and compassion, that they could not believe in infinite punishment; but then to counterbalance this, he had made others so hard and brutal that they could believe nothing else.

But I did not design to offer any extended remarks on the tract before us, and I will therefore close with a very brief sketch of the controversy to which it gave rise.

Whether Petersen's Alethea Victrix, which was publish. ed in 1726, contained any allusion to Mosheim's tract I am unable to say. But it seems that he wrote two works in reply to it, or that embraced some criticisms upon it, for in 1727 Mosheim says "Petersen's two works, which he has written in opposition to me, may lie in Hamburg or finally be published. I shall regard them as if they had never been prepared. If he has so much confidence