counsel is proposed, and that it is in order to prevent and dissuade us from our own ruin. Christ sees us in the way which leadeth to destruction, but he feels for our danger and is unwilling we should proceed therein. He therefore in a most friendly manner counsels us to forsake our present course, and to enter in at the strait gate which leadeth unto life. The Lord God also expresses himself after the same manner. Ez. 18: 31. "Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby you have transgressed and make you a new heart, and a new spirit; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourself and live ye." And not only here but in innumerable other places God proposes this counsel in the same friendly manner. 4. This great friend of yours does not give this counsel upon any slight apprehensions of the destruction to which you are exposed but with a perfect knowledge of it. You on your part have heard of this destruction, but he sees it. Job 26: 6, "Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering." He sees what misery the wicked suffer in the other world; he knows perfectly all their pains and tortures. He clearly sees the fearfulness which surprises the multitudes who walk in the broad way, as they pass by the gate of death to the invisible world. Yea, further, he has given abundant evidence of his great sense of the dreadfulness of this destruction. Now if Jesus Christ had not known, and had not also a very great sense of its dreadfulness would he have ever laid down his life to save men from it ? Would he have ever deemed all this expense needful to save men from any trifling, inconsiderable evil? Had Christ come to us and told us that this destruction was dreadful, even his word would have been great evidence of it. Or if he had come into the world and not only told us this, but had labored and toiled much in order to deliver us from it, this would have been still greater evidence. But how much greater is the evidence when he comes, and not only toils and labors much, but humbles himself to death, even the death of the cross? Hearken, therefore, to the counsel of him who perfectly knows and has given such abundant evidence of his great sense of the dreadfulness of that destruction to which you are exposed. 5. Again; besides the warnings and counsels given by Christ in his word, you have many other warnings also to enter in at the strait gate. Death has come and suddenly carried away many who were stupidly going on in the broad way. Many no doubt of your acquaintance have been walking in that way, who never intended to be overtaken therein by the king of terrors, and yet have been suddenly snatched away with little or no time to prepare. These things have been loud calls of providence to you, inculcating the same counsel as this in our text. Again; many of those who have walked all their life long in the broad way, when they have come to die being sensible of their awful condition and that they were sinking to hell, have left their most earnest and solemn warnings to you not to live as they have lived. O! how have they wished for but one year, one month, one week longer to live, that they might spend it in a very different manner from that in which they have spent their past lives! And they have in the most earnest and affecting manner called upon those around them to beware of treading in their steps. You have also been warned by those who have truly repented of their sins, and have forsaken the broad way that leadeth to destruction. They have told you the danger that you are in, and have exhorted you to flee from the wrath to come. And what do you think will be the consequence, if after all these warnings you persist in the broad way? Hear the words of Solomon, "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy." 6. And the suddenness of this destruction should be an additional motive to comply with the counsel of our text. It is commonly represented in scripture as coming on men very suddenly and unexpectedly. Thus it is compared to a cry at midnight, which happens when all are buried in sleep, and have no expectation of any such thing. It is compared also to a thief in the night, who always comes in the most secret manner and at a time when he is least expected. Matt. 24: 42, 43, "Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." And this the apostle speaks of as evidently and perfectly well known to the church in his days. 1 Thess. 5: 23, "For ye yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape." So also Job 27: 20, 21, "Terrors take hold on him as waters, a tempest stealeth him away in the night. The east wind carrieth him away and he departeth; and as a storm hurleth him out of his place." The coming of Christ is also compared to a snare. Luke 21: 35, "For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth." Eccl. 9: 12, "For man also knoweth not his time as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and the birds that are caught in a snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time when it falleth suddenly upon them." Thus it was with the old world; they were going heedlessly along the broad way, till sudden and unexpected destruction came upon them; and so also was it in the days of Lot. Luke 17: 26, etc. "And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed." The dissolution of the world is also compared to the sliding of the feet. Deut. 32: 35, "To me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their feet shall slide in due time." And the Psalmist says, "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places." Upon the whole then unless you comply with the counsel given in the text, you are daily exposed to the sudden destruction of the rich man. While he was meditating how he should lay up for his soul much goods for many years, that he might eat and drink and be merry, God said to him, "Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee." Finally; 7. If you do not comply with this counsel, what will you think of your own conduct hereafter? Your time in this world is but very short at the longest, and how much it may be shortened you know not. When therefore it shall be forever past, and you shall come to reflect upon your conduct in another world, what will be your sentiments? Without doubt you will mourn at the last, when your flesh and your body are consumed, you will say, "How have I hated instruction and reproof and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me?" You will then curse yourselves for your folly and stupidity. You will curse yourselves that you were such fools that when such a price was put into your hands to get wisdom, you had no heart to improve it. Then, every kind invitation of the gospel, every kind and friendly warning of Christ, the consideration of his painful life, and of his shameful and accursed death, as well as every wholesome warning of providence, of your friends, of God's ministers, and of the Holy Spirit, will be as a fiery sting and as the worm that never dies to your souls! Then when the wrath of God shall actually have taken hold upon you, it will be too late for repentance. Then will you be in the wretched condition of Esau "who for one morsel of meat sold his birth-right; and who afterwards when he would have inherited the blessing was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." You will have sold your birth-right for eternity, and you cannot regain it, though you weep and mourn forever! 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. Ir 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. |