goodness of the Supreme Being, and also the natural depravity of man, yet it no less clearly lays down that this natural depravity shall never be admitted as an excuse for sin, but that "they which have done evil, shall rise to the resurrection of damnation[15]."--"That the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God." And it is worthy of remark, that, as if for the very purpose of more effectually silencing those unbelieving doubts which are ever springing up in the human heart, our blessed Saviour, though the messenger of peace and good will to man, has again and again repeated these awful denunciations. Nor (it must also be remarked) are the holy Scriptures less clear and full in guarding us against supposing our sins, or the dreadful consequences of them, to be chargeable on God.--"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man[16]:" "The Lord is not willing that any should perish[17]." And again, where the idea is repelled as injurious to his character,--"Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God; and not that he should return from his ways, and live[18]?" "For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God[19]." Indeed almost every page of the word of God contains some warning or invitation to sinners; and all these, to a considerate mind, must unquestionably be proofs of our present position. It has been the more necessary not to leave unnoticed the objection which we have been now refuting, because, where not admitted to such an unqualified extent as altogether to take away the moral responsibility of man, and when not avowed in the daring language in which it has been above stated; if may frequently be observed to exist in an inferior degree: and often, when not distinctly formed into shape, it lurks in secret, diffusing a general cloud of doubt or unbelief, or lowering our standard of right, or whispering fallacious comfort, and producing a ruinous tranquillity. Not to anticipate what will more properly come under discussion, when we consider the nature and strictness of practical Christianity; let us here, however, remark, that though the holy Scriptures so clearly state the natural corruption and weakness of man, yet they never, in the most minute degree, countenance, but throughout directly oppose, the supposition to which we are often too forward to listen, that this corruption and weakness will be admitted as lowering the demands of divine justice, and in some sort palliating our transgressions of the laws of God. It would not be difficult to shew that such a notion is at war with the whole scheme of redemption by the atonement of Christ. But perhaps it may be enough when any such suggestions as those which we are condemning force themselves into the imagination of a Christian, to recommend it to him to silence them by