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DISCUSSION OF UNIVERSALISM.

you have no reasons to give but your own philological conjecture, and that the thing of endless punishinent must be sustained at all hazards for the reputation of your orthodoxy! This is the triumph of individual and conjectural philology over rational and scriptural theology!

17. Was your conjecture, p. 21, that I shall hereafter "flee again to the mountains of philology as affording more shade than the fertile plains of my philosophy," intended to cover your retreat from a field where you found more reasons against your doctrine of endless wo than you knew how to cope with? Am I, with all our readers, left to suppose that my friend Campbell "thinks" endless misery very useful, very salutary, very honorable to God, very benevolent, merciful, wise, just, &c.? If you think so, what are your reasons? My arguments, sir, rest not upon "one single I think." You say I "have assumed that universal language possesses no word which could eternize a subject unless the subject be in its own nature eternal without it." This is positively untrue. And, sir, did you not know it to be so? Did you not know that the third proposition of which I take the affirmative, denies it? Equally untrue are your assertions that in my "philology all adjectives are cyphers," that "aionios has no meaning of its own," and your intimation that I require a new Grammar, interchanging the positions and definitions of substantives and adjectives. Such misrepresentations, witticisms, irony, and sarcasm, I cannot but regard, my dear sir, as entirely unbecoming the dignity of your profession, unworthy of yourself, and undeserving of any further notice from me. I will only refer the reader to my last letter, p. 18, and my Letter No. XI. pp. 11 to 17 inclusive, for my definitions of aion, &c.

18. You seem to exult occasionally in having given me "Hebrew and Greek references and criticisms to satiety." In reference to this, I will only remark that a much smaller amount than you have given would have abundantly satisfied, had they been to the point, or gone in the least to establish the truth of your second proposition; but as they made no approximation to that point, a larger, or any supposable quantum of the same sort, would have been useless. For the same reason, your repetition, p. 24, of the ground you took with Mr. Montgomery is irrelevant and out of place. In all you have advanced from beginning to end, no reasons have been assigned why aion and aionios, when applied to punishment, must signify endless duration..

19. Your feverish anxiety, conjectures, and speculations about my views of future punishment, your disposition before you know what they are, to brand them with the name Purgatory, &c. &c. are mistimed and out of place. Wait patiently till you see them, and then disprove them if you can. You need have no apprehensions that they will be found to embrace what some call absolute destruction; altho' both myself and many of our readers were at one time seriously apprehensive that you would attempt to shelter your doctrine of endless punishment under that form. I am heartily glad such is not your aim.

20. I now proceed to the third proposition, viz. "Is there any word in human language that expresses duration without end, which is not applied to the future punishment of the wicked, or which can certify us that God, angels, or saints shall have duration without end?" And I here remark, that I need say but little, indeed I am not bound to say any thing, by way of argument, till you have answered what I said and which remains unanswered--in my first letter. To that letter, particu

MR. CAMPBELL TO MR. SKINNER.

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larly, paragraphs 11 to 16 inclusive, and p. 20, (especially what is said on 2 Cor. iv. 17.) I refer you and our readers for unanswered and, I believe, unanswerable arguments in favor of the affirmative of this propo

sition.

21. In my first letter I gave four words with their definitions, viz. akatalutos, aphtharsia, aphthartos, and athanasia, which are applied to, or used in connexion with, God, life, the immortal beatitude of heaven, &c. &c. and never used in the New Testament in a limited sense nor applied to any subject of a perishable nature or limited duration. You attempted, Letter No X, to turn the subject, or what I had said upon it, into ridicule; but you have not denied, and I think you will not deny, a single material statement I made, or argument I drew from the above words and their use. My Letter No. X. sufficiently answered all you said by way of ridicule. I demand a candid answer to my arguments, or a concession that they are unanswerable.

22. You yourself conceded that in all of those words the idea of duratim was embraced; and as you made no attempt to prove that they ever were, or could properly be applied to any finite or limited time, or any thing of a mere earthly nature, I take it for granted that you do not calculate to do it. Indeed, I do not see any motive you can have for attempting it. For whatever may be the fate of your favorite aion and aionios, I cannot suppose you doubt the endless existence of God, angels, saints, or happiness, or that you would be unwilling to allow that either of the four words I gave should signify endless duration when connected with them. I have all along supposed, and still suppose, that you wished to make some show of argument against these words more for the sake of enhancing the value and importance of aim and aionios in proving endless duration, than because you really objected to the idea of endless being attached to the others.

23. To the four words previously named, I might add, were it necessary to strengthen my argument, the word aidios, perpetual, which is applied to God, and the word aperantos, endless, infinite, boundless, also used in the New Testament, and ask, in reference to all six of them, why neither of them is ever used in connexion with sin, punishment, or misery of any kind, if the latter were regarded by the inspired writers as really endless in duration?-why no other or stronger term than aionios-a term you acknowledge is often used in a limited sensewas applied to punishment, when so many others unequivocally stronger and less ambiguous were at hand? I pause for a reply. If in your reply you can offer nothing new, or more to the point on the first three propositions, than what you have furnished, I shall proceed without delay to the fourth. I hope your answer to this will be forthcoming without delay.- Yours in sincerity,

MR. SKINNER:

D. SKINNER.

MR. CAMPBELL TO MR. SKINNER.

No. XVIII.

BETHANY, Va. February 8th, 1838.

Sir-This morning yours of the 27th ult. was received; and I am thankful for the promptness with which you have this time replied. I see that you are susceptible of conviction and correction, on some points

4

at least. There is also a small improvement in your style and temper; and I flatter myself that, as there is yet considerable room for amendment, you will continue to improve.

2-Like the house of Saul, your cause waxes weaker and weaker: for certainly this is the tamest epistle you have yet written. I might ask your greatest admirers what point you have even attempted to prove in the first 15 paragraphs. You did not even lay my note on Matth. v. 22. before your readers, and show that you quoted it in its comexion. You assert, I grant, with great strength; but then we now understand your most violent assertions to occur either in the absence of the appearance of argument or in the ratio of its weakness.

3-Your explanation of your former objections to antithesis, and your late acquiescence in the doctrine, is a proof of what may be achieved by taking a favorite sectarian text or two, and showing how the doctrine in question affects them. I was not disappointed in the means which I employed to constrain the concession.

4-But now that you admit my doctrine of antithesis, you attempt a new project. You seek to make the everlasting life to which the everlasting punishment is opposed in the antithesis, a temporal life. And thus you make the Saviour, in effect, say-These shall go away into temporal life, and these shall go away into temporal punishment.' This is too gross, I should think, for the major part of even your brother Universalists. I am willing, however, to let the public judge how much the truth has gained by my bringing you over to the doctrine of antithesis, through the bribe of your three Universalian texts, by which I commended it to your favorable regard. In due time these texts will be shown to have no friendly aspect to the doctrine you espouse. "To enter into life," and "to be cast into hell," in antithesis, you now, in substance, gloss as folliows:-"To enter into life" is to believe and be justified to be cast into hell" is to disbelieve and be condemned to the siege of Jerusalem!!

5 The word kolasis punishment you think precludes the idea of endless, because of a certain acceptation of it. This is about as sagacious as the allegation that the word liquid cannot apply to fire, because it is sometimes applied to air and water!

6-The assumption that all punishments are for the reformation of the subjects of them, is unsupported and unsupportable. If they were so designed, certainly they have most generally failed; else the records of human kind in the Bible, and out of it, are not to be relied on. The sequel may show this.

7-Your 9th paragraph asserts a very great mistake. I have not said that oon is the only root of aioon. I have said that oon is the root of eternity. Read my Letter X. and my last again. Nay, in my last I say that aioon "in both its parts, aei and oon, always and being, signifies endless duration!" Why do you not fairly quote my words?

8-The conclusion of your 14th paragraph, after such a flourish in the beginning of it, is really amusing. You say I give no proof that aioonios means endless when applied to punishment. IfI had, of course you would have abandoned Universalism! But it would be impossible to prove that to you; for although it sometimes signifies endless when applied to God, to heaven, to future bliss-it never can signify endless when applied to punishment: for, with you, all punishments end in

reformation; and if they do not, they are unjust, cruel, useless, &c. and therefore we have done with all such arguments, yourself being judge. In this remark you only corroborate the grand concession already made, and you need not now attempt to deny it or explain it away. Permit me, however, to parody your parody, and to show how much wind is in it.

9-You admit that hills are everlasting-that Israel's possession of Canaan was everlasting-that the covenant of circumcision was overlasting that Aaron's priesthood was everlasting that the land of Idumea was to lie waste to everlasting-that Deeds of land are everlasting-and that heaven and happiness are to be everlasting; yet you maintain that the first six everlastings are limited, and the latter un limited and endless, though all are expressed in Hebrew, Greek, and English in the same words! Why this inconsistency? Say. Mr. Skinner, why?

10-I find that my predictions are already beginning to be fulfilled. You are for again getting into the mountains of philology. But, sir, since you have said that could I offer 59 to 1 in favor of my philology against yours, (for that is certainly your meaning,) you would hold on to your theory because of your ten weighty arguments drawn from your theology, I shall not labor this ground over and over again. Your phi lology on your third proposition must indeed be examined, and then I will proceed to your philosophy and theology, for I see these are strewed profusely through your letter before me, which is a singular compound of these heterogeneous substances. In the following strictures on your third proposition you will see how kindly I dispose of the chicanery of your 17th paragraph.

1-This new proposition is a logical rarity: for why in the name of reason, open a discussion of six or sixty words, that yourself affirms are never applied to punishment; and I affirm are never applied to hap- ̈ piness; and one of them excepted, the others never but by implication import duration. No Greek writers, sacred or profane, ever used any of these words (acidios excepted) to denote duration, simple duration at all. But we shall allege a few facts concerning them.

12-Of these words akatalutos is first on the list. It is rendered in Greek Lexicons generally indissoluble, as its etymology imports. Wm. Tyndal translated it once endless, and was followed by other translators. It was never applied to God, heaven, hell-to happiness or misery-or to any state. It is found but once in the New Testament. It can only be literally applied to something compound, as life; but yet it is not found applied to the life of Christians on earth or heaven by any inspired writer. What a splendid display of critical ingenuity in producing this as a word which might have been used by the Holy Spirit, if he had intended to give us a definite and unpervertible view of future punishment-a word which in its literal import cannot possibly apply to happiness or misery!!

13 Aptharsia stands second on the list of words which necessarily and immutably signifies endless or everlasting. This word is found once in Rom. ii. 7.; four times in 1 Cor. xv. 42-54.; once in Eph. vi. 24.; and Titus i. 10. and ii. 7.; in all eight times-never translated endless or everlasting by any writer sacred or profane. Incorruptibility is its proper meaning, whether in doctrine, sentiment, (Eph. vi. 24.) or

in body. It is never by any writer applied to God or angels, to happiness or misery, to reward or punishment, and is distinguished from eternal life by Paul, Rom. ii. 7.!!

14-Aphthartos stands next. It is found Rom. i. 23.; 1 Cor. ix. 25.;. xv. 52.; 1 Tim. i. 17.; 1 Pet. i. 4, 23.; iii. 4., rendered by the transla tors of the Bible once immortal and six times incorruptible-never applied to a state, to happiness, or inisery. It is applied to God, but contradistinguished from eternal: "Now to the King eternal, immortal," aioonios, aphthartos.

15—Athanasia is the last of the first class of words that necessarily and immutably mean endless! It is found three times in the New Tes tament: 1 Cor. xv. 53, 54.; 1 Tim. vi. 16., rendered immortality. This word is never applied to God, angels, happiness, misery, heaven, or hell. It is never rendered endless, everlasting, &c.

16-To these you have added two other terms in your last letteraperantos, which occurs once, 1 Tim. i. 4., literally unlimited, endless ig space, not in time. It is never applied to God, angels, spirits, heaven, hell, happiness, misery, &c.

17-But to finish your rare collection of literary curiosities, you also introduce acidios, translated both eternal and everlasting, for it occurs, but twice. I give you great credit for this last, You are right for once in saying that this word does signify absolutely eternal or endless duration. It is applied to God, Rom. i. 20., and certainly he is abso lutely eternal, without beginning and without ending. It is also applied Jude, 6th verse, to the chains in which the fallen angels are held bound, and certainly these are absolutely endless; and therefore I return you my sincere thanks-first, for conceding that the punishment of fallen angels is absolutely endless; and as wicked men are to share with the devil and his angels in their future punishment, I cannot but thank you a second time for giving up the whole controversy, and admitting that the punishment of wicked men is thus set forth by a word which absolutely and immutably signifies endless. But I must thank you still more emphatically a third time for a greater concession: for you have now settled the controversy and given up the whole matter of aioon as denoting absolutely and immutably endless duration; for observe all the learned world, without a single exception, declare that whatever of duration is in the word acidios, it derives it all from asi, always, from which all say it is formed. Mr. Skinner's root of aeioon, which here tofore in his hands signified only limited duration; with more intelligence you now say it denotes perpetual endless duration. So endeth your proof of this third proposition.

18 This is really a greater triumph of the truth than I promised myself in this discussion. I have only one thing to hope, that you, sir, will not appear to your readers to have fallen into a pit by accident; or to have in an oversight suffered the truth to gain a momentary triumph. Confirm, sir, your candor now by holding up aeidios to be a word fairly and immutably expressive of duration without end: for it is applied to God and to the chains that confine the fallen angels under darkness to the judgment of the great day, which is called by Paul (Heb. vi.) "eternal judgment."

19-Having now, as I honestly and humbly conceive, fully and con clusively disposed of all your philology on the first, second, and third.