Images de page
PDF
ePub

facts, and he who makes use of the former exposes the imbecility of his own cause. The conduct of your opponent brings to my recollection a circumstance which occurred in Boston, New England, shortly after Mr. John Murray had begun to visit that city as a preacher of Universalism. Preaching there, one evening, a stone came through the window, struck the pulpit above his head, whence falling at his feet, he lifted it, observing to his auditory, that it was certainly a hard argu ment, but neither rational nor convincing. Of this description is abusive language.

"With respect to the expressions of your opponent, concerning me, at the 74th page, they are unworthy of reply. Although I am not in the habit of assuming the seat of Judgement, and sentencing my fellow creatures to endless torments, I ought not to be charged with insincerity. Let your opponent take the mote out of his own eye, before he presume to affirm that such a beam exists in mine. He seems actuated by a spirit similar to that which induced James and John to solicit fire from Heaven, to consume those whom they supposed their enemies.

"Finally :-With regard to his philippic against the late Mr. Douglas, were he now, as I have seen him, he would soon dispose of this antagonist, as he did of some others of the same stamp. A smooth stone directed by him from the stream of Divine Revelation, would for ever have confounded this Goliath. Is your opponent afraid that the reign of the Saints will terminate? (See p. 74.) Alas! according to his system, such a reign could never exist.-The reign of the Devil supercedes the necessity of the reign of the Saints. The Saints are the Elect. This is, I presume, admitted. If then the non-elect be abandoned to endless misery, over whom must the Saints reign? To talk of Kings without subjects is absurd. If he expects to reign over nonentities, I envy him not the honor. If the Saints must reign, merely to hear the groans and blasphemies of their despairing fellow men, or to behold them writhing in exquisite and never-ending torments, none of the suppositions which his 'excursive imagination' has engendered, would be so dreadfully appalling to the soul of the Philanthropist, Farther, he adds, Thus, the greater part of the Universalists are Ariaus and Socinians, or what is the same thing Deists.' As your opponent's spleen is vented against Universalists, he wishes it to be believed that they are men who deny Divine Revelation; whereas they who have written in defence of this doctrine have adhered strictly to scripture testimony, in preference to human tradition, and have held the res titution of all things' in common with the Prophets of God, in all ages, since the world began. In short, we are called infidels, not because we do not believe the Scriptures, but because we will not believe in the doctrines and commandments of men.. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which you yourself bring forward in this publication, in defence of the Deity's Universal benevolence, and which are, in their proper application, denied by your opponent, must satisfactorily prove to the candid inquirer, whether the Universalist or the Partialist, has the most indubitable claim to the epithet, Infidel. WM. WORRALL,"

[ocr errors]
« PrécédentContinuer »