ง

OR THE

REFUGE OF LIES AND THE COVERT FROM THE STORM:

BEING

A SERIES OF THIRTEEN LECTURES

ON THE DOCTRINE OF

FUTURE PUNISHMENT.

He preach'd the joys of heaven, and pains of hell,

And warn'd the sinner with becoming zeal,

But on eternal mercy lov'd to dwell.

Dryden's "Character of a good Parson."

BY THE REV. BENJAMIN I. LANE.

TROY, N. Y.:

YOUNG & HARTT, 216 RIVER-STREET.

FROM THE PRESS OF N. TUTTLE, CCXXV. RIVER-STREET.

1844.

+

PREFACE.

03

THESE Lectures were undertaken in the ordinary course of ministerial duty. Sometime during the last fall, I began to cast about my thought in search of a suitable subject for a Course of Lectures. Many circumstances led me to settle down upon that of Future Punishment. I saw that many around me were resting their hopes of heaven upon the belief that all men are finally to be saved: how could I but raise a note of alarm?

I flatter myself that I have not been actuated by a love of controver sy. Nor were these lectures undertaken with the most distant thought of publication. They were nearly finished before I was inclined to think that it might be my duty to give them to the public. Finding that they were regularly taken down by one or more reporters, and that great injustice was being done me, by the circulation of a pretended reply, written from necessarily imperfect notes, I finally determined to let the lectures speak for themselves. I may here add, that the importunity of friends, whose judgement I have been in the habit of respecting, and especially the oft repeated wishes of the members of my own dear church and congregation, have had great weight in leading me into the adoption of my present course.

As justice to myself is confessedly a part of my motive in making these lectures public, still farther justice leads me to state, that they have all been prepared in the midst of severe affliction in my family. I have had very little time to labor them. Besides sickness in my fami