Conclusion

I have now finished a work which has been attended with considerable labor to me, and with some to the reader who has perused the whole. I am sensible that controversial writers often misunderstand each other, and therefore often spend their own time and labor, and the time of their readers for nothing. I have been aware of the danger of this, and have endeavored to my utmost to avoid it: how successfully, must be submitted. I have often wished for an opportunity of conversation with some sensible and thorough believer in Doctor C's scheme, that I might obtain explanation of some things, to me unaccountable. But I have not been favored with such an opportunity. I have endeavored to meet the Doctor's chief arguments, and not to carp at particulars which are of no importance to the scheme, and have not designedly shunned any argument which appeared to me to be important, and not implied in other arguments particularly noticed. I hope that whoever shall undertake the confutation of what is now offered to the public, will treat it with the same candor. In a work of this length, and on a subject of such intricacy, it would be strange indeed if there were not some slips which would give advantage to an antagonist; yet those slips may not affect the main question. If any man shall write to point out such errata, it will hardly be worth while for me to trouble either myself or the world with a reply. But if any gentleman will candidly point out the fallacy of the main arguments, on which I have rested what I fully believe to be truth; however I may be affected by it, I doubt not but that the public will have the candor ingenuously to acknowledge it. If on the contrary his reply shall consist chiefly of declamation and warm addresses to the passions and imaginations of mankind, pathetical and frightful representations of the torments of the damned, interlarded with sarcastic fleers and other essays at wit; I doubt not the same candid public will properly notice it, and draw an inference not very favorable to the cause which is to be supported by such auxiliaries. Such artifices are unworthy of theologians, philosophers and any inquirers after truth. I hope whoever undertakes a reply, will tell us what punishment sin justly deserves; what is the penalty of the moral law; or that curse of the law from which Christ has redeemed us. I hope he will further inform us whether all men shall be saved in the way of forgiveness. If they be, he will reconcile that mode of the salvation of all men with those declarations of Scripture which assert, that the wicked shall be punished according to their works, shall have judgment without mercy, and shall pay the uttermost farthing. If it shall be his opinion, that the damned will be punished according to their demerits, and then be saved without forgiveness, it is to be hoped he will reconcile this idea with the whole New Testament, which everywhere represents, that all who are saved, are saved in the way of forgiveness. If he shall hold, that [illegible], eternal, [illegible], forever, and [illegible], forever and ever, generally in the Scripture mean a limited duration, let him point out the instances of that use of them, that they may be compared with those instances in which they are used in the endless sense. But I need not enumerate the various particulars, which ought to be minutely and distinctly considered, in a candid and judicious discussion of this important question.

I have no apprehension, that the doctrine of endless punishment will suffer at all by a thorough discussion. In the course of the disquisition many may be perverted to fatal error; yet the final result will be the more clear elucidation of the truth. However many may run to and fro, yet knowledge shall be increased.

Finally, if any man, after a careful perusal of what has been, or may be offered, on both sides of this important question, shall be in doubt on which side the truth lies; it will certainly be most prudent and safe for him to act as he would, if he fully believed endless punishment; it will be most prudent and safe for him to yield a cordial compliance with the gospel, in repentance, faith and obedience. Then he will be safe on either supposition. But if he trust to the flattering doctrine, that all are finally to be saved, and in this presumption shall neglect the gospel, its invitations and requirements; and it shall finally prove, that that doctrine is a mere imagination of men; alas! he is lost; irrecoverably lost: while those who receive the gospel with "the obedience of faith," shall through the blood of atonement, have right to the tree of life, and shall enter in through the gates into the City.