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We have been employed for some Sabbaths in exposing the heresy of universal pardon. And we concluded our last discourse with noticing the qualification which its advocates put upon the doctrine-namely, that Christ's death does not take away the guilt of final unbelief. On this point we must be allowed to offer a few remarks before proceeding to the principal object we have in view, in the present discourse.

Final unbelief, then, is the only sin that is to be punished-for punishment of transgressors in a future world is at length admitted; but all other sins are pardoned or blotted out by the atone

ment.

1. Now, in the first place, this is contrary to numerous declarations of sacred Scripture. For example, we are told that "cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." We are told

that "the wrath of God has been revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men." We are told that "indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish will be rendered to every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile." We are told that "uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness" are things "for whose sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience."* We are told that those who have not given meat and drink and clothing to the needy disciples of Christ shall "go into everlasting punishment." We are told that the Judge of the quick and the dead will say to the wicked at the last day, "I never knew you; depart from me, "ye that work iniquity." We are told that even the merely "unprofitable servant shall be cast into outer darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." But time would fail me to quote the many passages of holy writ which put it beyond all controversy, that every sin, as well as that of unbelief, is liable to punishment, and that all who die under the guilt of any sin whatever shall be punished for it in a future world. Their distinction therefore is most unscriptural.

2. Then, in the second place, observe what an + Matt. xxv. 41, &c.

* Col. iii. 5, 6. Matt. xxv. 30.

Ib. vii, 23.

imperfect and mutilated work this idea makes of the atonement. The atonement, it is said, procures and confers pardon, but not complete pardon. It blots out all the sins of an individual, except one; and that is one without which, the blotting out of all the rest is a boon which can be of no worth or moment at all. Nay a man may live for three score years and ten in unbelief, and all that unbelief is forgiven, but if he lives one moment longer in unbelief and then dies, that moment's unbelief, unpardoned and unpardonable, nullifies and renders useless all the previous forgiveness of his unbelief, by dooming him to the place of torment. Christ was a substitute for him on the cross only as to a part of his guilt. He bore in his own body on the tree the sin of unbelief committed by the individual for seventy years, but he did not bear the self same sin as committed for a single instant longer. His love and his merit failed at the critical point of deliverance; and after cancelling the sinner's obligations to punishment up to the very moment of his departure into the eternal world, abandoned him to a fate which annihilates all the benefit he had received, and stultifies all the scheme that had taken him under its redeeming care. Don't you see in this, my friends, an incongruity that is dishonourable to Him who devised the method of salvation, and to him by whom it was execut

ed? And are you aware of any thing in the Bible which gives the faintest colour to such a representation of the saving work of the Son of God?

3. On the contrary, as may be remarked in the third place, is it not evident that Christ is held out uniformly as a complete Saviour, leaving nothing undone in behalf of those for whom he died?that there is no exception made in the case of any person on whom he had set his love, and for whose life he had given his flesh in sacrifice ?—that so far as these are concerned, every stain of guilt is washed away in virtue of that sacrifice, and nothing reserved that could bring them into condemnation ?

4. And finally, this view necessarily results from the mode of interpreting Scripture adopted by those against whose errors we are contending. For they support their doctrine of universal pardon, by appealing to the universality of the terms in which the intention, and efficacy, and applica tion of Christ's atoning death are described. They tell us, for instance, that he is a "propitiation for the sins of the whole world." Very well-let them be consistent. One of the sins of the world is unbelief-alas! final unbelief is one of the worst and most prevalent of all the sins with which apostate men are chargeable. Surely, then, if the universal terms are to be interpreted literally and rigidly, unbelief, final unbelief, as well as every

other sin is atoned for and pardoned! And of course every man must be freed from punishment, and every man must be accepted and saved! But they make the exception of unbelief; and where is their authority for this? since the Bible says that Christ is not only the propitiation for the sins of the whole world," but that he has made an end of sin, and finished the transgression, and brought in an everlasting righteousness!" Their authority is founded on such passages as declare that on him that believeth not the wrath of God abideth. Be it so; and it is just to that, and a multitude of passages of similar import, that we have recourse in order to prove that Christ's death does not convey the pardon of all the sins besides unbelief, which all men have committed. And how comes it that they should be privileged to employ a rule of interpretation, the use of which must be denied to us? I say again, let them be consistent. Either the universal terms used in Scripture on this subject are to be taken strictly, or they may be qualified by other declarations that occur in the same record. If they are to be taken strictly, then our opponents have reduced themselves to the necessity of maintaining that even the sin of final unbelief is atoned for, and will be pardoned, and so all men will get to the promised land. But if they allow that the universal terms in question may be qua

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