sitively declaring, "The things which I have given them, shall pass away from them." This is the very meaning of the summer being ended: for the gift of God, and his visiting presence is the only thing that can reform and save poor sinners; and this being passed away from any soul, his summer, his seed time, and only opportunity for improvement, is indeed awfully ended. Well may such" rejected and forsaken" souls cry out, under an inexpressible weight of anguish, wo, and wrath, "We are not saved!"

Now, if the universalist can find a door of hope, a way of escape, or a means of salvation, for a soul that has sinned away the day of his visitation, till the things which God has given him have passed away from him; till the Lord has rejected and forsaken him; till the harvest is past, the summer ended, and he not saved; I think I shall not dispute the power of such a universalist for I see not why he may not, after such a discovery, find a way also, whereby the Ethiopian can of his own ability, without any superior assistance, change his skin, and the leopard his spots.

Jer. xi. 11. Thus saith the Lord, behold I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them." And therefore, he again verse 14, forbids the prophet to pray for them, with this positive declaration, as a reason why: "for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble." And in the next verse he says to them, "The holy flesh is passed from thee: when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest!" Query, where now is the union? And where will it be when "their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten?" as we read chap. xx. 11.

2 Tim. ii. 12. "If we deny him, he also will deny us." Now what can be the hope of that man, whom Christ will deny? or where does he place his confidence of salvation? It has been represented as if he could not deny any of us, because though we may deny him, he cannot deny himself; and therefore, we being one with him, as they say, they would have us think he cannot deny us. How opposite is this to the apostle's plain testimony?

1 Tim. vi. 9, treats of " many foolish and hurtful lusts, which

drown men in destruction and perdition." What less can this mean than eternal ruin? Not only destruction, but as if on purpose to cut off every false hope, and prevent all evasion, the apostle adds the awful and pertinent word "perdition." Now, in order to find the precise idea and meaning of the apostle in this word, and to evince that he used it as a direct contrary to salvation, let us attend to Phillip. i. 28, " And in nothing terrified by your adversaries; which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God." Here perdition and salvation are direct antipodes. Again, Heb. x. 38, 39, If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him: but we are not of them who draw back to perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." Here, again," the saving of the soul" stands in direct opposition to "perdition :" and well it may, seeing in those who "draw back to perdition," the Lord "will have no pleasure." Oh! sorrowful situation! Can any thing remain for such in whom the Lord "will have no pleasure," but " the blackness of darkness forever?" Jude 13. Does not this fully fix the meaning of perdition, as being the same thing with this everlasting blackness of darkness?

66

Now is it not wonderful, that any mortal man durst presume to promise salvation to such in whom the Lord has and will have no pleasure; such who even draw back to perdition? Is it possible for men to enjoy eternal salvation, under God's displeasure, or without his having any kind of pleasure in them? What says the apostle in this very chapter, Heb. x. 26, 27? "If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins; but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." In the next verse he says, "He that despised Moses' law, died without mercy, under two or three witnesses of how much sorer punishment suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, which hath trodden under foot the son of God," &c. Now this opens the apostle's ideas, in regard to being devoured by the fiery indignation; for plain it is, he supposed it to consist of something vastly more dreadful, a “much sorer punishment," than that of those who of old "died without mercy." This points out plainly a dreadful hereafter! What

else can so far exceed the other's punishment? But to set the matter home still closer, the apostle adds, "for we know him who hath said, vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense saith the Lord:" and as it were to crown the whole, he says, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Now what did Paul mean by all this? Why did he preach up vengeance and fiery indignation? Why does he represent to the sinner, the terribleness of the God of vengeance; and the fearfulness of falling guilty into his hands? Was the apostle struck with some wild, enthusiastic dread? with some groundless panic fear? Nay, verily; but under the dictates of divine grace, he spake forth the words of truth and soberness, let who will gainsay, oppose, or pervert his testimony.

But some are so whimsical as to argue, that sin is the only son of perdition, and that sin only will be punished hereafter! A sandy foundation indeed, and degrading to common sense: as if sin had a separate existence, capable of sensation and punishment. Does not Peter plainly tell us of the "perdition of ungodly men?" 2 Peter iii. 7. Not the perdition of sin, or sinful dispositions, as some irrationally pretend, who even dare deny that the scriptures speak of Judas as the son of perdition, or as being lost; although he is as plainly so spoken of, as Simon the sorcerer is spoken of as being in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity; and to have no part nor lot in the great matter of salvation. For our Lord, just before his crucifixion, in his most pathetic prayer to the Father, has told us who the son of perdition is, in terms too plain to be misunderstood but by the wilfully ignorant. John xvii. 6, &c. "I have manifested thy name unto the men whom thou gavest me out of the world." Mark his words, he calls them men, not sins, natures, nor dispositions: yea, men to whom he had manifested his Father's name; men of whom he says, "These have known surely that I came out from thee." Now of these men he says, "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name; those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled." Here this son of perdition appears plainly to be one of the very men whom his Father had given him, and cannot mean sin, being a real man,

and that plainly Judas; for it was but one out of those specially given him, and spoken of as fulfilling the scriptures: hence it was plainly he who betrayed him, for says Peter, Acts i. 16, &c. "This scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the holy ghost, by the mouth of David spoke before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus, for he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry." Now that he was indeed numbered with them, is plain by Christ's calling him with the others, "the men which thou gavest me;" and yet he allows that one of them was lost. And as this one "had obtained part of this ministry," we find the apostles setting apart two others, and thus praying the Lord, (verse 24, 25,) "Show whether of these two thou hast chosen, that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place;" that is, doubtless to perdition. Now the scripture which Peter recites as being fulfilled in Judas, is, as he has it, thus: "Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein; his bishopric let another take." This was exactly fulfilled in another's being chosen in the room of Judas. Whence it is plain our Lord meant Judas, by the son of perdition; how else could he after mentioning this lost son of perdition, immediately add "that the scripture might be fulfilled?" This we see is strictly true of Judas; but how the scripture is fulfilled in sin as the son of perdition, and yet as one who had been given to Christ, had believed on him, and obtained part of the ministry, I cannot conceive. Now, the plain reason why some deny Judas to be the son of perdition, is because the son of perdition is said to be lost, and they had rather try to pervert plain scripture, and run into nonsense and absurdity, than own that one man was ever lost. But Christ also in another place speaks of Judas as lost, saying, "Wo unto that man by whom the son of man is betrayed: it had been good for that man if he had not been born." See Matt. xxvi. 21 to 24. Mark xiv. 18 to 21. Now if it had been good for Judas not to have been born, is it not as evident as words can make it, that he is the son of perdition, and is lost? For if he is not lost, but shall yet enjoy eternal bliss, it was a very great good to him that

he was born to this unutterable joy and blessedness. Vain is that evasion, that if he had given up the ghost before he was born he would have escaped all the exquisite distress which he suffered in this life, and so have been ha py forever, without being born into this state of misery.* For this represents the Almighty as pronouncing a solemn wo upon Judas, which was equally applicable to his choicest servants; seeing none suffer greater perils and tribulations in this life than they, even so that it is said of them, if in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable. 1 Cor. xv. 19. But all these tribulations and miseries had been avoided, had they never been born; therefore it is evident that the wo pronounced on Judas must refer to his future state, and that its being said, “good had it been for that man had he not been born," is similar to his being lost.

It is further urged against his being lost, that he was promised with the eleven to sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. But this is by no means clear. That promise runs thus: "Ye which have followed me in the regeneration." Mat. xix. 28. And as Matthias was chosen, by the Lord's lot falling on him, to fill up the number of the twelve, and was one who had "companied with the apostles all the time that Jesus went in and out among them," (See Acts i. 21.) I think that gracious promise stands good to the twelve thus filled up, who had truly followed him in the regeneration; especially as no particular name is mentioned in said promise, and as it is evident that Christ did not always speak of them all; for he expressly says, John xiii. 18, "I speak not of you all, I know whom I have chosen." And as there is no doubt but he caused the lot to fall on one whom he had chosen, I think we may rationally conclude, that, in that great promise, he really meant to speak of such as he had chosen, and did not include Judas, but Matthias, in the word twelve.

And now, I believe, Judas may fairly be ranked among such as

*See "Some deductions from the system promulgated in the pages of divine Revelation." p. 21.