He believed that, in order to prove that misery will exist in the future or eternal state, it must first be made to appear that sin will exist in that state. But this he did not believe could be proved from any scriptural testimony; on the contrary, he was fully convinced that the Bible taught that "He that is dead is freed from sin." To quote his own words on this point: "We have shown, in order for justice to require the endless misery of any moral being, it must, of necessity, require the endless continuance of sin, than which nothing can be more absurd." Again he says: "We have sufficiently argued that man cannot be miserable in consequence of moral condemnation, any longer than he is, in a moral sense, a sinner." And we have often heard him make the remark, in regard to limited future punishment, that if any one would produce but only one passage of scripture which proves, beyond a reasonable doubt, that sin or the sinner will exist, as such, in the eternal, immortal state, then I give up my doctrine of no future punishment; but until this is done, I shall hold to the doctrine that the Scriptures do not teach the principle even of a limited future punishment. Mr. Ballou would not allow analogy to take the place of scriptural proof on so important a subject as the destiny of man in the immortal state. He had nothing to do with mere assertions, which had not a "thus saith the Lord" for their support, on any doctrinal point. This feature of his mind cannot be too strongly insisted upon. He was not content with relying on the _spirit_ of the Scriptures, which would have fully sustained his doctrine, but he conciliated the spirit and the letter, and rested every proposition he advanced on this immutable and impregnable basis. If ever a man strictly obeyed the injunction to "search the Scriptures," it was Mr. Ballou. They were the armor from which he drew the shield that sheltered him in conflict, and all the shafts that garnished his quiver. He had the very words of Christ and his apostles for every item of his creed, and such creed alone would he accept as might be adapted to this standard. He was not one of those self-complacent and easy theorists, who readily support their favorite doctrine by a few ambiguous texts, or an arbitrary construction of a mooted passage. He was far too conscientious for this; the language of learned commentators, however elegant the phraseology and plausible the reason, never satisfied him. His standard was fixed in the Bible.