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head with joy, beholding her redemption nigh. But that which she longs and waits for is her Lord's return.

Having thus developed the character of this dispensation, and the principles of the Divine administration entering into it, let us consider more especially the character of the unbelief now manifested by the world.

It has been shown heretofore how the Jewish nation rejected God's covenant, as based on faith and obedience, and sought a monopoly of the Divine favor and the kingdom on the ground of birth and blood, as the seed of Abraham, for which they contended desperately unto their overthrow. In a similar way have the Gentile nations dealt with Christ and His covenant of mercy, aiming to secure a selfish monopoly of them to their own wickedness.

The ground of justification revealed in the gospel for sinners was through a bloody sacrifice, Christ himself being made the sin-offering. His blood alone could

cleanse from sin, and to this end was the faith required. The sinner who would approach God and hope for His favor, must come in this new and living way, accepting Christ as his only Mediator, and relying upon His blood shed as an atonement for his soul. Here was a wide and open door of mercy, through which a sinning world might enter. But how has this gracious offer of salvation been met? A few have been taught of God, and, as condemned sinners, have trusted their whole salvation here. But the mass have followed in the steps of the unbelieving Cain, and rejected Christ as a sin-offering for their souls. They have been willing to take Christ as a thankoffering, as Cain was ready, in the pride of his heart, to bring of the fruit of the ground, and as the Scribes and Pharisees were ready to present their abundant service and righteousness. Multitudes have been willing to do penance for the kingdom of heaven, and mortify their

bodies, thus, by their own sufferings and self-denials, making atonement for their sins, but denying the Lord that bought them. There was no faith in Christ here.

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Multitudes, again, rely upon their morality and good character, and make these their only saviour. They have no wickedness to confess before God. As for their few faults and shortcomings, God can easily overlook them. This is a salvation clearly for the righteous-not for sinAnd this is the monopoly which the Gentile world has sought to make of the kingdom of heaven to themselves. But how large a portion of our race will be admitted to the Paradise of God on the ground that they have never done any harm-have never been in the league with hell against the throne of Heaven, and can stand before God without any need of blood shed to wash away their sins? How many are there whose character is so high and pure that it would be an insult for God to offer them a gracious pardon through the righteousness of His only Son? For if a man is not a transgressor, under condemnation, it is the deepest insult to offer him a pardon and free justification through the merits of another, which he is humbly, thankfully to accept, singing forever of the grace that has saved him. How large, now, is the class in this world whom God would insult by such an offer of undeserved mercy and salvation? Christ declares emphatically, that His mission from heaven to earth was to save sinners, calling them to repentance, even them that were lost. The theory, therefore, that makes religion to consist of human virtues and exemption from sin, is at war with all the declarations of the Bible and the facts of human history; and if the righteous only are to be saved, what is to become of the sinners, whose iniquities are multiplied as the sands, and who have no holiness in the sight of Heaven? The religion demanded on earth is a religion for sinners-sin

ners of every grade-sinners of the blackest dye-sinners on the verge of damnation, and who see not how even the infinite mercy of God can reach to snatch them from perdition. If you would have a religion broad as the race and deep as the woes of ruined humanity, you must not begin to speak of virtuous lives, and human excellencies, and exemption from sins. You must bring a religion which can justify the guilty; that can make clean the vile, washing the foulest clean. It is sinners. that need to be saved, not the righteous. Any religion, therefore, which does not provide for these, is narrow, partial, exclusive. A religion of human virtue would never carry one poor sinner to heaven. Go, tantalize such an one with the doctrine that a blameless life on earth is essential to an admission to the Paradise of God. His answer at once is, "Then is my perdition sealed forever; for mine is only a life of continued iniquity from beginning to end." Will you tell him, then, that henceforth he must lead a blameless life? "Ah! that," says he, "seals my damnation just as surely. I'm a captive, sold under sin. I have no power to break these cords of iniquity, which are bound fast about me. I have no strength to contend with and prevail against sin. And if this is all the promise you bring, you open no door of hope to my despairing soul. Tell me, oh! tell me, how a sinner may live and be justified with God! That is what I want to know. Tell me how my iniquities, in all their number and aggravation, may be freely forgiven; and then, how such a sinner as I, sold under the power of sin, may lead a new life unto God. Give me a religion to answer these ends, and then, and then only, you open the door of hope and heaven to my guilty soul."

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This, too, is the very thing that the gospel does. effect this very redemption, Jesus Christ came down from above, and made himself a sin-offering; and His blood

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can wash away the deepest, foulest stain of sin. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool; Isa. i. 18. It is the glory of our Immanuel that He saves sinners, even the very chief. He has prevailed to conquer hell, and all our foes. He can therefore save unto the very uttermost, to the last one, all that will come unto Him. Put, too, upon the simple condition of faith, it becomes a universal religion, confined to no favored, select class, but offered freely to all upon the widest terms possible; which are, that "whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

But there is no system of salvation against which the world, in its pride and selfishness, has contended so desperately, and opposed at every point, as this very one. By the grace of God a few have been led to accept it, and rejoice in it, and sing the new song of redemption. But the world has persistently opposed, denied, and blasphemed. The nations have united with the Jewish rulers in crucifying the Son of God. Jew and Gentile were both joined in that foulest deed of earth; and it is still required at their hands. It has brought the day of judgment to the Jew. It will, ere long, bring the hour of avenging wrath to the Gentile world; and that will be the day, the great day of God Almighty, such as earth never witnessed before. For eighteen centuries God has now been delaying, and testing the nations, to see wheth er they would bow to the authority of Christ and accept His offered grace. That experiment is going on to its tremendous issue, as in the antediluvian age, and under the Mosaic covenant. A remnant was gathered out in each of those periods. A remnant is being gathered now. And as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying

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and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not, until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left ; Matt. xxiv. 37.

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To interpret all this as meaning that God designs to save the wicked as the righteous, and to put no distinction between faith and unbelief-between an acceptance and rejection of God's covenant-but that both alike are kept for the kingdom of heaven, is an insult to common sense, as well as the whole system of the Divine teachings. The doctrine of the universal salvation of the wicked and unbelieving, as a doctrine of the Bible, is, in the light of this history, an absurdity; and the maintenance of such a doctrine as God's truth, after such a history of the past, is one of the crowning evidences of the world's stupendous unbelief, and its ripeness for the last day of avenging judgment, that shall sweep such ungodliness from the earth. If God has not settled the question by this time, that there is a day of wrath in store for the wicked, there is no use in His attempting to convince unbelief. Nothing will do it but the very day of wrath itself, which shall burst upon a deluded world, and surprise it in its wickedness.

Oh, dying man, where shall that fiery day of judgment find you? Are you reckoned now among that faithful company who have been taken out from the world, and have been justified through Christ, rejoicing to enter this wide and open door of mercy by which every lost sinner of the race may find a welcome? Or have you rejected this free salvation by grace, and are you clinging to some old monopoly of the kingdom; expecting to gain heaven because you have not been much of a

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