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difference between their own teachings and reasonings, and those of the inspired men of God. Instead of making God's law the standard, and lifting human laws up to it, these men make human laws the standard, and bring down God's law to that. The law of man punishes in such a way, and for such a purpose; therefore the law of God will do the same. The per

fect is measured by the imperfect; and because blind and ignorant man cannot determine the exact degree of guilt, and adjust the penalty to the desired end, therefore the omniscient God cannot!

But let us consider specially the assertion that the penalty of transgression has nothing to do with the reformation of the transgressor. In Leviticus xxvi. it is written, "If ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; and if ye despise my statutes"-(here we have the law; and now for the penalty)—“I also will do this unto you. I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart," &c. (And now for the object of this penalty :) "And if ye will not for this hearken unto me, then will I punish you yet seven times more for your sins,. . . . and if ye will not be REFORMED by me by these things," &c. And yet we are told that "the reformation of the offender forms no part at all of the design of legal penalty!”

"Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for thou renderest unto every man according to his work." Ps. lii. 12. Here the penalty is declared to be administered in such manner and spirit as to make it an evidence of the divine mercy, aiming to secure the good of the sufferer.

"Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth, therefore, despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty; for he maketh sore, and bindeth up; he woundeth, and his hands make whole.' Job. v. David, whom God's judgments found out for his great sins, says, in grateful acknowledgment of the reforming power of his punishment, "Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now have I kept thy word..... Thou art good, and doest good. . . . . I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that in faithfulness thou hast afflicted me. It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes." Ps. cxix. 67, 71, 75.

In the work just referred to, it is said that "judgment and penalty are suspended in this world, in order that means of reformation may be tried." But David sets up no such distinction. He plainly asserts the fact that God's judgments and his afflictions are identical, and that by these he was reformed, and turned from the paths in which he had gone astray. He does not say "judgment was suspended that means of reformation might be tried," but that the judgment itself was the means of reformation, the "admonitory and corrective discipline" by which he learned God's statutes, and kept his word.

So the wise man says, "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor weary of his correction; for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth." Prov. iii. 11. Here the punishments of God are illustrated by those of an affectionate earthly father, who chastens and corrects his erring son whom he loves, because he loves him. And how perfectly this har

monizes with the passage already cited from Hebrews, where we are assured that God chastens "for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness"; and though" for the present it seemeth to be grievous, nevertheless it afterward yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby." xii. Has endless punishment any afterward to it? Does it yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them who are exercised thereby?

"The Lord will not cast off forever; but though he cause grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies, for he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." Lam. iii. Nothing can be more direct than this. Grief and affliction are not chosen for their own sake; they are not perpetual-but are employed in kindness; and, the corrective result gained, the Lord "will have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies."

And in his rebuke of his sinful people he says, "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore, and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God." Jer. ii. 19. Here the fact that wickedness brings in its train bitterness and sorrow, and that this penalty of forsaking the Lord and his law was not only designed to correct, but would correct them, is positively affirmed.

And how plainly and instructively this truth is confirmed in the oft-quoted, and always pleasing history of the prodigal son. Did not the punishment of his sin, the "evil thing and bitter" which his wickedness brought upon him, finally correct him, and lead

him to say, "I will arise and go to my Father"? Did he not know and feel the judgments of the Lord on the transgressor of his righteous law, on him who gives himself up to a vicious and abandoned course of life? And, by experience of them, was he not turned from his folly, and brought back from his wanderings?

All these testimonies from the Bible, and many more which might be cited, reveal the general principle on which the heavenly Parent proceeds in his administration of punishments. They show that the law and the penalty are not in conflict, but one in spirit and purpose, though different in method and means; that they both are ordained, not for the good of the Lawgiver, not to secure any advantage to him; but for the good of those to whom the law is given as a rule of conduct. The penalty, or the punish

1 The Misses BRONTE, authors of "Jane Eyre," "Shirley," &c., daughters of an English clergyman, were believers in the great restoration. Alluding to the death-scene of an erring brother, one of them says: "How could I endure to think that that poor, trembling soul was hurried away to everlasting torment? It would drive me mad! But thank God for the blessed confidence that, through whatever purging fires the erring spirit may be doomed to pass, whatever fate awaits it, still it is not lost; and God, who hateth nothing that he hath made will bless it in the end."-Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

It is curious to note how many of the English Church, even of its ministers, past and present, have rejected the doctrine of endless punishment, as Archbishop TILLOTSON, Bishops WARBURTON, RUST, BURNET, &c.; as well as MAURICE, KINGSLEY and others, of to-day. Perhaps the fact finds explanation in the words of Dr. HEY, who says: "It is owing to the moderation of our Church, that we are not called upon to subscribe to the eternity of hell torments; nay, we are not required even to condemn those who presume to affirm that all men will finally be saved."— Norrissian Lectures, vol. ii. 389. it is a wellknown fact, that in the revision of the articles, in the time of Elizabeth, Article xlii, condemning Universalism as a heresy, was struck out.— Whittemore's Modern History.

ment of disobedience, aims at the same thing which the law aims at, viz: to cause mankind to walk in the ways of the Lord, to do right; simply because the right leads to happiness, to the highest good of him who does it. God never inflicts punishment or pain for its own sake, as an end; but only as a means. He never rests in it as final, as the thing sought, the thing he is satisfied to make permanent and endless.

It may interest the reader, and profit him, to com pare the preceding reasoning on the nature and object of divine punishments, with the views entertained by some of the Universalist Fathers of the early Christian Church.

Clemens Alexandrinus, A. D. 190, says: "Punishment is, in its operation, like medicine; it dissolves the hard heart, purges away the filth of uncleanness, and reduces the swellings of pride and haughtiness; thus restoring its subject to a sound and healthful

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Origen, A. D. 230. "The sacred Scripture does, indeed, call "our God a consuming fire," (Deut. iv. 24,) and says that "rivers of fire go before his face," (Dan. vii. 10,) and that "he shall come as a refiner's fire, and purify the people," (Mal. iii. 2.) As, therefore, God is a consuming fire, what is it that is to be consumed by him? We say it is wickedness, and whatever proceeds from it, such as is figuratively called "wood, hay, and stubble,” (1 Cor. iii.) which denote the evil works of man. Our God is a consuming fire in this sense; and he shall come as a refiner's fire to purify rational nature from the alloy of 1 Pedagog, i. 8.

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