world to come? Not the fact, that all are brought to repentance in this life, for it does not exist. Not that God has given a law to men which requires universal obedience; for this law is trampled under foot of the rebel; obedience to it is not universal here, and may not be hereafter. Not the fact, that God has given his Son to die for men, for all men,—since a universal atonement only renders salvation possible, while universal compliance with the terins of divine grace will render it certain.

Is it then the fact, that sin is counteracted and made to subserve, in various ways, the high ends of a moral kingdom already in revolt? Certainly not; for such counteraction is far from being general and complete here, and may not be hereafter. Does this assurance then exist in the fact, that God, in his infinite benevolence, desires the happiness of all intelligent beings, and prefers their holiness to their siu, in every case in which sin takes place? This is indeed true, he does so; but that benevolence is as expansive now as it ever will be, and yet sin reigns. It may do so forever. If a necessary good in one state, it may be in another.

We cheerfully admit, that it is God's pleasure and purpose, that all men should come to repentance and obedience, and thus to salvation, rather than sin and die. But there may be, we conceive, a well established distinction between such a benevolent desire, or purpose of man's salvation, and an effectual purpose to secure it, or that it shall be so. We are aware that Universalists deny this distinction. Yet it is one of the plainest and most important facts in mental phenomena. The distinction is too plain, too obvious and unquestionable, as the dictate of common-sense, to be seriously doubted, not to say denied.

Having made this allusion to the distinction between such a preference or purpose and an effectual purpose, we are at issue respecting the extent of the divine purposes in connection with the salvation of men, and the existence and disposal of sin. In what sense, as the means to that end, does God purpose moral evil, and for what reasons? Does he purpose it as an ultimate end or good in itself; or, as the necessary means to some ultimate end, of a good, higher in nature and greater in degree than could have existed without it; or, lastly, as incidental, in respect to divine prevention, to a moral system? As to the first of these inquiries, there can be no room for difference among such as admit God's benevolence. As to the second, it may be observed, that though it involves the theory of the supra-lapsarians and of our author, it is sustained by different modes of reasoning by him and them. They contend, that God has rejected the idea of a holy universe for one in which there is sin, for the purpose of developing his attributes and securing his declarative glory in acts of redemption and retribution. Justice and mercy require, for their best display, to be seen in the

everlasting punishment of some, and the everlasting deliverance of others. Thus the world is made more happy and glorious than it would be without it. To secure the sin, and thus insure the display of himself, God, by an agency designed and certain, leads off multitudes to sin, and for sin thus taking place, consigns them to the woes of a ruined eternity.

Dr. Smith, perceiving the manifest absurdity and injustice of such a procedure, and taking, as he supposed, the only remaining view of the divine purposes in relation to sin, adopts the notion, that punishment is only corrective; that it would be unjust in God to form creatures,-lead them off into sin, and then punish them for mere purposes of display. Hence springs his view, that the tragic scene of sin and its punishment, will wind up in the restoration of all men to holiness and happiness. On the assumption, that God, by a mere arbitrary act of choice, rejects a universe of perfect holiness, and fastens upon one of sin; because he can exhibit himself and encircle his throne with glory, from acts of punishment not demanded to secure the best results possible to him in a moral system; and that, by direct or indirect causation, he produces sin in the hearts of his creatures, so that he may have the occasion to execute upon them the sentence of eternal condemnation for any end whatever,—we wonder not that men should hold punishment to be wholly disciplinary, and believe in the final restoration of all to happiness. It is a scheme of difficulties from which no subtilty of metaphysics can ever extricate it. It must ever present God, in his efficient purposes, turning the conduct of his creatures against the precepts of his law; as insincere in the original inculcation of his will, which indicates a desire that all his subjects continue obedient; and also insincere in the universal invitation given to all to return to duty; as inconsistent, moreover, forbidding sin as an evil in itself, but securing it as good, on the whole; for one reason only forbidding, and for many securing it.

The position, that God purposes sin directly, and produces it efficiently, is equally against the precept of his law and the benevolence of his heart, and we may add, too, the entire arrangements of his providence. Suppose his creatures, the subjects of his government, receiving his law and honestly interpreting it, were nobly to resolve, one and all, to do as he commands them, on the tremendous sanction of life and death; were they ingenuously to come up to the work of obedience? What then? Why, they would cross and defeat the designs of boundless love to bless the world through the medium of sin and the acts of redemption. A world of universal holiness would be a world of stinted happiness! Why, then, urge on the mighty effort for the entire conversion of the world? Why labor, and pray, and preach, and toil, and suf

fer and die, for a lesser good? Why do this, when, if nothing at all is done, God will overrule the abounding sin in the world to greater glory and greater happiness than if you had toiled harder, and been instrumental of producing more holiness? The theory of Dr. Smith, and of the supra-lapsarian, is, that just at that point at which the world stands in its advance toward universal holiness, God can do better with it than at any other! What motive is there to move onward in the enterprise of holiness and happiness; for there God secures the maximum of his glory. And who is there, that is not bound to make the glory of God the ultimate aim of his being, and to do such deeds as are indispensable to reach that end? We say indispensable; for it is stoutly affirmed, that it would be beyond a possibility for God to reach the end in view, without the sin as the means. If, now, the glory of God is best secured by sin, and by just that amount of it which will actually exist in the world, more glory than would be attainable by the prevalence of universal holiness,--and creatures know this in their day of probation,--for what should he punish them in the result? Not for lack of obedience; for that very obedience, if rendered, would become the inevitable means of diminishing his glory. On this scheme, sinners who go to perdition will certainly be left with this reflection, that they gave God the best possible occasion to glorify himself. What if they did not mean good by it? Such has been the unavoidable result.

Dr. Smith's theory is, that a man is made miserable that he may be made happy, and he is made sinful that he may be made miserable. God designs the sin for the sake of the misery, and the misery for the sake of the happiness. The sin and the misery are the necessary and only indispensable means of happiness. He supposes God, from eternity, fixed upon the final happiness of all the intelligent beings whom he should create, then resolved what their conduct should be to secure it, and next proceeded to use with them the measures necessary to secure that conduct.

We have questioned or author's assumption, that God, in the exercise of his benevolence, could fix upon nothing but the final, perfect happiness of all his intelligent creatures, and endeavored to show, that his doctrine of efficiency to secure the certainty of action, is ill-suited to a moral government; and that his analogical reasonings fail to substantiate his assumptions. We have yet some further remarks to make on the use he makes of sin and its punishment, in aid of his main position. We have said nothing of the repeated assertions, that a thing must be so, and therefore it is so, a very summary, and with many a very conclusive, mode of pretending to reason. The work under review abounds in gross misrepresentations and false principles. Take the definition of punishment: "Punishment is the infliction of pain in consequence

of a neglect or violation of duty, with a view to correct the evil;" and the paraphrase upon it, "That all punishment inflicted upon offenders in the present state is corrective, is universally acknowledged."

Our author, when he made this assertion, was living in a country where capital punishments were far more frequent than in ours. Is capital punishment universally acknowledged to be corrective? Is its only influence that of reforming the had? Has it no effect to prevent transgression as well as to reform the offender? Or would he, hard pressed, say, that all the punishment which the Deity inflicts in this life is corrective? How would be explain those judgments, that strike down the noble fabric of reason in man, destroying at a blow the possibility of reformation of the past? How would he interpret those others, which, without warning, usher thousands and tens of thousands, into the world to come? Are these punishments, in this life, corrective? See yonder image of God, immured in a dungeon or subjected to pain, for the whole term of his earthly existence. Why is he there? That he may have space for repentance, and not lose his immortality by an untimely exit from a probationary state? This takes it for granted, that the world to come is one of retribution only. Were a fellow-mortal only transferred by death from one scene of probation to another, and the latter better suited to the work of moral reform than the former, (as the future state must be to answer the purposes of universal reformation,) how does it appear so unjust and cruel, that life should go for life? But why extend the term of imprisonment through life? Why not limit it to the period of reformation, and then grant a release, if punishment is mainly disciplinary? Most manifestly because the leading design of punishment is protection and prevention as well as correction. Punishment upholds law, law upholds government, and government upheld, guarantees rights, immunities and privileges to subjects. Punishment is thus designed to protect subjects, and prevent transgression. Remove penalty from law, and it is no longer law. It is mere advice, which the subject may regard or not, as he pleases. The sanctions of law are what give force to the precept. Remove them, and you prostrate moral government. Pervert them, and you diminish the excellence of the government. Hence it follows, that the enforcing of obedience by means of threatened evil as a motive, is as truly a measure of benevolence as the conferring of reward. These are common-sense principles, and if not universally acknowledged in theory, they are so in practice. In relation to the moral government of God, its impressive sanctions all look in the direction of obedience, all tend to secure obedience. They are prospective and designed for good. In themselves they never contemplate a remedy for transgression. To secure the anticipaVOL. VIII. 13

ted results of obedience, reason teaches, that they should be such as carry up the good to be secured to the highest amount possible, and for this end should be as impressive as possible. The government of God is one, his law is one, and extends over all rational and accountable subjects. We have no reason to conclude, that the moral government of God is less extensive than his natural, the latter being manifestly only subordinate to the former. Who but the being at the head of such an administration shall decide what sanctions are necessary to secure obedience in the highest degree, and thus the highest amount of good possible to him in the nature of the case. Who can tell, taking in the immensity of his government, that the measure of an endless punishment may not be as necessary as imprisonment for life here, and for the same reasons?

Our author assumes, that

It is inconsistent with goodness to give existence to any creature, without making that existence upon the whole a good to him.' p. 209.

This is in accordance with his theory of sin, and the mode of securing it, to wit, by what is virtually a direct efficient agency. We readily confess, that we are unable to conceive of infinite wisdom and power combining to secure by such an agency in dependent creatures, conduct which shall result in ill-desert enough to render eternal misery just and equitable. If God secures sin by such special design, and irresistible power, how can his creatures accord righteousness to the sentence that dooms them to endless woes?

We say, confidently, that on all the received principles of righteousness, in conduct, if sin is produced by such a direct divine efficiency, and as a means of greater good than holiness in its stead, whether it be by power objective or internal, the Most High is bound to close the drama of earth with the admission of all mankind to the felicities of the heavenly state. But why should the doctrinal facts of divine revelation be thus incumbered with the false theories of men?

We might here too complain of Dr. Smith's misrepresentations. He charges upon such as advocate the doctrine of endless punishment, the belief, that by far the greater part of mankind will undergo it. But who advocates such a sentiment? Do the evangelical divines of this or any other country so teach? On the contrary, do they not believe, that by far the greater part of the race, taken as a whole, will be saved? Do they not hold that infants will be saved, and thus, that a large portion of the human family will be saved? Do they not believe, that in the final result, a vast majori ty even of adults will be saved?

Another assumption which adds nothing to the plain scriptural view of the doctrine of retribution is, that the wicked will go on