of His creatures. Thus, the disbelief of man, or even of 'every man,' cannot prevent the fulfilment of the purposed Promises, to make them of none effect; for if it could, then those Promises, and the veracity of God would be falsified, and not the faith of man. 'He that believeth hath the witness in himself; [he enjoys the peaceful fruit of his believing, receives the end of his faith, doth enter into rest, and hath eternal life abiding in him ;] but he that believeth not [the testimony of] God, hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the Record that God gave of His Son. [What was that Record? The universal blessedness which was anciently promised in the Messiah] And this is the Record, that God hath [offered?] GIVEN us Eternal Life, and this Life is through His Son.' -1 John v. 10, 11. So indeed it is, that all who persist in discrediting and fighting against the testimony of the Lord to His Universal Grace and Salvation, treat Him just as if He were a liar! But it is a blessed thing that the love and mercy of the Lord are so much greater than all the faithlessness, and stubborn unbelief, and even than the sins of men, and shall ultimately overcome and resolve them into good. 'If we Believe not, [we must be banished to everlasting agonies?] YET HE ABIDETH FAITHFUL; HE CANNOT DENY HIMSELF.-2 Tim. ii. 13. He hath Promised that 'All the Kindreds of the Earth shall be Blessed,' and that 'All Men, (which of course must include unbelievers and the ignorant,) shall come to the knowledge of the truth;' and 'He is faithful that Promised,' for He is 'the Father of the Spirits of All Flesh,' whose 'tender mercies are over all His works;' so if any disbelieve, yet He abideth faithful, for He is 'without variableness,' and 'cannot lie,' nor deny Himself.' It is commonly asserted that all unbelievers shall be doomed to endless misery. What use must people make of their Bibles to entertain or give utterance to such a sentiment as that! Reader, do you believe that doctrine? If you do, you must allow that damnation is universal, and that you yourself are surely being reared up for an inhabitant of the vast, dreadful, and everlasting kingdom of His Satanic Ma jesty; for the Scriptures expressly affirm that 'God hath concluded ALL in unbelief.' 'But stop!' say you, 'you have not quoted but half of that passage! You are exceedingly unlucky in reminding me of that, I reply, for that following clause annihilates your position that the unbelievers shall be lost, inasmuch as their unbelief is the very reason why they need and why they shall have redemption, and as the necessity for universal salvation is the reason why All are concluded in unbelief. You see we draw opposite conclusions from the same premise. You say that because a man is an unbeliever, he shall be eternally perpetuated in darkness, and endlessly tormented with pains. I say on the contrary, that because men are 'darkened in their understandings,' perverse in faith, distrustful of their merciful Father, and sinful, they shall be saved, because Christ died and lives expressly for such, and because God wills, and has determined and Promised to redeem them, and finally to exhaust all evil. And as all men have more or less disaffection towards their Creator, He has concluded them All unbelievers, 'that He may show Mercy unto All.' Against this phalanx of plain and palpable proofs we have drawn from the scriptures in proof of our position that the Promise we are considering is not contingent upon the faith of men, (as we have before proved that it is neither contingent upon human works,) the objector will bring the following texts, in contradiction to those we have above cited: 'He that believeth not shall be damned.'-Mark xvi. 16. 'He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.'-John iii. 36. 'God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie that they all might be damned who believed not the truth.'—2 Thess. ii. 11, 12. Now we would not evade these apparently conflicting scriptures, else we might have omitted to notice them at all. Universalist writers have always been careful to give these passages, and all others of the kindred stamp, very particular and candid consideration. But an : exposition of these passages not being the task we have undertaken in this book, the reader ought not to accuse us of evasion for not giving explanations of them as they shall all along occur to our minds in the course of our argument, especially if we shall be careful to refer him to ready and complete sources of information upon those difficulties.Mr. Balfour, in his 'Inquiries,' has probably written most upon those passages we have just cited, and upon the whole class of those which contain the words damnation, judgment, fire, hell, &c. And we might also observe, that while the 'Pro and Con,' of Rogers, the Sermons of Ballou, the 'Familiar Conversations' of Streeter, the 'Dialogues' of Winchester, the various 'Discussions,' &c., contain extensive, thorough, and easy expositions of all the popular objective passages, Mr. Whittemore, in his 'Plain Guide to Universalism,' among much other useful and valuable matter, has given a complete explanation of every one of them, in course, from both testaments, in a concise, critical, and conclusive manner, and stored with a vast number of concessionary explanations from the most eminent Biblical critics of other persuasions. But in regard to those three objective texts which are above mentioned, we will remark that the following points may be easily, and have been repeatedly, demonstrated.(1) That these passages do not contradict nor disagree with the numerous Promises of universal salvation, nor with the infinite love and goodness of God, nor with the scripture doctrine of salvation 'by grace,' and 'not of works' nor self. (2) That the word 'damned' which they contain, that is according to its common acceptation, is a manifest perversion of the inspired Greek, which reads, simply 'condemned,' as the same word is sometimes rendered in our version, which word our Lord himself defined, (John iii. 15,) that 'light was come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light.' (3) That 'the condemnation' which was the consequence of disbelief, has no connection whatever with the state of immortality, which is the great point that is groundlessly taken for granted, while the contexts and abundant other scripture is against it. (4) That these passages are parallels with a large class which teach the joy and life-giving influences of a confident Christian faith, on the one hand, and the state of fearfulness, darkness, doubt, and supersti tion which 'abideth' upon the votaries of error and bigotry. And (5) that many of the most learned commentators have interpreted these passages in the same manner, acknowledging that the doctrine of endless misery cannot be forced from those words, without violence to their legitimate signification. But we have not yet quite done with the objection we were reviewing. The idea we here have to express is, that whatever is truth, is immutably and eternally so, whether it be known or unknown, believed or doubted. Now we are required to believe in Jesus Christ as our Saviour, as 'the Saviour of the World. But we are not required to believe this in order to prove it true; but because it is an actual, living truth, as true now, as it will be when it is fully realized to us, and as true millions of ages ago as it was when the Promise was first communicated, because the means of its accomplishment were fully appointed, and the operation and result of those means as well known unto Omniscience as they ever can be. We quote the following passages in evidence of these remarks as applied to the Divine Promises: 'FOREVER, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven; Thy Faithfulness is unto All Generations.'---Ps. cxix. 89. 'Concerning Thy Testimonies, I have known that of Old Thou hast Founded them, even Forever.'-cxix. 152. Thy Word is True from the Beginning.'-cxix. 160. 'The works were Finished [in the Eternal Mind] from the Foundation of the World.'-Heb. iv. 3. For a thousand years are with the Lord but as a day, and He calleth those things that be not as though they were. 2 Pet. iii. 8; Rom, iv. 17. "Can liar make God lie? or cheat his neighbor of his soul? But Death both cause and consequence destroys, PROPOSITION SIXTH. The Lord has Solemnly MADE OATH, that He will Eventually Redeem and Glorify All Souls, and SWORN to the Fulfilment of His Promise. PROOFS. 'BY MYSELF HAVE I SWORN, saith the Lord, in Blessing I will bless thee, and in Multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of Heaven, and as the sand upon the sea-shore; and thy Seed [Christ] SHALL POSSESS EVEN THE GATE OF HIS ENEMIES. And in thy Seed shall All the Nations of the Earth be Blessed.'-Gen. xxii, 17, 18. 'I am the Lord and there is none else! I HAVE SWORN BY MYSELF, the word hath gone out of My mouth in Righteousness, and shall not return, That Unto Me Every Knee shalt Bow. and Every Tongue shall swear, [the vow of love and filial allegiance,] Surely shall Say, In the Lord have I Righteousness and Strength !'-Is. xlv. 22, 23. God had SWORN with an OATH unto David, that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ to sit upon the throne.'-Acts ii. 30; Saying, 'Once have I SWORN by My Holiness, -- his Seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the SUN before Me. It shall be established forever as the moon, as a Faithful Intercessor in heaven.'-Ps. lxxxix, 35--37. And 'He ever liveth to make intercession for us.'-Heb. vii. 25. 'When God made the PROMISE unto Abraham, because He could swear by no Greater, HE SWARE BY HIMSELF, saying, SURELY, Blessing 1 will Bless thee,' &c.-Heb. vii. 13, 14. 'Men Swear verily by the Greater, and an Oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife; wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the HEIRS OF HIS PROMISE, ['All the Families of the Earth,'] the Immutability of His Counsel, [does this sound like 'Contingency?'] Confirmed it by an OATH, that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a Strong consolation who have fled for refuge [from 'the |