Letters to Stephen Remington in Review of His Lectures on Universalism

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1839. Excerpt: ... bly that sin is so likewise. There could not be a stronger proof of the fact. This, it must be confessed, is rather a startling conclusion, but I hope our interpreters of antithesis will not complain. We have now proved not only that death means eternal death, but also that sin is equal to God, equal in eternity and power. But we have not yet done. Our text furnishes us with other marvels. The gift of God it must be remembered is contrasted with the wages of sin, and manifestly shows its meaning. It is as clear as sunlight that God has given to man nothing more, only it is of an opposite character, than man has himself earned of sin. Man has merited endless and unspeakable misery; God gives him endless and unspeakable happiness. Whether this doctrine is calculated to magnify the grace of God I shall leave others to determine for themselves. It certainly exalts sufficiently the human powers to work evil, though it represents them as feeble to do good. But the grace of God through Jesus Christ is barely equal to reverse the mischief which man had done himself. All this we learn from this method of interpreting contrasts. And J hope my readers are satisfied, that if the principle in question can be applied in one of these cases, it may, or rather, it must, in all. If death must denote eternal death because it is contrasted with eternal life, sin must mean-something that is infinite and eternal because contrasted with the eternal and infinite God, and the wages of sin must in all respects be equal to the gift of God through Jesus Christ, because it is contrasted with it. Perhaps a little more discrimination in explaining scripture would have saved the world some errors, and tended not only to the advancement of knowledge, but also of happiness. In the first a...