ral 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