the very nature of the soul affirms, God has purposed the salvation of all men, why, we ask, is not this purpose a sufficient guarantee of the result? We are answered, that the divine purpose must be viewed in the light of the soul's nature; and that an inherent faculty of this nature is the power of choice. It is no part of God's intention to force holiness on any human being; his purpose is therefore necessarily modified by a regard for the free exercise of the power of choice; and we are told that by virtue of this power, the soul can remain eternally sinful. Hence it follows, that the reason why the divine purpose is not a guarantee of universal salvation, is the fact that the power of choice, inherent in the will, can prevent universal salvation!

We ask careful attention to the logical form which this argument presents. It may be stated thus: Absolute certainty cannot be affirmed of a particular result so long as a power exists which can prevent that result. Ă power will eternally exist,-namely, that of choice,which can prevent the result of universal salvation; therefore, the certainty of universal salvation cannot be affirmed. Before deciding upon the validity of this form of logic, it will be well to see if those who put it forth will abide its consequences.

First of all, we call attention to the fact that a clear inference from the argument just stated is, that it not only leaves the matter of universal salvation uncertain, but it leaves the salvation of even so much as a single soul uncertain! If the prerogative of choice in any one soul involves the liability of its endless sinfulness, the same prerogative in all souls involves all men in the liability of endless sinfulness. Hence, if the argument is good for any thing, it is uncertain whether any body will be saved! Now, the popular theology never presumes to question the certainty of a limited salvation. It makes use of the argument against Universalism; it does not consider that the argument has the same kind of force against itself. In spite of its own reasoning, it alleges a certainty that some will be saved. And even in its announcement of the tenet of endless punishment, it presumes a certainty in the government of God-a horrible certainty, indeed, yet a certainty. Here, then, we have a vital particular

wherein the popular theology does not abide the consequences of its own logic.

Again, if the power of choice, making the soul able to remain in sin, involves the liability that it may remain in sin, why does not the same power, existing in the soul which has attained the heavenly state, involve its liability to return to sin? Admit that myriads of good men, who have left the world of flesh, are already saved, what certainty is there that they will choose to continue saved? Recollect, the power of choice is indestructible; the myriads already saved are still free to exercise this choice : who can be certain they will not exercise it, and return to the bondage of iniquity? One proposition we have seen runs thus: it cannot be certain that all men will be saved, because the power of choice can prevent the result. We subjoin another proposition: it cannot be certain that those who are saved will remain saved, for the power of choice can prevent the result. The terms of the two propositions alone differ; in both the logic is identical. He that will avail himself of the logic as it appears in the one proposition, has no right to disclaim it as it appears in the other. Have we not given another instance wherein those who urge the argument in question will shrink from its consequences?

Further, suppose that, at some period succeeding the termination of this earthly state, it appears that a portion of mankind have chosen heaven and the remaining portion have chosen hell. The power of choice still remains in the souls of both classes, for this power is inherent and indestructible. Who can be certain that the two classes will not conclude to exchange conditions? Will not he, who so confidently appeals to this faculty of choice in order to prove that Universalism is fallacious, quail before this inevitable consequence of his own reasoning?

It is at least a strong presumptive proof against the logical correctness of the argument thus based upon the power of choice, that it excludes the very idea of certainty from our contemplation of the government of God. Legitimately followed out, it is indeed not certain that all men will be saved-it is not certain that any body will be saved; if any are saved, it is not certain that they will continue saved; if any are lost, it is not certain that they

will continue lost; it is not certain but that the human family will ultimately divide itself into two classes, and respectively take turns in the experience of sin and salvation! Whatever may be the intrinsic merit of an argument which thus makes any result possible, and no result certain, it is clear that the prevalent theology has no right to make use of it in its antagonism to the doctrine of universal salvation.

But in truth the argument which we have thus exposed has no intrinsic merit,—it is radically sophistical. The fact that a power exists which can prevent a result, does by no means involve the liability that the power will be exercised. The infinite Being has the power to prevent any event whatever from taking place, yet we are warranted in saying that there are innumerable results which he certainly will not prevent. The power of choice, it may be said, gives the best man in the community the ability to commit the most atrocious crime; yet are we perfectly safe in assuming that he is certain not to put forth such an exercise of his power. How many noble men are there, whose tried fidelity to the cause of humanity amounts to a certain guarantee that they will continue faithful even unto the end! Yet in such men the power of choice is as free as in any human being. It is then a false logic which says that the existence of a power able to prevent a given result necessarily precludes the right to affirm absolute certainty of the result. It is a logic which no theorist will tolerate if brought against his own system. We will permit no theorist to bring it against the faith in which it is our joy to trust.

With the virtual consent, then, even of those whose objection to our faith we have now considered, we reach the vital conclusion, that certainty can be affirmed of the issues of the Divine economy. The only power which it is ever pretended can defeat the will of God, is the power of choice inherent in the human soul. We have seen that even admitting this power to possess the ability thus claimed for it, it no more necessarily follows that there is a liability of its putting forth such ability, than the fact that God is able to defeat his own will involves the liability that he may do so. We need not ask here how the will of man coalesces with the will of God,-this would

be to open that problem which, if the experience of ages is a test, the finite mind is not fitted to solve; it is sufficient to know that the human will, let its power be what it may, is not necessarily liable to thwart the divine. Acting, therefore, in perfect harmony with the nature of the soul, doing violence to no one of its faculties, God's sovereignty is unimpaired. We are therefore free to trust in Him to whom salvation belongeth; assured, in view of the soul's capacities, the divine purpose which is apparent in that perfect holiness for which it is fitted, the complete effaceability of its guilt, the means of regeneration which are known to be in operation, and the acknowledged ground of certainty in the issues of the divine government

that the Most High is able to announce in the obvious and literal meaning of the words, "I am God and there is none else; I am God and there is none like me; declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.' G. H. E.

ART. VIII.

The Egyptian Doctrine of a Future Life.

IN attempting to understand the conceptions of the ancient inhabitants of Egypt on the subject of a future life, we are first met by the inquiry why they took such vast pains to preserve the bodies of their dead. It has been supposed that no common motive could have animated them to such lavish expenditure of money, time and labor as the process of embalming required. It has been taken for granted that only some recondite theological consideration could explain this phenomenon. Accordingly, it is now the popular belief that the Egyptians were so scrupulous in embalming their dead and storing them in repositories of eternal stone, because they believed

that the departed souls would at some future time come back and revivify their former bodies, if these were kept from decay. This hypothesis seems to us as false as it is gratuitous. In the first place there is no evidence of it whatever, neither written testimony, nor circumstantial hint. Herodotus tells us, "The Egyptians say the soul, on the dissolution of the body, always enters into some other animal then born, and having passed in rotation through the various terrestrial, aquatic, and ærial beings, again enters the body of a man then born. There is no assertion that at the end of the three thousand years occupied by this circuit, the soul will re-enter its former body. The plain inference, on the contrary, is that it will be born in a new body, as at each preceding step in the series of its transmigrations. Secondly, the mutilation of the body, in embalming, forbids the belief in its restoration to life. The brain was all extracted, and the skull stuffed with cotton. The entrails were taken out, and sometimes, according to Porphyry 2 and Plutarch, thrown into the Nile; sometimes, as modern examinations have revealed, bound up in four packages and either replaced in the cavity of the stomach, or laid in four vases beside the mummy. It is absurd to attribute, without clear cause, to an enlightened people the belief that these stocks of brainless, eviscerated mummies, dried and shrunken in ovens, coated with pitch, bound up in a hundred fold bandages, would ever revive, and, inhabited by the same souls that fled them thirty centuries before, walk the streets of Thebes again! Besides, a third consideration demands notice. By the theory of metempsychosis,-universally acknowledged to have been held by the Egyptians, it is taught that souls at death, either immediately, or after a temporary sojourn in hell or heaven has struck the balance of their merits, are born in fresh bodies; never that they return into their old ones. But the point is set beyond controversy by the discovery of inscriptions, accompanying pictures of scenes illustrating the felicity of blessed souls in heaven, to this effect: "Their bodies shall repose in their tombs forever; they live in the celestial regions eternally, enjoying the

1 Herod. Lib. ii. cap. 123. 2 De Abstinentia, Lib. iv. cap. 10. Banquet of the Seven Wise Men.

VOL. XIII.

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