SERMON XXVIII. UNIVERSAL SALVATION INCONSISTENT WITH SALVATION BY CHRIST.* 1 TIMOTHY 1: 15.-This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. If this be a faithful saying, it is worthy of our faith or belief, and if worthy of our belief, it is true. But if it be true that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, there was doubtless a wisdom, a propriety, yea, a necessity for it; for it is altogether incredible that he should descend from heaven, abdicate for a season its glory and blessedness, become incarnate and die on the cross to save sinners, unless all this was wise, proper and necessary. But I conceive that the doctrine of the salvation of all men is incapable of being reconciled with this plain, acknowledged and fundamental fact testified in our text; and I propose in the present discourse to compare that doctrine with this fact, and inquire whether they can be reconciled. If all men are to be finally saved, it will be either through Christ, or not through him. Let either supposition be adopted; it is proposed to consider them both. I. All men will be saved through Christ. If so, all will be saved by him either from an endless, or from a temporary punishment. In this again let either supposition be adopted. 1. We will suppose that Christ came to save all men from an endless punishment. If this supposition be true, several important consequences will follow. (1) That an endless punishment is the curse of the divine law; the very curse which the law denounces against every sinner. We read, Gal. 3: 13, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." It is a question of primary importance in all discussions concerning the future punishment of the wicked, "What is the curse or threatening of the divine law?" This text in Galatians determines peremptorily that it is the curse from which Christ hath redeemed us; and * First preached in 1784. if Christ hath redeemed us, as is now supposed, from an endless punishment, then an endless punishment is the curse threatened in the law. So far seems to be plain. (2) It will also follow from the supposition that Christ came to save us from an endless punishment, that an endless punishment of the sinner is deserved, and may be inflicted consistently with perfect justice. If God himself be a just God, his law is just. If his law be just, the curse denounced in it is just. But this curse is that very one, whatever it be, from which Christ came to save us, and by the present supposition is conceded to be an endless punishment. Besides, the justice of inflicting endless punishment on the sinner, appears immediately from what is granted in the supposition now before us. It is supposed that Christ came to save us all from an endless punishment; therefore we were justly exposed to an endless punishment. Otherwise there was no need at all that Christ should be sent to redeem and save us from such a punishment. God would have been obliged, on the footing of law and justice, to preserve us from it. He was originally bound by justice never to threaten it, and if he had threatened it, immediately to abolish the threatening. The very enacting of a law with this threatening annexed to it, unless it was perfectly just, was an act of oppression and tyranny; and for the Deity to perform such an act, would be to deny himself and to divest himself of all moral perfection or rectitude. Nor can we any more reconcile with God's rectitude, the sending of Christ his Son to redeem or save us from an unjust punishment. To insist on an atonement, or ransom, or redemption, in order to preserve us from an endless punishment when it was not justly due to us, is equally, if not more unjust and tyrannical than the threatening of such a punishment. Nor is it any more credible, or consistent with the moral perfection of Jesus Christ that he should redeem us from an unjust punishment. This would have been to justify iniquity, and to join with God the Father in a system of tyranny and oppression, and consequently would bring the guilt of such a system on himself. It would have been no more than right in this case, that Christ should indeed have taken a part friendly to sinning men, not by redeeming them from a punishment to which they were not justly exposed, but by pleading the cause of justice, and insisting that they should be liberated without any redemption at all. Thus if we allow that Christ came to save all men from an endless punishment, we must not only give up the moral rectitude of God and of his son Jesus Christ, but must impute to them the VOL. II. 37 grossest oppression and iniquity. Nor is there any way to avoid these shocking consequences, but by granting that an endless punishment is justly threatened against all mankind, and may justly be inflicted. (3) It follows from the supposition that Christ came to save all men from an endless punishment, that all the arguments against such a punishment drawn from its dreadfulness, or from the divine perfections of goodness, benevolence, justice and impartiality, must be entirely relinquished as being nothing to the purpose. Yet these are some of the chief arguments in favor of the salvation of all men, the most popular, and urged with the greatest success. Thus a great champion for the salvation of all men, says, "It is not honorable to the infinitely righteous and benevolent God of the world, to make men everlastingly miserable, because sin is a finite evil;" and again, "That the doctrine of endless punishment looks like a reflection on the infinite justice, as well as goodness of God;" and again, "To reconcile this doctrine with the strict impartiality of God is beyond me." He also quotes from Mr. Whiston these words: "If the doctrine of endless punishment be true, the justice of God must be inevitably given up, and much more his goodness;" again, "That it supposes God to delight in cruelty." Now how can these things be reconciled with the mediation, death, or intercession of Christ, in order to save all men? Did God threaten a punishment which is not just; one which is not honorable to his righteousness and benevolence; such a one as gives occasion for reflections on his infinite justice; such a one as cannot be reconciled with strict impartiality; a punishment which being supposed to be inflicted, both the justice and goodness of God must be given up; such a punishment as supposes that he delights in cruelty? And having threatened this punishment did he hold to it, and refuse to release the sinner from it, but in consequence of the redemption of Christ? Or did Christ join in such an unjust procedure, and himself become incarnate, and suffer and die in order to deliver us from such a punishment? No, these things are absolutely incredible. This is not dis Yet Christ has come to redeem and save us. puted. And according to the supposition now before us, he came to redeem us from an endless punishment. What is the consequence? Why most undoubtedly this, that the endless punishment of the sinner is just, and consistent with all the divine perfections; and therefore, that all those arguments in favor of the salvation of all men which are drawn from the divine goodness and justice must be entirely relinquished. Nor can it be ever again pleaded, that the doctrine of an endless punishment is unjust, or that it is severe and unaccountable that the greater part of mankind, (the heathen for example, and those who have had little or no advantages for knowing God and Jesus Christ) should be doomed to an endless punishment. To own that Christ came to save all men from an endless punishment, and yet to plead these and such like arguments in favor of the salvation of all, is to be entirely inconsistent with ourselves. (4) It follows, from the supposition that all are saved through Christ from an endless punishment, that every man who is saved, is saved by free and sovereign grace and mercy. The reason is plain, that all justly deserve, and are justly exposed to an endless punishment, and therefore no man can plead justice in order to his salvation; and whosoever is saved, is saved not on the footing of justice and personal right, for if this could be, Christ would never have died, but is saved on the sole footing of free and sovereign grace. Here I cannot but notice an inconsistency in the author of the late noted plea for the salvation of all men. He asserts that those who die in impenitence suffer in degree and duration, in proportion to the depravity which they contract in this life; that they will be miserable in degree and duration, in proportion to the number and greatness of their sins; that there will be a difference of punishment according to the difference in the nature and number of their evil deeds; that they will suffer positive torments awfully great in degree and long in continuance, in proportion to the number and greatness of their crimes; that some of them will suffer for ages of ages, and others variously in proportion to their deserts, and that they will suffer the wages of sin, etc. Yet at the same time he holds that all will be saved by grace, by free grace, by the infinite superabounding mercy and grace of God; so that all will at last join in singing glory and honor and blessing and power to him that sitteth on the throne, and to the lamb forever and ever. But how can these things consist? Surely if any suffer according to their vices, their crimes, their evil deeds; if any one receive the wages of sin, they cannot be saved by grace at all, much less by that grace which is superabounding and infinite. (5) It follows from the supposition that all men are to be saved from an endless punishment through Christ, that a new set of threatenings expressing the curse of the law, and that eternal death from which Christ came to redeem us, must be discovered. They who allow an endless punishment of the wicked, suppose there are many passages in scripture in which such a punishment is plainly threatened; such as these: "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire;"-" These shall go away into everlasting punishment;""Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction;" -"Where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched;" "The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever." But the believers in universal salvation do not allow that these texts threaten an endless punishment. Nor indeed can they allow it, consistently with their favorite doctrine. Because these texts, at the same time that they point out to us the curse of the law and the punishment which sin justly deserves, also inform and assure us that some men will actually suffer that punishment, that some shall go away into everlasting punishment, that some shall in fact be punished with everlasting destruction, that the smoke of the torment of some will ascend forever. So that if it be allowed that these texts express that endless punishment which is the true curse of the law, and from which Christ came to save all men, it must be allowed that all men will not in fact be saved. Therefore in order that the advocates for universal salvation may support the present supposition, that an endless punishment is the curse of the law, and that all men will be saved from it through Christ, they must point out a new set of threatenings expressing the endless curse of the law, and yet not assuring us that some men will suffer that curse. This they have not done, nor is it presumed will they be able to do it. Thus it appears that all men will not be saved through Christ from an endless punish ment. 2. Let us suppose that all men will be saved through Christ from a temporary punishment. This temporary punishment must be either that punishment which is expressed in the forementioned threatenings; as "These shall go away into everlasting punishment," and "the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever," or some temporary punishment of longer duration. But the temporary punishment from which all are now supposed to be saved by Christ, is not that which is expressed in the threatenings just mentioned; for it is granted by the advocates for universal salvation that this punishment will actually be endured by a number. From this therefore all will not be saved. If it be said that all will be saved through Christ from a temporary punishment which is, or was to be of a longer duration than that expressed in the threatenings above quoted, then that longer temporary punishment is the curse of the law. But it cannot be the curse of the law, because it is no where pointed out in the law, or in any part of the sacred scriptures. The sacred scriptures no where threaten a punishment of greater duration |