They affirm that his anger will flame with relentless fury through all eternity; the Scriptures declare that his anger endureth but for a moment: they affirm that the punishment which he will inflict will never terminate; the Scriptures declare that he will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger for ever: they affirm that he will hereafter have no mercy on. the wicked, but cast them from him for ever; the Scriptures make the most solemn and touching appeal to our own understanding and heart whether this can be true: "Will the Lord cast off for ever; and will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? And I said, this is my infirmity!"

These words ought to be engraven on the heart. To say that they relate solely to offenders in the present life, is to take for granted the point in dispute, and to affirm what cannot be proved. Is not this language as applicable to future as it is to present punishment; to the chastisement of the wicked, as to the correction of him who has fallen from rectitude? With regard to the former, does it not equally put to us the affecting questions," Will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Doth his promise fail for evermore?" No: it is impossible. Who

ever shall attempt to persuade me that there can come a period when he will eternally shut up in anger his tender mercies, I will repeat to him this passage,-I will say, " It is your infir÷ mity !"

5. The Final Restoration of all mankind to purity and happiness is favored by those pas sages which represent God as declaring, that he takes no pleasure in the punishment of the wicked.

Ezek. xviii. 23: "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should return from his ways and live?" Ch. xxxiii. 11: "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his ways and live." 2 Peter iii. 9: The Lord is long-suffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

The doctrine of Endless Misery teaches, that, from all eternity, God, for the praise of his glorious justice, decreed the great majority of his creatures to irremediable and eternal death; yet the Scriptures represent him as contradicting this in the most express terms, and in the most solemn manner: As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his ways and

live.

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Rev, iv, 11:"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things, and by thy will, or for thy pleasure, they are and were created."

What cause can there be for an ascription of praise to their Creator, on the part of the greater number of his creatures, if, millions of ages before their existence, he doomed them to intolerable and endless misery? Could any one who believed such a doctrine speak in this rapturous manner of the work of creation ? But what a delightful meaning is there in this language, and what abundant cause is there for praise, if all intelligent beings are ultimately to be restored to purity and happiness! Then, indeed, may it be said of the Author of this glorious scheme-" Thou art worthy to receive glory and honor and power!"

6. The final Restoration of all mankind to Purity and Happiness, is favored by those pas. sages which represent the Deity as chastising his children with the disposition of a parent, and by those which affirm or imply that future punishment will be corrective.

Deut. viii. 5: "Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee." Job v. 17; "Happy is the man whom God correcteth; therefore, despise not thou the chastening of

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the Almighty." Psalm xciv. 12: "Blessed, O Lord, is the man whom thou chastenest." Heb. xii. 5-11: " My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him; for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons: for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? out chastisement, whereof all are ye bastards, and not sons. have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not rather be in subjection to the Father of Spirits, and live? For they verily, for a few days, chastened us after their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."

These passages declare in the strongest and plainest language, that God chastens his creatures in the same manner as a wise and benevolent parent corrects his child. Those who maintain that this is true only of the virtuous, or that he treats the wicked in this manner in the present life alone, must conceive that he is the Father only of a part of mankind, or that

a period will arrive, when his treatment of his children will be unworthy of a good parent.

And why should either of these suppositions be entertained? We are too apt to exclude the vicious from our benevolent regard, and to consider and treat them as utterly worthless. This pernicious feeling is even transferred to the great Parent of the human race. But the vicious can never become utterly worthless, because they always retain their moral capacity and their sentient nature. So long as they are capable of knowledge and virtue, they are fit objects of moral discipline; so long as they retain the power of feeling, and can suffer pain or enjoy happiness, they are proper objects of benevolence. A false system of philosophy, a selfish and exclusive system of theology, may make us forgetful of these unalterable and imperishable claims upon our best affections, which all of human kind possess; but He cannot overlook them who is the Creator of all, and who cares alike for every individual of his large family. It is the faculty of reason that renders a creature à proper object of moral discipline; it is the capa city of suffering and of enjoying that renders him a proper object of benevolence; and these even vice itself cannot destroy. However, therefore, the condition of the wicked may be changed in the future state, it cannot be changed to this