We shall have become most like unto God when we shall have done all the good that is in our power; and it is impossible we should do this until we act solely from a desire of pleasing and resembling Him. Then, and then only, do we possess the principle of immortality: for the same actions, performed on this principle, and on any other whatsoever, will have this remarkable difference,-that whilst the one makes us immortal, the other removes us from immortality, by consuming a portion of our present existence on objects contrary to God's nature, and that reach not beyond the grave.

I will illustrate this in the instance of alms-giving. He who in giving his goods to feed the poor, does it that he may be like his Father who is in heaven, will do it so as most to advance His honour and glory, and will therefore study so to bestow his alms that the best interests of those who need them may be served. Thus with the mammon of unrighteousness he obtaineth a friend who will receive him into an everlasting habitation. Now the most benevolent man the world ever saw, who acted from any principle short of this, has no hold on immortal life, no

This argument is not founded in the ignorance of man, because it increases in strength in proportion to man's approach to the perfection of his nature.

The same argument may be thus stated :

It is man's duty to desire God's will to be done in all things. That which is his duty he must be naturally capable of performing.

Man is incapable of desiring that the majority of his fellowcreatures should be eternally miserable in hell.

Then it cannot be his duty to desire it.

Then it cannot be God's will.

ground on which to hope for reward in heaven; and for this plain reason, that he is essentially different from and opposite to that nature which alone has immortality. God desires the welfare of all created beings. The person of whom we are here speaking, with the power of advancing the true welfare of some individuals, at least of desiring it, confines himself to a temporal object. Perhaps he acts from a desire of creating dependants, of exhibiting power, or of establishing authority. If his measures are prudently taken, he has his reward; but here an idol is erected in place of the true God. But perhaps he does it for the sake of the employment it affords, to avoid the tedium of idleness, or to be well spoken of by his fellow men; these objects he may obtain, but he will rob God of his glory. Again, he may have acted from a natural feeling of compassion, and relieved the wants of others to spare himself the sight of misery, or the consciousness of having caused it by refusing relief when in his power; or he may have acted from a real desire to relieve the temporal wants of a fellow-creature: again, we may say, verily he has his reward; a pleasing feeling will result from the consciousness of having, in some degree, performed a duty; but the divine life must be extinct within even him who can advance thus far, and refuse to be like God in desiring to advance the eternal interest of one, over whom he must have some influence. He who refuses to do this, erases his own name from the book of life. And although of him it may be said, "He is not far from the kingdom of heaven," in vain shall he knock, unless, by giving heed to the words of eternal life, he shall

come to see the error of his ways, and, in true humility, seek that spiritual life unto which he is yet a stranger.

Now, as we plainly owe all loyalty, and obedience, and love, to the Giver of all good gifts, it can be no wonder that the God of truth does not accept that as done unto Him which was never so intended; and which, in wanting that intention, wilfully and wantonly excludes the only good for which all things were created: for all temporal good, to beings capable of immortality, is only with a view to eternal; and how good soever in its proper relation, becomes evil when rested in as an end.

Here is a plain and intelligible test of the principle of immortality; and as no Christian will say that without the spirit of God we can enter into life, or that those are led by the spirit of God who act without reference to Him in those points wherein he has plainly revealed Himself to us; so all who have not the spirit, or who perform their actions in a manner different from his obvious teaching and intentions, must be concluded under sin, Now that the majority, acting in this manner, are placed in so awful a predicament, is in strict conformity, as well to the experience of all ages, as to the words of our Divine Master; who has declared that " Narrow is the way, and straight is the gate that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it"; whilst "Broad is the way, and wide is the gate that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat." The fate of the many then we find included in the alternative of immortal happiness; and difficult indeed will it be to justify the ways of God to man, if this multitude, which is the many to the few, even

among those who are called, and transcendently so, if we include all who partake of our common nature, (and whilst even the few are declared to be "A company which no man can number,")—if, I say, this multitudinous multitude are found to possess an immortality of pure unmixed misery. But that they do not, is further proved (thanks be to God) by this consideration, that with the single exception of acting in conformity with the will of God, which we have already seen, alone includes eternal happiness; all other acts, in their intention, which is the essence of a moral act, terminate in time; even those which in their circumstances are akin to virtue, from the want of the immortalizing principle, terminate in time,—and in the government of an omnipotent and righteous Sovereign, determine the character and consequences of all other actions still more alien to his perfections; and the fate of all beings by whom they are performed.

Nothing in all nature is preserved longer than it produces the effect for which it was created,-and every thing tends to destruction, when perverted from its original purpose.

If there is any one truth in Scripture more certain than another, it is that the scheme of man's redemp tion, by the sacrifice of the death of Christ, evinces the love of God towards mankind: and from the time when the sentence of death was respited in contemplation of that sacrifice, until he came on earth to complete it, it is always characterized by the Holy Spirit as good tidings of great joy to all men.-Now, if an interpretation of a particular text is offered, whereby it becomes a savour of death unto death, as to the great majority of the human

race;-if mortal perishing man, without being made

in any respect the better, is plunged into a new Styx with an opposite effect, and instead of being made all immortal but the heel, has that lower extremity alone endued with an infinite capacity for cursings;-if the death of Christ turns the sentence, pronounced in mercy upon Adam's nature, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," into a new grant of existence productive only of eternal unvarying misery ;-how can it be justified, as the word of Him who cannot lie, that it is good tidings to those, who, but for it, would have known infinitely less misery both in kind and duration? We have Our Saviour's word, that He came not to condemn the world, but to save;-that it was condemned already, by the original sentence on all mankind, in the persons of our first parents, which nothing could repeal, but the full, perfect, and sufficient satisfaction, that He Himself came to offer. Now since satisfaction was the only condition of remission, that could not increase the severity of the sentence ten thousand fold; but as Our Saviour came to save, not to condemn, and that because they were condemned already, the sentence on mankind must be sought for, in the then existing records of the Divine Will.

That parting from life, or being deprived of existence, was the original curse, may be proved from each and all of the following:

The terms in which it was expressed.
The execution of it in Adam's case.

The expiation of it by sacrifice.

"It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."