But if it already has got hold of you, let me entreat you calmly and prayerfully to review the ground on which you rest, the evidence of your faith, and your preparation to meet your God. If this life is a life of probation, if these powers and privileges are given to prepare us for another life, — then you are awfully wrong. Your mistake is of a most fearful magnitude. Eternity is not long enough to enable you to correct the wrong. Many, very many, are reviewing this subject. Many of your number are escaping from the dreadful delusion that long has bound them. O, be not deceived! Let not the enemy of souls secure you for his dark dominions! Fly, this hour, to the Rock of Ages! Fly from error to truth, from sin to holiness, from death to life! "If thou art wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself; but if thou scornest, thou alone must bear it."

LECTURE VI.

REASONS FOR RENOUNCING UNIVERSALISM, DRAWN FROM ITS MORAL RESULTS.

MATT. vii. 16.

YE SHALL KNOW THEM BY THEIR FRUITS.

THE Savior clearly foresaw that, after his death, men would arise, who would assume his name, and profess to love his truth, while they would bear in their hearts the same hatred to Christians that wolves bear to sheep. The chief danger from their hatred would result from their being disguised. Were they to appear as the enemies of truth, and openly assail it, little harm would attend their opposition. But Satan often "transforms himself into an angel of light;" and his servants often transform "themselves into ministers of righteousness."

How, then, shall they be distinguished from the servants of God? Not by their appearance, nor by their claims; for they seem to be, and claim to be, what they are not. Not by their appeals to the Bible. Satan did this in the temptation of our Lord; and his ministers have also done it in all ages of the church.

The Son of God knew that such a state of things would exist; and that, without great watchfulness

and care, none would escape its dangers. That the sincere followers of the Savior might know the servant of their Master from such as came to destroy, he gave them a decisive test in the text, "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" Wherever the grape and the fig are found growing, there may be found, also, the vine and the fig-tree. By this, Christ Jesus meant to teach that his religion is distinguished by peculiar results, which will always attend it; and where these are wanting, there his doctrine does not exist. The text is a simple, yet positive test, given for all ages and all climes. I shall apply it to Universalism, and offer, as the subject of this lecture, the following proposition :

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UNIVERSALISM DOES NOT PRODUCE THE FRUIT THAT ATTENDED THE PREACHING OF CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES: ON THE CONTRARY, ITS MORAL RESULTS ARE SUCH AS COULD NOT ATTEND A SYSTEM HAVING GOD FOR ITS AUTHOR.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

No one can have a just view of the practical tendency of Universalism, or be prepared candidly to weigh its claims, unless he is made familiar with the doctrines which distinguish it at this day. I say at this day, for it has never been the same thing in any two considerable periods of time. Mr. Murray is called "the father of Universalism." But not one doctrine which he defended enters into the composition of the present system. He differed from the

evangelical community but in one thing. The advocates of the present system differ in every thing. If Mr. Murray were now alive, he would have no more sympathy with Universalism than with atheism. He would wholly renounce his reputed child. Though they boast of Mr. Murray as their father, Universalists cannot regard him as a preacher of truth; for they reject all the doctrines which he taught. They admit that he was not competent to expound the Bible, for they do not respect any interpretation or opinion which he advanced.

The Universalism of the present day denies the native depravity of man, the supreme divinity of our Lord, the vicarious atonement of Christ, and the free moral agency of man. It teaches that this life is not a probationary existence, that the consequences of human actions are all limited by it, and that the future life will be in no way affected by the conduct of men in this. It teaches that the Sabbath is an institution of expediency, and not of divine appointment; that oral prayer is not a duty; that sin is not an evil in the government or sight of God; that there is no such place as hell; and that the devil is either "a figure of speech," "a Sabean freebooter," "a disease," or, at most, "an evil principle” in man. It also teaches that the soul of man is not immortal, and that there is no retribution in the future world for our conduct in this; but that all start again upon the same level, whatever their characters may have been in this world.

Such, in miniature, is that system which claims to be the religion of the cross-the religion to defend

which Christ came, suffered, and died.

Were it my

purpose to show what the tendency of Universalism must be from the nature of its peculiar doctrines, I should have no occasion to travel beyond the summary just introduced. Such doctrines must be baleful in their tendency; they must be, from their very nature, positively licentious. The spread of them cannot but be destructive to human peace and morals in this life, and to the soul in the life to come.

The Universalism of this day can date back no farther than 1818. This is the precise age of modern Universalism. The man yet lives who moulded the present system. And already has he begun to reap some of the bitter fruits of his labor.

In

It is not denied that some Universalist preachers of the present day profess to believe in limited future punishment; but they do not preach it. They hold their places because they are silent upon that topic. Thus they throw their influence against it; for, while they maintain silence, the advocate of ultra-Universalism makes his faith the burden of every sermon. some cases, I have known a special contract to be made with a believer in future punishment, when about to settle. The society agree to give the preacher no trouble because he believes in future retribution, and the preacher is not to trouble the society by maintaining it. Such a contract was made by my predecessor in Salem. Mr. Balfour says, "I have been among Universalists over twenty years. I have never heard it [future punishment] preached but once, and the preacher hardly said enough about it to let his hearers understand that he believed this doctrine." (Christ. Mess. July 17, 1841.)