there is but a shade of difference between us and other denominations; for there is a difference high as heaven, wide as the earth; a difference as hopelessly and utterly irreconcilable as light and darkness; and there is no disguising the obvious truth that if our system is true the other is false, desperately and hopelessly false, I had almost said, in its whole length and breadth." "A man can no more be a Universalist and a Partialist, than he could serve both God and Baal. I go further, and say that no man can innocently believe the one, and yet support the other."*

This statement I most heartily endorse-I thank the writer for it—and I commend it to your consideration. Agreeing with him also, that concealment is not only a mistaken policy but a wicked course of hypocrisy-and holding, with all the mind and heart, to the great doctrines of grace, we therefore openly and deliberately maintain, using Mr. Williamson's own words, that

4. That system "is desperately and hopelessly false, in its whole length and breadth."

If ours is light, as we think, that is unmitigated darkness. The great, absorbing and monopolizing doctrine of the whole system-its central and only light, or darkness visible, is the total divorcement of our moral behavior here from our condition hereafter, and the audacious doctrine that no matter how vile and loathsome, to the last breath he draws, every man shall wake to perfect bliss. It is not held as a side speculation, an incidental prospect or probability. It is the whole scope of the system. This is dinned in men's

* Exposition, pp. 215, 216.

ears as the substance of all doctrine. For this, and in this, and by this, the whole system has its being. It is the one brazen note of their "Trumpet," the everlasting gospel of their pulpit. It is the kernel and the covering of the whole system-its life and glory—its body and soul-its head, hoof and horns.

Now with such a system as that, evangelical Christianity has nothing in common, but the two covers of the Bible. The systems are, we agree with Mr. Williamson, as utterly and hopelessly irreconcilable as 66 light and darkness," the worship of "Baal" or the devil, and the worship of "God." And while, therefore, I have no expectation or desire of changing the usage of speech, which classes it under the general head of Christianity, I make no secret of the fact that without abandoning my own apprehensions of Christianity, I cannot as matter of fact recognize the system which I have here set forth, the system taught by H. Ballou, and Whittemore, and Williamson, and Cobb, and Asher Moore, as any form, branch or part of the Christian religion. And this is the unanimous sentiment of evangelical preachers of the gospel, and intelligent private Christians in our churches.

You are thus prepared to understand the reason why we also maintain that

5. The ministration of the system is no preaching of the gospel, but of Satan's doctrine. In truth, the position is put into our mouth by the very advocates of the system. They say the two systems are hopelessly irreconcilable as much so as light and darkness, the service of God and of Baal. We take them at their own word; if our doctrine is of God, theirs is of dark

ness, of Baal, of Satan. There is no help for it. And we add our own word to their admission. We believe they proclaim one of the most ruinous and destructive and groveling of falsehoods ever broached on earthand we believe the devil is the father of lies. And from before the time when Lemuel Haynes preached from the text," and the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die," and from the proposition, "Satan the first Universalist preacher," down to the present, that has been the view of all intelligent evangelical Christians. We maintain that with our present views of Christianity, whatever may be a man's character as a friend, a citizen and a neighbor, and all that, yet, in his official capacity, any man who proclaims that system is one of Satan's preachers, and not a minister of Christ's gospel, however eloquent he may be. This view, I say, belongs to our system, and not to me personally. The things are irreconcilable. And if this open and deliberate statement gives a surprise to any man in this city, much more to any evangelical Christian, it is time that shock had been given long ago. Men must understand they are two different roads and make their choice between them. If our road leads to Heaven, theirs leads to Hell. We pretend to no partnership. And much as I would shrink from being the keeper of a gambling saloon, tempting young men to squander for naught their earthly substance; much as I would recoil from being the owner of a dram shop, where men are beguiled against their better knowledge, to their temporal and eternal ruin; with far intenser horror should I beg to be delivered from the wholesale sin, and the awful responsibility of delu

ding, on settled principle, the drunkard, and the blasphemer, and the rake, Sabbath after Sabbath, with the cry of "peace, peace," where God has uttered no peace, and with the hope that they shall pass at once from the pestilential atmosphere of their earthly lives into the bliss of God on high. And when this work is done under pretence of exalting God and man, when, under pretext of extolling his love and mercy, every high moral attribute of God's nature is ground into the dust, it is but Satan transformed, as usual, into the guise of an angel of light, and his ministers transformed as the ministers of righteousness. I know that it is said— and that is the grand plea—it makes the sinner's present life so happy. So does ardent spirit make men happy; but there's death in the cup. So does opium make men happy; but it makes them fools. So does delirium often make men happy; but it is the happiness of the madman. And oh! if this doctrine, so captivating to a sinful heart, be but a delusion, what a terrible delusion it is; and how dreadfully it shall be dispelled at the judgment seat of Christ! If it be but the intoxicating cup to the human soul, what a very wine of devils it is; and he that has been intoxicated with that cup throughout this short day of life, to what a fearful heartache shall he waken on the long, dark morrow of eternity!

LECTURE SECOND.

THE MORE OBVIOUS MARKS OF FALSEHOOD.

Matthew XVI: 23. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence unto me: for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

THE tendency of some things is recondite; that of others, direct and obvious. Some propositions and systems, like Cain, bear the devil's mark on their forehead, as well as in their heart. So was it with this advice which Peter gave to Jesus-and Peter cringed before rebuke. So is it with the system of Modern Universalism,—the system which cuts off all moral connection between this life and the life to come, and teaches that all men, however vile on earth, at death awake only to eternal blessedness, and that, too, with no aid from Jesus Christ. It is as destitute of external verisimilitude, as it is of inward truth. It is hardly even a whited sepulchre. Full of dead men's bones within, it is garnished with dead men's bones without.

In due order, I shall examine the entire argument on which it rests, and indicate its rottenness. For the present, I wish to call your attention to some of

THE MORE OBVIOUS MARKS OF THE UNGODLY ORIGIN OF MODERN UNIVERSALISM.

1. The natural import of Scripture in all its parts, is against it. No recondite interpretations are required to show the falsity of the system-it lies on the whole