The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-11-20

ny SOneGDluS llhe speedy r6Jr1DuJlOU,
yet what punishment, let me ask, do
they endure, who forget and condemn
God, who are unjust, cruel, avaricious,
etc? If anything can prove moral in
sanity, it is belief that God now dis
penses rewards and punishments to
men, according to their respective char
acters."
Our fathers had to meet this ques-
ton, that sin was not punished and did
not make man wretched in this world
And how did they meet it? They met
it with both reason and revelation.
They met it in much the same way with
the Restorationist that they did with
the Orthodox. They may have Skin
mished for time, but they came finally
to declare distinctly, and without re-
serve, that before all, and above all sin
was its own punishment, and virtue its
own reward that nothing short of a
miracle performed by Deity himself,
could effect even a temporary suspen-
sion of this law.
1t was alleged by these fathers that
the punishment of sin had to be re-
garded as inflicted upon the general
principle that it inhered in the sin, and
went hand in hand with its commission;
that they could not be separated that
God had joined them together, and no
power in the universe should ever sun
der them. If we did well, out of the
deed of virtue came the blessing; for,
''In keeping the commandments there
was great reward, and great peace had
they who loved Gods law, and nothing
should offend them" +. that {" Whose
looketh into the perfect law of liberty,
and c0ntinueth therein, he being not
forgetful nearer, but doer of the word,
that man should be blessed in his deed"
His own exceeding great and sufficient
good or evil was to be found in the
very thoughts of his mind, the affec-
tions of his heart, and the actions of
his life. But if he did ill, from the
sinful conduct came the misery since
whatever was wrong was at war with
mans nature, and could not but be ru-
inous. The evil of the sin flowed out
of the constitution of the soul, it was
said, and was the punishment. But no
such possible relation could be shown
as existing between the obeying, or
violating a law, in the present state of
mans existence, and his being rewarded
or punished for it in another world,
perhaps hundreds or thousands of years
hence.
Under the law of which l have been
speaking we can see that ''the good
man is satisfied from himself.n He
carries in his very spirit and DISPOSE
ton, the springs of his own blessedness.
He does not need any foreign aids or
extraneous causes to make him happy,
for he has abundant internal and I'M
failing sources of joy within him. He
can rejoice, that ''in the way righteous
ness is life, and in the pathway thereof
there is no death !" that 1.-the ways of
wisdom are the ways Of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace" But not
so the ways of transgressors. These
are hard, and wretched, and miserable.
Destruction and Misery as the Apos-
tie says, "were in their ways, and the
way of peace had they not heard" 1t
was after this manner that the more
discerning minds came to understand
all such passages, as that, 1.-THE wick
edness of the wicked shall be upon
him." His own iniquities shall take
the wicked himself, and he shall be
holden with the cords of his SINS"
This whole view of rewards and pun
ishments was just as simple as that
character makes condition; and that
we are happy or miserable according
as we are good Or bad; that just in so
far, and so much, as a person does
wrong, anywhere, or at any time, he is
the worse IF for it, and just in so far,
and so much, as he does right, any
where, or at any time, he is the better
eff for it. And this is for the reason
that goodness itself is the supreme good,
and wretchedness and misery the por-
ton of wicked man from God that
sin is the worst thing, the hell of the
universe for he who transgresses
against the laws of God, has arrayed
against him everything good and true
in the universe. Aud holiness is the
best thing it is the heaven of God and
eternity.
1t was so that the Fathers argued
this question with the Orthodox, and
the same with the RestOratiOnists. They
said that the law of retribution was,
that virtue forever receives an ample
reward of blessing, and that vice meets
with full punishment of i'll desert and
suffering; on the principle that virtue
itself is a transcendent good, and vice
a transcendent evil.
1t was at this point that was started
the question of the truthfulness of fu-
ture punishment. Persons began to ask
themselves, Are we punished when
and where we are sinners ?n When