A Series of Letters, in Defence of Divine Revelation: In Reply to Rev. Abner Kneeland's Serious Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Same. To Which is Added, a Religious Correspondence, Between the Rev. Hosea Ballou, and the Rev. Dr. Joseph Buckminster and Rev. Joseph Walton, Pastors of Congregational Churches in Portsmouth, N. H.Ballou, Hosea
Religion
A Series of Letters, in Defence of Divine Revelation: In Reply to Rev. Abner Kneeland's Serious Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Same. To Which is Added, a Religious Correspondence, Between the Rev. Hosea Ballou, and the Rev. Dr. Joseph Buckminster and Rev. Joseph Walton, Pastors of Congregational Churches in Portsmouth, N. H.
Ballou, Hosea
Revelation; Universalism -- Doctrines
You still will continue to maintain the doctrine of Universal
Salvation, by those texts, which I said you spake at the grave with
such an _emphasis_; if they are to be understood only in a literal
sense as they are expressed, I can quote as many or more spoken by
Christ and his apostles which will contradict them in their literal
sense: Christ says, "He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved;
but he that believeth not shall be damned. Then shall he say unto them
on his left hand, depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels. And these shall go away into
everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal. Then said
Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me and shall die
in your sins: whither I go ye cannot come." John viii. 21, 24, "I said
therefore unto you that ye shall die in your sins; for if ye believe
not that I am he ye shall die in your sins." With respect to that text
you quote from John xii. 32, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men unto me." It is, I conceive, explained by Christ
himself in John iii. 14, 15, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness even so must the son of man be lifted up; that
whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting
life." By Christ being lifted on the cross the way of salvation is to
be preached to all men; but it is only those that believe who will not
perish and have eternal life, according to the foregoing scriptures I
have quoted from Mark xvi. 16, and Mat. xxv. 41, 46. I could quote
many more scriptures spoken by our Lord himself and explained by him;
and I hope, sir, you will allow our Lord to be the best expositor of
his own word. I conceive you think you have got a mighty argument when
you mention the apostle Peter, who had a vision which instructed him
in his duty to preach the gospel to the Gentiles; but remember, Peter
says, "I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every
nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness, is accepted of
him." Then he began to preach the gospel to Cornelius and his friends;
he preached Christ to them; he preached Jesus and the resurrection; he
shows he is ordained of God to be the Judge of the quick and the dead;
and says, "To him give all the prophets witness that through his name
whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." Did he
say that every individual of the human race would be saved? No such
thing! And though he had further light concerning the Gentiles, he
never, as I can find, preached Universal Salvation, but to the
contrary. Read his epistles, first and second, particularly 2d
epistle, 2d chapter from 1st to the end of the 9th verse. "The Lord
knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation; and to reserve the
unjust to the day of judgment, to be _punished_;" not to be
_liberated_! Read 3d chapter, 7th verse, "But the heavens and the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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