promises for obedience, or the threatenings for disobedience to a future state, than we have for believing that the Jews, for their obedience in this world, will be blessed in the future state in the quiet possession of the land of Canaan: and for their disobedience will be visited with sickness and be carried away into captivity by their enemies.

To conclude. Let us, my friends, open our eyes on the certain consequences with which our heavenly Father rewards the obedient here in the earth. Let us regard that calm sunshine of peace within, which we are sure to enjoy as the reward of well doing. Let us endeavour to estimate in a proper manner the rich inheritance which is the certain lot of those who keep the commandments of God.

Let us look round us, and see if prisons, dungeons, and gallows are not a sufficient argument to prove, that the wicked are recompensed in the earth. And if this sad scene be not sufficient, go draw the veil from still greater horrors, where intemperance and uncleanness exhibit the warning spectacle of degraded humanity. Beloved youth, look, these terrors are no fictions; they are awful realities! Your feet stand in slippery places! O put on the whole armour of righteousness that ye may be able to stand in the evil day; and pray most fervently that you may not be led into temptation, but that you may be delivered from evil.

LECTURE SERMON,

DELIVERED AT THE

SECOND UNIVERSALIST MEETING, IN BOSTON,

APRIL 25, 1819.

BY HOSEA BALLOU, PASTOR.

Published Semi-Monthly by Henry Bowen, Devonshire-street.

EZEKIEL xvi. last of 50.

"Therefore I took them away as I saw good."

THE spirit of divine truth, addressing Jerusalem by the prophet, informed her that she was more corrupted in her ways than her sisters, Samaria and her daughters, or Sodom and her daughters. The words of the prophet are these; "As I live, saith the Lord God, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. Behold this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness, was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hands of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me; therefore I took them away as I saw good."

The destruction of the inhabitants of Sodom is the subject of our text, and that to which the most cautious attention of this christian audience is now most earnestly solicited.

By those who believe and preach the "heartchilling doctrine" of endless torment, the destruction of Sodom is constantly adverted to as an evident proof of this tenet, and an instance of its positive reality.

Now as it is one of the objects of this course of lectures, to disprove the doctrine here mentioned, and to show, that the divine testimony which its advocates apply as proof of this tenet gives it no support, it is thought expedient to show that we have no evidence to believe that the Sodomites are an instance of an endless state of misery. And as several other instances of the destruction of the wicked are generally used for the same end as this of the destruction of Sodom, notice will be taken of a number of them in the present discourse, in a way to show that they afford no evidence in support of the doctrine, in favour of which they are perpetually employed by our terrific preachers.

The first question which we shall attempt to examine is, whether the scriptures, which speak of the destruction of Sodom, give any account of the endless misery of those people who died in that des

truction?

We are informed in the 18th and 19th chapters of Genesis, that, on account of the grieveous sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, "the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah, brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground."

This is the account which we have in Genesis of the destruction of the Sodomites. But we find no mention made of their being consigned to a state of torment after their temporal destruction.

Here let us bring our subject into the light by the following queries.

1. Of the two events, the temporal destruction of the Sodomites and their being consigned to a state of unspeakable torment in the invisible and eternal world, which is the greatest? Every one will acknowledge at once, that the last mentioned of these events is infinitely greater than the first. Indeed, those who believe and hold forth the idea of the endless misery of the wicked hereafter, al

ways inform us, that all the sufferings of this mortal state are nothing compared with the sufferings of the miserable in the eternal world.

2. Why, allowing the common opinion of the miserable state of the Sodomites in the invisible + world, is there a particular account given of their temporal destruction, and yet not a word about this everlasting torment in the future state, which is a subject infinitely greater? To illustrate the nature of this question, we will suppose, that we have an account in our newspapers of a fire in the city of Philadelphia that burnt several ware-houses and consumed considerable property. This account falls into the hands of our christian preachers, and they come forward in public and state a most lamentable account of the total destruction of the city of Philadelphia by fire. They set forth, in the most moving language the awful sufferings of the wretched inhabitants of that city, not one of which were able to make their escape from the devouring flames! They even go so far as to informs us of certain manifestations of the tender sympathies of busbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters in the last sad moments of their dreadful destruction. After the peace of the whole town should be thus trifled with for some time, and all' our hearts had been wrung with the keenest sorrow for the astonishing sufferings of our fellow mortals, some of us should ask our preachers how they were informed of the sorrowful news of the destruction of the inhabitants of Philadelphia ?They in a very careless indifferent manner, after a few civilities, inform us that we have had the account in the public papers; and ask us if we have not seen the account of the burning of those warehouses and all the goods there were in them?What should we think in such a case? Should we not allow ourselves to query whether these good teachers had not made some mistake? or exagerated in a most unwarranted degree the account given

in the papers? You will all agree that no excuse could possibly palliate for such a breach of our peace, except it could be proved that our teachers, who had thus troubled our souls, were actuated by a delirium. But my friends, even this comparison falls infinitely short of the subject under consideration. There is not so great a disproportion between the supposed account of the fire in Philadelphia, and the exageration of this account, which we have supposed, as there is between the account recorded in Genesis of the destruction of the Sodomites, and the exagerations by which thousands have been led to believe that those who were there destroyed, were consigned to a state of interminable misery. The question before you is like this; Would the public prints notice, in a particular manner, the burning of a few ware-houses in the city of Philadelphia, but say nothing of the burning of the whole city, inhabitants and all?

3. As it is acknowledged by all, who reason well on the relation between testimony and facts, and the legitimate powers of the former to establish the latter, that extraordinary and naturally incredible events require a strength of testimony and a clearness of evidence which correspond with the extraordinary character of what is to be proved, is it not our indispensable duty, and what we owe to ourselves and to the cause of truth, to ask our divines, who insist on the endless misery of the Sodomites, to produce evidence of this fact, the force and clearness of which are equal to the extraordinary character of this supposed fact?

That this supposed fact is naturally incredible appears most evident by comparing it with the manifest character of the divine Being. God is a being of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness.

We may suppose, that if God were infinitely wise, and infinitely powerful, but entirely destitute of goodness, he might contrive a scheme of infinite cruelty, and carry the same into effect; but if he