and sup with him, and he with me." When will the anxious inquirer open his heart to this condescending and heavenly guest? When will he enjoy this rich, this blood-bought banquet? When, if not now? When will he turn his back upon the wilderness, where he is perishing with hunger, and go to his Father's house, where there is bread enough and to spare, if not now? When, if not now, will he look on him whom he has pierced, and mourn, and go, with a broken, bleeding heart, to the Cross? I am warranted in bringing this inquiry distinctly before the mind of every awakened sinner who reads these pages; and I ask him, if he is unprepared for this reasonable duty now-a duty which God the Spirit is now urging on his conscience with so much tenderness and solemnity, that the only alternative is life or death-when he will perform it? When? If he hesitates, the reason for this hesitation, and the only reason, is, that if he is not willing to perform it now, he is not now willing to perform it at all. The Cross addresses such a man with great and peculiar directness. He sees that he is lost-lost to himself, lost to God, lost to heaven, irrecoverably and eternally lost, if he remains an unbeliever in Jesus. And the language of the Cross to him is full of tenderness. He who there hung and expired, "the just for the unjust," that he might bring him unto God, says to the agitated and trembling, the distressed and desponding inquirer, "It was for thee I died; I bore thee on this heart of love, when I gave up the ghost!" Oh, then, thou fearful, go and cast this burden at the foot of his Cross. Be no longer faithless, but believing. This do and thou shalt live. The God of grace, for his name's sake, shall blot your iniquities as a cloud, and your transgressions as a thick cloud. The God of faithfulness shall carry on the work he

has begun, and perfect it to the day of his coming. He shall guide you by his counsel, and keep you as the apple of his eye. He shall go with you up to the chamber of death, and when flesh and heart shall fail, shall be the strength of your heart and your portion forever. In that hour of darkness and conflict, he will still direct your fading eye to his Cross, where the darkness, the sorrow and the defeat were his, that the light, the joy and the victory might be yours. And when you look down into the grave, it shall no longer be with sadness, but with the confidence that your flesh shall rest in hope, and that he will raise you incorruptible and immortal.

And now, if in the unbelief of your own minds, you still press the question, "What shall I do to be saved?" I have no other answer to give, than "Believe in the Lord Jesus." I frankly confess I know no other, nor Ido I wish to know. The Cross knows no other. He whose love and mercy are literally infinite has no greater love and mercy than this. There is no other name given under heaven among men whereby you must be saved but the name of Jesus Christ." There are other names, but they have no influence in the court of heaven. There are other ways, but they conduct to the chambers of death. Perish you must, and ought, if you come not to him. O Saviour! thou who alone art the refuge of the guilty, "to whom shall we go but unto thee. Thou hast the word of eternal life, and we know, and are sure, that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God!"

CHAPTER X.

A STUMBLING-BLOCK REMOVED.

IN vindicating the claims of the Cross, I have been more anxious to illustrate and enforce the great truths which it discloses, than to reply to the cavils of those who contend with their Maker. Where the truth is clearly made out, it is enough for us to say to every objector, "Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?" I do not mean by this to say, that the truth of God shuns investigation; for the more clearly it is exhibited and understood, the more certainly will it appear to be capable of the most satisfactory vindication. Where the minds of men, therefore, are honestly embarrassed in regard to it, there is an obligation, so far as it can be done, to remove this embarrassment; and more especially, where, in endeavoring to remove it, the opportunity is presented of exhibiting truth that has a practical bearing upon the conscience.

Such is the nature of the objection to be considered in the present chapter. The Cross of Christ proposes to deliver, and actually does deliver, all who believe in it from eternal punishment. It is a redemption which

assumes that the sinner deserves eternal death. Men have no difficulty in believing that they are sinners, and deserve punishment; but they have no inward sense of such a measure of ill-desert as indicated by the Gospel, and they

cannot feel that it would be right and just in God to inflict upon them this terrible doom. They have not, perhaps, so much the spirit of murmuring and complaint against the doctrine of future and eternal punishment, as of doubt and fear in relation to their own inward experiencetoward this great truth. No man is qualified to contemplate such a subject without strong suspicions of himself, nor without feeling, at every step of his inquiries, that he is exposed to come to false conclusions. May He, whose Spirit alone can guide the writer and the reader into all truth, graciously direct and influence both their minds to those convictions which alone magnify the salvation of the Cross!

It will not be denied that the doctrine of future and eternal pnnishment, as revealed in the Bible, is a truth which is necessary to be believed, in order to true faith in Jesus Christ. This position is most certainly in keeping with the theory of divine truth, and, so far as my knowledge extends, with the experience of mankind. I have never known a Universalist, who, in other respects, gave any evidence of piety. As well might every other truth be displaced from the sacred page, as this. Awful as it is, it is recorded as on tablets of stone, and written with the finger of God. This is one of the great truths of natural religion, which are confirmed by a supernatural revelation. One great object of this revelation is to open more clearly to the view of men the scenes of the eternal world; to unfold the great catastrophe of this sublunary state of things, and disclose those glorious and those fearful retributions, which make up the history of eternity. There is a strong presentiment of future punishment, even in the minds of those who are not thus enlightened. The belief of the divine justice has prevailed in every age and country. The history of the heathen world

abounds in facts that indicate the belief that God will not permit the wickedness of men to escape with impunity. The Apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, regards this belief as one of the laws of natural conscience. After describing the moral degradation of the Gentile nations, he speaks of them as carrying within their own bosoms this strong and inevitable conviction: "Who, knowing the just judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death." This voice of reason and conscience is echoed in the Scriptures; nor is it possible to resist the force of their instructions. They explicitly predict a future state of being, where the "worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched;" where is the "blackness of darkness forever;" where there is eternally ascending the smoke of torment. They speak of the impassable gulf, and the "second death," from whence there is no reprieve. Nor is this doctrine one of those mysterious truths which cannot be understood. It is not like the unfathomable nature of the Deity; it has no such incomprehensibleness thrown around it, as invests the doctrine of the Trinity, or the doctrine of the Son's Incarnation, or the undiscovered reasons of the eternal and unchangeable decrees of God. It is a plain and intelligible doctrine, revealed without concealment and without reserve; nor is there anything in it which the mind of man, cannot reach, except that it penetrates into a boundless eternity. Nor, like some facts revealed in the Scriptures, does it resolve itself into the will of God as its ultimate reason, but is always represented as the claim of his righteous government, and as called for by the sin of man. Nor is it revealed as one of the minor and less important doctrines of the Bible, but one which can be impaired only by undermining the fabric on which the whole Gospel rests. It is in every view fundamentar