Scriptures, instead of Robinson and Parkhurst as authority, that hades is the place of "pious souls until the resurrection?" The Scriptures, Šir, are at variance with such an idea, as the Scripture usage of sheol. and hades clearly proves, and shown in my First Inquiry by a consideration of all the passages where those words occur. Dr. Whitby, as we shall see afterwards, says, you are indebted to the heathen Greeks for inventing the notion, that hades or sheol is a repository for good and bad souls after death.Erect your ebenezer to the Greeks, not to God, for your hell after death.

It

Where then was the thief that day with our Lord? It was not in heaven, for Jesus did not go there that day. It was not in Robinson and Parkhurst's repository of "pious souls until the resurrection," for Whitby shows this is a mere heathen notion, and is contrary to the Scriptural usage of both sheol and hades. It was in the state of the dead. This agrees to the fact, for Jesus was that day in the state of the dead. also agrees to what I quoted in my Essays from Parkhurst, p. 52, with which you are not pleased. And in opposition to which view you give us the following remarks with a sneer, p. 71: "the thief in true penitence calls upon Christ, and Christ tells him he shall die! A fine promise this to a humble penitent!" Your sneer I pass entirely over. Mr. Hudson on 1

Peter 3: 18, 19, contends Jesus was that day in hell preaching to the damned in their "infernal prison." Well, the thief in true penitence calls upon Christ, and Christ tells him he shall be that day with him in hell preaching to damned spirits in this infernal prison. A fine promise this to a humble penitent!" Perhaps, Sir, this "humble penitent," by the pains of crucifixion had not received an adequate, just retribution for every sin he had committed, and hence went to hell for three days with our Lord, to pay off

the remainder of his score there. Or perhaps Jesus Christ took him there with him, just to show him what he deserved, had he not settled his whole account on the cross.

Some of these remarks are rather ludicrous. But it is not me, but your system which makes them so. To be then serious with you on such a serious subject. This "fine promise to a humble penitent" was good enough for him. It was the same kind of promise given to persons at least as good as he was or ever had been. See 2 Kings 22: 20. 2 Chron. 34: 28. Isai. 57: 1, 2. Rev. 14:13. Eccl. 4: 1—4, noticed on Philip. 1: 21--24, above. It was a promise good enough for Paul, as shown in the preceding passages. Jesus promised him what that day he was to be himself, in the state of the dead, where he should be at rest until the resurrection. Jesus could not

promise him any thing better than this, unless he promised him something more than all the humble penitents who had died before him. You seem very kind to people who end their days on the gallows or the cross, who by a few hours pain can settle the whole account of their crimes, and swing off to heaven. From the gallows to endless glory is not uncommon even in our day. Jesus Christ could not promise him immediate glory in heaven, for Jesus did not go there himself that day. And if Jesus Christ is not risen from the dead, and shall raise all up at the last day, I bid an eternal farewell to life or happiness of any kind after death.

I leave our readers now to judge, if my cause "is desperately weak" as you assert. It is not yet reduced so low as to require support from assertions without proof; Jewish and heathen opinions; Robinson or Parkhurst's unsupported declarations; nor is it involved in such palpable contradictions as have been pointed out in your system,

On p. 73, 74, you quote the following sentence from me "man's mental powers grow with the body and decay with it." You give us no less than nine pages of quotation from Mr. Colton of Kings college, Cambridge, in reply to it. Two or three remarks 1st. Mr. Colton's

are more than a sufficient reply. reasonings amount to nothing in settling the question of the soul's immortality. This question can never be settled but by divine revelation. The ancient heathens reasoned about the soul, but reasoned in endless mazes lost. Mr. Colton does not pretend to appeal to the Scriptures on this subject. Nor does he pretend to have settled any thing by his reasonings. On the contrary in concluding his remarks he confesses his ignorance of the "mysterious union of body to mind.". He says we labor under a gulph of insurmountable ignorance" as to their union. And adds, as to the union of life with body and mind "super-added to both, let us affirm of both of them, that we know nothing of either, but by their effects, which effects, however, do most fully and firmly establish their existence." But as I do not deny their existence, all his reasonings have no bearing upon my opinions. Nor do I see for what purpose you introduced this quotation. As you assert the contrary, I will thank you to show what part of it affects my opinions. But

2d. Mr. Colton sets out by stating the argument thus: "the mind is infantile with the body; manly in the adult, sick and debilitated by disease, enfeebled in the decline of life, doating in decrepitude, and annihilated by death." The first link of this analogical chain Mr. Colton admits to be universally true. The mind, you have told us, is the immortal soul. But how you are to manage with infantile immortal souls in your separate state, you nor Mr. Colton give us no information? And why do you and Mr. Colton not also

speak of idiot immortal souls, yea, the immortal souls of brutes, some of which discover minds little inferior to some tribes of men? But Mr. Colton to get rid of infantile immortal souls, says, p. 79, 80-"I should rather affirm that the body is infantile with the mind, than that the mind is infantile with the body." But he does not consider his own reasoning conclusive. Mr. Colton says-"we do not contend that the mind has no beginning, but that it shall have no end, and it appears that the body is appointed to be the first stage of its existence." But from what this appears he is not pleased to inform us, nor do you supply his lack of information. Men, Sir, might talk and reason forever on such a subject, but it amounts to nothing; for what can any of us know but from what God has made known in the Bible? We might reason in the same way respecting the brute creation.

LETTER V.

SIR,

THE fifth division of your book is called a "statement of the question in debate." You state it thus: "Is all punishment confined to this state or not?" If "much dispute has arisen about the statement of this question," it arises from the unreasonable demand suggested in your next sentence. You say"we who believe in a future retribution, contend that the question is reciprocal; that both parties have a positive, and both are under obligation to defend it. For either party to say they have no positive, is con

fessing that their doctrine is only negation, and their faith unbelief; and that they themselves are sceptics, and not Christians." On this very extraordinary ac count I remark

1st. If your statement is correct, there cannot be a negative. To use the word negative, is a gross impropriety in the use of words. Will you condescend to tell us what a negative is? No truth is more generally admitted, for it has become proverbial, "that no man can, or is bound to prove a negative." The impossibility arises from the very nature of the case. This I shall illustrate by an example. Dr. Allen, in his Lecture, has intimated that the place of future punishment is in the moon, &c. Well, I deny it. But will you say that Dr. Allen has a claim on me to produce a text of Scripture to prove that men are not to be punished in the moon? And must I admit his theory to be correct, if I cannot produce such a text? According to your statement I must admit it. But will not every reasonable man say-"if Dr. Allen asserts that men are to be punished in the moon, it is incumbent on him to produce evidence of this. The proof lies with him, for the doctrine asserted is his; and unless he can produce Scripture for his doctrine, I treat it as an idle notion. I do the very same with your doctrine. You assert men are to be punished after death in a disembodied state. I deny it. But have you a right to call on me to adduce a text of Scripture that they are not, or else believe your doctrine? What reasonable man, Sir, would ever make this demand, unless he found it impossible to prove his own doctrine? .

2d. I call on you to quote any respectable authority who reasons as you do on this subject. Quote the writer who says any man is bound to prove a negative. Quote the author who asserts that the negative and positive sides of the same question are both