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sons, to whom the gospel is hidden by their blindness, their voluntary, and approved, and cherished blindness, are dead in sin; the law having done with them; they are, therefore, in this, their blind, lost state, dead; having died the first death. Paul, therefore, has answered our first interrogatory, the gospel is hidden to some of the offspring of God.

Our second interrogatory, Are any of God's offspring lost? is likewise answered in the affirmative. But our third question,

Are those that are lost, lost because the gospel is hidden to them? Reader, cause and effect are always seen in their regular order, and relation, if seen at all. The term lost, is put in antithesis to the term saved. The question therefore, is, How are men saved? I reply, if men are saved in any correct sense of the term, they are saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is no more a truth, than the fact, that if Christ saves men, he saves men according to, or in a perfect agreement with, the will of God who sent him. And these facts I have shewn, and illustrated in the sermons that precede this. But the great and important distinction that we have seen in Rom. iii., of the righteousness of God, although in God's will and purpose it is for ALL, prospectively, and certainly, too, it is in harmony with his will as taught by Jesus Christ, of the everlasting life of believers in him; as the resurrection of the dead, includes ALL within the last day; the everlasting life is only for those that see the Son, and believe on the Son. And the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ, although it is for all, it is only upon all them that believe; in the sense of being possessed by them at the time they believe, and have the everlasting life of the gospel.

The question, therefore, How are men saved by Jesus Christ must be answered as follows: First-They are saved, that is, those, upon whom the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ, is, as believers, by the everlasting life; and consequent ministration of his Spirit, which is life here, unto life, beyond the grave. And,

Second-All others, who have not everlasting life, by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and have not the righteousness of God "by faith of Jesus Christ upon them," are saved by the resurrection of their dead souls; to incorruption and immortality in the image of their Divine Head and Redeemer, at the last day, and in their order.

We have seen that nothing can give life, but "God's righteousness." And this righteousness must be upon the believer; and this constitutes the everlasting life, which, to those who possess it, is an immunity against the second death, viz: that of mortality, or the body.

It must, therefore, be the answer- -Those that are lost, are lost because the Gospel is hidden to them; for the reason, that the only mean of salvation from the first death of sin, is hidden, and they cannot be saved, unless by the Gospel of Christ. Therefore, not being saved by being the recipients of the Gospel of Christ; not seeing nor believing in the Son; not having the everlasting life; not having the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ, upon them; they are dead in trespasses and sins. To them, the death of mortality, the second death, will be chains of darkness, and hold them fast-to them the ministration of the Gospel of Christ, is a ministration of their real condition. The judgment of Christ as King in Zion, is according to the great principle that we have considered in the preceding sermons. Therefore death is unto death, and life is unto life.

Paul (1 Cor. i. 18,) says, "For the preaching of the cross is to them that PERISH foolishness." In the original, apollumenois. In our text, LOST; the same term in the original Greek. To be lost, in the sense of dying the second death, that of the body, or mortality, is the same as to perish, or to be destroyed. In Phil. iii. 19, Paul affirms of the enemies of the cross of Christ, that "their end is destruction;" apoleia. This is the consequence of rejecting the Gospel of Christ. How different is the testimony of the Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, from the creeds of men! Instead of sinners being preserved in a separate state of conscious existence, existing as disembodied spirits, and tormented by cruel inflictions that would disgrace a Nero, they are "destroyed, root and branch;" and shall not live again until the last, "the seventh trumpet" shall, by its last blast, announce, that "the mystery of the prophets is finished."*

* On the Greek term dróλvut, Prof Rob. (whose Grk. and Eng. Lex. is professedly for the New Testament,) remarks, that the force of ano, (apo,) is here away, wholly, and the verb is therefore stronger than the simple ὄλλυμι, (ollumi.) Pick. Grk. and Eng. Lex. says of ollumi, it signifies to lose, to occasion a loss; to ruin, destroy, cut off, slay.

But the learned Professor bows his will to the supremacy of the Beast of his Sect; (Hopkinsian,) and says, of the active form of apol

And this is the portion of the wicked, to be destroyed; to be "punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." How, I ask, can this be possible, if the wicked are existing in a conscious state in another world? Hear the

lumi, etc., (p. 87,) "(6) spoken of eternal death, i. e. future punishment, exclusion from the Messiah's Kingdom, etc. See in 'Αποθνήσκω ε. Matt. x. 28. Mark i. 24. Luke iv. 34; ix. 56. Rom. xiv. 15. Luke ix. 25 avrov aroλéoai, to destroy himself, i. e. subject himself to eternal death." Also, "So The Hoxhu droλśσat, i. e. to lose one's life or soul, Matt x. 39," (and the parallel passages.)

But there is more in Prof. Rob.'s phraseology, than meets the eye, at first sight. I will amend my declaration; for the learned Professor is certainly very restless in the orthodox harness; if he has not broken loose, already! and merely holds the shreds, preparatory to casting them away altogether. Look at the above qualifications:-Let one question be answered by the learned Professor in the affirmative, and he is clear from his old hierarchy, viz:

Will the Kingdom of the Messiah (Mediator) end, agreeably to Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 24, when the Lord Jesus Christ, shall "deliver up the Kingdom to God?"

Answer, in the affirmative, (and I do not see how you can avoid doing so,) and I am full with you, in this doctrine. These qualifications are excellent! The learned Professor says, of the old orthodox phrase eternal death, I mean by it future punishment-but, (I must be more guarded yet!) I mean by future punishment, only "EXCLUSION from the Messiah's Kingdom." Not exclusion from the Kingdom of God the Father! Not that orthodox damnation, and eternal death, that extends through all eternity-but only that exclusion, which shall prevent the impenitent and rebellious sinner from participating in the glorious reign of the Messiah as King in Zion, previously to the resurrection of Christ's own, the blind Jews, or Israel, etc., and the commencement "of the dispensation of the fulness of times," Ephes. i. 10, when all shall be gathered together in one, in Christ, and delivered up to God the Father, that He may be all in all !

Reader, no man can be so stupid, unless he be a downright idiot, as not to see the distinction, when it is pointed out to him, between being punished with everlasting (i. e. coextensive with the age or dispensation,) destruction, and being destroyed with (or by) everlasting punishment. Or, for a simile, betwixt being punished with hanging, that destroys life, or destroyed with, or hy, being punished by solitary confinement and hard labour in the State Prison for life!

I regret to be obliged to add, that the learned Professor made a really vicarious sacrifice of his reason, his sense, and his integrity, too, to the orthodox Beast, on his 13th page, in his illustration, etc. of "Adns; by foisting the Jews' gehenna, and locating it in the heathen hell, along side of Tartarus! This was sinning wilfully. He knew better! And in his illustrations of the use of 'O,, ró, etc., the learned Professor has sinned wantonly! saying, "Matt. xii. 41, ¿v tñ кpíσɛt, i. e. the day of judgment." This is a vile perversion of the text. But he, probably, without design, quotes two passages that illustrate the sense of the verb mello, etc. viz: Matt. ii. 13, mellei gar, etc. and iii. 7, tes mellouses orges. In the year 1821, a profligate man, and a "doctor of divinity," as his

declaration of a prophet-"Whither shall I go from thy Spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: If I make my bed in [Sheol, Hades,] hell, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me." (Psa. cxxxix.) To be destroyed, apo, from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, implies that the destroyed do not exist within the ence of the Lord. The destroyed are out of the presence of the Lord, because they are blotted out of the book of sentient existence; destroyed root and branch; and exist no more for ever; i. e. during, or for ton aiona

the age.

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But when the aion shall end, whose commencement was announced by the Angel, that lifted his hand to heaven, and swore by Him that liveth for ever and ever, that there shall be time no longer, and "the mystery of God, as He hath declared to his servants the prophets, shall be finished," the "Dispensation of the fulness of times" shall arrive, and the aions of the parabola be closed, world, or aionos, without end. AMEN. ""

Calvinistic compeers dubbed him, expressed his astonishment! (in a book that he published,) that men (Universalists,) "utterly ignorant!" should presume to interpret the Scriptures! It would be well, if some of these arrogant gentlemen, should be made deeply sensible of their real insignificance; and, for once, see their own faces in the mirror of Truth.

Be it understood, however, that I except such men as Professor RoeINSON, from any part or lot, in this my remark.

SERMON XII.

THE PERSUASIVES OF THE GOSPEL.

"Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men."
2 COR. v. 11.

THE connexion of the passage I have selected as a text, informs us of the occasion of Paul's declaration, relative to his preaching the Gospel of Christ; in which declaration, a motive is assigned for persuading men to hear and accept the Gospel. Paul had expressed his desire to be absent from the body, in the sense of being delivered from his earthly tabernacle or body, and being present with the Lord. And, after having affirmed positively, that "if our earthly house of tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," he says, "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord."

I will remark on this testimony, that the following things are manifest as Paul's belief, relative to the subject he spoke of, viz: First-Paul uses the phrase "earthly house of tabernacle," as synonymous with body. For he uses as convertible modes of expression, being in his "earthly house of tabernacle," with "being at home in the body." Second-That this state, of being at home in the body, is being absent from the Lord. Third, Paul then qualifies the phrase, absent from the Lord, by saying, "For we walk by faith, not by sight;" and immediately adds, "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." In the one case, being at home in the body, he walks by faith. In the other, if he were absent from the body, he would be present with the Lord, and would see, instead of believing, etc. Therefore it follows from Paul's imagery, shewing cause and effect, that the absence and the presence are to be understood as follows: The cause of his absence from the Lord, is his presence in the body; the cause of his presence with the Lord, is to be absent

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