clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption." Oh! how full is Peter, in testimony against such alluring promises! How he holds up to view the dreadful punishments of the fallen angels, who, he says, God has cast down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness: as also the sad overthrow of the old world, of Sodom and Gomorrah, as " an example to those that after should live ungodly!" He says, "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the ungodly unto the day of judgment, to be punished." Will that sentence, whereby, at the day of judgment, they are consigned over to punishment, be ever reversed? Now Peter plainly speaks of such who bring these great swelling promises of liberty, and words of vanity, as "beguiling unstable souls," and seems zealously engaged, by the example of the sad fate of the fallen angels and others, to administer an antidote against the baneful influence of their beguiling words. And especially he seems concerned for such as had once made their escape from such as live in error, and movingly declares, "If after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning; for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment." Thus earnestly laboured this primitive disciple of Jesus, against this beguiling doctrine; clearly showing the dangerous and hurtful tendency thereof. May it have a proper effect on all, and in particular, let such as have once, in good degree, escaped the pollutions of the world, treasure up his wholesome sentiments to their eternal advantage, lest giving heed to swelling words of vanity, they are thereby beguiled like those unstable souls, until their state comes to resemble those of whom this apostle in this chapter, says, "These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever."

Solomon says, Prov. xi. 7. "When a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish: and the hope of unjust men perisheth."

Here it seems that how strong soever their expectation of happiness may have been, how confident soever their hope of eternal life; yet when they die, their hope and expectation" shall perish." Oh! what a sad disappointment! What a fatal and unexpected convincement of their terrible mistake! Death it seems, as it were, will rend the vail, remove the deception, strip them of their fig-leaf covering, and show them in the light of open day their forlorn, undone condition! Their hope cut off-their expectation - perished—must they not sink into the deepest despair, into utter darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! Again, Prov. x. 28. "The hope of the righteous shall be gladness; but the expectation of the wicked shall perish." Now if the wicked shall be eternally happy, how can his hope ever fail, or his expectation perish? especially when he dieth. Will he not then see things as they are? And if eternal life were sure to him, would not his hope and expectation, instead of then perishing, be then abundantly confirmed, yea even bud and blossom as a rose?

Do not these passages, therefore, in the most incontrovertible manner absolutely declare against the eternal salvation of all men? Are they not sufficient to silence the contrary insinuations of all men of modesty and candour?

1 Peter iv. 18. "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" What manner of sense is there in this text, if notwithstanding the righteous scarcely are saved, yet of the most wicked among men, every soul of them be eternally saved?

Do not Christ's parables of the wise virgins, who entered with him, whilst the doors were shut against the foolish, who stood crying without, Lord open to us; and of the faithful servants who improving their talents, entered with a "well done" &c. into the joy of their Lord; and the unprofitable servant, who hid his talent, and so had it taken from him; and instead of "Come ye blessed," the language was, " Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth:" I say, does not all this, together with his awful description of the general judgment, all in one chapter, Matt. xxv., afford an unanswerable argument, yea a three-fold cord, in testimony against this sin-pleasing doctrine of "salvation for all

men," in the sense in which some in these days, presume to propagate it?

The particular juncture of time in which our saviour chose to declare these things, that is just before his crucifixion, seems to me to speak a language somewhat like the following, "Be not deceived, O my dear people! think not that ye can escape the wrath to come merely by the sacrifice which I am now going to offer on the cross for your salvation; for though I taste death for every man, and though through true faith, sanctification, and obedience, all may be saved; yet I tell you, all nations shall be gathered before me. And those who in a right spirit and through faith in me, have done the deeds of virtue and charity, shall be ranged on my right hand as sheep of my pasture, and enter into life eternal, with the welcome invitation, come ye blessed of my Father. But the wicked who, destitute of true faith and greatly wanting in true obedience, have not done these good deeds, shall be set upon the left hand, as goats rejected from my favour, and shall, notwithstanding all their pretended reliance on the merits of my righteousness and sufferings, absolutely go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. Therefore see to it, each one for himself; for I perceive the danger of your misunderstanding the design and extent of my mediatorial offering, and of your thinking to reign with me without first suffering with me, in the life of self-denial, and the daily cross, and though you live to yourselves, instead of living unto me, that am about to die for you. But I tell you nay, for unless ye repent, ye shall surely perish."

This, to me, seems to be implied in the time and manner of our Lord's delivering these things; for he not only does it almost the last of his discourses before his crucifixion, the very next we read being the conspiring of the rulers, to "take him by subtilty, and kill him;" but he as it were prefaced his affecting account of the gathering of all nations before him, and the different sentence of the righteous and the wicked, with these two parables, lately mentioned, as if on purpose to impress the ideas of eternal rewards and punishments upon his hearers' minds in the most striking, and most lasting manner. Let others think as they can, to me this is the import of this instructive chapter,

but at any rate I think it clearly contradicts the doctrine which I am wishing to discountenance among men.

Now let us seriously inquire, why Christ taught doctrines so contradictory to that which some now pretend is the very glory of the gospel, and the brightest display of divine love? Why did he never once declare the eternal salvation of all mankind? Why, when the very question was put, "are there few that be saved," (Luke xiii. 23,) did he not embrace the opportunity to open the gladsome tidings, in order to the greater glory of his Father? Why did he not, instead of an answer directly to the contrary, to wit, "many will seek to enter, and shall not be able," declare the transporting doctrine to the ends of the earth? And why did all his apostles combine in propagating a quite different opinion? Was there never a primitive teacher that was worthy to impart the sacred message, to divulge the glorious discovery, the total emancipation of all the sons of sorrow? Why was it left to the lukewarm teachers of this dissolute age, this day of dissipation, to spread abroad the most glorious doctrine of the gospel, as they would have us esteem it, while Jesus and his disciples united in the doctrine of eternal punishment? Even Jesus himself, as much difference as some pretend there is between everlasting and eternal, plainly tells us of a sin that shall not be forgiven, "neither in this world, neither in the world to come," and expressly declares such as commit it, to be in danger of "eternal damnation." See Mat. xii. 31, &c. Mark iii. 29. Now how can sinners be saved without forgiveness? Or what did our saviour mean by eternal damnation? What did he mean by the "fire that never shall be quenched?” Or why did he so repeatedly warn us to give up all that is near and dear, rather than risk the danger of this unquenchable, this everlasting fire, even to the loss of a right hand, or an eye, both such useful members? Read Mat. v. 29, &c. xviii. 8, and Mark ix. 43, &c. Indeed, so united were Christ and his primitive witnesses, that even Jude, in his one short chapter, as if on purpose to confirm the danger of that "eternal damnation" which Christ had spoken of, points out Sodom and Gomorrah, &c. as "an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Now, can it be supposed they all combined together to deceive manVOL. II.--54

kind, and to preach up terrors of which there was no danger? If not, why are sinners and wicked men, in such multitudes of passages in both Old and New Testament, sentenced to such terrible future judgments and miseries? Why so often doomed to perish to destruction, wrath, vengeance, &c. &c.? And why is this state of the wicked so commonly placed in direct contrast with the future joys and everlasting life of the righteous? Time perhaps would fail me to instance the whole of these passages. Divers of them we have already seen in this work, and that it is as here represented, is too plain to be denied by any. Well, why is it so, if all are to be happy? Why is good and blessing so constantly foretold to the righteous, but sorrow and suffering to the wicked? There must be some important meaning in all this; and what can this meaning be upon the present principles of universal salvation? When Paul preached of "righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled." Acts xxiv. 25. Doubtless he brought the consequences of intemperance into full view, as drawing down the wrath of God in the judgment to come: no wonder then that "Felix trembled."

But, alas for the day! our modern preachers of smooth things might continue their speech from morning to midnight, and not cause one Felix to tremble neither; though perhaps they might, to screen their doctrine from the imputation of tending to licentiousness, try to point out some of the consequences of intemperance &c. in this world. But Paul spoke of the "judgment to come;" and having known "the terrors of the Lord," himself, was able so to open the nature, and perhaps the duration thereof, as to pierce many a stout heart, and bring down into confusion and trembling, such as at other times might triumph, in their merry career, over the pure witness in themselves, and over all the admonitions in sacred record.

Perhaps no question is of greater if so great an importance to man, as that which respects his eternal state: and it seems as if the many strong assertions in scripture, and the many various ways in which this is pointed out, were intended in great loving kindness to him, as so many way-marks, to prevent his missing his road; especially seeing he is so prone to choose the broadway to destruction, and so apt to think his own crimes deserve