mankind alike, are to perish in corruption, and to experience the perdition of their hopes and expectations.

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That the everlasting life which believers shall experience in "a future immortal existence," is begun in this world, and that every actual believer now hath it, is a glorious truth. All who have believed, and they alone, have passed from death unto life;" and to know God and Jesus Christ aright, not only secures, but so far as spiritually knowing is concerned, is a part, an incipient portion, of life everlasting. Because, however, believers have the promise and experience of everlasting life, begun here, and to be perpetuated for ever in a future state of existence, it does not follow that they who believe not have eternal life at all. Nor is it true, that everlasting life is confined to the present world, because all believers have it here. On the other hand, the very words teach as clearly as language can speak, that the holy, spiritual living, commenced in this world, shall be continued so long as the immortal subjects of it shall endure.

The power of working miracles did follow many that believed the gospel in the first age of the Christian church; but the Saviour never promised that all believers, who shall escape damnation, should be thus endowed. If he had said, "These signs shall always follow every one who believeth," your mode of explaining away the declaration, "he that believeth not shall be damned," would have been useless.

If the destroying of him who hardeneth his neck, means nothing but "that death was inevitable," then we may read Proverbs xxix. 1, in this manner, "he that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy; and all other persons shall be destroyed likewise; but perhaps not suddenly for all, of every name and character, the best and the worst, will find that death is inevitable. This mode of explaining Scripture would make every threatening and denunciation of evil lose its force, because it would then bear equally against all men who must die. Such a result, no doubt, many desire; for thus the law would lose all

its penal sanctions, and the righteous and the wicked would be both equally saved and damned together.

God is able, popularly speaking, it is true, to do many things which he will never do; but when he exhorted his disciples "to fear him, which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell," we must think, that the destruction did not mean merely natural death; and that other people who are not his disciples have quite as much reason as they to fear the same doom; especially when he in pursuing his discourse said, "WHOSOEVER, therefore, shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But WHOSOEVER shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven," Matthew x. 32, 33. To be denied, disowned, and rejected of Christ before his Father in heaven, as not worthy of him, nor of his society, is a constituent part of the endless punishment which is elsewhere called the damnation of hell. Can you think, sir, that it would consist with universal salvation for Christ to disown or deny any one, before his Father and his angels, saying, as he has said he will to the unwise virgins, “I know you not?" Matt. xxv. 12.

The world is in some sense Christ's kingdom; and so is the Church in the world; and out of either of these kingdoms of God, the tares may be gathered to be burned. Their having been in the visible kingdom of God, without serving him in conformity with their opportunities, will render the flames of the furnace into which they shall be cast more intense. You say, "Be it noticed, also, that whatever is destroyed ceases to exist, and of course ceases to suffer or enjoy." How can this agree with your doctrine of the final holiness and happiness of all mankind in a future state? That which ceases to exist, has no existence any where; and of course, when the Lord "having saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed them that believed not," (Jude 5,) they ceased to exist; they were annihilated; and yet agreeably to your teaching they were made finally holy and happy. If this is true, then your final state of blessedness is af

firmed of that which is not; and your heaven must be a nonentity.

The passages which you have cited or may cite to prove that all mankind shall experience final and everlasting reconciliation to God in a state of holy happiness, I propose to consider in some future letter. At present,

I shall be content with remarking, that when the sacred Scriptures are correctly translated and interpreted, no passage can contradict any other passage; for the revelation of God to man must be consistent with itself. No one truth can ever be contravened by any other truth. So long, therefore, as we do not make two seemingly opponent passages agree in sentiment, it is manifest, that we mistranslate, or misinterpret, or misunderstand either one or both of them. The system of Divine revelation, whether by the constitution of the human mind, Divine providence, or the written oracles of the Most High, is one grand, harmonious whole.

In further proof of the punishment of some sinners after the present life, I refer you to a few additional portions of the Bible. Of Christ it was said by Moses,

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every soul which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people," Acts iii. 23. If this meant natural death, then all who hear and all who hear not that prophet, die, and are destroyed without distinction. If a violent death, or death by famine, or pestilence, was threatened, all who heard not that prophet were not thus destroyed either from the Hebrew church, or from the earth.

"When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever," Psalm xcii. 7. If you say that this destruction refers wholly to this life, then the wicked and righteous fare alike; while the text evidently was intended to show, that when it shall be well with the latter, it shall be ill with the former. Such attempts to prove, that being destroyed for ever is nothing more than the natural death appointed for all men, I fear will come under the condemnation of Malachi ii. 17, in which place it is

written, "Ye have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet ye say, wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them; or, where is the God of judgment?" If there are, or ever have been people on earth to whom these words are applicable, I mean no personal disrespect when I say, they must be to those who deny any future judgment and perdition of ungodly men. "Yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; [or rather, the just by faith shall live,] but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul," Heb. x. 37-39. Here perdition is contrasted with the saving of the soul; and evidently means the not saving or the loss of it; concerning which the Saviour has asked, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

To you and all our readers, I would say, Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it," Matt. vii. 13, 14.

Remembering" that it is as far from your house to mine, as from mine to yours," I continue yours with the best wishes,

EZRA STILES ELY.

TO MR. EZRA STILES ELY.

Philadelphia, March 15, 1934. Dear Sir-There can be no doubt that, in some cases, the quotation of Scripture, "if it be understood in its plain and obvious meaning," is sufficient proof of a position. But in the discussion of the all-important ques

tion before us, something more than the simple citation of the written testimony will be required. We may multiply quotations from the Bible-but if we make no attempt to show their bearing on the matter in hand, our labour will be in vain; and we would respectively be justified, in the light of all equitable rules of argumentation, were we severally to refrain from offering a word of comment on the passages so quoted.

The second paragraph of your letter, is, in my judgment, very exceptionable. Suppose that, in my previous communication, I had written as follows: "These propositions, there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all men to be testified in due time,' and 'it pleased the Father by him to reconcile all things to himself'- -are so simple and conclusive, that none but an Atheist will require elucidation to satisfy him that the Bible asserts the being of one God; none but a Trinitarian will need criticism to show that God is indivisibly one, and Jesus Christ a man; and none but a Partialist will demand comment to establish the reconciliation of all things." If I had penned a paragraph like the foregoing, you would most probably have proceeded to inform me, that Trinitarians believe God to be essentially one; that in their view Jesus Christ was both God and man, by hypostatical union; and that they do not suppose the reconciliation of all things to contradict the everlasting punishment of the wicked. And you would have closed the merited rebuke, by cautioning me against using language which might be retorted.

Now be it remembered, that Universalists most sincerely believe all that the Bible says about everlasting punishment. We have ever held, (and I am happy in being enabled to adopt your own language,)" that when the sacred Scriptures are correctly translated and interpreted, no passage can contradict any other passage; for the revelation of God to man must be consistent with itself. No one truth can ever be contravened by any other truth. So long, therefore, as we do not make two seem