a holy and sin hating God. Peter's sermon wakened up a keen and terrible consciousness of accountability, in the bosoms of the murderers of the Son of God. This it was that shook their souls with terror. This it was that pricked them to the heart. This it was, that made them feel as no Universalist sermon ever made men feel since. The jailer at Philippi was alarmed, and asked what he should do to be saved. Even haughty Felix ⚫ trembled before the preaching of Paul, when Paul preached of righteousness, temperance, and a judg

ment to come.

How are we to account for this anxiety which the preaching of the apostles produced among their hearers? It was not anxiety about their temporal condition. The question which they always asked, was what shall we do to be saved? And the answer always was-believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. How will you account for this anxiety, then, if you suppose the apostles preached the doctrine of "no punishment after death?" Is it not a mystery on such a supposition? But allow that they spoke of “righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come, and then there is no mystery about it. Then their anxiety is just what we should expect. Then their solicitude was just what the solicitude of sinners now often is, when they are pointed forward to the judgment-seat of Christ, and to the despair of an eternal exile from heaven.

SEVENTH REASON.

Universalism cannot be true, because the preaching of it does not awaken the hatred and malice of men, as the preaching of Christ and his apostles did. Christ was murdered for preaching his doctrines. Who ever heard of a Universalist minister being murdered for preaching-No punishment after death? Never was such a thing known.

Paul's preaching was most offensive to the wicked. "Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, and once was I stoned." When Paul preached, men would league themselves together to the number of forty, by oaths, declaring that they would neither eat nor sleep till they had killed Paul. How shall we account for all this dreadful persecution against Christ and his apostles, if they proclaimed the flesh-pleasing doctrine of no punishment after death. Did you ever know any wicked man, any profane swearer, Sabbath-breaker, drunkard, adulterer, infidel, or despiser of sacred things, displeased at hearing this doctrine? Did you ever know the worldly, the gay, the prayerless, and the impenitent, to be offended at the assurance that all will be well with them after death? And yet these very classes of persons were offended at the preaching of Christ and his apostles. Offended, because they were told that God loved them, and that after death he would take them all to heaven,

and there make them for ever happy! You cannot offend the hearts of men by preaching the doctrine of Universal Salvation. You may offend their intellects. You may offend their common sense. You may offend their consciences. You may offend their reason-but you cannot offend their depraved hearts. Go and tell the profane swearer that there is no punishment after death, and he will reply, "That is just what I hope for." Go and tell the man who is sucking away at his bottle, that drunkards shall inherit the kingdom of heaven, and he will reply, "I am right glad to hear it." Go and tell the whoremonger, that all will be well with him after death, and he will reply, "Good news! Good news!" Go and tell that awful liar, that all liars are in no danger of perdition, and he will reply, "Glad tidings! Glad tidings!" Go and tell that father or that mother who never pray for their children, and who are bringing them up without hope, and without God in the world, that they and their children will be safe after death, and it will ease their consciences, and they will bless you for the assurance. Go and tell those children who trample upon the commandments of their parents, and wring their hearts with anguish, that there is no punishment after death, and they will not be offended. Go and tell. that son or that daughter, who have apostatized from their father's faith, and their mother's God, and who are going down to the sepulchres of their parents unprepared, that there is no punishment after death, and they will lay the unction to their

wounded spirits, and rejoice. Go and tell that young man, who lives without secret prayer, and without a regard for the Bible, who is now taking some of the first steps to ruin, that all will be well with him after death, and he will become your friend, and stand by you in every extremity. Go with that young woman who is just entering the habitation of the damned, "whose house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death," and write on the walls of her guilty bed-chamber, No punishment after death! No punishment after death! and she will chant you one of the songs of perdition, and bid you "God speed." It is utterly impossible to offend the wicked, prayerless, thoughtless throng, by preaching to them the doctrine of Universal Salvation. Therefore it cannot be the doctrine which Christ and his apostles proclaimed, Therefore it cannot be true.

EIGHTH REASON.

Universalism cannot be true, from the manner in which Universalists preach. Did you ever hear one of them preach? And did he preach upon the absolute necessity of repentance, and declare unto you, that unless you would repent, you should all likewise perish? Did he preach upon the duty of prayer-urging you to hold communion with your God every day in your closets?—urging you to erect a family altar, and, morning and evening,

collect your family around it, and lead them to a throne of mercy? Did he preach on the necessity of being born again? Did he preach on the incarnation of the Divine Word, and of his awful expiatory sufferings on the cross? Did he tell you it was better to pluck out an offending eye, or cut off an offending hand, than, having two eyes, or two hands, to be cast into hell, where the worm dieth not, and the fire shall never be quenched? Did he preach against your vices and sinful habits? Did he unfold to you the awful depravity of your hearts? Did he ask you how you expected to escape, if you neglected so great salvation? Was the burden of his discourse the establishment and defence of some of these cardinal points of revelation? Oh no. He took a text, and that was all. Perhaps he did not even tell you where you might find his text.* Perhaps he spent much of his time in crying persecution, persecution, till he had enlisted the sympathies of his hearers in his behalf, and made them believe that the fires of persecution were about to be lighted against him. Perhaps he selected some text of doubtful meaning, and endeavoured to show that it had no reference to future punishment? For this purpose he brought forward a long list of commentators, proving by their testimony, what was never doubted by his opponents, that the passage had reference only to temporal judgments: thus making a man of straw, and

*This was the case with the Rev. A. C. Thomas, on the evening when he declined answering the preceding lecture.