nor his Apostles did at any time threaten temporal, physical, or corporeal punishments to those who disobeyed the Gospel!" The reader is now requested to read attentively Matt. xxi. 41-44; xxii. 2-7; xxiii. 35-39; xxiv, entire; Luke xxi. 30-26; Acts v. 1-10; Rom. xi. 17 -23; 1 Cor. xi. 30; 1 Tim. i. 19, 20, and numerous other parallel passages where Jesus and his Apostles threatened the disobedient with severe temporal punishments, which were actually executed upon them, and then say whether my learned opponent must not have been dreaming when he penned his sixth argument. Death by civil wars, famine, pestilence, and a distress so great as to cause mothers to kill and eat their own children, may well be called a “sorer punishment” than being stoned to death under the law.

19---Your letter is answered. Due attention was early paid, on my part, to the "rules of discussion," &c. and a request made for you to copy my addenda thereto as I had yours; but I have not seen it done in the Harbinger.

Yours truly,

D. SKINNER.

MR. CAMPBELL TO MR. SKINNER.

No. XIV.

BETHANY, Va. December 6th, 1837 Sir-YOURS of the 13th ult. was received here last mail. Your preceding letter also was received since I last addressed you. I have therefore two letters to answer in this one. I shall briefly attend to the last first.

I

2-Your letter No. XIII. is little else than a series of accusations, denials, and unsupported assertions. I have never, in any one instance, either perverted or misrepresented you, to my knowledge or belief. You do not need to be perverted or misrepresented. I would not ask, in any opponent, any thing more perverted or more vulnerable than your defence of Universalism. It is, in my opinion, the grossest and most suicidal sophistry I ever read. I again reiterate every thing you say have misrepresented or perverted, and stand to every declaration I have made. I leave our readers to settle those matters. I shall only apprise them of your manner. You did unequivocally admit my syllogisms on the words Paradise, Heaven, Hell, &c.; at the same time saying they were wide of the mark.” Now you take these words, 'wide of the mark,' &c. and the Baron Swedenborg's correspondences to prove that you did not admit their truth! What a high regard you have for the common sense of our readers! Does not a child know that to say an allegation is wide of the mark, when there is no other objection to it other than its alleged irrelevance or impertinence, is no denial of its truth! You have never made an exception to the truth of those syllogisms. As to their relevancy our readers will decide for themselves. You have not even attempted to disprove them. I now say you cannot detect in them the slightest error or irrelevancy.

3-A similar trick is discoverable in your 4th paragraph. There you substitute certain phrases for the word Gehenna, &c. and say what I asked for these, I asked for the word Gehenna by itself! In the 5th also you make me misrepresent Mr. Balfour. It is you, sir, that mis

represent my quotation. You substitute my inference from his words, for the words themselves, which I did directly quote from him!

4-This is only surpassed by your foisting two clauses into a dogma (par. 7.) to show that I did not quote it fairly or comment on it truly! These you say "are my very words." They are not, pardon me, your "very words" quoted from the 38th page of your Magazine, and do not express the same idea; for you now confess you have inserted two dauses. They are not, however, in my judgment, any better for being Inended. To talk about Divine Justice being satisfied with penitence and reformation, is placing it below our legal justice. If a man kill his neighbor, and repent and amend his ways, this satisfies the justice of no human law!!! There is not, sir, a civilized court in any country that would sustain your doctrine, or say that this reformed wretch "has been punished according to the full demerit of the crime." And this being your only punishment for sin, I re-assert that your dogma makes repentance the only punishment-the only hell.

5 It would seem from the recklessness of your assertions, accusations, and denials, together with the coarseness of your vulgarity as expressed at the close of your seventh paragraph, that you intended to browbeat me off the arena. This may be the best defence of Universaism you can offer; but to get into a passion and rail with you is not the best exposition of its folly and rueful consequences which I have to offer. If you are the personification of the good sense, logic, and courtesy of Universalism, I was in error in not believing those who told me that I would never find a gentlemanly defender of your system. 1 shall henceforth. until you mend your manners, address you merely as the champion of Universalism, without any of the usual compliments of personal respect,

6-There is nothing that demands any special notice till your 18th paragraph. You make short work of my recapitulation of the acceptation of Gehenna, evading every point or passing it with a mere denial or assertion. It is true that in your 13th paragraph you seem to concede, a great deal; but you will doubtless deny it, if I should hold you to it. You say 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; and you add, that since your religious opinions were formed (how long since you do not affirm!) you are "a firm believer in the doctrine of future punishment." It is the first I have heard of it, unless you mean by "future punishment" a day or two after the sin is committed. Where have you, sir, published to the world that you believe in an after death Gehenna, punishment, but not of endless duration? Name the book, if you please, or the paper in which I shall find it thus written. You will excuse me for regarding this as deceptious till I see it in print.

7-But you add, "the doctrine of endless misery," [dreadful idea!] "if true, transforms the Divinity into a fiend! clothes heaven in sackcloth, and fills the universe with sighs and tears. To prove this horrid doctrine, sir, is the task you have assigned yourself!" What shall we call this?-an anathema, a blasphemy, a flourish, a bugbear, or a Universalian argument!! This, if there be any sense in it, is just as applicable to your future punishment as mine: for if the Deity made his own Son an offering for sin, and yet punishes those whom he pardons only

one hundred years in your Gehenna, no mortal can justify his ways. I dare not say what you have said about transforming the Divinity. Forbid it, Heaven! I will quote the Messiah, who said that "he that is unjust in little is unjust in much." Of this, however, at another time.

<

8-Before noticing your new argument, par. 18, I should remark on your 15th paragraph, that you seem to have got an advantage of me in the phrase present time. 1 quoted it, "Shall receive a hundred fold more in the present life, and in the world to come eternal life." You glory in this correction. I quoted from memory, in a steam-boat cabin full of passengers talking round me, having with me a Greek Testament to which I did not always look, for my memory in those matters is generally faithful. And it seems I committed several other errors of which you have convicted me: I mistook or miscounted the proper number of our letters, putting XI. for XII and X. for IX., &c. &c. Yet, after all, the difference between "a hundred fold more in this present time" and in "this present life," goes but a short way in proving your allegation. But you wish to have it read "a hundred fold more in the Jewish age, and in the Christian age eternal life!!!' This is too ridiculous for a grave reply.

9-You say that Dr. A. Clarke and other critics admit that sometimes mellvon aioon and outos aioon meant the two dispensations. You might have quoted the New Version also in your favor in that case. But, sir, you cannot produce one critic out of your ranks (and I never read of one in them) that ever taught that in these passages it means any thing else than the present life and the future. All your critics quoted are perverted if you intended them to favor your ideas on this passage: FOR NOT ONE OF THEM SUPPORTS YOUR GLOSS.

10-1 come now to the only point in this letter that is new. My 6th argument in proof that Gehenna or Hell cannot refer to any temporal punishment in the New Testament acceptation of it, is drawn from the fact that neither Jesus nor his Apostles did at any time threaten temporal, physical, or corporeal punishment to those who disobeyed the gospel. And how is this very weighty argument met? You prescribe the reading of certain scriptures concerning the calamities coming on the Jewish people for their accumulated crimes; the case of Ananias and Sapphira; the chastisement of the Corinthians for abusing the Lord's supper; and Paul's delivering Hymeneus and Philetus to Satan for their contumacy!! And this is the proof that the Lord and his Apostles did threaten bodily punishment or temporal sorrows in the Valley of Hinnom or some other place, to those who would not obey the gospel! Not one of these reach within a thousand miles of the point. Temporal punishments and chastisements are very common matters in the divine administration from the days of Cain down to the present time. But all the intelligent know that temporal rewards and temporal punishments, temporal blessings and cursings in the basket, store, family, field, and persons of the Jews, were the sanctions of that dispensation. But under the gospel age there are no such sanctions—not riches, wealth, health, nor prosperity for obeying; not poverty, sickness, or temporal calamities for disobeying the gospel. Christ's sanctions are, "He that believeth not shall be condemned”—not cursed with blasting, mildew, or locusts, or the Valley of Hinnom-They that "obey not the gospel

shall be punished with an everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord"-not with the loss of health, wealth, goods, or chattels. "Behold, you despisers, and wonder and perish," was Paul's finale"Be converted that your sins may be blotted out," was Peter's argument. In no case was any temporal inducement or threatening urged as a reason of obeying the gospel. I will only add, that your evading the antithesis of "entering into life and being cast into hell, into the everlasting fire," leaves on record against you one of the most immuable and general laws of language-viz. the words on both sides of an antithesis are taken in the same extent of meaning. From all which, I ask, may we not conclude, that my six arguments in proof that Gehenna, in its New Testament associations, and antithesis with future bliss and eternal life, does most certainly and unanswerably mean future and everlasting punishment, all remain in pristine vigor: you having now assailed formally only one of them, and that evidently without perceiving the point of it? So endeth the first proposition.

11-Your letter No. XI. (miscalled No. X.) is upon aioon and aioonios. Your first assumption, par. 6, on this subject, is, that aioon, compounded of aei, always, and oon, being, cannot mean endless duration; because that oon by itself signifies not duration, but being; and aei signifies not "endlessly." but "continuity"! You quote eight places (par. 7.) where aei occurs in the New Testament; and I appeal to the reader whether aci does not in every one of them mean duration endless as the subject with which it is connected. "You do always (aei) resist the Holy Spirit;" "Always rejoicing;" "They do always err;" "Be always ready," &c. &c. The Scotch or English word aye, always, is this word aei anglicised. Now if there be any word that necessarily and essentially represents endless duration, it is the word aioon, always, being.

12-You say you find aivon the substantive 127 times; while I count it only 103 times in the New Testament. I count the phrases where it occurs you count the word although it should occur twice in one clause of a sentence. This explains the difference. Five of your 127 are spurious, but for this I care not. You add, "It is translated by the word 'ever' 71 times, and by the word 'never' 7 times." This is a mistake: aioon is never translated never. There is a negative particle with it. You ought to have said, it is translated in the New Testament 78 times ever, three times evermore, twice eternal, and world without end once-84 times equivalent to eternal; and "world 36 times, worlds twice, ages twice, course once, and left untranslated twice." Very particular indeed! Mind, then, it is never translated once a limited time, or a part of any given duration; but on all occasions extends to the full limits of the subject.

13-You also say you count aionios seventy-one times, and that it is translated 'eternal' forty-two times, 'everlasting' twenty-five times, 'ever' once, and 'world' three times. I have not time to contest your enumeration; it is sufficiently accurate for my purpose-only that it is never, by itself, translated world. "Before the world was," pro chronon aionion, is from eternity.

14-But, sir, your manœuvre (par. 8) in substituting eternity or eternities for aioon, is too preposterous for a school-boy. Certainly you intended that for your special friends, who know as much of criticism

1

as of the philosopher's stone. But now, with your own data as to the number of occurrences and the common version of them, I have to submit a few facts and reasonings. And first of aioon:

15-This word occurs, you say, 127 times. Now of these referring to God, or Christ, to his own being, perfections, and praises, we have it rendered 36 times forever' or 'forever and ever'-such as Rev. x. 6. "Swear by him that liveth forever and ever." Rom. ix. 5. "God over all, blessed forever." xi. 36. "To whom be glory forever." Rev. i. 18. "Behold I live forever and ever." I formerly noted these at 22, because in 15 of these phrases the word occurs twice; but on your count I now put them down 36. Now, sir, if in this case this word does not denote endless duration, no word can do it, or rather there is no such thing!

16-But in reference to the future state of the righteous, we have this same phrase or word translated forever and ever in the following instances: John vi. 51. "If any one eat of this bread he shall live forever." viii. 51. "If any one keep my word he shall never see death." x. 28. "They shall never perish." "He that doeth the will of God abideth forever." 1 John ii. 17: vi. 58: viii. 52; xi. 26: 2 Cor. ix. 9: Rev. xxii 5. Of this sort there are ten occurrences. Besides these, it is translated 38 times ever,' 'forever,' and 'forever and ever'-making in all 84 times.

17-In reference to the punishment of the wicked, it occurs eight times in five passages-2 Peter. "To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." Jude, ver. 13: Rev. xiv. 11: xix. 13: xxi. 10. "And they shall be tormented continually, forever and ever;" or, as you say, for eternities of eternities.

18--Now, waiving the figurative uses of this word, we have got it thirty-six times applied to God and Christ, to their glory and praise; ten times to the future state of the righteous, and eight times to the future state of the wicked. I ask, then, by what rule or law of languagewhat canon of criticism, or for what reason do you conclude that when it is applied to God, to his perfections, to his praise, to the righteous portion of our race in the future state, it should always signify endless, forever and ever, in the most unlimited sense; and not have the same signification when applied to the future state of the wicked, but always in their case mean ending or for a limited time!! I put this question with the utmost confidence that it never can be, because it never was, satisfactorily answered by any Universalist.

19-But I have not half done with aioon yet. I have lying before me the Septuagint version of the Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible itself, and proceed to state a few facts for which I hold myself responsible:

1st. We find olem or oulm, in some of its variations, more than three hundred, say three hundred and ten times, in the Hebrew Old Testament. In all these instances, with comparatively a very few exceptions, it is used to express unlimited time or a period without end.

2d. I find also that in the Septuagint aioon in some of its flexions is found more than 320 times, from 320 to 328. In more than three hundred of these it represents the Hebrew oulin, and, as yourself admit, it fairly represents it.

3d. I was about to state that this word, as well as aionios, frequently occurs in the Apocryphal books; but by an interpretation of our rules of