various passages, which declare that the wicked shall not enter heaven. But heaven is the only place of happiness after death. If not admitted to heaven, they cannot possibly be saved, but are necessarily punished with everlasting destruction. The following passages will prove this assertion :Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Not every one, that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he which doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Know ye not, that the unrighteous shall not enter into the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor theives, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things, shall not inherit the kingdom of God. No whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of God and of Christ."

I know of no sophistry that can elude the force of the above passages. Let it not be said, that the kingdom of God sometimes signifies the visible Church on earth. It cannot have that meaning in the above passages, because in that sense, they would not be true. All the above mentioned sinners are found in the visible Church on earth. There the tares and the wheat grow together. If then they are shut out from the kingdom of heaven, it must be in another world. Let it not be said, the kingdom of God means true religion in the heart;

* Matt. v. 20; vii. 21; Mark x. 15.

* Mark x. 23, 24, 25; 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10; Gal. v. 19, 20, 21; Eph. v. 5.

and that the foregoing passages only mean that the wicked cannot enjoy true religion. This cannot be its meaning, because it reduces these passages to the level of pompous trifles. They assert, what nobody ever doubted, and what need not have been asserted at all, because common sense and experience teach this to every body. This cannot be its meaning, for it is inconsistent with good sense. Was the declaration the wicked shall not see, that is, experience or enjoy the kingdom of God, this interpretation might be more plausible. But the word, in numerous passages is, enter; and it is next to nonsense to say, the wicked shall not enter into the religion of their own hearts. But lastly, this cannot be the meaning of the phrase kingdom of heaven; because the primitive Christians certainly best understood the meaning of this phrase; and they uniformly interpreted the above passages, in the same sense we have interpreted them. It was impossible for them to be mistaken on so important a point, as we have already proved; and therefore it is impossible that the above gloss of the Universalist should be true. On the contrary, these passages prove the Universalist doctrine to be unscriptural and false.

3dly. We prove the Universalist doctrine false and impossible, from the following argument :-Scarcely any doctrine, besides the Being of God, has been so universally received by all mankind, in all ages of the world, as the doctrine of a future judgment. Nor was this doctrine merely a theme for lawgivers and philosophers, poets and divines. But it was among all nations, familiarly appealed to in common conversation, as an established truth. And that the Israelites and Jews agreed in this with the rest of mankind, is evident from the authorities already quoted.

Now in the doctrine of a future judgment these three things have always been understood to be necessarily implied. That men would be called to an account, after death, for their con duct in this world. That God would then judge them according to their works and characters. That the righteous would then be rewarded and made happy, and that the wicked would then likewise be punished and made to suffer according to the desert of their sins. If then the Scriptures teach that there

will be a future judgment, they likewise teach a future state of reward and punishment: for both of these are necessarily implied in a future judgment. The following passages from Scripture will make this point plain, and this argument against Universalism unanswerable.

It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, says the Apostle. St. John, giving an account of the last day, says,a The sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell (hades) delivered up the dead which were in them. That is, the graves surrendered their bodies, and hades gave up their souls. And their souls and bodies. having been reunited at the resurrection, they were now prepared to stand before the judgment-bar of God. St. John therefore goes on: I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works; and whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire. Again, our blessed Saviour declares that it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than it will be for those who refuse to receive and obey the preached Gospel-and that it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for those who saw his mighty works, and still did not repent. And St. Paul tells Timothy, that the Lord Jesus Christ shall judge the quick and the dead, when he appears in his kingdom.

b

Hear the proof too, that a future judgment was foretold and expected under the Old Testament, even from the beginning. Jude having told us that the apostate angels are reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day, declares expressly-Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophecied of the wicked, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all; and to convince all that are ungodly among them, of all their

2 Heb. ix. 27.

a Rey. xx.

b Matt. x. and xi.; 2 Tim, iv. 1,

ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. Solomon says, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judg ment. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter-Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

To the above let the following passages be added :-For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to the Gospel. Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts. God now commandeth all men every where to repent; because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. Thinkest thou, O man, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But, after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds. To them who, by patient continuance in welldoing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the

Jude; Eccles. iii. 17; xi. 9; and xii. 13.

truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil. For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. Again; for if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and spared not the old world, but saved Noe, the eighth person, a preacher of righte ousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. The heavens and the earth which are now, are kept in store, reserved unto fire, against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. For the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be, in all holy conversation and godliness; looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless.d

Now from all these passages it is irresistibly evident, that both the Old and New Testament teach the doctrine of a fu

d2 Cor. v. 10; Matt. xii. 36; Rom. ii. 16; 1 Cor. iv. 5; Acts xvii. 30, 31; Rom. ii. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13; 2 Pet. ii. 4, 5, 6, 9; and iii. 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.