But, says the objector, God is now kind, tender, forgiving, and merciful to all; but he will not be so, when they enter eternity, for "the doors of mercy will then be shut." How do you know that--who told you so? Will God change in some future day? If he change, he will not be the same being, he is now. I thought, he was the same yesterday, today, and forever, without variableness or even the shadow of turning. I thought he was the same Jehovah in all worlds. Do you intend to make him kind, tender, and forgiving _here_, but unkind, unforgiving, and hard-hearted to a part of his offspring _hereafter_? If you intend to change both the nature and character of the Almighty in the future world, then you and myself are done arguing. That doctrine is, certainly in a pitiful condition, which drives its advocate to the necessity of changing the Almighty wholly into another being to support it. "God so loved the world, even when dead in trespasses and sins," as to deliver up his Son to "taste death for every man." And being unchangeable, he could never hate them. In our text, God commands us to forgive as he has forgiven. How many does God forgive? Ans. As many as he commands you to forgive. How many is that? _All, even your enemies--to bless and curse not_. We will now introduce the question--If God has not forgiven a man today, will he ever forgive him? I answer no, for he is unchangeable. We are to apt to think that our Creator is altogether such an one as ourselves--that he loves one day, and hates the next--that he is in reality angry one hour, and pleased the next--or that he holds a grudge one moment and forgives the next, if we will only ask him to do so. But all such ideas are calculated for children--for babes in Christ. The scriptures come down to the weakest capacity; but this is no reason we should always continue children, but rise in knowledge to the strength of manhood. We ought not to be "ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." Paul said to his brethren "when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you" &c. "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."