place at the time, wrong was perpetrated, and consist in the "terrible compunctions of conscience," when at that time. he had a pleasing satisfaction that he had done right, and felt no sorrow, regret, or inconvenience from the act? But at a time, perhaps years subsequent, when he became convinced of his error, he felt stinging remorse for his wrong doing, and exercised a godly sorrow for the act. This is not an improbable case, but only one among a thousand. It is sufficient to show the fallacy of the above position. But how many pamper their lusts, feed their basest passions, cut loose from every moral restraint, flaunt along on the theatre of fashion; and all this, to drink the cup of pleasure. Vice to them affords more gratification than the practice of virtue-profane language than the solemn voice of prayer-the promotion of ungodliness and irreligion than the prevalence of vital religion. Not only do they find more comfort in pursuits which heaven disapproves than in those things which God approbates: but even in the act of sin, they realize more pleasure than the pain and misery of punishment, so that, upon the whole, they prefer folly to virtue. These are stubborn facts and cannot be caviled away. If so, where shall we find punishment just and adequate for crime? Verily, not at the time of sin, nor in its consequences.

This position of Universalism is sufficient to encourage the wicked in the grossest immoralities of a fallen world; it stimulates to the most barbarous atrocities, as well as to the most fashionable modes of sin and reveling; therefore it cannot consist with truth and the arrangements of God. Even all the benefits Universalism promises, namely, to reform and ennoble human nature, are frustrated through the influence of this doctrine alone. And where can we concoct a speculative principle more ruinous and sweeping in its career than this? It repeals all civil and divine law,

enacted for the government and punishment of man. It annihilates all civil and judicial tribunals, or brands them as unjust and useless. It criminates the dealings of God in punishing the vile, overturning nations, burning cities and deluging the world, in tearing up and throwing down the conspiracies of giant men, if all punishment grows out of and only lives during the act of sin. It brands the forbearance and long suffering of God, in executing his threatenings, with hollow-heartedness; for so soon as the act of sin is past, all occasion for punishment has transpired. Yea, all his threatenings are a sham, a pretence too base to be attributed to the holy God of heaven and earth. Who then can accede to such monstrous positions, or be persuaded by such fallacious reasoning?

If it be false, that sin and punishment begin and end together, then the suicide, the murdering robber murdered, the avenged plasphemer, and the dying drunkard, must receive an adequate punishment subsequent to the extinction of life. Yea, the Bible teaches that all who die, impenitent and unforgiven, must suffer the penal inflictions of God in the future state.

Others wish to press natural death into the service of inflicting punishment for sin, or that death is punishment for sin, in order to evade the necessity of future punishment. We are sensible that the errorist will grasp for a shadow, in order to save a sinking cause-he will jumble together the most obvious incongruities. Let us place a few of their doctrines in juxta-position, with a view to show their utte hostility to each other and the impossibility of their reconciliation. Universalism teaches that all punishment grows out of sin, and ceases with the act of sinning-they begin and end together; and that punishment originates from no other source than from sin, it lives and moves in this alone; therefore there is no positive punishment inflicted by God.

Universalism teaches that natural death does not result from sin, but that man was originally created mortal. Yet when the circumstances of the death of the wicked, are such as to preclude the possibility of their receiving adequate punishment for sin, and consequently a stern necessity exists for future punishment; natural death is talked of as the just punishment of crime; when, at the same time, punishment is the result of sin, and natural death is not only, not the effect of sin, but dependent wholly on God for existence. How then can death natural, be the punishment of the suicide and others? The natural consequences of sin are combined in punishment, and while natural death is no result of sin, how can it form an ingredient in punishment, or constitute the whole of the punishment of certain sins?

Indeed, if natural death be punishment, then the righteous and innocent children, suffer the same misery the suicide does-yea, even more; while the former endure protracted illness, pain and spasms; the latter from health passes through death in a moment. The loss of life is no greater sacrifice to the villain, if there is no future punishment, than to Paul, or Peter. Verily, instead of a loss and punishment for crime, death itself becomes his infinite gain; for by death he is delivered from a world of sorrow and sin, and introduced into the regions of holiness, and perfect beauty and joy.

Reason affords another powerful and conclusive argument in favor of the necessity of future punishment, in order that the sinner may reap all his sins deserve. Reason teaches us that the works and influence of men do not cease at death. The labors of Paul, of Peter, of a Luther and a Melancthon, of a Wesley and a Whitefield, and other blessed advocates of gospel truth, are still felt in the world for good-their influence and works move forward, on the broad platform of time, with a rising, spreading glory. The

pious effusions of a Baxter, and the parabolic labors of a Bunyan, are sanctified to the hearts of many, while their bones have mingled with the dust. Shall they lose their reward? Reason declares no; and this is a declaration which will find an approving response in every upright heart.

But where are the labors and influence, scattered upon the rapid wings of time, of a Voltaire, a Diderot, a Hume, a Bolingbroke, a Gibbon, a Paine, and a Robespierre ? Have they all ceased, and been rocked into inactivity in their mouldering graves? Has their blasting influence been benumbed by the chilling doctrine they advocated? While, like the Arabian sirocco, their labor and pamphleteering. withered the joys of religion, the saving virtue of the man of Calvary, and produced spasmodic death to every thing lovely and heavenly over which they exerted a controlling influence. Like the millstone dropped from the cloud into the sea, after it is ingulfed and lies inactive in the hidden sand, the circular waves move onward till they dash against the rock-bound coast and the pebbled beach; so with the infidel band in the moral world. After their bodies lie motionless in the marbled sepulchre, their books and productions are thrown broad-cast over the land, to wither, pollute and desWhere does the first and chief responsibility of all this rest? If on these men, how shall they be justly and adequately punished for all the sins to which they are accessory, provided there be no future punishment? The voice comes up the chilling, heart-rending voice-from every land, metropolis, city, village, hamlet, neighborhood, from the mountain heights, the valleys deep, the prairie plain, the warbling brook, the dens and caves, wherever their books have been and are found, and their influence felt, that pronounces a curse upon their heart and head, and demands the future as the only suitable harvest-field for them to reap the due reward of their deeds.

3. The promptings of conscience in all ages and among all nations, afford a presumptive proof, that there will be a future punishment. That a belief of future rewards and punishments exists among all nations and kindred of the earth, and is proclaimed by loud profession, by heathen rites and ceremonies, is so evident as to challenge a denial; and that it originates mainly, among those unblest with revelation, in the teachings of conscience, is more than probable. If there be, therefore, no future punishment, why is the soul so constructed, that in its candid reflections and soliloquizing, it speaks so earnestly and demands attention to this subject-and that too, at times, under a heavy pressure of external corruption and degradation? The answer is spoken in every heart; why follow its dictates. It will assign the true reason, why Belshazzar, in the midst of festivity and his royal banquet, turned pale and his knees smote together. He was conscious of his wickedness and sacrilege in polluting the vessels of the Lord, and he dreaded to meet a just and holy God. Tiberius, the Roman emperor, Antiochus Epiphanes, the destroyer of Jerusalem and of the people of Israel,-Herod, the tyrant who butchered the infants of Bethlehem,-Charles IX. who ordered and assisted in the bloody massacre of Bartholomew, all lived and died, distracted with horrid feelings and the dark forebodings of the future.

The poet has truly said:

"Conscience, the torturer of the soul, unseen,
Does fiercely brandish a sharp scourge within.
Severe decrees may keep our tongues in awe,
But to our thoughts, what edict can give law ?"

4. The Scriptures most evidently teach the doctrine of future punishment.