6. "He that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. Matt. xii. 31, 32. When momentous words are uttered, before importance is attached to them, the qualities of the speaker are to be considered. He who spake these words, is the Son of God; the Fountain of Truth; the compassionate Saviour: the future Judge of the World. He declares that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven. If a remission of the penalty occurred after thousands of ages, this threat would be superseded: but, "it shall not be forgiven." The disturbed conscience will haunt him in this world, and the displeasure of God, in some form and degree, in the world to come. This punishment must be endured somewhere; that spot is Hell. 7. "So shall it be at the end of the world: the Angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Matt. xiii. 49, 50. All agree in assigning, from the declarations of Scripture, the Judgment-Seat to Christ. All profess to reverence his words. He has here employed expressions of the most definite meaning, that may wilfully be perverted, but cannot be mistaken. He here states that the Angels, "his Angels," shall sever the wicked from among the just. Being separated, the state of the just is known, but what is the condition of the wicked? The Final Judge has declared, in the most fearful imagery, "They shall be cast into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." This devoted spot, this receptacle of all evil, is Hell. 8. Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." Matt. xviii. 3. Here some are excluded from Heaven. The place of their abode is Hell. 9. "A rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." Matt. xix. 23. Riches are the purple robe that sink the drowning man. The temptations with which the rich are encompassed, it thus appears, endanger their eternal state; but those "who have respect unto the recompence of reward;" who regard themselves as stewards, and come off victorious in this severe warfare, will be entitled to double honour, as the improvers of "ten talents." If excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven, the place to which they are banished must be Hell. 10. 66 Many be called, but few chosen." Matt. xx. 16. If all were admitted into heaven, this would be an unmeaning restriction. Those who are not chosen, that is, who by their rebellion exclude themselves, have a portion assigned them different from the faithful. That portion is Hell. 11. "Cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Matt. xxii. 13. A glimpse is here given of the immaterial nature of future punishment. The presence of darkness, associated with dangers, great, and undefined, offers a boundless scope to the labouring imagination, where the terrors of anticipation surpass and aggravate the real. The region of this "outer darkness," is Hell. 12. "Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Hell." Matt. xxiii. 32, 33. : Spirits, more alienated from all good, perhaps never existed, than the Scribes and Pharisees, to whom these words were addressed reading their own prophecies of the Messiah, all realized in Christ; beholding his astonishing miracles; and listening to his heavenly doctrine, and yet, hardened in their rejection of the Truth, and, under the guise of sanctity, hypocritically practising "all unrighteousness;" who "paid tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, but omitted the weightier matters of the law; judgment, mercy, and faith." Matt. xxiii. 23. "Who devoured widows' houses, and, for a pretence, made long prayers." "Whited sepulchres." "Full of extortion and excess." These were the men, whom Christ thus denounced, and whose condemnation slumbered not. The world to which they hastened, was-Hell. 13. "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment : but the righteous into life eternal." Matt. xxv. 46. At Words more express, and meaning more clear, human language cannot furnish. He whom Socinians admit to be their future Judge; who will, in the Last Day, deal to every man according to his deserts, here anticipates the final sentence. present the tares and wheat are commingled, but the separation is approaching; including the conditions of eternal joy, or everlasting punishment; the curse and the blessing, expressed indefinitely, because the excess of one, or the intensity of the other, would exceed finite comprehension. If the region where one will expatiate is Heaven, the opposite realm, of necessity, must be Hell. 14. "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own Soul." Mark viii. 36. He who will ultimately decide on human destinies, knowing the inveterate perversity of the human heart, here calmly appeals to the understanding. The worshipper of Mammon; the man most wedded to the objects of time, knows the slight tenure on which he holds the idols of his heart; and Christ here dispassionately asks each devotee, where would be his advantage, if his gains should comprehend, for the alloted years of man, even the whole world, when the consequence would be, the loss of his Soul? The Soul thus endangered, thus lost, must mean exclusion from the Kingdom of Heaven; and this exclusion, of necessity, throws it back on the only other world, namely, Hell. an 15. 66 - into HELL; into the fire that never shall be quenched where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Mark ix. 43, 44. : While men speculate on this awful subject, and confidently advance their arguments and "hypotheses," to prove that danger is imaginary, and Hell a dream; the Judge himself dispels their delusion, by instructing the vain "disputers of this world," that there is in reserve, accumulated anguish for the impenitent,-for all who reject the Truth, and "have pleasure in unrighteousness;" inconceivable in extent, and illimitable in duration. Christ has given his enemies a merciful forewarning, "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth;' and utters the tenderest invitation, "Come unto me, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Matt. xi. 28, 29. Our Redeemer, knowing the natural repugnance of the human heart to descend from its own proud pinnacle of reason, and willing to disturb the fatal repose into which men had sunk, here. adopts language that might animate stones. To describe the joys or the sorrows of the other world; the felicities of the saved, or the sufferings of the lost, would require other than the language of earth. But to advance so far as is possible in the disclosure, Christ accumulates the most terrific of material images, to prefigure the immaterial; and from the whole of this disclosure, let the serious inquirer lay his hand on his heart, and, if he can, renounce a belief in the solemn reality of a Hell. Without accumulating the numerous attestations of this truth, still to be found in the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Revelations, the question is now asked of Socinians, whether they can still repudiate, as "a pernicious dream," the idea of a world, where are found the Outcasts of Heaven, and the place of whose abode is denominated Hell? They are loud and fluent in praising Christ. They seem to defer to him, by the admiration they express, and unhesitatingly admit that Christ, in the last great day, will judge the world. The question is now asked of them, whether, as honest men, who expect ere long to meet the eye of their Judge, they can look to heaven, and affirm that Christ taught not a world of wretchedness; a condition of misery, reserved for the enemies of God; in the fullest sense, a Hell? Socinians are also asked, with an injunction to banish sophism and subterfuge, (respect for system more than truth) whether Christ, whom they admire, and profess to follow, did not inculcate, in language the most express, the personal reality of Satan? They are not asked whether they believe the one or the other; that, from the biassed state of their minds, would receive a prompt reply; but they are asked, whether, after the examples here adduced, they can affirm Christ did not clearly teach, as a solemn verity, the existence of Satan, and the reality of a Hell? If Socinians admit, what could not be denied, without outraging the common sense of mankind, that Christ, their future Judge, did inculcate as truths, the existence of Satan, and the reality of Hell; how can they, as men of integrity and conscience, deliberately oppose Scripture, and tell the world, as they do, that their apprehensions are groundless, their fears idle? As men who professedly seek not to relax the bonds of virtue, how can they wantonly invalidate truths which Infinite Wisdom has so clearly advanced, as barriers to the concupiscence and violent passions of men? The world, with all the warnings of heaven, and the restraints of Religion, presents a melancholy spectacle; where outrage and wrong are rampant, though repressed by all the influences of human laws, and the threats of future retribution; but what an appalling image would society present, if all the salutary checks, founded on Satan and Hell, were wholly removed, and men believed, as Socinians tell them, that, in the eternal world, there is no place found for "the Devil and his Angels;" that whatever their rebellion against God may be, it will not obstruct their future happiness, for, "the mansions of the blessed will be the ultimate portion of one and all !” THE ATONEMENT. (ESTABLISHED BY ONE HUNDRED SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENTS.) A QUERULOUS objector might protest against some one of the Laws of the Land, and affirm, in the first place, that there was no such law ; and, secondly, that there ought to be no such law. To such an one, the reply might be made: It is an ascertainable fact, that the law in question is in the statute-book. That it ought not to be there, is at variance with the judgment of the legislators who enacted it: so that it must remain in force, unless it should be rescinded by the same power by which it was established. This is precisely the state of the question, respecting the Atonement. Socinians affirm, first, that the doctrine is not in the statute-book of the Bible; and secondly, that it ought not to be there. For the establishment of the first point, it is only necessary to consult the legal document, and if it be there found existent, according to a clear equitable construction, the question is decided. To this test an appeal will be made, by fairly consulting the Bible; and if it be there discovered, all discussion is, or ought to be superseded. 66 66 The opposition which Socinians manifest toward the Atonement of Jesus Christ, cannot excite wonder. They advocate a most anti-christian system, subversive of the whole Bible; declaring that the Son of God, the Saviour of the World, like themselves, was but a mere man ;" and, as a mere man," could never atone for the sins of his fellow-men. According to the admission of all parties, they have only to establish the assumed fact, and the subversion of the Atonement follows as a necessary consequence. Knowing that the foundation of their creed rests on "the simple manhood of Christ," and that without the establishment of this fact, Socinianism must fall, they bear an unconquerable enmity to the doctrine of the Atonement. They "hate it with |