He is already pardoned. And he is taught to look on any application for that blessing at the throne of grace, as not only a work of supererogation, but as an indication of distrust in God's mercy, and as an act of ingratitude and offence. Now supposing that he is not pardoned; that every sin he commits needs forgiveness from the Holy Being against whom it is committed; and that prayer is the constituted means of obtaining what is thus needed, is he safe in neglecting to pray for it? Is not prayer the method which God has appointed for getting from his unmerited benignity every blessing that our situation requires? If prayer for such blessings is restrained, from whatever motive, or under whatever pretext, have we any warrant, either in reason or in Scripture, for expecting them? On the contrary, is it not in the very nature of a system of means and ends, and is it not a lesson taught by all the maxims, and precepts, and examples, which the Bible furnishes for our guidance, that if the means be disregarded the ends cannot be attained? This being the case, in what peril are those involved, who, by listening to teachers of strange doctrines, and especially of the doctrine of universal pardon, are persuaded that it is not requisite, nor becoming, nor even innocent, to supplicate from the giver of all good, that which if not received and enjoyed, must sink the soul

into everlasting perdition! No wonder, then, my friends, that, viewing the subject in this light, I should feel earnest, and labour strenuously in warning and guarding you against an error so serious and so fatal as that to which I allude, and of which I must say, whatever offence it may give to the ignorant, and the fastidious, and the gentle, that, in the language of an inspired Apostle, it is a " damnable heresy." And I must be allowed to add, that I know no presumption greater or more reprehensible than that of young, raw, inexperienced Christians, going at once and headlong into a theory, such as we are speaking of, respecting the momentous subject of the pardon of sin, and on the strength of that theory, refusing to ask God for forgiveness of their trespasses, although they have for their direction, the example of the most eminent of the saints--the precept of inspired teachers of the truth-and even the authority of that Saviour whom they profess to believe in, to love, and to obey. Be not led astray, my friends, by such delusions, practised by such novices-recommended and inculcated by such dreamers. Go on to pray for forgiveness-pray for it as that which is essential for your well-beingpray for it as a multitude of believers have done before you pray for it in the name, and under the sanction, and according to the pattern, of your Lord Jesus Christ. If you have ever yielded to

the suggestions of those who have been urging upon you a different doctrine, let it be the first and the most fervent petition you prefer, that your iniquity in following their unhallowed advice may be blotted out from the book of remembrance. And beseech God to pardon the iniqui ty of those who, misled themselves, are so industrious in misleading others, and so resolute in standing between the unforgiven sinner and the throne of a forgiving God. And implore, without ceasing, the pardon of all the guilt you are from day to day contracting, so that you may experience mercy from the High and Holy One for the sake of that Mediator, "in whom you have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of your sins."

3. Finally, I would denounce the doctrine of universal pardon as the certain and the fruitful source of all manner of iniquity. This I have already done-I do it again—and I will continue to do it, with all my might. Don't let it be said that the doctrine has produced no such effects on those who hold it most firmly, and teach it most unweariedly. Be it so: that is very likely—it is most true-and therein we have a fact which has attended the history of antinomianism in almost all ages of the church. We do not say that the tenet in question will immediately corrupt good men who embrace it, or lead them at once into the abomi

nations of immorality. But what can its influence be on the mass of mankind, but an influence of the most demoralising and pernicious description. Tell them that their past offences are all forgiven-tell them that the very vices in which they are at this moment indulging, are all forgiven-tell them that the most heinous crimes they choose hereafter to commit, are all forgiven-tell them that for not one of these is God any longer angry with them, and that for not one of these will God inflict any punishment upon them-tell them this, and get them to believe it—and you instantly deprive them of all sense of future responsibility, and annihilate the sanctions of eternity, and open the sluices of libertinism, to whose desolating torrent our opponents will in vain present the barrier of recondite love and sentimental contemplation, and whose destructive effects may be felt and exhibited in the guilt and wretchedness and despair of thousands who have been taught that their worst sins need neither forgiveness nor prayer, when they who have been instrumental in producing the calamity, shall have no power to check it, or may have gone to give their account to the Judge of all.

SERMON IX.

SAME SUBJECT.

IN considering the doctrine of universal pardon, which has of late been publicly taught and zealously propagated, we showed you that this doctrine is contradicted by many passages of Scripture, in the most distinct and unequivocal manner. We showed you that it directly and necessarily leads to the doctrine of the complete and eternal salvation of the whole human race, which its broachers themselves do not, in the present stage of their religious opinions, believe in or admit. And we showed you that those parts of the Bible to which they appeal as proofs of their peculiar tenet give them no countenance, except by being grossly perverted or strangely misunderstood; and that a great proportion of these, instead of being for, are decidedly against them. We concluded our last discourse, with alluding to the mischievous mode of interpreting the