DISCOURSE X.

TERMS AND PHRASES.- UNIVERSAL SALVATION. UNIVERSAL RESTORATION. - REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS.

CHARGING THEM, THAT THEY STRIVE NOT ABOUT WORDS TO NO PROFIT. 2 Tim. ii. 14.

MANY of the controversies which now vex the world, many of the sorrowful dissensions among theologians especially, might be easily obviated by a careful examination and a simple and natural definition of the terms employed in the propositions which are the subjects of division or dispute. It not unfrequently occurs, after a protracted and warm discussion, that the disputants by the merest accident make the mutual discovery, that a previous explanation of the words of the proposition which has been the subject of difference, would have obviated the need of most, if not all, of their discussion. Their real difference has been a misunderstanding, which a verbal definition would have satisfactorily explained. They have been using the same words. in a different sense, or each has been ascribing to the

other an understanding of terms very far from the correct one; both, as they find on verbal definition, understanding the same terms in precisely the same

sense.

It is of the highest importance, therefore, to examine and explain at the outset the terms or words of a proposition, that all misunderstanding may be avoided. Many of the fiercest quarrels have originated in mutual misapprehension, when the slightest preliminary inquiry would have made all clear and comprehensible, averting the direst calamities, and preserving peace, concord, and happiness. Let us illustrate by the consideration of some instances.

Universal Salvation, Universal Restoration, Future Rewards and Punishments, these are phrases involving ideas of the most general interest. The words themselves are only signs of ideas; let us see what ideas they are understood to signify.

Do you believe in universal salvation? is a question very easily propounded; but it is not so easily answered, without a mutual understanding of what salvation signifies. In popular theological usage, salvation unquestionably is meant to signify a rescue or deliverance from an infinite misery after death, a condition to which, it is supposed, all are condemned by nature. The myriads who entertain this view plainly understand by universal salvation a universal deliverance from a universal misery after death, to which mankind are naturally condemned; whilst one who professes a faith in universal salvation may mean this, or may mean some very different thing, by salvation. The term salvation may mean deliverance from hell or suffering, in another world;

or it may mean deliverance from the effects in another world of sin in this world, or from the effects in this world of sin in this world; or it may mean deliverance from the habit of sin itself.

Now, in no one of these senses can universal salvation be understood as literally true. It cannot mean universal deliverance from hell and suffering in another life, for it never can be shown that universal man, that all human beings, were ever cursed or doomed to, or in danger of, eternal hell and suffering after death. It cannot mean universal deliverance from the effects in another world of sin in this world, for a majority of human beings who enter this world never sin. Sin being the transgression of law, and transgression of law implying knowledge of law, probably a majority of mankind leave this mortal life in childhood, before any capacity of sin has been developed, before any voluntary act of moral agency has been performed; consequently they never sinned, and they need no salvation, whether in this or any other life, from the effects of sin. It cannot mean universal deliverance in this world from the effects of sin committed here, for we observe continually, and know from actual experience, that there is no such thing as universal deliverance from the natural effects of voluntary wrong. What these legitimate effects are, we cannot always certainly determine; but we see that there is not, there never has been, universal deliverance from them. It cannot mean universal deliverance from the habit of sin itself, for we see that, up to this hour, nearly all-perhaps all-mankind who reach the age of responsible action do actually commit more or less of

sin. Thus we discover, on close examination, that the phrase universal salvation is destitute of any definite and satisfactory meaning. For if salvation signify deliverance from actual evil, suffering, or dan. ger, there can be no real meaning in universal salvation, unless it can be shown that there has actually been a universal suffering or curse from which there has actually been a universal deliverance. Neither Scripture, nature, nor human experience has yet demonstrated any such universal evil, suffering, or curse, requiring any such universal deliverance. To the interrogatory propounded, therefore, I should be forced to reply: I am no believer in universal salvation, nor am I a disbeliever. For the phrase itself conveys to my mind no distinct idea; it appears to be simply a misuse or misapplication of words, frequently confusing the minds of those who suppose it to express their belief, and equally misleading those who suppose themselves to be contending against that belief.

The next phrase, universal restoration, is this more clear and comprehensible than the other? To restore signifies to recover or replace something which has been removed or lost, to reinstate something, or some person, in a condition which has before belonged to the same thing or person. Univer sal restoration is usually understood to signify the universal reinstatement of mankind in a condition of holiness and happiness. When were all mankind removed from a condition of holiness and happiness? When did all mankind ever fall from or lose such a condition? When were all mankind ever in possession of such a condition? Here we observe the

misapplication of two additional terms, the words holiness and happiness. Both these words express intelligence, consciousness, and action; they both imply personal moral agency. Holiness expresses a conscious condition of goodness, or piety, or moral purity. Happiness also expresses intelligent enjoyment, a knowledge or experience of bliss, of felicity. Millions, therefore, of the human race, who leave this world in infancy, have never been conscious of either holiness or happiness, as they never have of the opposite conditions of guiltiness or misery. A condition then which they never enjoyed, they never could fall from, they never could lose; and there is neither reason nor propriety in the idea of their being restored to a condition which they never possessed. Whatever may be the idea conveyed to the minds of those who employ these phrases, universal salvation and universal restoration, to express what they regard as their religious faith, others, who object to the doctrines thought to be conveyed by these terms, without much question, associate the phrases with the idea of a primitive fall of mankind through Adam, accompanied with a universal curse, or sentence of condemnation. Both the phrases universal salvation and universal restoration are understood by theologians, and the generality of nominal Christians, to express deliverance of mankind from that original curse, or final restoration to the primitive condition, or what is supposed to have been the primitive condition, of innocence, holiness, and happiness, belonging to the man Adam.

But the term salvation never has such a reference in Scripture, and the phrase universal salvation can