be always bad, and ought to be treated as bad for ever, so the bad action is always bad, and should be treated accordingly.

We do not consider what an unmeaning expression it is "to treat an action as bad." The action had no longer any being after it was done. (If it had a lasting effect, we surely do not mean that we would follow the effect with punishment; the effect being often upon the injured permanently by the action, and on whom its operation took place.)

person

We ought to have kept to the simple truth, when we began to argue the case and to fix the blame; then we should place the blame on the person, and not on the deed; for the deed had no choice whether it was to be done or not.

That which is bad should be considered bad, and treated as bad.

The deed, then, is so eternally; for a bad deed was always bad, and cannot be made or become good.

But to punish a deed is nonsense. We can only avoid or hinder other such deeds; but with the very deed done we can do nothing-it is not in existence.

But the doer of the deed? He is bad, and must be considered as bad, and treated as bad.

Yes, while he is bad. But a bad man is not, thank God, like a bad deed; he exists, which the deed does not; and he is not necessarily always and for ever bad, which the deed is.

But if you first shift the blame off him to the evil deed, which never can be good, and then shift the treatment back upon the person, who may become good; then, if this is held for justice, justice will require that the

man, when by God's blessing he is become good, shall necessarily be punished as long as the deed is bad, instead of as long as he is bad.

Hence arises the question that often puzzles sincere persons who have admitted a false idea: "How is it that God's justice will not let Him forgive a sinner freely? Is it unjust to forgive and to save freely from farther punishment one who is no longer wicked?"

"Oh," answers the theologian, "it does not signify how good you are to-day: even if by God's grace you were perfectly good, that would not make your sin of yesterday good,—and so it must justly be punished as long as it is sin."

The theologian has puzzled himself by allowing himself to carry the personification of sin into an argument, and then changing from "sin" to "sinner." Let him keep to the sin, and he will do no great harm; he may denounce unending torments to it as justly due. Let it be tormented—how?

But, by shifting the eternal badness and blame of the sin to the person, a most hurtful, false position is brought in, the end of which is, teaching men to look for salvation from punishment, instead of salvation from doing wrong that is, from sin.

The imputation to God of a quality, under the name of "justice," which makes Him require satisfaction for sin in order to the sinner's salvation, is one of those errors which keep men far from God.

The satisfaction for sin is represented as being sufferings, as unending as the evil of sin is eternal; whereas it is just that the punishment of a sinner should be as enduring as his continuing to sin is so.

But many sincere men dread to hold out to a sinner

the truth of salvation from sin and of free forgiveness, for fear it should lead him to continue in sin.

No one ever continued in sin because he believed the truth "that there is no peace to the wicked."

But some will perhaps say, "If sin is to be forgiven without satisfaction, for what did Christ die?"

To save us "from our sins," from doing wrong-from being sinners, or doers of wrong.

Where, in the Scriptures, does it say, He died to make satisfaction for our sins? Yet it often is said in Scripture for what end Christ died, and what effect is produced by his death.

"To redeem us from all iniquity, that we may be his own people, zealous of good works."

"When we were enemies, we" (Christians) "were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son."

Let him who asks the purpose of Christ's death seek an answer in the Scripture, and neither add to it nor diminish.

II.

MISREPRESENTATION OF SCRIPTURE.

This is done by a class of religious persons who are as far from thinking themselves capable of it, as the proud "Pharisee" was of thinking he could be such a sinner as "this publican."

Those alluded to are the persons who insist, as a first step in religion, that the whole book which we call the Bible must be received, in full faith, as God's divinely inspired word, and that all that is necessary to be be

lieved for man's salvation must be acknowledged to be contained in that book.

Now, I believe (much more than those of whom I speak) that the Bible is God's divinely inspired word; and that that book contains all truth, though not every truth; and that it is not only needless but wrong to attempt to add to it any precepts, as if they had its authority or force.

I say, “much more than those of whom I speak;" for in their very zeal, their mistaken zeal for their cause (which they mistake for God's cause), they add a precept which they insist on as necessary to be received; which they could not do if they really believed what they profess-that is, that the Scriptures, which we call the Bible, are divine, and are sufficient.

They, at the very outset, add this precept-that every one must believe this as a fundamental doctrine of their religion. Whereas this precept is nowhere found in the very Scriptures which, they insist, must be received as containing all necessary doctrine-and therefore this doctrine, if it be necessary to be received.

The Bible contains nothing that asserts, for our information, what writings make up the revelation of God's will and ways; nor does it declare that it contains all that is necessary to be believed for salvation.

Therefore those who begin by insisting on this doctrine, if they succeed in persuading their disciple that it is so, must either lead him to fancy that a thing can be true which contradicts itself; or to receive their religion solely on the authority of their teacher, without examination or question.

But if the Bible be put into the hands of one whom we wish to lead into all truth, with the assurance that

we have found it able to make man wise unto salvation, and with an exhortation to search it, and with kind yet humble aid to our learner in searching, then truth after truth will be found-will force themselves upon the mind, and into the heart and conscience of the learner; and the passages that contain those truths will speak to the heart and affections of the prayerful reader, so as to convince him that the voice that speaks to him therein is the Divine voice, and that the character revealed by the Gospel is the Divine character, and that the principles of good and evil, of happiness and misery, are revealed by Him who knows what is in man, who is grieved at his destruction, and whose loving power and powerful love can alone prevail to save men from evil and misery, and bring them to good and happiness.

Passage after passage of that book will be understood, and their force felt, and their effect seen. The prayerful searcher will not fear being punished for not receiving this as God's word, for he will have no doubt of it, as far as he understands it; and what he does not understand he will indeed not yet receive as if he did understand it; but even that, he will receive with much more reverence than those do who force a new doctrine upon men, while they say all necessary doctrine is in the Bible. He will wait and search in hope of knowing more, and of understanding what as yet seems dark to him; he will remember how dark much seemed to him once which is now light, and he will be diligent, and patient, and thankful.

He will not be tempted to add to the precepts which he finds, in their very principle so full, and in their illustration so clear.