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date! Whether it had been on a pilgrimage to Mecca, or Jerusalem, or made an excursion among the Cesars, I know not; but certainly it has been a long time in reaching me.

2---It is useless to waste time and words in replying formally to your first two or three paragraphs, about boasting of victories, gasconading, etc. If I have vaunted or swaggered more than, or even as much as, yourself, over the "incomparably weakest of all causes" espoused by an opponent-over his "headless, pointless, wide-spreading declama tion" and "impotency," or of the ability amply to refute "each and every of its pretensions," etc. etc., I have only to say, "The Lord have pity on me!" But I am perfectly willing to trust the decision of this question to the good sense of our readers, believing they will render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

3--I deeply regret the necessity imposed on me of pointing out to our readers, in the very first paragraph which you have written on the question in issue, (paragraph 4,) the grossest perversions and misrepresentations, and following them up, exposing the like perversions in several other parts of your letter. You say I have "unequivocally admitted" your "syllogistic parallelisms between the various acceptations of paradise, heaven, hell, shemim, and gehenna"-that I have "conceded that these words might represent a future state of misery or bliss," &c. This is an egregious error. So far from "unequivocally admitting" them, I said distinctly, that they were "all wide of the mark;" and went on to show that they were as fallacious as the "visionary theory of Swedenborg." And although I admitted that heaven was sometimes used to represent the "place or state of endless happiness hereafter," yet of gehenna 1 said, "you can prove, as far as the Bible warrants, the application of it to severe temporal punishments, but beyond this you have no warrant in the Bible to go: that it signifies a place of misery in the eternal world, you have not offered one particle of proof, nor do I believe you can offer any."

4---In the same paragraph, after charging me with acknowledging that these words "might represent a future state of misery or bliss," you add, "This was all I asked." This is another error. So far from this being all you asked, you say, letter 8, paragraph 16, “I have then, sir, formed the issue. It is with me a strong outpost. That life implies death, that eternal life implies eternal death-in one word, sir, that in the preaching of Jesus, to be 'cast into hell,,' 'into the everlasting fire,' as certainly means endless punishment, as to enter into life' or 'into the kingdom of God,' does mean endless bliss." Thus, sir, you asked that these phrases should be allowed to signify endless ? punishment and endless bliss.

5-In your 6th paragraph, you call Mr. Balfour my oracle. This is a mistake. I acknowledge no man on earth to be my oracle. And if I mistake not, you have had recourse to Mr. Balfour quite as often as I have, though I regret, to so little profit-for you misrepresent him. You affirm that he says, "whatever gehenna meant in the Old, it must mean in the New Testament." It is true that he said, "the Old Testament is the dictionary of the language of the New," and that "to the Old we must have constant recourse for the true meaning of it." But he did not say, "whatever gehenna meant in the Old, it must mean in

the New Testament." In the close of this paragraph you say, “And yet you now affirm that Universalists have never denied that gehenna might mean endless punishment, so far as its original signification is concerned!!" This is another error. I have never made such an affirmation. In your sixth paragraph you accuse me of recalling a concession, which in fact I had never made, and you repeat the erroneous statement of the concession of your syllogistic arguments, which I have above pointed out.

6-In your 16th paragraph you accuse me of maintaining that" "to enter into life' certainly means to join the church"-and that "contrasts certainly do not mean contrasts." These also are two more errors; for I have done neither. In your 18th paragraph you accuse me of having admitted, in letter No. 7, that "enter into life" does sometimes mean in Scripture, entering into future and eternal bliss, and of recalling it in No. 9, and denying that it ever does so signify. This is another error; for I never made that admission. What is your proof that I did? Why, that I said in No. 7, "That life, entering into life, passing from death to life, entering into the kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, &c. do not in the Scriptures generally signify future and eternal bliss, or entering into immortal beatitude, I think must be obvious to the most superficial biblical critic." Thus, because I say of five or more distinct phrases, they do not generally signify a particular thing, this is saying of one of them, selected by my opponent out of the whole, that it does someties positively signify that particular thing!! Is this the acumen, is this the candor of my learned opponent?

7---I shall pass by a number of similar errors, and for the present only notice one more, viz., your perversion of the quoted "dogma," as you call it, "of Universalism." "I find it on the 38th page of the current volume of the Magazine and Advocate. It reads thus, the words in brackets [] only being added: "In the sincere penitence and reformation [the end sought] of the offender, justice is satisfied, and can neither ask nor receive further punishment, [as a means to the end which is already attained,] either retrospective or prospective. The sinner has been punished according to the full demerit of the crime, in his case at least, and all good objects that could be obtained by punish. ment are already attained. Thus justice and mercy meet together; righteousness and peace embrace each other." These are my very words. Let the reader candidly read them, and see if he can discover one of those odious features which your caricature, or perverted form of it, would fain present to him. You represent me as saying-"Repentance is the only hell, or state of punishment "justice can neither ask nor receive further punishment than sincere penitence and reformation”. "justice can demand no greater punishment than repentance," &c. How different this from the above! Have I there declared either penitence or reformation to be the only hell, or any hell at all; or the only punishment, or any punishment at all; have I used either penitence or reformation, as synonymous with either punishment or hell; or have I used the word hell at all? Do you deem it possible for any candid man to suppose me, for onejmoment, to mean any thing like your distorted view of the matter? You ought, sir, to blush and be ashamed of such an outrage, instead of essaying again and again to justify yourself in it? If you can not blush yourself, every friend you have on earth ought to

blush for you: especially all those who have been accustomed to regard you as the MAGNUS APOLLO, the BEAU IDEAL of an honorable an highminded controversialist. At all events, did I suppose that many more such errors and outrages as those above pointed out, would occur in your future letters-for no one acquainted with your genius can attribute them to ignorance-1 should be disposed to take up with the advice you give me, paragraph 2, and say to you, "Dont l-e, friend Camp

bell!"

8-I shall now attend to those parts of your letter that bear the semblance of sober argument. You ask, "What, in the name of reason, mean the hundred volumes of Universalists proving that Gehenna originally meant the valley of Hinnom, if they did not thence argue that it could not, in the New Testament, mean a state of future and endless punishment? or that it could not depart so far from its original meaning! And why do you dwell so much upon the original meaning of this word!" Answer-To give (though in something less than a hundred volumes,) not only the true original and literal meaning of the word, but also its figurative or secondary and accommodated sense or meaningin short, to show in what sense or senses it was actually used by each and all of the Scripture writers, and thus, by an appeal to the "living oracles," make it apparent that no such sense as that of a place or state of endless misery was ever attached to the word by any sacred writer. In this object I think I have abundantly succeeded.

9-Evidently sensible of this fact, and unable to adduce any thing to sustain your view of the word from the authentic records of truth, you resort, in your seventh paragraph, to the Apocrypha and Targums! Alas, alas! that great city! How is she fallen! Had you forgotten, my dear sir, that one of your own rules for this discussion was, that "no other witnesses than the apostles and prophets, or the spirit of God speaking in them, can be admitted as of any authority"? And what assistance, pray, in determining the meaning of the word Gehenna, could the Apocrypha render you, even if its authority were admitted? for the word GEHENNA does not once occur IN ALL THE APOCRYPHAL BOOKS! And can it be for once imagined by any enlightened and candid person, that the Divine Teacher should have entirely departed from the sense in which the ancient prophets and inspired writers used language, and adoptel a wholly new and different sense of the word, not Jewish in its origin, but derived wholly from Chaldaic and Babylonish paraphrasts on these scriptures, and that, too, without the least intimation of so doing! Impossible.

10---I was not unaware that you had said the words Jerusalem, Mount Zion, Temple, Circumcision, &c. &c. were sometimes used in the New Testament in senses different from those attached to them in the Oldnor was I unapprised of the fact, that in those different senses of those words the inspired writers had, themselves, fixed the meaning by signs unequivocal and terms unambiguous; and that, too, without ever leaving >the endless weal or woe of our race to be merely CONJECTURAL OF INFERENTIAL from a particular word, supposed to have a signification entirely > different from any that had ever been given before in the sacred writings, as you suppose to have been the case with Gehenna.

11.But you say, you have proof of your position even in the Christian Scriptures, and from your tenth to your fifteenth paragraphs, inclu

sive, you attempt to bring forward that proof. In reply to your five proofs, as you regard them, it is sufficient to say, relative to the first, Matt. x. 28., that as you have not attempted to gainsay or refute what I said of it in my June letter (properly No. 5,) paragraphs 21, 22, nor adduced any argument save assertion in favor of your own view, I may, with equal plausibility, assert that the word Hell, then, indubitably denotes, not eternal but temporal punishment. Relative to your second text, Matt. xxiii. 33., it is sufficient to say that I proved in the aforesaid letter, paragraph 20, that the damnation of Gehenna was used to denote the temporal woes coming upon that generation of the Jews. As, to your third proof, I say, of the three equivalent phrases, which you say are substituted for hell, that neither one nor all of them afford any evidence of your position. Of your fourth, that as the "life" with which hell is contrasted, was evidently enjoyed in this state of being, so the hell was evidently suffered in the same state. Of your fifth, that, as you yourself have proved in your Note on Matt. v. 22., hell fire does in one instance at least, signify temporal punishment or destruction, and have nowhere shown that Gehenna necessarily signifies any thing different from that, it cannot therefore be adduced as proof of sufferings beyond the present life.

12--With reference to your sixteenth paragraph, I have only to say that "perhaps" the statement of some "facts" in proof of your position, instead of the use of irony and misrepresentation, would have quite as much weight with people of sense and candor.

14-To save you from performing works of supererogation, or from laboring to no effect, let me here once more remind you, that the question at issue between us, relative to Gehenna, is not, whether it signifies FUTURE punishment in another state of being, but whether it signifies a place or state of ENDLESS misery. You appear not to understand the question. To save you from the repetition of the like blunders hereafter, let me farther inform you, that I am myself, and ever have been since my religious opinions were formed, a firm believer in the doctrine of future punishment. My faith in this doctrine has often been avowed to my hearers and readers, both from the pulpit and the press. But I must say, were there no arguments in its favor but those you have adduced, I should not be a very firm believer in it. But the doctrine of endless misery, (dreadful idea!) if true, must falsify the plainest testimonies of Scripture, transform the DIVINITY into a FIEND, clothe heaven in sackcloth, and fill the universe with sighs and tears. To prove this horrid doctrine, sir, is the task you have assigned yourself, and that too from the word Gehenna! To your task then, my dear sir, and linger not about questions not at issue between us.

14-I desire, as well as yourself, that our readers may all see and examine the whole of your note on Matt. v. 22. It will greatly confirm them in my views of Gehenna. In your nineteenth and twentieth para. graphs, you attempt to show that I have not worked by my own rule. You introduce Matt. xix. 16. to the end, Mark x. 17-30, Luke xviii. 17—30, in order to show two things-1. That Christ meant the same thing in these passages by the phrases, "enter into life," "inherit eternal life," "enter into the kingdom of God," and to "receive in the world to come everlasting life;" and 2. That these expressions all relate to the future and immortal state. The first I grant, viz., that the phrases are

here used as equivalents: but I deny the second, viz., that all or any of them in these passages, relate to the future and immortal state of man.

15---You are doubtless aware that the scriptural expressions, OLEM HAZEH, and OLEM HABO, in Hebrew, OUTOS AION and AION MELLON, in Greek, and THIS WORLD or AGE, and THE WORLD OF AGE TO COME, in English, are often used to designate the MOSAIC DISPENSATION OF AGE OF THE LAW, and the GOSPEL DISPENSATION OF AGE OF THE MESSIAH (the first of which was drawing to a close, and the second about to open, when the Saviour spake the language under consideration.) In this sense Dr. A. Clarke understands the expressions in Matt. xii. 32. But though these passages might be so understood, if such were their phraseology, yet the language is not as favorable to your views even as this. For although you say "the answer as stated by Matthew, Mark, and Luke is, 'A hundred fold more in the PRESENT LIFE and in the world to come eternal life,' ," I find you are mistaken. Neither of them uses the phrase, "present life," at all. Matthew has neither "present life," "world," nor "time." Mark and Luke both have "the present time" (TO KAIRO TOUTO) and "the coming age (TO AIONI TO ERCHOMENO.) That the texts and contexts relate not to the future and immortal state, appears to have been the opinion of many eminent orthodox critics.

16---Gilpin, in paraphrasing the words of Jesus, says, "How almost impossible is it, says Jesus, turning to his disciples, for a rich man to become a sincere Christian.-It was impossible, he said, for any person, under the influence of such a disposition, (that of trusting in riches,) to be a member of his kingdom. Pearce says, "A rich man shall hardly, i. e. not without great difficulty, enter into the kingdom of heaven, i. e. become one of my disciples." Elsley says, "It may be read “will” * hardly enter; meaning that in the approaching time of persecution, a rich man will hardly be persuaded to be a disciple of Christ, which is here called entering into the kingdom of heaven." See Wall's Critical Notes. Annot in loco. Kenrick says, "The kingdom of heaven here means, as in several other parts of the Evangelists, the body of Christians. To come into this kingdom, therefore, is to become a disciple of Christ." Rosenmuller says, "To enter into the kingdom of heaven is to join the company of Jesus and become his follower," &c. Scholia in loco. Our readers will thus perceive, that many eminent critics on your side of the question about hell, agree with me in the meaning of these passages.

17---On your twenty-first paragraph, I remark, that the texts you quote form no exceptions nor objections to my views, but rather go to confirm them. The exhortations to "lay hold on eternal life" imply that it is within the reach of mankind. And as there is "nothing impossible with God, even the rich may lay hold of it, though with more difficulty than others. With reference to the last text you quote, Titus i. 2. I would only remark, that I have never denied that "eternal life" might, in some instances, be used with reference to a future state.

18---Having seen that your five principal proofs that Gehenna punishishment is in the future state, are entirely powerless and irrelevant-in fact, that they are unsupported assumptions, let us see what is your sixth and last proof. Why, forsooth, it is this: "Gehenna or Hell in the New Testament, can by no possibility of interpretation, refer to any earthly punishment: for besides the reasons already given, neither Jesus