It subverts the doctrine of a future judgment. If all men suffer here the full penalty of the law, and are invariably and unconditionally admitted to an immediate participation of bliss, what need is there of a future judgment? Or on what grounds can a future judgment be justified? All have been punished to the full amount of their desert; there is no broken law to vindicate; and all are rewarded-for what, on this system, it is difficult to say.-Hence an attempt has been formally made to set aside the Judgment Day altogether, and to refer all that is said of Christ's second coming to judge the world in righteousness, to some especial manifestation of his power or glory in the present world.-It is acknowledged that the "coming of Christ" is sometimes spoken of in the most lofty figures, with reference to some illustrious display of his power in the present world, especially in the destruction of Jerusalem; but to give the phrase this application in every instance is absurd in the extreme. For instance let us consider the latter part of the 25th Chapter of St. Matthew:-a portion of scripture most violently wrested from its proper meaning by the licentious torturing of Modern Universalist-Criticism. "Modern Universalists refer all that is said in the 25th chapter of Matthew, respecting the final judgment, to the destruction of Jerusalem. But any one who knows the history of their treatment of this Chapter, can have no doubt that their present interpretation of it is only a shift to avoid the awful truths it flashes upon a guilty conscience. First, they would have it, that by the goats we are to understand the devils; next, the sins of mankind; last of all, neither; but the Jews-yes, the poor Jews are the goats, who, eighteen hundred years ago, were sent into everlasting fire, and have ever since been suffering there with the devil and his angels, who, by the way, according to Universalists are mere personifications, nonentities, nothing. Well, all this is about as wise, as

when they tell us that the Rich Man stands for the Auronic High Priest, and the pious beggar for the Gentiles; or that Judas' hanging himself, means only that he died by excess of pious grief; and his going to his own place, signifies only that he went to one of the twelve thrones on which the Apostles were to sit to judge the twelve tribes of Israel."!!! Truly, this original interpretation of these passages is worthy of the other profound discoveries of the nineteenth century; and we are not sure, but that, for its better preservation, it ought to be carefully folded in gold leaf, placed in a casket of mother of pearl, and sent to the land of curiosities and deposited in the British Museum! Seriously, can rational beings, with the entire Scriptures in their hands, really and sincerely believe this most ridiculous nonsense,-stuff, which would disgrace the intellect of almost the greatest simpleton that ever existed? The man, who can give credence to these more than Jewish Tales, and "prophane and old wives' fables," must have proclaimed a divorce between himself and his understanding, or is under the influence of that strong delusion,” which "because he will not believe the truth," leads him to "believe a lie."

We utterly deny that there is, in the whole of the 25th Chapter of Matthew, and especially in the last sixteen verses, the slightest reference imaginable to the destruction of the Jewish City and polity. In the latter event there is nothing to correspond with the description of the event which the Saviour predicts. "The Son of man

shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him." But, when Jerusalem was destroyed, did our Lord come in his glory, and were all the holy angels with him? "Then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory and before him shall be gathered all nations." "great white throne" appear in the heavens ? Jesus seated upon it ? Were all nations gathered before All of every kingdom and kindred and tongue ?

him?

Did the

And was

Were Adam-Eve-all of the antedeluvians there ? Were Noah, his sons, and all of their posterity who lived within a hundred years of the destruction of Jerusalem there? Were all the Romans there who lived under the reign of the last thirty Emperors ? Were all the Mahommedans, the Goths and Vandals-the Saxonsthe Ancient Britons-the Modern Europeans, Asiatics, Africans and Americans, there? Were we of the present day there? We can answer for ourselves, that we have no recollection of being at the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. If the present race of Universalists recollect of being personally present on this occasion, they have no reason to complain of short memories; and they will pardon us if we suggest that they might favour the world with an authentic history of the seige and its consequences, related by numerous eye-witnesses !— Again:-were all the posterity of the present generations of men, to the end of the world, at this scene of calamities and woes? All these, at least, form a part of "all nations ;" and if "all nations shall be gathered before the Son of man" and if the scene, described in the Chapter under review, refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, then all that we have mentioned must have been present:. -but absurdity is enstamped upon the unwarranted construction of Modern Universalism.

"And he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left." Was any such separation made at the time and place to which the Universalists refer these verses? Pray, on which hand were they placed? Did they rank with the sheep or the goats?" Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world -For I was an hungered, &c. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me, ye

"de

cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels -For I was an hungered, &c." : Now was there any thing in the destruction of Jerusalem to correspond with this part of the scene? Was there any such judicial scrutiny entered into, or judicial sentence passed at the event just mentioned? What was the "kingdom" which the "righteous" were to inherit?" The kingdom of grace? This they possessed before. The kingdom of glory? But mark, to enter upon this, they must be butchered by the Roman soldiery: We thought, however, that the righteous were to be " recompensed," not destroyed, "in the earth.” What was the "ever-lasting fire," into which the "wicked" were to part? The death of the body according to Modern Universalism. If so, then the devil and his angels must have had bodies; for this "everlasting fire" was originally "prepared" for them; and, as this punishment has been visited upon them, our opponents are consistent when they say the devil is dead! and that both he and his angels are nonentities! But if the death of the body be all that is meant by "the everlasting fire," why is this part of a sentence passed exclusively against the wicked? Is not death the portion of the righteous also ? must they not die before they can inherit the kingdom of glory? Would it not be equally proper to say to the righteous, "depart from me into everlasting fire ?" Again, if the death of the body be all that is intended by this denunciation, and if immediate happiness await the wicked hereafter, why does the Judge say to the wicked, depart from me ye cursed? Death does not cause them to be separated from Christ under his malediction, but brings them into his immediate presence to rejoice in his smile? When both the righteous and wicked must pass through death, and equal felicity awaits both in the future world, we certainly find it difficult, on the Modern Universalist principle, to account for the marked antithetical phrase

ology employed by our Lord-" COME unlo me YE BLESSED-DEPART from me YE CURSED "And these (the wicked) shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." Here the same remarks will apply; and the bearing of these awfully solemn words upon the destruction of Jerusalem, we candidly acknowledge, our penetration is not sufficiently acute to perceive. Nor let it be forgotten, that this sentence, either of acquittal or condemnation, will be passed upon "all nations "And if the scene described be made to refer only to the destruction of Jerusalem, then "all nations" prior and posterior to this event, have received their sentence, and thus the judgment truly is past;-the wicked portion of "all nations" have gone into everlasting punishment, in whatever this consists, and the righteous portion of "all nations" have gone into eternal life, in whatever this consists, and this nearly eighteen hundred years ago! So much for the folly, absurdity and falsity, of MODERN UNIVERSALISM. The 25th Chapter of Matthew is and ever will be an irrefragable proof of the utter incongruence of the Universalist-system with the Scripture doctrine of a FUTURE and FINAL JUDGMENT. "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him : the judgment was set and the books were opened." Dan. vii. 9. 10. "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened—and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according