If Christ is proved to be the end of the law, and the substance of the types, wich, by his own confession, is a doctrine which he believes in, and also has been paying attention to) how is it possible, in any 1 espect whatever, that they can clash with, or contradict each other?

MUST be very weak, if, while writing in a publication of which my opponent is the Editor, I should expect to have the last word.———————— When I have said what appears to me necessary on any point, and on the whole matter of dispute, I shall leave it to the judgment of the candid reader.

The reluctance, both on the part of Mr. Teulon and yourself, to acknowledge a manifest impropriety of conduct, affords but little hope of success in other matters. What a string of absurdities has he advanced, rather than speak a few plain words which ingenuousness would have dictated! Your Birmingham correspondent, to whom I was in a sort referred to settle a dispute, is not anonymous," because, forsooth, Mr. Teulon may know his name. He is a "lover of truth" too, because he is of the same opinion with himself.

Caution about inserting the supposed words of a preacher "must, depend upon circumstances:" circumstances then may exist which render caution unnecessary. "Truth should be the object of every address, whether from the press or the pulpit:" it is right, yea, generous, therefore, to publish reports without enquiring whether they be true or false.

"The whole of the two parties of Calvinists and Arminians have railed, reviled, and condemned, forgetting the question, Doth our law judge any man before it hear him?" Hence Mr. Teulon reasoned himself into a persuasion of the propriety of publishing a report concerning me without first giving me a hearing.

As to the evasions which you, Sir, have bad recourse to on this subject, they are too gross to need particular notice. The only reply I shall make is this —In a work of which you are the Editor, a falsehood has been published concerning me, and you have not honour enough about you to say you are sorry for it.

From any thing I had advanced, you had no ground to conclude that I formed an improper estimate of my own reputation. Any man who has been in the habit of writing, and whose writings have been at al

regarded by the public, must be possessed of some reputation; and whether it be small or great, it is his duty not to make use of it for the propagation of what he believes to be pernicious error.

"Truth (you say) courts the public observation of men ;" and so may error. If it be true that wisdom crieth in the top of high places, it is equally true, that folly is loud and stubborn. 'The advocates of infidelity, Sir, are not less bold than yourself, nor less loud in their hallenges of examination. Such challenges affordino criterion of truth, nor is it any proof of the goodness of a cause that its abettors court the public attention. They may be well aware that public prejudice is in their favour; or may entertain a much greater dread of sinking into insignificance by neglect, than of being overcome in the field of

contest.

You have repeatedly reminded me of the favour which you confer upon me by permitting my papers to appear in your Miscellany. Now, Sir, I consider it as no favour at all; nor as affording any proof of your impartiality. If you think otherwise, you are at perfect liberty, after introducing this series of letters, to discontinue them. If I wish to

write any thing farther on the subject, I shall not be at a loss for a proper medium.

"The prejudices of both professor and profane (you tell me) are in my favor Had you used the term consciences instead of prejudices, you would have been nearer the truth. So far as my observations extend, the prejudices of the bulk of mankind are on the other side. Deists and libertines lead the way by an open or affected rejection of all future punishment. Socinians, who generally include universal salvation in their scheme, follow hard after them. Mrs. Barbauld, if I remember right, in her Remarks on Mr. Wakefield's Enquiry, goes so far as to represent the ideas of access to God through a mediator and of punishment in a bottomless pit, as originating in the ignorance and servility of eastern customs. Unbelievers, it is well known, rejoice in the spread of Socinianism, as being favourable to their views; and Socinians rejoice no less in the spread of Universalism, as favourable to theirs. This is sufficiently manifest by the applauses which writers on your side commonly meet with in the Monthly Review. There are great numbers of nominal Christians of loose characters, who would be glad to believe your doctrine of temporary punishment, and to proceed, by an easy transition, to that of no punishment at all; nor is there any bar which prevents their falling in with these views, but the remonstrance of their consciences. They fear it is too favourable to their vices to be true, and therefore are deterred from embracing it. Such, Sir, is the "description of people," after whom you enquire; such is the company with whom you associate, and to whom you administer consolation; and such is the justness of your remark, that "the prejudices of both professor and profane are in my favour." If you yourself had not been persuaded of the contrary, Iquestion whether you would have given that title to my two first letters, which appears on

the blue covers of your work. The word torments, it is true, can give no just offence, as it is a scriptural expression; yet to persons who judge on these subjects merely by their feelings, the ideas conveyed by it are sufficient to prejudice them against every thing which a writer may advance.

Your magazines, Sir, I presume, would be less acceptable to many of your readers than they are, if, instead of employing so large a portion of them in attempting to prove that all will be finally happy, you were frequently to insist that some men would be tormented in hell without any mixture of mercy for a number of ages; and if you insisted on this doctrine also in your pulpit exercises, you yourself might possibly be considered as "a brawler of damnation."

You carefully avoid claiming universal salvation as a right, and are pleased to represent my inquiry on that subject as "a quibble." I am not surprised, Sir, that you should feel reluctant on this head, that you should decline the defence of your friend, and that you should alternately compliment and reproach your opponent, as if to keep him at a distance from the subject. (No. I. p. 5. No. XXXIV. p. 309.) If I mistake not, this is a fundamental principle in your system, and that which proves it to be fundamentally wrong. There is no need of having recourse to the pieces of other writers; your own productions afford sufficient evidence that the salvation for which you plead is not that which arises from the free grace of God through Jesus Christ, and consequently, that it is no part of the salvation revealed in the gospel. You reject the idea of invalidating the divine threatenings towards sinners, (No. XXXIV. p. 310.) admitting "them in their full latitude, and the execution of them too;" maintaining that "God will deal with his creatures, according to character;" and that sinners will be punished according to their works." (No. II. p. 42.) Now, Sir, if there be any meaning in all this language, it is, That justice will have its course on the ungodly; and that whatever punishment they endure, whether it be vindictive or corrective, endless or temporary, it is all that their sins deserve. If the threatenings of God mean no more than a punishment which is temporary, and for the good of sinners, their conduct can deserve no more; for we cannot have a more certain rule of estimating the just demerit of sin, than the wrath of God which is revealed from heaven against it. But if sinners endure the full desert of their sin, there is no room for grace, or undeserved favour; nor is any place left for the work of mediation. A cminal who has suffered the full penalty of the law, has no right to be told that his liberation is an act of grace, or that it was owing to the mediation of another. Your universal salvation, therefore, is no part of that which arises from the grace of God, or the death of Christ, nor is it, properly speaking, salvation at all, but a legal discharge in consequence of a full satisfaction to divine justice being made by the sufferings of the sinner.

* "Letter I. from Mr. A. Fuller in defence of eternal torments,”

If you contend that the liberation of the sinner is owing to the grace of God, through the mediation of his son, which mitigates and shortens his penishment, then you at once give up all you have before maintained, that sinners will be punished according to their works, and that the threatenings of God will be fully executed upon them. You may have read of instances of both punishment and pardon to the same persons, and for the same sins:" (No. XXXV. p. 337.) but this must be where the punishment has not been according to the desert of the sin, other wsie there had been no need of pardon.

You talk much of my dealing in “ suppositions instead of arguments," and of my " resting my conclusions on unfounded assumptions."

I have carefully examined these charges, and am unable to perceive the justice of them in a single instance. Though the Letter which appeared in the Evangelical Magazine was chiefly in the form of supposition, yet that supposition was not destitute of argument to support it. It is possible, Sir, though it does not appear to have occurred to your mind, that arguments themselves may be conveyed under the form of suppositions. To convince you that this was the case in the above Letter, I will put the very passage to which you object into the form of argument.

The Scriptures teach us that those who at a certain period are found filthy, shall be filthy still; that they shall be cast into that bottomless hit which was prepared for the devil and his angels; and that they shall dwell with everlasting burnings.

But your doctrine teaches that though they be filthy at death or judgment, or any other period, yet they shall not be always so; that though they be cast into the pit of destruction, yet it shall not prove bottomless; and that though they have to encounter devouring fire, yet they shall not dwell with everlasting burnings.

Therefore your doctrine is antiscriptural. But if your doctrine be antiscriptural, it is of that nature which tends to deceive the souls of men, and you will not be able to look them in the face another day, and still less HIM who hath charged you to be pure from the blood of all

men.

The first three positions contain the argument, and the last the inference.

I should think "the world," or rather the reader, did not need to be informed what argument there was in this string of suppositions; if he did, however, I have attempted, at your request, to give him that information.

With respect to building on "unfounded assumptions," for which I am accused of " betraying my ignorance of the subject I have written against," (No. II. p. 45.) you have given us two instances, which I shall briefly examine.

First, I had asked, What doctrine besides that of universal salvation will you find in the Bible which affords encouragement to a sinner going on still in his trespasses, and which furnishes ground for hope and joy, even supposing him to persevere in sin till death? What principle is it that is here assumed? Why, (you answer) that the doctrine of

universal salvation does afford encouragement to a sinner going on still in his trespasses, and does furnish ground for hope and joy, even supposing him to persevere in sin till death. And is this indeed a question? I took it for a self-evident truth, and supposed you must and would have acknowledged it. Whether you will or not, however, I appeal to the common sense of the reader whether any position can be more self-evident than the following-If the Scriptures teach that all men shall be finally saved, every sinner, whatever be his vicious courses, is encouraged to expect eternal life: and though he should persist in sin, till death, is warranted to hope, and rejoice in the prospect of all being well with him at last. For any man to deny this position is to deny what is self-evident, and there can be no farther reasoning with him.

To alledge in answer, that it will be always ill with the wicked while he continues so, is trifling: for if the sinner be taught to believe that at some future period beyond this life he shall be delivered both from sin and punishment-whether the former branch of this deliverance afford him joy or not, the latter must.

The same question, you say, might be asked concerning the doctrine of election. It might; but I should readily answer, no sinner while going still in his trespasses is warranted to consider himself as elected to salvation; therefore that doctrine affords no ground of hope and joy to persons of this description. Can you say the same of the doctrine of universal salvation? If there were the same ground for an ungodly sinner to conclude himself elected as your doctrine affords for his concluding that he shall be eternally saved, the cases would be parallel; and both these doctrines would be alike subject to the charge of comforting those whom God would not have comforted: but as this is not true of election, your notion is still solitary, and your difficulty remains where it was. All the encomiums which you pass upon the universal scheme (No. II. p. 41-44.) furnishes not a single example of any other divine truth which gives encouragement to a sinner, while in his sins, to believe that in the end it shall be well with himn. The question therefore still returns upon you, what doctrine BESIDES that of universal salvation will you find in the bible which affords encouragement to a sinner going on still in his trespasses, and which furnishes ground for hope and joy, even supposing him to persevere in them till death? I do not say, "let the world judge" whether this question proceeded on any unfounded assumption, and whether it be equally applicable to election as to universal salvation, because I imagine it will be but a very small part of the world that will examine our productions: but I am willing to make my appeal to the intelligent and impartial reader. And with respect to you, Sir, the task which you have set yourself is before you, either to "confess it to be true," that your doctrine gives encouragement, hope, and joy to wicked men, or to “ falsehood of this supposition more fully."

expose the

In the second place, you charge me with "taking it for granted that your views invalidate the divine threatenings towards sinners ;" and intimate that there is no "reason" in what I say, but upon the