wretched sinners, therefore, are abandoned, by the consenting voices of scripture and of nature, to his eternal home whom they chose to serve; nor can they themselves utter one word against the verdict. Happily, it will be said, the number of such enormous offenders in a Christian country is small, compared with the thousands who abstain from gross sins and live for the most part in a harmless and reputable manner. Would it were much smaller! But when,

on the one hand, we see the lives of these more approved and more hopeful Christians, (approved of by the world at large, and by no means either desponding or boldly regardless of their future condition;) and on the other, consider the expressions invariably made use of by our Lord and his apostles, when speaking of those who should be heirs of eternal life; I see no remedy, but that we must either throw aside reason, judgment, and common sense, altogether, or come straight to the conclusion that, however much a life of tolerable morality and propriety may be commended when compared with theirs who set religion, decency, and law, at defiance; still it is not

b

thus that souls are to be saved; this is not to be Christians; and those who abide contentedly in this state, are certainly far from the kingdom of heaven. We must come, in fact, to the conclusion which our Lord has positively proclaimed, that "straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” —As might be expected in a matter of the first importance, we have in the scriptures the fullest means for coming at the truth— our Saviour and his apostles certainly teach that "many are called but few are chosen;" to many the gospel of life is preached; many are born and bred up under the sacraments, the ministry, and other advantages of Christ's church; but of those many, a small number, comparatively speaking, so profit by those advantages as to reach the kingdom of heaven. When the grand division takes place after the last judgment; when the sheep of Christ's happy flock range themselves on the right hand of their good shepherd, and the goats are plunged with shame and sorrow into the lake burn

b Matthew, vii. 14.

ing with fire and brimstone-" many shall

seek to enter in," shall cry

"Lord open

unto us," but hear only the stern unyielding answer, "begone from me, I know you not."-This being taken for an undoubted truth, it remains for us to enquire why it will be thus: if "Christ died for all," why should any perish? It cannot be because the Lord acts towards his creatures with partiality; regarding one with love and another with ill will, without taking into consideration the works of either: at least it cannot be so, if we are to take in their only usual acceptation those expressions of holy writ which describe God's dealings with his creatures.-They declare that his ways to man are, after the manner of human judgments, not unequal-they challenge men to prove them otherwise than equal by their own way of thinking and acting. They assert repeatedly and clearly that the Lord "willeth not the death of a sinner:" that there is with him no respect of persons, but that all are desired to come to repentance: add to which well-known passages this simple argument-with men,

to reward some and to punish others, without any regard to their respective merits, is injustice; but the scriptures take pains (if we may so express it) to set forth the justice of God; all which pains are utterly useless, and the expressions made use of utterly unintelligible, if justice in God is a thing altogether different from justice in man. If, at the end of all things, it is seen that some were predestined to happiness, and some to misery, I doubt not but that the reasons for such a mode of proceeding will be perfectly agreeable to our present notions of equity. Yes! all, whom God hath made, all with whom he deals, he regards as one man; nor can any reason be assigned for his giving a preference to one of his creatures above another, except the difference in their disposition and conduct towards himself. As the Bible therefore distinctly states that he loves all alike, we should not presume to suppose that any are by the divine will excluded from heaven until they have by their own fault forfeited their part in the redemption by Christ Jesus. Here, then, we find the

D

answer to our question, why, since " many are called are few chosen?" Jesus Christ has purchased redemption for man by his own blood; but to this offer of pardon and eternal life, he has joined certain conditions precise, positive, and indispensable: these conditions are all included in the text, "Christ died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him who died for them." What can be more clear than that those who refuse to comply with his terms have no part nor lot in his redemption?

What then is to live unto ourselves, and how may we live unto Christ? Let this be our present enquiry; and let us desire that God's holy spirit may attend upon our search, and enable us to enter by the new and living way. By a man's living unto himself, the scriptures understand, his being guided in his actions and habits by his own natural inclinations. We will imagine, for example, such a person as may in the closest manner set forth the truth which I maintained at the beginning of this discourse; that thousands may be