18-If you, sir, with all your virtue, would stake fifty-nine to one, or fifty-nine hundred to one hundred on your theory against fact, or on your theology against philology, what shall we think of the daring efforts of less virtuous persons! You must know that the words God, Lord, heaven, salvation, life, death, &c. &c. are often, very often, used figuratively; and that there is not an adjective, I mean a compound adjective, one of the same construction, of such frequent occurrence in the Bible, more uniformly rendered by one word than aioonios; (your inap. posite and uncompounded kalos and sophos fully proved what you sought to disprove by them;) yet you would risk 5900 to 100 for your opinion against fact!!!

19---The reason why you made this candid concession, nor the value and extent of it, I presume does not yet appear to all. That it may be understood in its cause and tendencies, I request our readers to reconsider paragraphs 10, 18, 19, 20, 23, and 25, of my last letter to you, and your notices of these paragraphs. He may then see the delusion, may I call it? of your species of Universalism. It admits that God is aioonios that his perfections are aioonios—that his praise is aioonios that the happiness of the righteous is aioonios-and that the punishment of the wicked is aioonios; yet that the four first are endless, and the latter momentary, though all expressed in Hebrew, Greek, and English by the same word!

20---Why this inconsistency? I besought you, sir, two or three times not to slur this matter again; I laid it before you time after time, in its length and breadth, until in your 19th paragraph you make the grand avowal-you disclose the secret. The thing of endless punishment cannot be proved to you by any rules of language or philology; for you say: 1. "It is useless"-2. "Absolutely pernicious"-3. "Dishonorable to God"-4. "Opposed to infinite benevolence"-5. "To mercy"-6. "To wisdom"-7. "To power"—8. "To justice"-9. "To the veracity of God"-10. "To the general voice of revelation." "Therefore," you say, "endless punishment cannot be true." This is the triumph of theology over philology!

21---It is not yet in order for me to follow you into your philosophi cal ambush; but I have no doubt your philosophy will be found as superficial and as palpably at fault as your philology. I would not be surprized (mind I state it now) if when we get upon those-points, you would flee again to the mountains of philology as affording more shade than the fertile plains of your philosophy. At present the matter stands thus:-Mr. Skinner thinks that everlasting punishment is useless, pernicious, dishonorable, unwise, unmerciful, unjust, &c. &c. There. fore, though everlasting, and eternal, and endless were found in the Bible 5900 times in all their force, and one hundred times only in a part of it, he would balance; yes, overbalance the difference, and annihilate the force of these words by one single "I think."

22--- Will it avail any thing with you, sir, to reflect upon the ground assumed in this avowal? You have assumed that universal language possesses no word which could eternize a subject unless the subject be in its own nature eternal without it. You go so far as to allege that the word aioonios, when applied to God, could not by its own power or meaning, assure us of his eternity, unless we found other reasons in himself giving to it that meaning. So of the happiness of the righteous.

Not finding these reasons in your philosophy of punishment, the word aioonios, or everlasting, prefixed to it, means momentary, or limited; just because you think it "useless, pernicious, unjust," &c. &c. In your philology all adjectives are cyphers. A cypher placed after 9 means 90; but placed before 1, it means 1-10th of a unit.

23-Again, as there is no special law passed in the commonwealth of letters in favor of aioonios, it must be by virtue of the common law of adjectives and epithets that it has no meaning of its own. This must be true of all adjectives. They all, on your theory of language, derive their meaning from the substantives with which they stand. In your new grammar, "A substantive is a word added to an adjective to express some quality belonging to it, or to give it a peculiar meaning." Thus happiness eternal, means endless; and punishment eternal, means momentary.

24---As you are safely moored, I will tell you where I may be found: Where I bade Mr. Montgomery adieu. All nouns and adjectives have a literal or common, and a figurative or less common meaning. Words that belong to the body, when applied to the mind are used figuratively; words that belong to the mind, when applied to the body must also be used only in a part of their signification; words that belong to things temporal, when applied to subjects in another state are used figuratively, in more or less than their common signification; and words that pertain to eternity or to another state of being, when applied to things in time or on earth, are used in less than their common signification. This universal and immutable law of language, not made for any special case, explains satisfactorily that when I say, 'He is an endless talker, an eternal trouble, an everlasting nuisance,' I use these words figuratively, and not in their proper signification.

25---You have said you believe in punishment after death, in another state of being, and have referred me to a document that I never saw. Will your co-editor please send me a copy of said future punishment? 1 am pleased to find, on your testimony, that you believe "in future post mortem punishment." I trust it is not in what some call absolute destruction the everlasting punishment of a few of my acquaintance, who affect to think that Nero, Caligula, and Judas Iscariot will be doomed to the eternal destiny of a dove or a lamb! for surely if absolute destruction be everlasting punishment, the greatest wretch that ever lived and the most innocent lamb go into the same everlasting punishment.

26---I hope you have not found a Protestant Purgatory; though you speak a good deal like it about punishment leading men to repentance, whose icy hearts the love of God could not melt: these, you believe with Bishop Purcell and the Pope, may be melted in the penal fines of Purgatory. I am anxious to learn your theory of future punishment. Excuse me for my unbelief. I think when it comes to be examined it will be found to be rather a lunar hoax.

27-Lastly, I am now ready to hear from you on the third proposition. Your grand avowal and concession, and your having introduced ten arguments philosophical and theological, will, I have no doubt, be fully satisfactory to our readers that enough is already said on that subject. Besides, I wish now to get at the naked question; for I think we have document enough on that solemn subject to satisfy every can

did person under heaven. You can no doubt despatch your proposition about the apax legomenon, or the word that is found once in the Greek Testament, in one letter; though you can have five if you please. Meanwhile, I forewarn you that I will not, after your concessions, have much more of a logomachy. From words to things we must ascend. Controversially yours,

A. CAMPBELL.

DR. THOMAS-AGAIN.

I HAVE now on hand more than would fill one entire number of the Millennial Harbinger, on the affairs of Dr. Thomas and his speculations, received within a few days. In the first place, I received from Mason county, Kentucky, from one of my earliest friends and acquaintances in that state, a gentleman who heard with extraordinary attention my whole debate on baptism in 1823, when its true meaning and design` were for the first time promulged in America—one that ever since, less or more, attended me on my tours in Kentucky, and heard my debate with Mr. Owen in 1829-a gentleman of high legal attainments, and well acquainted with the laws of reason and evidence: I say, I receivfrom him a narrative of facts and incidents, some of them forgotten by myself, fully confirmatory of the views set forth in my late Extra on the doctrine of my consistency-for which I return him many thanks.

I have also received from Mr. Hunnicutt, the publisher of the account of the debate on Materialism, which we translated to our pages, a very full defence of his account of the said discussion; and from certain allegations against himself and brethren preferred by Dr. Thomas since that time, he engages to prove by the most reputable witnesses the truth of his statement, &c. &c.

Superadded to these, I have received a very well written, candid, and, I have no doubt, a very correct view of the Hebrew part of said discussion, from the pen of the Presbyterian clergyman, Mr. J. S. Watt, with whom Dr. Thomas debated on Materialism.

In addition to its internal evidences and the moral reputation of the author, he even tenders abundant testimony to prove that Doctor Thomas commenced his defence of Materialism by an elaborate He brew criticism, and not being able to discriminate between nephesh and batey hanephesh,* he spent much time, nearly an hour in one speech,

Batey hunephesh properly denotes houses of the soul, rendered by Lowth "perfume exes," because ladies of those times (as the Persians now) wore large boxes of sweet perfumes fastened to their necklaces, some of them as large as one's hard-the common one's of gold-the richer sort covered with jewels; bored through and filled with a black paste inade of musk and amber, but of a very strong smell. Parkhurst's Lexicon. They are very unintelligibly translated "tablets" in the common version.

in an effort to show that nephesh, often translated soul, breath, &e. could not denote that which was immaterial; because, forsooth, it sig nified a "smelling bottle," quoting Isaiah iii. 20. in proof of it!! This unfortunate blunder, which any one who can read the Hebrew Bible could not easily make, completely killed the Doctor at one blow. Mr. Watt has, in an article which would fill some 8 or 10 pages of this work, elaborated this matter with great spirit and power.

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Besides these, I have received numerous other documents, too tedious to mention, on the same subject. I cannot consent, for various reasons, to fill our pages with such matters; especially because they all attribute too much importance to what has now become a very uninteresting matter. I very thankfully, however, acknowledge the receipts of these favors; and shall, with all respect for their authors, beg to be excused for withholding them from the public at this time.

There are, however, two or three short documents which I am not at liberty to withhold under all the circumstances of the case. These are the following:

Brother Campbell,

HILLSBOROUGH, King & Queen, December 23, 1837.

DEAR SIR-Our last mall brought the Apostolic Advocate. In consequence of the Editor's having introduced my name into his defence against you, I feel it a duty to express my sentiments, and that publicly, because you have striped me over the shoulders of Dr. Thomas. I now at blamed by both parties. I did think my explanation made lust May in the Harbinger, would have been satisfactory to all parties. But it appears that a conviction of an error to a conscientious man is not punishment enough-he must be lacerated in every controversy.

I deeply regret the present state of things; and allow me to say in brotherly love to you I opine that you have pushed matters too fast, if not too far, as a teacher of Christianity.This may appear to you rather presumptuous in me. Well, it may be so, as one and all of us can see farther into the errors of others, than our own. It now seems to me to he absolutely necessary, from the language of the Advocate, for you to publish our church letter, that the public may see we have passed no resolution, or ever heard of any one saying "that if you were to come among them they would not fellowship you, except the Baptists," until I read this in the Advocate.

We entertain the highest regard for your Christian character, and your "work of faith and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;" and would be delighted once more to enjoy your Christian conversation.It is only an opinion of yours that we believed the sects were settled down upon to their utter destruction, that prompted us at this time to speak as we did We had no fears among ourselves that the opinion of any man on earth would be an article of faith among us. Our brethren, we trust, are free from this sectarian principle, the source of all schisms and proscriptions.

As respects your extracts of a few words of mine, published in the Gospel Advocate, I refer your readers to your last May number for my reasons; and now request you to publish this, or a copy of my letter to Dr. Thomas, dated the 3d day of last April, which he has treated with silent contempt. I now say, without the least hostile feelings towards him, I think him inconsistent in calling me a brother, after having published to the world that the reformers who came out from among the Baptists "are parts and parcel of the symbolical Babylonish Empire."-That his independence upon this point has been so far

A.

tested by queries from one of his best friends among us, and he has failed to come ont as yet."

Now, before I would disclaim fellowship with Dr. Thomas, I wish to understand him clearly; and having no correspondence with one who treats a friend with contempt, as he treated those who differed from him, I want to know positively where does he find any Apostle advocating re-immersion, and calling all who do not obey then "part and parcel of the symbolical Babylonish Empire"? Which of the Apostles plainly teaches, or even hints at infants, ideots, and heathens not rising from the dead, and that the proclamation of the gospel made men unjust? For if the heathens do not rise from the dead, they are not unjust, however murderous and abominable their lives may have been, until they hear the gospel and do not obey it. This is not a matter of opinion, but a matter upon which turns the whole gospel. I repeat it, if the heathens now living, however inhuman or irrational their conduct may he, are not to rise from the dead, then, according to his own declaration, they are not unjust until they do hear the gospel and do not obey; consequently the gospel inakes them unjust if not obeyed.

Dr. Thomas, I trust, is vastly mistaken that he will not lose "twenty patrons" if he continues to write as he has done; for I have been requested to unite with brethren to address him plainly, that they will not any longer countenance any man that writes as he does, before you disclaimed fellowship with him. I put them off until he answered the queries, or could learn clearly his views. But there is no doubt he will in due time receive information of this from the Elders of the churches.

I was not present when these queries were stated, nor did I hint it to the baethren; but the schismatic character of his re-immersed disciples is sufficient evidence of "their established dereliction of Christian conduct." To disclaim fellowship with all such (who require those that have either withdrawn from the churches or have been excluded upon conviction of their error and reformation. "they shall be re-immersed before they are restored to fellowship,") becomes the duty fall Christians, if adhered to.

Yours in the fellowship of the gospel,

THOMAS M. HENLEY.

KING & QUEEN COUNTY, Va., October 29, 1837. The disciples worshipping at Smyrna, after worship took into consideration the answer of our beloved brother Campbell to the queries of a letter dated "Lunenburg, 8th July, 1837," as also the 5th paragraph of his 4th number letter addressed to Mr. J. Wallis of England, in the 9th number of the current volume of his Harbinger, and ⚫came to the conclusion to address him as follows:

Beloved brother Campbell

We have for years beheld with admiration your able and lucid exhibition (in the face of a powerful opposition) the OLD APOSTOLIC GOSPEL. We are persuaded there has No man lived, since the apostolic day, so far as history has informed us, who has done more to put down infidelity, and restore from the apostacy primitive Christianity and a pure speech, than you have done. Your extra essay on "haptism for the remission of ging," has astonished thousands, and is nearer, in our judgment, the old apostolic gospel, than any thing we have seen published to the world by any uninspired teacher. Your opinions are not generally placed by friend or opponent upon the same footing of ordinary men, or they would pass with us for what they are worth, without a notice from us. We have read all the published efforts of the opponents of your Extra that have been among us, and must say, we have not seen, as yet, one able to start a peg in any proposition i contains. But we deeply regret to find you have with your own pen, in a few strokes made the ignorance of man do, what all the wisdom of the schools, and the kingdom of the clergy, that has publicly examined this Extra, failed to do. In the absence of your Old Testament Prophets, sustaining you in calling a man or a woman a Christian that has not been immersed in obedience to the commission the Son of God gave to his Apostles and that the Apostles recognized any as Christians that did not believe and obey their commission, we cannot receive as of divine authority without seeing it on the sacred