positiveness his interpretatton of them; but he has offered no new reasons. True, he asserts on one passage, "I understand the language of Christ to imply that all who are drawn by the Father will and do come to Christ. Mr. Campbell believes one man is as much drawn as another." Now I believe neither the one nor the other. But Mr. Lynd I imagine thinks (but he thinks very superficially) that it must be so. I neither believe nor teach so. Many are drawn by the Father that do not come to Christ in some sense of the word drawn; and perhaps no two persons are equally drawn, all things considered; for then their obedience would be precisely equal.

Mr. Lynd talks about my changing the proposition. I confess I know not what to think of this. He talks of "policy in war"! Stili more strange. Next he challenges me: "I now affirm, and stand prepared to prove, that Mr. Campbell's view of divine influence over throws the leading and fundamental doctrines of redemption." What stress of weather drove my friend into this port I pretend not to say; but really he speaks like one who had "lost his reckoning," or, at least the thread of his discourse. Well now, let me tell Mr. Lynd very respectfully, that I shall endeavor to meet him on that ground; or, in one word, that I accept his challenge, and shall propose the rules of discussion as soon as I finish this review.

manner.

Mr. Campbell does not "confound fact or theory in a most singular But Mr. Lynd appears not to perceive that he is either sporting or manoeuvring with the words theory and fact as he uses them. It is a fact that he represents one fact under the name of a theory because it explains another fact; and from this special use of the word argues against its general meaning. Really, this looks like as if the end sanctified the means, or as if all wrongs were right in war! I again repeat that the incomprehensibility of a theory always nullifies it. Who would give a farthing for an explanation of a fact that was as incomprehensible as the fact itself? And what is a theory but a view or an explanation? Mr. Lynd's theory resembles one showing a fine landscape, in a moonless and starless night, to a person who never saw it before. I repeat all that I said about theory and fact, as true to the letter.

The fact of spiritual influence I admit most unequivocally. I believe that no one unborn of the Spirit and of water can be a constitutional citizen of Christ's kingdom. I believe the fact that the Spirit of God is the direct and immediate author of all good in us; and yet I do cordially reject my friend Mr. Lynd's theory of faith, regeneration, and the new birth, as unscriptural, irrational, and injurious to society. Like a thousand others, he justifies the incomprehensibility of his own

theory by a very palpable though oft-repeated misconception of these words: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." His, and the popular interpretation is, that the new birth and the movements of the wind are alike inysterious and inscrutable. But Jesus did not say, So is the new birth; but "So is every one born of the Spirit" unknown to thee, Nicodemus. You neither know the genius of the dispensation of the Spirit, the constitution of my kingdom, nor the nature of the citizens thereof. To what verb is the phrase, "so is every one born of the Spirit"—the nominative case? The grammatical construction repudi ates the use Mr. L. and others make of this passage.

A. C.

1440

Mr. Campbell to Mr. Skinner.

No. XXX.

BETHANY, Va. August 1, 1883 Sir-YOUR grand proposition is, that "eternal life (meaning holiness and happiness) shall be the ultimate destiny of all mankind." This you were to prove from the Bible. Your proposition is not single, but compound. You admit that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." Hence you have to prove that all men will ultimately be holy. But multitudes, you also are obliged to admit, live and die in their sins, unrighteous and unholy: consequently, you have also to prove from THE Book, that all who live and die unholy and profane, shall be made holy after death. Both of these points being established, it remains for to prove that all men shall be finally happy.

you

2-Now, instead of dividing the proposition and proving the predicates separately. you are attempting, contrary to all the rules of reason, to prove a compound proposition by texts that neither name, nor even allude to, any one of the predicates you have laid down. Should you even prove one of the predicates it does not necessarily follow that the other is also proved. You remind me of one who said he could prove his system from every text in the Bible: so you can prove Universalism by a hundred texts that never allude to the subject. To quote the scriptures with your license, is summarily to hand me the Bible and say that in the aggregate it proves every thing you affirm.

3-Universalists seem not to be aware of this sophistry; for I never saw them quote a verse to prove their predicates separately-as, for instance, that all men shall finally be holy. They reason as if the assertion of the one point proves the other. The proof of universal happiness is universal holiness, and the proof of universal holiness is universal happiness, seems to be your favorite circle. You move in this circle; for in all your quotations you have not presumed to adduce a single text in proof of the final holiness of all mankind.

4-Your "thus saith the Lord" is, "Thus saith Mr. Skinner' on some scrap of disjointed scripture. For example, in Letter XXVII. you

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You quote

say "God is the rightful owner and proprietor of all men.' the Lord as saying, "All souls are mine." Then, says Mr. Skinner, "he cannot suffer his property to be irrevocably lost." Lost for a time he may suffer it, but not irrevocably! This is one of your scripture proofs, from which you infer the ultimate salvation of all; and this inference you call a thus saith the Lord. Well, are not all sheep and cattle the Lord's? Does this prove their final salvation!

5-Another of your direct proofs (Nos. 14, 15, 16,) is the promise that the heathen people were to be given to Christ "for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession." Another"When lifted up on the cross Christ would draw all men to him." Another "That he would give eternal life to as many as were given him," &c. &c. Do any of these texts affirm the ultimate holiness and happiness of every man? Christ has been long since lifted up: has he now drawn all men to him? The heathen are now his inheritance: are they every soul converted, or will they universally become holy? Where is the proof in these scriptures? As well might you affirm that when Paul said to the Collossians he "warned every man and taught every man, that he might present every man perfect in Christ Jesus," he meant every son of Adam. Did he mean every son of Adam, or did he mean every one of a certain class, or place, or number! Your answer to this will refute all your scripture quotations.

6-You rely upon the universality of certain words in all these passages. Well, we shall give you another specimen: "Behold the world is gone after him." John xii. "Your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world." Rom. i. "All the world wondered after the beast." Rev. xiii. 3. Do the phrases "the world," "the whole world," and "all the world," mean every son of Adam, or some of all classes, or the whole of one class. Answer as you please your answer is mine to your quotations.

7—As you have not yet replied to my last three letters, I shall go on to prove still farther the negative of your proposition. This I will attempt by adducing a few illustrations and proofs of the following proposition:-The language and style of the Bible are at war with Universalism.

8-Example 1st. You say that after death, or at most after the final judgment, all men will be made holy and righteous. Now the last intimation of the sayings of the Judge, found in the Apocalypse, flatly and directly contradict this: for after the final judgment he will say, "He that is unjust [then] let him be unjust still [or forever;] and he that is filthy let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous let him be righteous still; and he that is holy let him be holy still." Rev. xxii. 11. Where now your universal holiness! There are some unjust, filthy, unrighteous, and unholy persons after the final adjudication, according to John. They are, then, not all holy.

9-Example 2d. In describing the New Jerusalem state John farther says, (xxi. 24.) "The nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it." Does not this imply that all will not be saved, or that only one class of mankind shall inhabit the heavenly Jerusalem?

10-Example 2d. "They shall enter into the heavenly city whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life." Can any thing more

plainly intimate that there are names not written in the Lamb's book of life, who shall not enter into the New Jerusalem?

11-Example 4th. "Blessed are they who do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city." Rev. xxii. 14. Can any words more fully evince that there are some who will not have right to the tree of life, and who cannot enter through the gates into the city?

12-Example 5th. "Without are dogs, sorcerers, whoremongers, murderers, idolators, and whoso loveth and inventeth a lie." Rev. xxii. 15. This may be called the last oracle of God concerning the ultimate destiny of mankind; and does not this intimate that there will be kept out of the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, a large portion of mankind?

13. Example 6th. "The elect of God." "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?" This phrase intimates that there are some who are not God's elect-some who are not blessed, pure in heart, or saved from their sins-against whom charges of condemnation may be brought. -From these specimens the readers of the Bible will be able to add hundreds of passages that designate the opposite characters, fortunes, and ultimate destinies of mankind, so plainly and so fully that it will require great ingenuity to pervert or misapply them.

14-Compare the point in such contrasts as these with the looseness of your inferences from scripture quotations: for example, one of your proof-texts, with which you cap a whole climax, is, "Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution (or accomplishment, as some of the learned render it,) of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy Prophets since the world began." (Close of Letter XXVII.) From this you argue the certain salvation of all mankind. Now what says the text? Christ must continue in heaven till the times of the accomplishment,'* or restitution, if you please, of all things which God has spoken by his Prophets from the beginning of time.' This proves that Christ will not again appear on earth till all the predictions of the Prophets concerning the church and the world shall be accomplished. From which you infer the restoration of the wicked out of hell, and their final holiness and happiness, although the Prophets in their thousand predictions have not once spoken of this subject.

15-Now, sir, let me say to you emphatically, that you cannot produce one text in proof of your compound proposition of final holiness and happiness that I cannot show to be as much perverted as this one; nay, you cannot produce one text that I cannot show to be a manifest wresting and perversion of scripture. Select one or two of your strongest texts, and put me to the proof. You need not tell me that you can produce one hundred: remember I only ask for one. If you can produce only one, that, fairly construed in its contextual meaning and the scope of the passage, affirms the final holiness, or the after-death reformation of wicked men, or the eternal happiness of mankind, I will give up the whole controversy.

16-You and "the destructionists" having concurred that endless

"To me," says Dr. George Campbell, "it is manifest that these words, The restitution of all things which God hath spoken by his Prophets, convey no meaning at all. Substitute accomplishment for restitution, and there remains not a vestige of difficulty or of impropriety in the sentence." See him on Matth. xvii. 11.

misery is unjust or unjustifiable, have had recourse to many expedients to explain away a thousand scriptures that confront your theories. You once said you were glad that I was not a destructionist: and why I could not conceive, unless you thought as some of my friends once seemed to think, that destructionism is more plausible or palatable than everlasting punishment. But, sir, I go for what is evidently the meaning of scripture, or whatever is true; not for what is most plausible or palatable. And however plausible the reasonings of Mr. Bourn of Birmingham, or those of the more deservedly celebrated John Taylor of Norwich, from whom destructionism has been imported into the United States, and once handsomely set forth in an anonymous pamphlet of my friend Henry Grew of Philadelphia, are now maintained by two or three of my acquaintance from whom I expected more good sense; I say, however commended to us as worthy of all acceptation, because more consonant to some men's theories of what is fitting for God and men, destructionism is to my mind just as repugnant to scripture language, right reason, and good logic, as your modified Restorationism or ultra Universalism.

17-The modified destructionism of Old England and of New England, as above noticed, is briefly told in two sentences:-"Eternal punishment does not mean," say they, "an eternal preservation in misery and torment; but a total extinction of being. The sentence of destruction, or annihilation, or total extinction of consciousness, shall be preceded with more or less torment proportioned to the greater or less guilt of the criminal." This, with these benevolent spirits, is everlasting punishment, everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, the fire that is never quenched, the worm that never dies, the true contrast with eternal life. Dr. Watts' annihilation of infants is but a modification or special application of this very comprehensible and intelligible theory. Their end is destruction, or annihilation, or total extinction of consciousness, &c. &c. I have but one objection to this theory-and that is, that it makes the word of God of no effect so far as it presumes to sustain itself by its testimony.

18-With me punishment is pain, and everlasting punishment is everlasting pain, not an everlasting unconsciousness of pain, torment, or misery; for that, with me, is everlasting annihilation. Their system is suicidal, because they first say that everlasting punishment is everlasting annihilation or unconsciousness; and then unsay it by alleging that sinners are raised to life, are first tormented according to their works, and then destroyed or annihilated: so that with them, at one time, punishment or torment precedes destruction, and at another eternal punishment is eternal unconsciousness or destruction. If this be not a suicidal theory, there is none such.

19-To destroy the meaning of words is to destroy the Bible: for what is the Bible but words of fixed meaning? Unfix the meaning of these words, and where shall revelation be found! Now if punishment mean pain or torment, it cannot also mean unconsciousness; for an unconscious being cannot suffer pain. If there be everlasting punishment, there must be everlasting consciousness; in other words, there cannot be pain without feeling. No feeling, no pain, is a sure maxim. An everlasting destitution of feeling and everlasting punishment in the subject, is a contradiction in terms. Bible destruction is not, then, the