intelligent world. And yet Urban and the Council of Clermont could very readily so interpret certain passages in the two Testaments, as not only to authorize, but expressly to require a crusade to Palestine, to murder the Saracens and rescue the Holy Land and its sacred relics from longer profanation. This is but a single, though a tremendous and bloody, case in point. All history, and even our own observation, will show how Christianity has been perverted, abused and injured by the conjectures, speculations and interpretations in which its ignorant and misguided friends have indulged.

The manner in which many parts of Scripture are explained at the present day, has given an immense advantage to scoffers and unbelievers.! The fact is not to be concealed or disguised, that the greatest objections ever conceived and urged against Christianity as a system, have been predicated on the irrational and contradictory dogmas of the Church. These have been taken for granted to be, what their friends have imperiously claimed for them, the genuine doctrines of the gospel. Being so taken, the objections of infidels, we must say, have been weighty; and they have produced an extensive distrust of the truth of the sacred writings. Volney has said, that, at the time of Christ's advent, the expectation amongst the better informed Jews was, that the Messiah, when he came, would effect a salvation for all the world. Jesus, on the contrary, taught a partial salvation-so it is now contended. He came preaching eternal damnation for a majority of mankind. The inference of that sceptic was a natural one, viz.-that Christ was not the true

Messiah whom the prophets of Judea had foretold. His mission, it is added, was at war with the promise of his coming, and at variance with his professed philanthropy and universal benevolence. Now Volney took the current dogmas of the Church, and the popular interpretations of the New Testament, as the sound doctrines, as the true interpretation. Hence he found a seri ous objection to the divinity of Christ and to the truth of his system.

But it was not our design to indict a labored article on the general subject of objections to the Christian faith. Our object more particularly, in this place, is to say, that the most of those objections must be deemed valid as long as what is now commonly called orthodoxy, is taken as a correct summary of the Christian system. Ifever the main objections of unbelievers are silenced, we are persuaded that the work must be done by Universalists, or by others assuming the grounds of Universalist interpretations. No system is so friendly to the authority of divine revelation as theirs. After all the abuse that has been heaped upon them, as errorists, heretics and semi-infidels, the credit of so interpreting the sacred writings as to preserve their harmony and consistency, must belong to the Universalists. If their inter

pretations are rejected, it will be impossible to commend the Scriptures to the favor of candid and inquiring minds. The more learned and sagacious opponents of this faith, are not ignorant of the fact, as we shall soon show.

If the popular notion of a day of judgment' be correct, that is, if the opinion is actually sustained by the passages which are always appealed

to in proof of the point, we confess we do not see how the claims of Christ as a prophet can be well sustained. We never read the 24th and 25th chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel without saying to ourselves-destroy the views of Universalists concerning the predictions here recorded, and you destroy the strongest evidence of the truth of Christianity. Let it be agreed, that the events there described have not yet taken place, and it is as true as that Jesus spoke, that 'his words have passed away' without being fulfilled. It cannot have escaped the notice of any candid and unprejudiced reader of the New Testament, that the event spoken of in several passages, which has generally been supposed to relate to a day of judgment,' was expected by Jesus Christ, his apostles and the primitive believers, to take place during that generation. Some, it is true, have attempted to show to the contrary, but their labor has been but an attempt. Grotius, Locke and others have frankly declared, that the apostles themselves believed that the end of the world was to happen in their time, and that they have declared this to be their belief in several passages of their epistles. Now to say that by the end of the world they understood what modern Christians believe, we cannot escape the fact that they were deceived and in error on this all-important point, what assurance can we have that they were not also deceived and erroneous on other points? Nothing but the views of Universalists on this subject, which we believe are assuredly the true ones, can save them against this disastrous and fatal inference. In other words, let the doctrine of a day of judgment in a future

world, so far as this doctrine depends for its support on the passages alluded to, be admitted, and you effectually remove the chief prop from the temple of Christianity.

We have said that sensible men amongst our opponents have discovered this important fact. Our proof of this statement we give below, from Dr. Macknight,-an orthodox Calvinist,-whose observations Dr. Clarke has admitted with approbation, as the best manner of sustaining Christianity against the objection referred to. It will be seen, that he has been obliged to give up those passages as containing no proof of the doctrine of a day of judgment,' and to contend that they relate to the end of the Jewish world at the destruction of Jerusalem. Universalists may take confidence when they find their views of this matter so distinctly sustained by such authority. The concessions of an opponent are always valuable.

The following is from the 4th section of Dr. Macknight's Preface to 2 Thessalonians, entitled 'Different comings of Christ are spoken of in the New Testament.'

'In this article, I propose to show that there are other comings of Christ spoken of in the Scripture, besides his coming to judgment; and that there are other things besides this mundane system, whose end is there foretold; and that it is of the other matters the apostles speak, when they represent the day of their Master, and the end of all things, as at hand.

First, then, in the prophetic writings of the

Jews, (2 Sam. xxii. 10, 12. Psal. xcvii. 2-5. Isa. xix. 1.) great exertions of the Divine power, whether for the salvation or destruction of nations, are called the coming, the appearance, the presence of God. Hence it was natural for the apostles, who were Jews, to call any signal and evident interposition of Christ, as governor of the world, for the accomplishment of His purposes, His coming, and His day; accordingly, those exertions of His power and providence, whereby he destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, abrogated the Mosaic institutions, and established the Gospel, are called by the apostles His coming and day: not only in allusion to the ancient prophetic language, but because Christ himself, in his prophecy concerning these events, recorded Matt. xxiv. has termed them the coming of the Son of man, in allusion to the following prophecy of Daniel, of which his own prophecy is an explication Dan. vii. 13. I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days. And they brought him near before him.

14. And there was given him dominion, and glory and a kingdom; that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away; and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. This prophecy, the Jewish doctors, with one consent, attribute to the Messiah, and of that temporal kingdom which they expected was to be given Him. Further, they supposed, He would erect that temporal kingdom by great and visible exertions of His power for the destruction of His enemies;