read nothing which contradicts it. Also, "God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and live:" and there is nothing in all the Bible to contradict it. In order for the testimony to be as strong against the doctrine for which I contend as it is in its favour, we ought to be able to find testimony like the following: viz. "God our Saviour will not have all men to be saved-God is willing that some should utterly perish; and that all should not come to repentance and live!" But such testimony does not exist and even if it did, it would not prove the contrary of that for which I am contending. It would only prove that the scriptures contradict themselves, and therefore can be no longer the rule and guide of our faith.

If the scriptures only contained as strong proof against the salvation of all men as they do in favour of that glorious hypothesis, it is my humble opinion, not only that they would be, but that they ought to be, discarded by every rational mind. Let us read, "God so hated the world, that he sent his only begotten Son into the world, not to save the world; but that the world through him might be condemned!" and who would trust in such scripture for salvation? Answer: Not one. Now, to the eternal praise of our heavenly Father, in gratitude let it be written as with the pen of a diamond on each of our hearts, that exactly the reverse of the above sentence are the words of Christ.

But as we would not wish to introduce evidence more than sufficient to prove a fact, I shall dismiss this article, and come to the last thing proposed; viz.

ན

2. To point out this deliverance; and show by what means it shall be carried into effect.

Perhaps none would object against the idea of the whole creation's being delivered from the bondage of corruption, in a natural sense, provided it could be proved that a part of them would afterward be consigned over to endless misery. This (according to scholastic divinity) appears to be agreeable to sound ORTHODOXY; i. e. that even the wicked shall be delivered from their graves, and their bodies prepared by the almighty power of God, to

P

endure endless pain and suffering in a lake of material fire and brimstone. But such ones do not consider that an incorruptible and immortal being is not susceptible of suffering. They do not consider that there are some things, of which the human mind can conceive, which are impossible (Heb. vi. 18,) even for a God to perform. Such are those things which are contrary to his nature; or contrary to the nature and fitness of things. How can an immortal body suffer? For that which causes pain, or annoys the body, must, if continued, finally produce a dissolution; and an immortal body cannot be dissolved. All suffering must be either tolerable or intolerable: if tolerable, it may be endured; if intolerable, it must be short. For the very moment that pain or suffering becomes intolerable, it destroys all sense. And as pain naturally serves to imbecilitate, or weaken the constitution, it must, as a natural consequence, if continued, become intolerable. Hence suffering must eventually. cease, upon any calculation whatever. A full conviction of this has led some to suppose that the second death will be a second dissolution of the body-that the wicked will not be raised with incorruptible, but with corruptible bodies, and therefore die a second time, in a natural sense. This idea appears to have arisen from a groundless conclusion that the wicked will suffer in a natural sense after the resurrection, in a lake of material fire and brimstone, or in hell; but as the scriptures do not justify the idea of a corruptible resurrection, I shall take up no more time respecting it.

It is now taken for granted, and I believe all will concede to the idea, that a deliverance from the bondage of corruption, in a natural sense, can be nothing short of a deliverance from a mortal to an immortal state; from a corruptible, to a state of incorruption; in which state no being can possibly suffer in a natural sense, any more than light can suffer by the power of darkness.

But the deliverance from the bondage of corruption, of which the text more particularly speaks, is a deliverance in a moral sense; that is, a deliverance into the glorious liberty of the children of God. And what kind

of liberty is this? Is it liberty to sin?-to commit all manner of abominations? No! The children of God, in a spiritual and moral sense, have not, neither do they wish for any such liberty. Hence a deliverance from the bondage of corruption, in a moral sense, is a deliverance from sin. It is a deliverance from vanity-from folly, ignorance, envy, hatred, injustice, cruelty, bigotry, falsehood, superstition, pride covetousness, and all the corruptions that infest the human heart. This is what the creature shall be delivered from. And what other deliverance does he stand in need of? A deliverance in this sense would be a deliverance from the lowest hell! (Psalm lxxxvi. 13.)

Christian liberty is the liberty of serving God in sincerity of loving him with all the heart, soul, mind, might, and strength; and of loving our neighbours as ourselves of doing good to all men as we have opportunity, and recommending it more especially to the household of the faithful-of doing unto others as we should wish and reasonably expect them to do unto us, under a change of circumstances-of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, mitigating the circumstances of widows and orphans in their afflictions, and of living lives unspotted from the world. This is pure and undefiled religion, in the exercise of full gospel liberty; (James, i. 27;) and the gospel (viz. the good tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people) gives no other liberty but this. And this is the liberty into which the creature, (xiis, totum genus humanum,) the whole race of mankind, SHALL BE DELIVERED.

Here, again, I am obliged to throw out a number of pages, in which I attempted to show by what means this deliverance will be carried into effect; and yet, after all, I shall extend the work beyond my proposed limits.

I have only room to say, in general terms, that, as the diseases of the body are mere privations of health, so the disorders of the mind are all merely negative, a lack or want of their contrary virtues; the same as darkness is nothing more than the absence or want of light. Hence ignorance, folly, injustice, hatred, cruelty, &c. are only

the want of knowledge, wisdom, justice, love, mercy, &c. and, therefore, these are the sovereign remedies for the mind. Yea, all the remedies for the moral maladies and vices of the human heart, are to be sought for in their contrary virtues. These are the remedies which were manifested in Jesus; and therefore he is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption: (Cor. i. 30:) i, e. he becomes so by his example; and in the observance of which, we find a deliverance from sin.

I might here speak of the glorious consequences of this deliverance; which can be nothing short of the final emancipation of all rational beings from the bondage of sin and death, into the life, light, and liberty, of the children of God; but, for reasons before given, I must hasten to a close.

The doctrine herein inculcated rests on the divine and infinite prescience of JEHOVAH-the immutability of his counsel, and the perfection of his nature and designsall concentrating in infinite and eternal goodness.

By this system, we are enabled to behold a God, infinitely good, as well as great, whom we can worship without distraction. According to this system, there is no such thing as a secret will in opposition to that which is revealed-no need of racking one's imagination, to distinguish between permissive and decretal events-no events too small to come under the divine prescience; and none foreknown which were not designed to be-no imperfection or defect in the great whole; nor in the several parts only when considered in their separate capacity, so that their relation and connexion are not fully discovered. All is harmony in God, its several parts have their proper place, and all is perfect. No evil but what shall be eradicated; no vice but what shall be overcome by virtue; no hatred but what shall be removed by love; no death but what shall be swallowed up in victory; and no devil but what shall be destroyed by Christ! (Heb. ii. 14.) When these things are accomplished, then, GOD, who is LOVE, shall be all in all. (1 Cor. XV. 28.)

173

LECTURE VIII.

To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. ISAIAH, viii. 20.

FROM the foregoing lectures, it will have been perceived, that the nature of God is LOVE, and that all his attributes partake of this heavenly and divine principle ; that he stands in the same moral relation to all rational beings, and that his purposes are immutable-that man was made originally subject to vanity, without any choice or consent of his own, as he could not have been consulted about it; that his sin consisted in his forsaking his state of innocence, and pursuing the path of disobedience that sin is a violation of that moral and divine law which God hath implanted in the understanding; which law is the knowledge man has of moral good; and the transgression of which bringeth death-that man, in his present constitution and organization, is naturally mortal; yet, as death in Adam seemed to be occasioned by sin, so sin in others often is the occasion of natural death; yet death, whether in a natural or moral sense, is finally, and fully, the wages of sin-that salvation consisteth, 1st, in a salvation from sin; and of course from consequent guilt and condemnation; and, 2d, in a deliverance from death, by the resurrection of man to a state of immortality-that these glorious truths have been made manifest in and through Jesus Christ, a man approved of God by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did by him-that as God raised Jesus from the dead, and hath given him power over all flesh, so it is equally true and clear that he will raise up us also by Jesus; i. e. even the self-same creature which was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him