needs no apology, unless it be for not having done it more effectually. Some, indeed, may suppose that enough has been written on the subject; that there is no call for a work of this description at the present time. This has been considered by the author; and after a due examination of the principal works on this important subject; he has come to the conclusion to add one more to the number, for which he offers the following reasons:

1. The works which have already been published have not yet fully put a stop to the errors against which they have been directed, nor do they appear likely to accomplish this object, very seasonably, without additional effort. While others have commenced the assault and battered down some of the bulwarks of error, the writer of these pages wishes to add his humble efforts, hoping that others will follow his example, until her strongest holds shall be demolished, and the heresy shall be driven from the records of time.

2. Universalism has so shifted its ground and changed its complexion, that many of the works which, at the time they were written, were directed against it with a deadly aim, are now left to spend their force in the air, the enemy having fled and erected his battery on other ground, from whence he renews his incendiary warfare, and talks as much of courage and victory as though he had never been defeated.

3. Most or all of the works which have been published on the subject, have been directed against some particular author or confined to some one point in the controversy, insomuch, that though there are a number of very able treatises against universalism, yet the writer of these pages has not yet fallen in with any one volume which covers the whole ground of controversy, and pursues and refutes universalism in all its dark retreats, and complicated foldings of error. The author has looked upon it as an object of no small importance, to put into the hands of the publick in one convenient volume, a refutation of universalism in all its various forms, which it assumes as it is driven from one position to another; indeed, that such a work has not before this time appeared, from the pen of some more able hand, he has looked upon as a defect, to supply which, so far as his humble powers will permit, the present work has been undertaken. How far he has succeeded in the undertaking, he will leave for others to determine, while he indulges the hope, that with a mind honestly inquiring after truth, and with this volume in his hand, the reader will be secure from the assaults of universalism in any form in which it has heretofore made its appearance before the public.

In conclusion, whatever may be the fate assigned to these pages by the impartial judgment of the publick, the author can appeal to the searcher of hearts for the rectitude of his motives, to whom he directs his most fervent prayers, that both writer and reader may be guided into all truth.

THE AUTHOR.

UNIVERSALISM EXAMINED, &c.

CHAPTER I.

The Original State of Man.

AS it is the primary design of the following pages, to refute the doctrine of unconditional universal salvation, and to establish the doctrine of the endless punishment of such as do not comply with the conditions of the gospel in this life, it will be seen at once, that the original state of man has an important bearing on the subject. If God created man in the same moral state, in which he now exists, with the same impurity of nature and propensities to evil, it might appear reasonable, with our present views of the divine attributes, that he should not only save sinners from, but actually reward them for, all the evils, which are the necessary result of the natural movement of that system, which he put in operation when he bade man awake to conscious and responsible existence. On the other hand, if God created man free from all moral evil, and if his sin and misery are the result first transgression, and his continuance in this state the result of his wilful rejection of a sovereign remedy which God has provided in Christ Jesus; these facts are a full vin

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er.

dication of the divine goodness, though sinners perish forevWe will then enter upon our undertaking, by considering the original state of man, in which we shall attempt to maintain that he was created holy; and that he was not subject to bodily dissolution while he remained in his first state of innocence.

First, we say that man was created holy. In support of this position we urge the following considerations.

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I. Man was the effect of a holy cause. God created man; and as man was passive, and not active, in his own creation, he could have possessed no nature, powers, nor even tendenof powers, which he did not receive from the plastic hand of his Creator. God imparted to man all that he possessed, when he first awoke to conscious being, even the first breath he drew; hence if man contained in his nature, any moral evil, God must have been its author. Man's body, which was formed of the earth, must have been a lifeless and irrational form of matter; and could not have possessed moral quality, before it was animated by a rational soul; all therefore, that man possessed in his first existence that was moral, was imparted to him when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and constituted him a living soul; therefore, if man was morally corrupt, or contained in his nature any propensity to evil, it must have been infused by Jehovah's breath! Now as God is holy, nothing but holiness could have proceeded from him; man, therefore, must have been holy in his first existence, as he came from the hands of his divine author.

II. "God created man in his own image." Gen. i. 27. By the image of God, in this text, we understand the moral likeness of God, consisting in righteousness and true holiness... No other consistent explanation can be given of the subject. It would be absurd to say that the image of God consists in bodily form, for if form be applied to the Deity, such form must be bounded by geometrical limits; which is opposed to infinity and omnipresence, perfections which are essential to the Supreme Being. Nor can it be consistently said, that the image of God wherein man was created, consisted in his having authority over the other creatures, which God created, as his vicegerent on earth, for this was on

ly a circumstance in his being, and not an image in which he was made. Gen. i. 26. "God said let us make man in our own image, and let him have dominion," &c. Here man's creation in the image of God, and his having dominion are marked as two distinct circumstances; the one refers to , his creation, the other to the design of his creation, or to the circumstances in which he was placed after he was created. Man was created in the image of God, but he did not possess dominion until after he was created; therefore, the image of God, in which he was created, could not have consisted in his having authority over this lower world, as God's vicegerent, because the image existed before he possessed the authority: he was created in the image, but the authority was given him after he was created. It must appear equally absurd to contend, as some have, that the image of God, in which man was created, consisted exclusively, in the immortality of his soul. There is no evidence, that God's immortality constitutes his image, any more than his justice, holiness, or any other perfection of his nature. Immortality is one of the divine perfections, and if one of the perfections of God be embraced in the image, which he stamped upon his rational offspring, it is reasonable to suppose that every communicable perfection of the divine nature must be embraced to render the image complete; wherefore we conclude, that as man was created in the divine image, he received from the plastic hand that formed him, the stamp of every communicable perfection of the divine nature: nor is holiness the least prominent among these perfections, as God has revealed himself in the Bible. But this view of the subject does not depend upon abstract speculations upon the perfections of God, for it is based on the declarations of his word. Eph. iv. 24." And that ye put on the new man which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness." By the new man, which we are here exhorted to put on, we understand the true christian character. This the text informs us, is created after God, i. e. after the likeness or image of God, and this is "in righteousness and true holiness. The image of God, then, consists in righteousness and true holiness; and as man was created in this image, he must have been holy; not merely free from unholiness, but