'For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish; to the one we are the savour of death unto death, and to the other of life unto life,' 2 Cor. 2:15,16. This text has often been explained to say, that the ministration of the gospel of salvation and of the grace of God is turned into a ministry of destruction and divine wrath on them that are lost, because they will not believe and be saved. But the gospel devolves no such new obligations and penalties, nor makes any such proposals to the will of man, nor is such the meaning of the text, by any proof to be found in the mind of…

'And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil,' John 3:19. We should have thought this text and its connections to be too plain to involve any difficulty, and to be such a plain statement of mere facts, on the hardened, sinful, condemned, and yet self-righteous state of man under the law by nature, and of the truth of which being simply, yet fully made manifest by the light of Christ, truth and holiness, that a misapplication would be scarcely possible to be made of the subject. But this text and its connections have, however, not escaped being twisted about to duty faith purposes; and to say that men are…

Our Lord's sermon on the mount, recorded in Matt v, vi vii, does not afford the least shade of example or authority by one single word for universal invitations or of duty faith, for the dead in sin of themselves to believe unto eternal life, nor to have the things and blessings of eternal life, nor to do the spiritual acts of the quickened and born again into newness of life by the Holy Spirit; although many things therein have been and are so taken and misapplied. These three chapters were all delivered in one discourse, and the whole was properly an ordination and ministerial sermon, delivered by our Lord to his apostles and ministerial disciples, and was peculiarly for them, although the people heard…

Many thing in the parables of our Lord, and especially in the parable of the Marriage of the King's Son, Matt 22, have been considered quite to the point, in favor of duty faith and universal invitations, and are of course so taken up and handled. But passing by the fact, that parables have always some general design, and are never intended to mean every thing that the distinct words borrowed to make up the figure, would literally imply, we win look and turn our attention to verse 11-13, which contain the general design of this parable, and which must at once exclude all warrant for such sentiments, as having no possible place whatever in our Lord's intention by the parable, or by any of…

There are many who now say, 'that they think it best to take the scriptures and preach from them as they find them.' If this was in the mind and spirit of truth, it would be all right; for although there might be a difficulty in coming at the precise meaning of some circumstantial passages, all fundamental truths would be clear as a sunbeam, the scriptures would be seen to be perfectly harmonious without a shadow of discord, and so uniform as a whole, as not to admit the appearance of self contradiction, jar, or what could not be righteously reconciled. But this is not what is meant; but the taking of the letter of scripture as it stands in mere sounds, without any of…

As there is not one text from the lips of our Lord, or the pen of his apostles, that can be construed to mean any thing in favor of the duty of the natural man to believe unto eternal salvation or of universal invitations, without doing violence to the connection, and to the credit of the sacred speakers; perhaps it will be asked, where then did duty faith, and universal invitations come from? And how is it that so many good men, great writers, and most of those who are called the ancient Fathers, have in a greater or less degree held them? My answer to these questions is, that they came from the early corruptions of Christianity; and of those many spirits that were…