earth, it never perishes. This is why aionion may properly be applied to a punishment inflicted in the earth, and a blessedness commenced in the earth.

4. The Scriptures furnish three other instances where the term 'aion' or the like is twice used in the same connection-once with reference to what is necessarily endless, and once respecting things necessarily finite in duration. The everlasting mountains were scattered, the everlasting hills did bow. His ways are EVERLASTING.'-Hab. iii. 6. 'Kept secret since the everlasting age began; -- according to the commandment of THE EVERLASTING GOD.'-Rom. xvi. 25, 26. 'In hope of ETERNAL LIFE, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the eternal age began.'-Titus i. 2.

We close this article by stating one more proof of the finite signification of forever, everlasting, etc., when applied. to punishment. All the ancient Church-Fathers who advocated universal redemption, frequently used the Greek phrase for everlasting punishment, in their writings, by which they intended a limited, but protracted, disciplinary punishment, not endless, Deific RETALIATION.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW

Of the Chief Differences between the Three Distinctive Theological Systems which Divide the Christian Church.

'I offer thee three things: choose thee one of them.'-2 Sam. xxiv. 12.

I.

The Design of God in His Creation.

CALVINISM.

I. God created the universe in order that He might wondrously exemplify the glory of His infinite Majesty, Sovereignty, Power, and Wisdom. A sublime, universal and eternal exhibition of the Glory of His being and attributes, was the special End to be attained by the creation.

II. God will not be dishonoured, but glorified, by the entrance, providences, and endless existence of what we call Evil, as well as by His dispensations and the everlasting reign of Good.

III. The utmost acme of the Divine Glory will be triumphantly realized,

ARMINIANISM.

I. Rational, moral, and sentient beings were created by the Lord for the purpose chiefly, of manifesting His Goodness and Holiness, in conferring and multiplying the glory of His own beatitude and excellency, to as great an extent as He conveniently and consistently could.

II. Evil is altogether the opposite of God's nature, and His purposes, so that He can derive no true glory from its eternal existence, but only from what is holy and good.

III. God shall derive from His Creation as great a degree of glory as the combination of His attributes shall be able to achieve; but LUCIFER, also, the usurped Arch-Deity cf Evil, must secure from the creation as great a degree of glory, as the fearful might of His Power shall be able to secure to Him.

UNIVERSALISM.

I. God did not create the universe in order to augment, or merely to display the glory of His own nature and attributes; for He required nothing to increase His own perfect, self-derived felicity and glory. Infinite Benevolence, and not self-honour, was the instigator of the Sovereign Spirit to the work of creation, of which the intelligent was to be the primary, the highest object or His goodness and skill. The great purpose then, of the Divine Being, in the creation of the universe, was the propagation of His own glorious nature and powers upon beings fitted to receive them, during an interminable existence of constant advancement.

II. God is Supreme, and Evil, therefore, finite and subordinate. Evil shall not prevail to alter, controul, or defeat the purposes of the Most High. To the Omniscient Eye

there can be no absolute confusion in all the elements of being, no such thing as unmixed, total evil, much less infinite and eternal. Under the universal sway of limitless wisdom, all things are working together in a magnificent, invisible harmony, to the accomplishment of the ONE, original purpose. Thus, the transient but mediative existence of evil will also illustrate the glory of the Eternal Wisdom, because it shall be consummated by the universal and everlasting prevalence of Good.

III. All that the infinite Wisdom could devise, all that the infinite Goodness and Love could conceive, for the endless diffusion of happiness and knowledge, the infinite Power is amply able to execute,

II. The Nature of Evil.

CALVINISM.

The existence of Evil is to the Almighty no unforeseen, or calamitous development of the creation, which shall forever interfere with, impede, or frustrate, His original desires and intentions. Nothing can transpire in all the universe, without the Divine agency, much less con.rary to His determinate will and pleasure. Evil, then, was predestined to exist, and is an inseparable portion of the eter

nal

purpose. It is an instrument of God's inscrutable Wisdom over which His Omnipotence possesses the most illim itable controul, and has no power of itself, nor in conjunction with any limited power, to overstep the bounds of the everlasting Decree.

ARMINIANISM.

God foresaw in the beginning of creation that the existence of evil, and of evil beings, would be absolutely unavoidable if He created, and that the blight and desolation which they must inevitably occasion, would be utterly irremediable and uncontrollable to a fearfully calamitous extent, and during the ever-flowing ages of eternity. But the greatness of His Wisdom was exercised to devise the best possible consummation of things which His Power was sufficient to carry out; and perceiving that He was able to secure in the end, allowing for all possible contingency, a greater amount of good than evil, of happiness than misery, in the aggregate, He chose rather to create, than to deprive millions of immortal intelligences of the glory of endless beatitude, though it were necessarily at the expense of eternal woe and sinfulness to myriads of the brethren of the saved. Deity, then, is neither to be called, the direct or indirect Author of Evil, nor of the terrific doom to which so vast a proportion of His offspring shall be consigned; because His grace and power are in this life, as much as is deserved, active in endeavouring to win to repentance as many of the sinful as they can.

UNIVERSALISM.

God himself is the Only Perfect. It were a contradiction in terms to suppose that He could produce a universe of intelligent beings, as high, infinite, perfect, and unliable to err as Himself. Everything however is created with a perfection which is harmoniously adapted to its rank and capacity in the scale of being, though all must lack the infinite measure of excellency, which must be His alone. Evil is not a positive, not a created thing, but a negative principle, a necessary one, the effect of imperfection. Whether the Power of God was sufficient to usher at once into being at the be

ginning, by a single effort of Omnipotence, the whole universe exalted to the almost infinite degree of perfectness which He was able to evolve from the progressive system, is not a question for speculation. We cannot doubt that there is with Deity a choice of alternatives, and that the infinite wisdom never can fail in the selection of the best.This attribute of the Divinity has dictated the establishment of rank, action, and progress, rather than equality and impassable maturity, as the best means of realizing the great purpose of creation, and who can believe that the system which is thus instituted, will not accomplish the end in view so well?

But evil, being of after origination, and not any thing that is by necessity irradicable or eternal, must have an end, and would not have been permitted an existence unless it were a mean for the attainment of higher good than could otherwise have been realized. It is opposed to the nature of God, and in itself to the happiness of His crea tures, and having no eternal root or basis in Him, it is but an extraneous, excrescent thing, and must in the end be utterly done away. This life is but the initial condition of the human spirit, and therefore its most imperfect one. The little spark of its Maker's nature with which it is here entrusted, is a leaven which shall purge the whole mass of its impurities,-a inextinguishable light, which must kindle to celestial lustre, and leave not a crèvice of darkness unillumed. The very evils and darkness we deplore are ordained to be instrumental in awakening the energies of the immortal race. The appointed experiences of every man shall elevate his nature by degrees, cause him continually to outgrow some portion of his imperfection, that nobler powers shall be assumed.

Evil, then, is a means, a secondary cause, and not a primary principle, which can ever settle itself upon the immortal soul, as an end. It has a mission to perform, a Divine mission, which shall fully result in its appointed object.Its time in comparison with eternity is so short that when its dusky clouds shall be forever swallowed up of the Sun of Righteousness, its very memory shall be blotted out.

It is