scripture relative to a future state, nor with | our purest and most exalted sentiments of the attributes and proceedings of the Universal Parent. According to the strictest rules of philosophizing, therefore, the first must be regarded as the true hypothesis. The passages of scripture which favour the opinion, that the whole human race will finally be restored to purity and happiness, may be divided into those which imply its truth, and into those which appear precisely and positively to affirm it. The passages which imply it are those which contain certain declarations which must be false, if this opinion be denied, but which are full of truth and beauty if it be admitted. The passages which appear positively to affirm it are those, to the language of which it seems impossible to affix any other meaning. CHAPTER I. OF THE PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE WHICH IMPLY RESTORED TO PURITY AND HAPPINESS. UNDER the passages which imply the ultimate restoration of the whole human race to virtue and happiness may be arranged 1st, All those which speak of God as the kind and benevolent Father of mankind. Psalm cii. 13, 14, · Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him; for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust.'-Malachi, ii. 10, 'Have we not all one Father? Hath not one. God created us?'-Ephesians, iv. 6, There is one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all.' We are likewise instructed by our Lord, Matthew, vi. 9, to address the Supreme Being in prayer as our Father. existence. In the strictest sense it is true, tha in him we live, move, and have our being.' And, as he is so much more intimately and truly our Father than our human parents, sc he must be as much more perfectly so in respect to the disposition with which he regards, and the manner in which he treats us. All that is tender and endearing in the most affectionate and excellent of human parents can afford us but a faint image of what he is to his whole family of mankind. Does any good father punish with revenge? Does any tender mother harbour implacable resentment against her child? Would she, if she were able, punish it with endless misery, or inflict upon it intolerable anguish for a very protracted period, and then blot it out of existence? If a human parent who acted in such a manner would be regarded with universal execration, who can believe an hypothesis which attributes such conduct to the benevolent Father of men? We may be mistaken in the meaning of a word, or the accuracy of a criticism, but we cannot err in rejecting opinions which give such an exhibition of the character of God. But in this manner both the doctrines of Endless Misery, and of absolute, irrevocable destruction, represent our heavenly Father as treating the greater number of his children, while that of Universal Restoration teaches that his conduct towards every individual of his large family is infinitely more excellent than that of the most wise and benevolent parent. The latter opinion therefore, is true; the others are false. 2d, The ultimate restoration of the whole human family to purity and happiness is favoured by all those passages which represent God as good. Psalm xxxiv. 8, O taste and see that the Lord is good.' liii. 1, 'The goodness of God endureth continually.' cxlv. The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works.'-1 John iv. 8, GOD IS LOVE.' created the great majority of mankind to make them miserable-that he called them into being with no other view than to glorify his justice by their eternal condemnation, and that from all eternity he foreordained them to this horrid fate. To say of such a Being, that he is good, that his very nature is love, that his tender mercies are over all his works, and that his goodness endureth continually, is to destroy all distinction between tenderness and cruelty, and to identify malevolence with benignity. The scriptures delight to exhibit the Deity to his human offspring in the character of a Father. It is the most natural, as well as the If there be any foundation for the doctrine most endearing manner in which we can con- of Endless Misery, or of absolute, irrevocable ceive of him. He is our Father in a much destruction, these passages are not true. The more strict and intimate sense than any crea-doctrine of Endless Misery teaches that God ture is the parent of another. He constructed the curious and delicate fabric in which our consciousness and intelligence reside. He formed those wonderful organs which are continually at work within us, and which minister equally to life and to enjoyment. He endowed us with those noble faculties by which we are capable of pursuits and pleasures of the same nature with those that constitute his own happiness, the operation of which affords us continual gratification, but of which we know nothing, except that they are wonderful and glorious. It is he who has so exquisitely adapted our nature to the objects which surround us, that we can scarcely move without experiencing pleasure, and that so many things which interest and delight us continually crowd upon our senses. It is he who has made us what we are, and his constant energy is necessary to continue us in If it be said that he treats the elect with benevolence, and that these expressions relate only to these favoured individuals, it is replied, that this is an assumption which is unsupported by the shadow of proof; for these passages do not affirm that he is good to the elect, but that he is good to all, and that his tender mercies are over all his works. If he elected a few individuals to happiness, | There is not a single passage from which it and decreed the great majority to endless mis- can be fairly deduced. Those which might ery, how can there be any truth in the decla- seem to favour it have been fully considered. ration, that he is good to all? And if the The declarations of scripture are not-The greater number are to be doomed to torment, Lord is merciful and gracious, but his clemenday and night, without intermission, forever- cy is limited to the present state. He is slow if, in the anguish of their souls, they incessant- to anger and plenteous in mercy, but he be ly cry to him for mercy, beseeching him to comes implacable and inexorable the moment lighten or shorten their suffering, and if he be- this life terminates; its language is, The hold their misery without pity, and turn a Lord is merciful and gracious; slow to anger deaf ear to their supplications, how can his and plenteous in mercy: he hath not dealt tender mercies be over ALL his works, or his with us after our sins, nor rewarded us accordgoodness endure continually? ing to our iniquities; for as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards them that fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so hath the Lord compassion on them that fear him: for he knoweth our frame : he remembereth that we are dust.' Nor is the doctrine of destruction cònsistent with these passages; for according to this opinion the wicked will be raised from the dead, afflicted with terrible and unremitted anguish, for a very protracted period, and then blotted cut of existence for ever; so that, upon the whole, they must be incalculably more miserable than happy. Even if the contrary should be maintained, and it should be said that they will enjoy more than they suffer, still, according even to this concession, these passages can be true only in the lowest sense. But, if the Deity design and pursue the ultimate felicity of all his intelligent creation, what a light and glory do they shed on his character, and how perfectly do they accord with the noblest ideas we can form of the object of his dispensations! 3d, The final restoration of all mankind to purity and happiness is favoured by those passages which speak of God as merciful. Exodus, xxxiv. 6, 7, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, and forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.'-2 Chronicles, xxx. 9, The Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you if you return unto him.'-Psalm ciii. 8, The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.' These repeated declarations of the compassion and clemency of God cannot be true, if through the ages of eternity he refuses to be reconciled to the great majority of his creatures. It is vain to endeavour to prove that he is merciful, on the ground that he is willing to forgive the penitent sinner in the present state; for-not to mention that, if there be any truth in the common doctrine of the divine decrees and of election, the pretension is an idle mockery-were his clemency restricted to this life, he would have infinitely less claim to the character of merciful, than that man would possess who should inflict the most intolerable suffering on another, for the space of eighty years, without any disposition to relent, except for a single hour. There is, indeed, an utter disproportion between the two cases, because this life, compared to eternity, is inconceivably less than an hour compared to eighty years. They who contend that the mercy of God is restricted to the present life ought to remember that they have no scriptural authority for this opinion. Such a notion is never inculcated in the Old or New Testament. If he place his offending offspring under a discipline which corrects their evil dispositions, and forms in their hearts a genuine love of excellence, this beautiful and affecting description of the Deity is just; but if he doom them to intolerable, unremitted, and unending anguish, or if, after having made them suffer the utmost penalty of their crimes, he blot them out of existence for ever, every syllable of it is false? 4th, The ultimate happiness of every individual of the human race is favoured by all those passages which positively deny that God will be angry for ever. Psalm xxx. 5, His anger endureth but for a moment.' ciii. 9, 'He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger for ever.' lxxvii. 7-12, Will the Lord cast off for ever, and will he be favourable 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: I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the Lord. I will meditate on thy work, and talk of thy doings.'-Isaiah, lvii. 16, ‘I will not contend for ever, neither will I be al ways wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.' How different is this description of the disposition and conduct of the Deity from that which is exhibited by the doctrines of Endless Misery, and of total and eternal destruction! 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 favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Doth his promise fail for ever more? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? | 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 favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Doth his promise fail for evermore?' No; it is impossible. Whoever 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 infirmity!' 5th, The final restoration of all mankind to purity and happiness is favoured by those passages which represent God as declaring that he takes no pleasure in the punishment of the wicked. Ezekiel, 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?'-Chronicles, 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. Revelation, iv. 11, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, 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.' 6th, The final restoration of all mankind to purity and happiness is favoured by those passages 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. 6 Deuteronomy, viii. 5, Thou shalt also con sider 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 the Almighty.-Psalm xciv. 12, Blessed, O Lord, is the man whom thou chastenest.'-Hebrews, 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? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we 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, chasteneth us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now, no chas tening 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 vir tuous, 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 possesses; 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 a proper object of moral discipline; it is the capacity 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 chang ed to this extent-to the extent, that is, of rendering them no longer the objects of moral discipline, which must be the case, if their punishment be not corrective, or to the extent of excluding them from the care of benevolence, since they must retain their sentient nature. To suppose, therefore, that a period can ever come, when the punishment of the erring creatures of humanity will not be corrective, and when the benevolent Father of those creatures will cease to regard them with a Father's tenderness, is both without reason and contrary to reason. Matthew, xxv. 46, These shall go away into lasting chastisement, but the righteous Into life eternal.' could devise proper ones, and secure success in the use of them. Now, with respect to the Supreme Lord and Parent of all, there is unerring wisdom to contrive infallible means, boundless goodness to incline him to employ them, and Almighty power to accomplish every end that infinite perfection proposes.' 7th, The final purity and happiness of all mankind is favoured by those passages which represent the benefits resulting from the obedience and death of Christ as co-extensive with, and even exceeding, the evils produced by the disobedience and fall of Adam. 1 Corinthians, xv. 22, As through Adam all die, so likewise through Christ shall all be made alive.' In this passage, the evil produced by sin is compared with the benefit received by Christ, and it supposes that the life imparted by him is a blessing; but, if the wicked are to be raised from the slumber of the tomb, only to be visited with severe and protracted punishment, and then destroyed, or to be kept in endless misery, the restoration of their existence, instead of a benefit, is an unspeakable disadvantage. The word translated punishment, in the received version, is kolasis, a term which is universally allowed to signify chastisement or corrective punishment. It is used in this sense by the heathen philosophers: 'Dicemus ergo in pœnis respiciant utilitatem ejus qui peccarit, aut ejus cujus intererat non peccatum esse, aut indistincte quorumlibet. Ad horum trium finum primum pertinet pœna quæ philosophosis modo, nouthesia, modo kolasis, modo parainesis, dicitur. Paulo jurisconsulto, pœna quæ constituitur in emendationem, sophroniseos eneka, Platone, Plutarcho iatreia psuches, aniRomans, v. 15, That as the offence, so is mi medicatrix, quæ hoc agit ut eum qui pec- the free gift; for if, through the offence of one, cavit reddat meliorem medendi modo qui estoi polloi, the many (that is, the great body of per contraria.'*-Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis, lib. ii. cap. xx. sect. 6. mankind-Newcome,) have died, much more the favour of God, and the gift which is through Simpson observes on this word, 'Our Lord, the favour of one man, Jesus Christ, hath in the awful and impressive description of the abounded, eis tous pollous, unto the many. If, proceedings of the last judgment of mankind, by the offence of the one, death reigned by has selected the term kolasis, in no other place this one, much more those who receive the in the New Testament applied to the future abounding of favour, and of the gift of justifistate, in order to explain with the greater pre- cation, shall reign in life by the one man Jecision the final recompense of the sinner. sus Christ. So then, as by the offence of one, There seems, in Matthew, xxv. 46, to be an judgment came upon all men to condemnation, evident allusion to the Septuagint translation so likewise, by the righteousness of one, the of Daniel, xii. 2, which was commonly used free gift hath come upon all men to justifica in Judea, when our Lord appeared. The ex- tion of life. For as, by the disobedience, of pression zoen aionion, is literally adopted in one man, the many were made sinners, (or order to express the recompense of the righte-treated as such, by undergoing death,) so like But, instead of aischunen aionion, the expression, kolasin aionion, appears to have been purposely substituted, as comprehending that variety of painful chastisement, both in kind, and degree, and duration, which the highest ideas of the perfections of the Supreme Parent and Ruler naturally lead us to suppose he will inflict upon his children and subjects, according to the nature and magnitude of their offences. Even in human governments, a wise and good magistrate would employ temporary corrective chastisement for the reformation of criminals, that they might be restored to usefulness and happiness in society, in preference to capital punishments, if he ous. wise, by the obedience of one, the many will be made righteous; that, where sin abounded, the favour of God has much more abounded; that, as sin reigned unto death, so favour likewise might reign by justification to everlasting life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.' Nothing can be more evident, than that it is the apostle's intention, in this passage, to represent all mankind, without exception, as deriving greater benefit from the death of Christ, than they suffer injury from the fall of Adam. The universality of the apostle's expressions is very remarkable. The same many, who were made sinners by the disobedience of the one, are made righteous by the obedience of the other. If all men are condemned by the offence of the one, the same all are justified by the righteousness of the other. We observe, then, that punishment regards the benefit either of the offender, or, of the offended, or indeed, of any other persons. The punishment These universal terms, so frequently rewhich respects the first of these three purposes is called by philosophers sometimes nouthesia, some-peated and so variously diversified, cannot times kolasis, and sometimes perainesis. According possibly be reconciled to the limitation of the to Paulus, a lawyer, the punishment designed for blessings of the gospel to the elect alone, or amendment is by Plato said to be sophroniseos to a part only of the human race. eneka, for the sake of making wiser. And it is wicked are reformed by their punishment, called by Plutarch, iatreia psuches, the healer of the mind; because according to the art of healing, can there be any truth in the declaration, that it renders him who has sinned better by means of the favour of God by Christ abounds much contraries. more than sin and death? If the great majori Unless the ty of mankind are to continue in sin and misery through all eternity, or at some remote period to be blotted out of existence, it is they that triumph. They are infinitely more extensive than the abounding of favour. According to both of these doctrines, therefore, the reasoning of the apostle in this passage is totally inconclusive. for the sake of him that is his beloved, in whom we have redemption by his blood, viz., the forgiveness of transgressions, according to the greatness of his grace and favour, which he has overflowed in towards us, in bestowing on us so full a knowledge and comprehension of the extent and design of the gospel, and prudence to comply with it, as it becomes you, in that he hath made known to you the good pleasure of his will and purpose, which was a mystery that he hath purposed in himself, until the coming of the due time of that dispensation wherein he hath predetermined The passages which have been quoted appear decidedly to favour the doctrine of the ultimate restoration of all mankind to purity and happiness, since in every case a denial of this opinion is a contradiction of the declarations they contain. There are passages, how-to reduce all things again, both in heaven and ever, which seem still more expressly to confirm the truth of this hypothesis. on earth, under one head in Christ.' By the phrase, things in heaven, and things on earth,' he understands the Jewish and Gentile world, observing, That St. Paul should use heaven and earth for Jews and Gentiles, will not be thought so very strange, if we consider that Daniel himself expresses the nation of the Jews by the name of heaven. Daniel viii. 10. Nor does he want an example of it in our Saviour himself, who, Luke, xxi. the great men of the Jewish nation; nor is 27, by "powers of heaven," plainly signified the only place, in this epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians, which will bear this interpre tation of heaven and earth. He who shall carefully read the fifteen first verses of chap verse 15, the united observe the drift of the apostle in them, will not find that he does manifest violence to St. Paul's sense, if he understands by "the family in heaven and earth," body of Christians, made up of Jews and Gentiles, living still promiscuously among those two sorts of people who continued in their unbelief. However, this interpretation I am not positive in, but offer it as a matter of inquiry to such who think an impartial search into the true meaning of the sacred scripture the best employment of all the time they have.' In the former editions of this work, some passages were arranged under this head, which, on further examination, I am satisfied cannot be justly adduced as express affirmations of the doctrine, that the whole human race will finally be restored to virtue and hap-iii., and carefully weigh the expressions, and piness. I consider the celebrated passage in Ephesians, i. 8-10, as probably, though not certainly, asserting it: Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself, concerning the dispensation of the fulness of times, that he would gather together to himself in one all things through Christ, which are in the heavens and which are on the earth, even through him.' At first view, this passage seems exceedingly favourable to this opinion, and appears, indeed, expressly to affirm, that it is the great object of the divine dispensations to unite together, in one holy and happy state, all intelligent beings under Jesus Christ. But many learned and enlightened men propose a different interpretation. They suppose that this passage relates to God's predetermination to comprehend Gentiles as well as Jews in the blessings of the gospel dispensation. The interpretation of the ancient fathers,' says Whitby, seems to give this sense, that God hath, by this dispensation, gathered, under one head, víz., Christ, the head of the church, all things on earth-that is, Jews and Gentiles-and all things in heaven, Christ just, this passage cannot be considered as Although, if the above interpretation be being the head over principalities and powers. bearing that positive and decided testimony Locke's paraphrase of this and of the four pre- to the truth, that all mankind will be ultimateceding verses, is as follows: Having pre-ly restored to purity and happiness, which determined to take us Gentiles, by Jesus some learned men have supposed, yet it does Christ, to be his sons and people, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the end, that the Gentiles too might praise him for his grace and mercy to them and all mankind, magnifying his glory for his abundant goodness to them, by receiving them freely into the kingdom of the Messiah, to be his people again, in a state of peace with him, barely 242 this intricate period may be thus expressed: Mr. Belsham says, Perhaps the sense of Which riches of his goodness he has abun dantly exhibited to us, having enriched our understanding with a clear knowledge of that and eternal purpose, and which relates to that mystery which was the object of his gracious dispensation which has now at the fulness of time taken place, namely, that he would reunite under one head, even Jesus Christ, all descriptions of mankind, whether Jews or Gentiles.' * phalio, which the apostle here uses, is to sum up |