divine power has been miraculously displayed, it has been in connection with human agency. God has annexed conditions to all things. He would not heal the Israelites without the brazen serpent. Naaman must go and wash in Jordan. The blind man must wash in the pool of Siloam. When sinners were pricked to the heart by the Holy Ghost, their first question was, "What must I do to be saved?" shall close this argument by noticing one other passage.

I

66 I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." (2 Tim. iv. 6-8.) These words suggest the following consid

erations:

1. Paul was about to die. His course was almost ended. He was condemned to the cross; and was in prison, waiting to hear the tread of the executioner who was to lead him forth to death. But he was ready at any moment to be offered up as a sacrifice. We have before us his dying words. They have all the sanction that attends the death-bed of an inspired man.

2. The chief thing that animated and supported him was the great blessing in store for him as soon as he was "offered." "There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." "The Lord, the righteous Judge," was to give him that crown. It was to be given "at that day," the day of judgment.

3. He gives us the foundation of his hope in Christ. The reasons why he expected that the righteous Judge would thus reward him at that day, are stated. They are three in number-"I have fought a good fight;" "I have finished my course;" "I have kept the faith." He likens himself to a warrior, a winner in a race, and a steward to whom is committed an important trust.

A successful warrior must do more than enlist; he must fight manfully, and spare neither toil nor blood when the cause of his country demands the sacrifice. He who should desert the standard of his country in the hour of peril, would be doomed to eternal infamy. He only would deserve or receive a crown of victory, who should fight till he conquered, or lay his lifeless body upon the field of conflict.

He is not a successful runner who only enters the lists, though he come well prepared; nor would he secure the prize, if he should run on a little way, and then turn back. Better would it be for him had he never entered. But he who strives lawfully,

runs on, in spite of all obstacles, to the end, and reaches the goal; -he it is that is crowned.

But

Neither is he a good steward who neglects his trust, or gives up the treasures when assailed. he who keeps his trust, and says to his coming Lord, "I have kept the treasure," will hear the blissful sentence, "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

As a warrior, Paul had well fought the good fight of faith; and in the battles of his Sovereign, he was about to end his warfare with his life. It had ever

been his chief labor that, in the Christian race, he "might finish his course with joy." (Acts xx. 24.) His desire was granted; he had run well, and run to the end. And his dying moments were consoled and cheered by the truth, that now his arduous race was run, and his reward was on high. As a steward, too, of the faith, and of the manifold grace of God, he had been "found faithful," and with his dying breath he could say, in the presence of the Searcher of all hearts, "I have kept the faith."

But suppose it had not been so. Suppose he had found the warfare arduous, and, in the time of conflict, had deserted the cross, and joined the enemies of his Savior. Suppose he had run a short distance in the race, and, finding it a severe and painful struggle, had turned back, as many had done before him, or returned to his former enmity. Or suppose that, knowing that the safe-keeping of the faith must be attended with great sacrifices, watchfulness, trials, and persecutions, he should have abandoned his trust, or, like Judas, betrayed it; what effect would this conduct have upon his future condition if Universalism is true? Would it make any difference? there not still be in reserve for him a crown of glory? Would he not, as Paul the traitor, have as high a seat, as loud a song, as clear a voice, a diadem as bright, as he now will have as Paul the triumphant warrior, Paul the successful runner, Paul the faithful steward, who resigned his life rather than yield up the faith? Would not he and Judas sit side by side upon their thrones of light, in the presence of that holy Being, whose body the one betrayed, and whose cause the

Would

other abandoned into the hands of his enemies. If not, then Universalism is false. And if it was true, Paul could have known nothing of it; for his dying breath announces that, had he not fought a good fight, finished his course, and kept the faith, not only he would not have received a crown of life, but at last must have been a castaway.

RECAPITULATION.

I think no man can go forth from this investigation without the firmest convictions that Universalism is not of God. All nations have rejected it, and all rational minds fear a judgment to come. It presents doctrines at once novel and fatal doctrines which the entire Christian world have rejected. We have seen, Universalists themselves being judges, that the nation of whom Christ came, and to which he preached, believed in the eternal punishment of the wicked; that Jesus and the apostles used language designed to confirm this opinion; that Universalism can only blot out this doctrine from the Bible by the most violent wresting and dreadful perversion of the word of God. We have proved that the reasoning which deduces Universalism from the Bible, would also deduce paganism or atheism; and that the same reasoning which blots out future woe, and quenches the fires of hell, ends the joy of the blessed, and puts out the light that surrounds the throne of God and the Lamb. And not only so, but Universalism does violence to the plainest teachings of Scripture, and makes the inspired penmen either incompetent or dis

honest. It demands of you the sacrifice of the faith of the church, the piety and learning of eighteen centuries; it invites you to mock at sin, to laugh at the judgment, and to scoff at threatened danger. It tells its deluded votaries that if they do not enter in at the strait gate, if they do not lay up treasures in heaven, if they do not in this world repent and believe, it will be as well with them beyond the grave. Though they die thieves and drunkards, adulterers and fornicators, they shall at last be saved; and all this though the Bible says that such shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. vi. 9, 10.)

Upon the ministers of Universalism the blood of souls must rest; their hands are stained with the crimson flood. Upon them the deep condemnation must fall of "handling the word of God deceitfully," of wresting" the Bible to their own destruction, and that of others. May they be turned from their perilous and ruinous employ! May God May God "give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will"! (2 Tim. ii. 25, 26.)

Can any immortal souls be so unwise as to incur such risk as they must run in building upon such a foundation, and following such guides? How will they, when this season of probation is lost, awake to their situation only to say, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved"!