passages of Scripture adduced by the abettors of universal pardon, in support of their doctrine.

Believe me, my friends, I would not dwell so long upon the subject, did it not appear to me of vital importance. I wish to guard you against a heresy of the very worst and most pernicious description, and to enable you, with a good conscience, and in a decided manner, to lift up your voice and your testimony against it. I wish to vindicate "the glorious gospel of the blessed God," from an abuse which is founded on the perversion of all Scripture, and the dereliction of all reason. I wish to arrest, as far as I can, a dogma which may be very harmless on the few established Christians, by whom, as yet, it is mainly supported, but which must open all the floodgates of licentiousness, when it shall speak to the most abandoned and profligate of our race in this wise, "All the sins you have already committed are freely and fully forgiven; if you commit murder and every other iniquity to-morrow, these also were long ago forgiven; if you persevere in the most heinous sins to the last hour of your lives, these too are all forgiven: faith and repentance are not necessary to your being forgiven for the most aggravated transgressions; and, if you should die unbelieving and impenitent, still your only punishment will be, that you will be destitute of that sense of the favour of God which constitutes the happiness of heaven.”

May the Lord himself give us understanding n these things; may he keep us from such awul delusions; and may he send forth his Spirit o lead and guide us in the way everlasting.

SERMON VIII.

SAME SUBJECT.

We have been engaged in the consideration of those passages of Scripture which those who hold the doctrine of universal pardon refer to as supporting their opinion. Such as we have examined have been found quite inapplicable or inadequate to the purpose for which they are adduced. We showed you, that they are either wholly misunderstood, or perverted from their true and original design, or that they prove nothing to the point, by proving a great deal more than either party can possibly admit. We now proceed to what remains on this branch of the subject.

7. Great stress is laid upon the 5th chapter of the epistle to the Romans, and particularly upon the 18th verse, which says,

Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were

made sinners: so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."

The argument deduced from these words is, that those who are involved in the offence of Adam are declared to be the very same with those who participate in the benefit of Christ's death,— that as all men, without exception, are subjected to condemnation in consequence of Adam's transgression, so all men, without exception, are delivered from that condemnation, or pardoned, in consequence of what Christ suffered to remove the curse, that just as certainly as every individual of our race is actually affected even unto death by the disobedience of the one, so certainly must every individual of our race be affected even unto life by the obedience of the other.

(1.) Now, in answer to this, we have to observe, in the first place, that though Adam is said, in the 14th verse, to have been a figure or type of Christ, it does not necessarily follow that he was a type of him in every particular of his character or his condition. If this were to be held true of the relation subsisting between all types and their antitypes, it is needless for me to expatiate on the errors and absurdities which such a mode of viewing the subject would constantly produce. Adam was a type of Christ; but it is not said that he was so as to the number of those who were injured by the fall of the former, and benefited by

the interposition of the latter. Though it is very evident, both from scriptural statement and historical fact, that Adam represented all his posterity, as well as acted for himself, the Bible nowhere informs us that Christ represented the whole of mankind, any more than that he had a personal responsibility. And while it cannot be denied that the first Adam, as a public person, did bring into a state of sin and misery each one of his descendants, whether finally saved or finally destroyed, we know not one passage of holy writ which asserts, nor can we avoid being startled by the assertion, that the second Adam, as a public person, redeemed not only those who were ultimately carried to heaven, but those also who had gone to the place of punishment before he died, and who continued in the place of punishment after he had died and "finished the work which his father had given him to do.”

(2.) In the second place, if the reasoning which our opponents found upon the passage quoted be good for any thing, it is, like very much of their reasoning from other passages, good for a great deal too much-much more than they themselves would admit. Supposing the parallel between Adam and Christ to hold true, then we must insist, that whatever was lost to all men by Adam, is regained to all men by Christ. There is no express qualification mentioned by which we are