2. Another error of which young people at the present day are in danger is that no atonement was necessary, that God might pardon sin, and that it was no part of the design of Christ's death to make an atonement. This error is, of course, held by all who reject the divine authority of the Bible. It is held also by many who profess, in some sense, to acknowledge its claims to inspiration. The former class deny the necessity of an atonement, but regarding the Bible as a mere human production, neither ask nor care whether it contains the doctrine or not. The latter class, in common with the former, assert that an atonement was not necessary, but they go farther, and also assert that this doctrine is not found in the Bible. Before you receive this error, you ought to be able satisfactorily to answer the following inquiries. How could God grant an absolute pardon to the sinner, and yet maintain the dignity of his character and government? The law which God has given to man as a rule of conduct is perfectly holy, both in its requisitions and in its penalty. But man, by not obeying the requisitions of the law, has become obnoxious to its penalty. Suppose now that the great lawgiver and judge should remit the offense, without any expression of his displeasure against it. And what attitude must he place himself in view of the intelligent universe? Would not the question be agitated in every part of the creation in which the fact was known? Why, an infinitely wise and holy God should make a law to be trampled upon with impunity? And if it were fit that the law should be made, why, were it not also fit that its honor should be maintained? Is it an expression of infinite holiness to let sin go unpunished? Is it an expression of infinite wisdom or benevolence to connive at a spirit of rebellion in one part of the universe, and thus to hold out encouragement to the same spirit in every other part of it? If these questions must be answered in the negative, then I ask whether Reason herself knows any other alternative, then that an atonement must be made, or the sinner must perish again. If Jesus Christ did not die as an atoning sacrifice, Whence the connection between the ancient sacrifices and the pardon of sin? That such a connection existed under the Mosaic dispensation no person who reads the Bible can doubt. Victims were constantly offered under the name of sin offerings as an atonement for the sins of the people. That there is no natural connection between the slaying of an animal and the forgiveness of sin is obvious. And moreover, the Apostle expressly declares that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin. Whence then did these sacrifices derive either their significance or their efficacy, if they are not to be considered as types of the great sacrifice of Christ? Moreover, how will you reconcile it with infinite wisdom, that God should have employed means so disproportioned in their importance to the end which He designed to accomplish? If the object of Christ's death were to make atonement for sin, then here was an end to be answered of sufficient magnitude to warrant the most expensive means that could be employed. But if he lived merrily as a teacher and died merrily as a martyr, whence the wonderful preparation that was made for his advent and his death? And whence the wonderful interest which these events have excited both on earth and in heaven? Why this constant referent? to the Messiah and all the rites of the ancient dispensation? Why was he the burden of prophecy during a period of four thousand years? Why was his birth celebrated by the songs of angels and his death signalized by the convulsions of nature? If his object had been merely to instruct the world and to seal the truth of his testimony with his blood, Could not this object have been affected by some lower personage than him who was the brightness of the Father's glory? And if this were so, whence the mighty difference between him and his apostles, which should invest his life and death with so much more importance than theirs? Whence is it, too, that his death awakens so much wonder and gratitude and joy in heaven, that even the angels make it the theme of their high praises? if after all no higher object was gained by it than to prove himself sincere in preaching an improved system of moral virtue. I ask again, what is this wonderful disproportion between means and ends, which there actually is if Jesus Christ did not die a vicarious sacrifice for the sins of the world? Under this article, what explanation will you give of the following passages of Scripture consistent with the rejection of the doctrine of atonement? Surely He has borne our griefs and carried away our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many, who His own self bear our sins in His own body on the tree. and whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. You are not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. And to him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto God, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. These are some of the most prominent passages in which the design of Christ's death is exhibited. Which of them all, let me ask, even seem to teach that he died merrily or chiefly as a martyr to the truth of his doctrines? If the doctrine of atonement is not explicitly taught here, we ask for language in which it can be conveyed intelligibly. 3. Another error to which young people at the present day are exposed Is that a spiritual renovation or radical change of character is not necessary to salvation. But what is implied in salvation? Nothing less than being admitted to a participation of the joys of heaven. But what is the character of heavenly joys? They are perfectly holy. Nothing that defile can ever enter into the kingdom. What sort of taste or disposition, then, must be necessary in order to relish or participate these joys? Undoubtedly a perfectly holy one, for the very idea of happiness includes in it a correspondence between the taste of the individual and the objects or pursuits from which the happiness is derived. You might, for instance, bring the most delicious food before a man whose taste was vitiated by disease. And though the food would be good in itself, and would be grateful to a healthy appetite, yet to the sick man it would only be an occasion of loathing. So also in reference to the joys of heaven, though they are not only real, but far surpass and extend all our conceptions, yet, in order that they may become ours, we must possess a temper conformed to them. But does man by nature possess this temper? Let every man's experience answer. Let the history of the world answer. Above all, let the Word of God answer. Every imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. There altogether become filthy. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. The natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. If such be the natural character of man, and such the nature of heavenly joys, is it not manifest, even on principles of reason, that a radical change is necessary to the sinner before he can be admitted to heaven? Hear now the direct testimony of God on this subject. By the mouth of his prophet Ezekiel he says, A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you in heart a flesh. But as many as received him, says the apostle John, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man. but of God. Our Savior Himself declares, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. The Apostle Paul, having described the exceedingly depraved character of the Corinthians previous to their conversion, says in reference to the change they had experienced, But ye are washed, ye are justified, ye are sanctified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. What meaning, having the semblance of plausibility, can you attach to these passages if you deny that they teach the necessity of a radical change wrought by the immediate influence of the Holy Spirit in order to salvation? But the fourth and only remaining error, which I shall here notice, is that either no punishment or only a limited one awaits the wicked in a future world. If you say that the wicked are not to be punished at all in a future state, you must maintain the position either on the ground that they will cease to sin at death, or else that the connection between sin and misery will be dissolved. Will you take the former ground and say that the wicked at death are delivered from all But by what means is this accomplished? Is it by death itself? No. For death is only a termination of the animal functions, a mere passage from one world to another. And surely there is nothing in this that can affect the moral state of the soul in any way. But do you say that it is by divine influence operating upon the soul in the action of death? You say this without any warrant, for the Bible has given no such information. But if it be so, this influence is either exerted in consistency with man's moral nature, or it is not. If it is thus exerted, then, of course, a sinner must be conscious in some measure of those moral exercises which precede and attend regeneration, must be conscious of cooperating with the Spirit of God both in conviction and conversion. But this surely is not true. For in a multitude of instances, the sinner dies in stupidity or delirium, and sometimes in the act of challenging the vengeance of God. If you say that this influence is not exerted according to the laws of our moral nature, then in respect to this point at least you make man a mere machine. You have gone over to fatalism and are not to be reasoned with. But do you choose the other side of the alternative? and take the ground that the connection between sin and misery will not exist after death. But here again is there is nothing in death to destroy the existence of sin in the soul, and neither is there anything in it to change its nature. It is a part of the nature of sin to produce misery, just as truly as it belongs to the sun to impart light. And though this tendency is not always manifest in the present life, Yet it is only on account of the countervailing influences which grow out of our present condition. Just in proportion as the sinner is removed from these influences even here, you see him reaping a harvest of wretchedness, as he will be completely removed from them in a future world. What can prevent sin from having its legitimate operation and making him completely wretched? But perhaps you admit that there is a degree of punishment in a future world, but maintain that it will be limited in its duration. The idea that an immortal soul should be doomed to suffer inconceivable woe during its whole existence is so dreadful that you shrink from the admission of it. And what then? Is that any reason why you should reject a plain testimony of God? Let it be remembered. that this is a case in respect to which the wishes of men have nothing to do. The grand question in relation to it is, not what you desire to be true, but what is actually true. The criminal on the scaffold no doubt wishes to see his sentence remitted, but that wish has no influence to prevent the executioner from doing his office. Not more does the dread which is associated in your mind with the idea of eternal punishment constitute any evidence against this reality. But, you say, perhaps that it would not consist with the benevolence of God to inflict eternal punishment for the sins committed in this short life. Let it be remembered that we are but miserable judges in this matter. It is consistent with God's infinite benevolence to bury the ship laden with human beings in the mighty deep, or to cause the earth to open and swallow up thousands who we are accustomed to call innocent? None but the atheist will deny this, for such events actually do take place under his administration. By what superhuman wisdom, then, are you unable to decide that the eternal punishment of the sinner cannot consist with infinite benevolence? Whence have you gained that knowledge of the exact influence of sin on God's moral universe, which qualifies you to pronounce that its punishment must be limited, or His perfection must be sacrificed? But if the punishment of the sinner is hereafter to come to a termination, in what manner is this to be effected? Do you see that his sufferings will be disciplinary, and that in consequence of their reforming and purifying influence, He will ere long be prepared for the happiness of heaven? Here again this is gratuitous assumption. No such influence being attributed to the sufferings of the wicked and the Word of God. But this notion is moreover contradicted by the analogy of experience. Would the parent, if he wished to reform an abandoned child, be likely to confine him constantly to the company of those who are equally or even more abandoned than himself? And is it not true, in fact, that when the wicked in the present life have been doomed for their crimes by the sentence of human law, to confinement with those of a character similar to their own, they have generally come away monuments not of the reforming, but of the corrupting and hardening influence of such kind of punishment? Where then is the ground for believing that the wicked in the future world, by being associated with those who continually blaspheme God and oppose the interest of His kingdom, will become conformed to His image and acquire a relish for His service? Admitting, however, this remedial tendency which you attribute to the sufferings of the sinner, you have yet another difficulty to surmount. It is to determine how the sinner can be delivered from punishment in consistency with the sentence of God's law. The only alternative that here presents itself is either that he has actually suffered the full penalty of the law and is released on the score of justice, or else that his deliverance is effected through the efficacy of Christ's atonement. But both sides of this alternative are mere assumptions. not warranted even by the semblance of scriptural authority. And as for reason, if she has anything to say concerning them, it is certainly nothing in their favor. But against both these suppositions, as well as against that of the disciplinary tendency of the sufferings of the wicked, there stands arrayed that mass of divine testimony which exhibits the present world as the only world of probation. and the future as a world of unalterable retribution. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, saith Solomon, do it with thy might. For there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, the world of departed spirits. Whither thou goest, saith the prophet Isaiah, they that go down into the grave cannot hope for thy truth. The night cometh, saith our Saviour. That is the night of death in which no man can work. Is there to be no change in the character of man after he leaves this world? The Scriptures teach that we shall be judged according to the deeds done in the body, and rewarded according to our works performed on this side of the grave. It is clear then that the Bible has decided that, neither on the ground of justice nor on the ground of mercy will the punishment of the sinner be remitted, after he has become an inhabitant of the eternal world. But there are many other passages of Scripture in which the doctrine of eternal punishment is not only implied but explicitly declared. The prophet Isaiah, filled with the most awful impressions of the future state of the wicked, exclaims, Who can inhabit everlasting burnings? Our blessed Lord said Himself, speaking of the wicked, says they shall go away into everlasting punishment. Paul says concerning those who obey not the gospel that they shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power. And John in the Revelation declares concerning the inhabitants of the bottomless pit, that the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever. But, you will say, perhaps that the words everlasting, eternal, forever and ever, and so on, do not necessarily imply unlimited duration, as they are sometimes used in Scripture in reference to objects whose duration is acknowledged to be limited. To this I reply, that whatever this language may denote in certain cases, the manner in which it is used as descriptive of the punishment of the wicked precludes the idea of limited duration. For the same language, which expresses the duration of the miseries of the wicked, is employed in the very same connection to express that of the happiness of the righteous, which all acknowledge to be unlimited. some shall arise to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal, or everlasting life, the same Greek word being used in the latter case as in the former. Here then is an example of the strongest expressions to be found in the Greek and Hebrew languages being used by the Spirit of God, and in circumstances in no way liable to exception, to describe the duration of future punishment. The only alternative which these passages suggest is, either that the miseries of the wicked will be strictly eternal, or else that the happiness of the righteous will be limited. If, however, after all, you choose not to admit the passages already quoted as decisive on this point, But there are others not liable to the criticism to which I have referred, and which undoubtedly convey the idea of unlimited duration, if it can be conveyed by human language. Such are the following. Their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. They shall never see life. They shall never enter into rest. It were good for that man if he had never been born. Surely it would have been better for Judas to have been born, if after suffering millions of ages he should finally begin an endless career of happiness and glory. There is yet another test to which the doctrine which I am considering may be very properly referred. I mean its moral tendency, for it requires no argument to prove that that doctrine which removes any of the restraints to sinful indulgence cannot have God for its author. Now then, I inquire, if there be no punishment or only a temporary punishment for the wicked in a future world, in other words, if virtue and vice are ultimately to find the same level, I inquire what there is to keep a wicked man from any deeds of iniquity to which his inclinations may prompt him, provided only he can escape the eye and the arm of human law. The wretch whose ruling passion is the love of gold casts his eye covetously upon your possessions, but they are so guarded that he cannot reach them without shedding your blood. What hinders then, if death be the gate of glory to all, but that when he has once satisfied himself that he can escape detection, he should draw his dagger and stab you in the dark? Nor is the penalty of human law upon his principle. greatly to be dreaded, or even dreaded at all, for it is only anticipating a little momentary pain, which is after all the harbinger of eternal joy. Is it not then manifestly the tendency of this doctrine to throw open the floodgates of iniquity, and to license to the utmost every corrupt propensity of the heart? You perceive then, my young friends, that you have most serious difficulties to encounter from reason, scripture, and experience before you can adopt either scheme of universal salvation. But not so unwise as to yield the dictates of mere feeling on this subject. It is a manner, I repeat, to be decided, not by the wishes of men, but by the testimony of God. To this, then, as the ultimate source of evidence be your appeal. And if the doctrine is taught here, that the punishment of the wicked will be eternal, remember that heaven and earth shall sooner pass away than one jot or tittle of what Jehovah hath threatened shall fail of being accomplished. 2. I have now completed the examination which I designed. of some of the more common errors to which young people at the present day are exposed. I proceed, secondly, to suggest some considerations with a view to dissuade you from being found in the way of evil instruction. The wise man in the text cautions the young not merely to avoid giving heed to the instruction of the wicked, but to avoid even hearing it. Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causes to err from the words of knowledge. The idea clearly is that you are not to allow yourselves in any way to be familiar with corrupt sentiment, neither by reading bad books nor by listening to the preaching or conversation of bad men. The first consideration which I shall offer as a reason why you should not be found in the way of evil instruction is that there is a great danger that you will embrace the errors with which you thus become acquainted. This danger results partly from the fact that men naturally love darkness rather than light. Of this fact the history of the world furnishes abundant proof. Else how will you account for it? Not only that men in all ages have misinterpreted the voice of God speaking to them in His works and ways. and that they have worshipped everything as God but Jehovah Himself, but also so many have shut their eyes against a broad light of revelation, and have either denied its divine authority, or else perverted it to sanction the most gross and fatal error. Taking for granted, then, this fact, it amounts to nothing less than a predisposition in the human heart to the reception of error Suppose your bodily system was exactly predisposed to some contagious disease. Would not that fact greatly increase your danger on being brought into contact with the elements of infection? Or suppose an individual had a strong thirst for intoxicating liquor. Would not this invest with additional danger all opportunities for indulging in the use of them? Is it not equally manifest that that natural aversion to the reception of God's truth of which I have spoken, must be peculiarly favorable to the influence of evil instruction. But this danger farther arises from the love of novelty and the pride of opinion. There is something exceedingly grateful to many youthful minds in the reflection that they have turned off from the beaten track, that they have escaped from vulgar prejudices and broken away from the trammels of education, and that they are giving the world a fine example of independent thought. But this spirit finds but little element in the way of truth, for that is a highway, and the simple and unlettered walk in it. And the way to be distinguished from the vulgar herd is to leave this plain pass and broach some wild or wicked speculation. More or less of this spirit, no doubt, belongs to human nature, and though you may not hitherto have been sensible of its operation, Yet if you venture into the way of evil instruction, there is great danger that you will find not only that this spirit exists, but that it exerts a powerful influence in opening your mind to the reception of error. Moreover, you are in danger of embracing the errors which you accustom yourselves to hear defended from the fact that familiarity with error, as with vice, has a tendency to make you insensible of its deformity. This tendency results partly from the power of sin and partly from the deceitful nature of sin, and it exists universally, though it must be acknowledged that it is often counteracted by the influence of circumstances. The process by which it discovers itself needs only to be described to be recognized by everyone as reality. The youth who has been educated to reverence the Bible as God's When he first hears it assailed by infidel cowls and scoffs, shudders at the impiety, and perhaps wonders that God suffers such a wretch to live. He hears the same thing the second time, but with less horror than before. He hears it again and again, and at length ceases to be affected by the impiety. At no distant period he gathers bravery enough to smile at what once made him tremble. to assent to that which once drew from him expressions of abhorrence. At a more remote point in the process, he cautiously takes the infidel by the hand and greets him as a brother, thus perhaps in a little period having travelled a whole distance from a firm belief to a total rejection of the Bible. Say, my young friends, whether all this is not perfectly natural and easily accounted for on the principle that familiarity with error blinds the mind to its inherent odiousness. Venture not, then, in the way of evil instruction, let through the operation of the same principle you should be the subject of the same disastrous change, another consideration which renders it probable that you will embrace the errors which you here defended, is that, from your age and inexperience, you cannot be supposed to be properly furnished for an encounter with error. The man who, when properly armed, might stand his ground against a company of ruffians, would a strip of his armor fall into their hands at the first onset. And like manner the man who has been long accustomed to study his Bible, might find little difficulty and be in little danger in meeting the cavils of the enemies of truth, while he who is comparatively unacquainted with the word of God might be easily entangled and drawn away by their sophistry. Take it for granted, then, that you have not that deep and thorough knowledge of the Bible which might more naturally be looked for in advanced life. You cannot but perceive that you are in great danger from this circumstance of receiving the errors which are defended in your hearing, cavils which might be satisfactorily answered in many ways, and the fallacy of which a more thorough knowledge of the Word of God might enable you instantly to detect, assume from your ignorance, the weight of arguments, and there is danger that you will soon come to conclude that what you cannot answer is unanswerable. But the consideration which crowns the evidence of your danger on the subject is that multitudes of youth from here in evil instruction actually have embraced the errors with which they have thus been familiar. Yes, I could point you to many a young person who thought himself safe when he ventured on this forbidden ground and felt confident that his belief of the truth was never to be shaken, who can now speak boldly in defense of the most dangerous errors and even pour contempt on the revelation of God. Tell me, my young friends, what there is in your circumstances which promises that the same experiment will result more favorable in respect to you. Rely on it. The ground which your curiosity may tempt you to explore is beset with snares. If you venture among them, take heed, lest they prove to you the snares of death. Guard against being found in the way of evil instruction, because there is great danger that you will not only by this means embrace error, but that you will retain it till the close of life. There are two principles which will operate powerfully towards such a result. The first is the pride of consistency. The circumstances in which the error is supposed to be embraced are exceedingly well fitted to bring this principle into action. You become an errorist under the teaching of wicked men. who have watched you in every step of your progress, who have triumphed in their success, and have congratulated you on being set free from puritanical prejudices in your intercourse with them and with others, you have probably gloried in your opposition to the truth, for it usually happens that the truth finds its bitterest enemies in the ranks of apostasy. How difficult then must it be to come down from this high stand which you have taken into the dust. to acknowledge after all your confident boasting that you have been left to believe a lie, a hard-to-bear-the-taunting accusation of fickleness or hypocrisy, to be assailed by the hiss of contempt instead of being greeted with a smile of approbation. If you have embraced error in the circumstances to which I have referred, is not here a powerful consideration to prevent you from abandoning it? Even if doubt should sometimes force themselves upon you, is it not probable that this pride of consistency, this fear of the world's dread laugh, will lead you to shake them off as soon as possible? The other principle to which I referred is likely to operate in preventing you from abandoning your errors when they are once adopted as a regard to present comfort, no matter from what considerations you have been induced to receive them. When once received, they will, of course, exert an influence to quiet the conscience and thus minister to a life of sin. The man who speculatively believes the great truths of the Bible has but little to defend him against the errors of conviction. When the threatenings of God are thundered in his ears, conscience is exceedingly apt to take advantage of his belief to stir up tumult and agony in his heart. But the man who has embraced any fundamental error carries a shield upon his conscience, which the sharpest arrows from the quiver of the Almighty can scarcely penetrate. He is at ease under the preaching of the Word, under the warnings of Providence, in revivals of religion, and is even mighty to oppose the operations of God's Holy Spirit. But take from him his system of error, and you strip him of the armor in which he trusted. You leave him as liable to the terrors of conviction as other men. But in every human bosom there is a natural dread of misery, especially in the bosom of the sinner, a dread of finding himself exposed to the wrath of God. How probable it is, then, on this ground, that if you once yielded to the influence of error, you will never abandon it. It produces a feeling of safety with which you love to cherish. whereas a parting with it must be the signal for a painful sense of exposure to the most awful calamities. I have said that there is a probability that a system of error, once adopted, will be retained till the close of life. Perhaps I ought rather to say till near the close, for experience proves that the approach of death has a mighty influence to break up these delusions. Cases indeed occur in which the soul clings to them to the and even with apparent triumph. But the instances are far more numerous in which the most honest confessions and the most gloomy forebodings pronounce these systems of error to be refuges of lies. But this conviction is often, perhaps usually, nothing more than the conviction of despair. The soul, just in the act of making its change, though it may abandon the error, is not in the condition to escape from its influence. and hence it may be said in the most important and practical sense that those by whom the error is once received will probably carry it with them to the gates of eternity. Guard against being found in the way of evil instruction, because the errors to which you are thus exposed if adopted and retained till the close of life must be fatal to your souls. I here refer particularly to those errors which have been examined in the former part of this discourse, though they are by no means the only ones of fatal tendency. Let it be remembered that these errors are, in the highest degree, practical. There are many false notions, and even in respect to religion, which may be held with little or no hazard, because they are at best mere manners of speculation, and do not involve any great point of duty or interest. But it is otherwise in respect to those which we have been considering. They contemplate man and his relations to God and eternity, and involve interest too momentous for the human mind adequately to estimate. I know there are those who will have it that nothing is practical in religion but what relates to external morality and to the present life. But surely those are the most practical truths. and most proper sense of that word which are fitted to exert the greatest influence in preparing men for heaven, and those the most practical errors which minister most directly and effectually to the soul's everlasting destruction. But the fatal influence of the errors of which I have spoken is more directly manifest in the fact that they either sweep away the only foundation of the sinner's or else they effectually prevent a compliance with the terms on which salvation is offered. If you believe that the Bible is not the word of God, then you said it not all that God has done for your salvation, and fairly bring yourself under the sentence, He that believeth not shall be damned. If you believe that Jesus Christ has made no atonement for sin, it were absurd to suppose that you should ever rest your soul's everlasting interest on his atonement, and yet this is the only sure foundation. If you believe neither the reality nor the necessity of a renovation of heart by the Holy Spirit, what motive will you have to seek it? But Jesus himself has declared, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And finally, if you believe that there is to be no punishment or only a limited punishment of the wicked in a future world, What influence will this belief be likely to exert, other than that to which I have already referred, that of quieting your fears and encouraging you to walk the downward road? I do not say that it is not possible, but that the tendency of this latter doctrine may, in individual instances, be counteracted. But we may safely say that if such instances exist, they are exceedingly rare. and that this error has generally a most direct and visible influence in carrying the soul down to perdition. And is it so, my young friends, that the errors which you are exposed are fraught with such amazing danger? Is it so that every effort made to corrupt your principles is an effort to destroy your souls? Then venture not into the way of evil instruction. Regard with more horror the man who would shake your belief in the truths of religion than the assassin who waits to plunge a dagger into your heart. The one aims only at the death of the body, which must die soon in the course of nature. The other aims at the death of your soul, a death fraught with everlasting agony. If you are tempted to place yourself even for an hour in the way of hearing the truth of the Bible ridiculed or opposed, you'll not do the temptation unless you have made up your mind to encounter the agonies of the law. And now what remains but that I exhort you to value and love the Bible? Be not satisfied with a vague and inoperative assent to its authority or its doctrines, but let your belief in both be intelligent and influential. Study it daily with diligence and prayer. Endeavor not only to become familiar with its truth, but to become imbued with its spirit. Find it about your heart as the richest treasure that God has ever given to mortals. In this way you will early become fortified against the influence of evil instruction, will have a sure guide amidst difficulties, a substantial solace in a sorrow, an unfailing refuge in death. Give me the directions which the Bible furnishes, and I will ask for no other guide amidst the devious paths of human life. Give me the consolations which the Bible yields, and I will ask for no other staff to support me when I go down into the dark valley. Lecture 4 Danger of a Life of Pleasure Ecclesiastes 11.9 Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth! and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes. But know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. A more cutting and awful piece of irony than is contained in this passage is perhaps not to be found either in or out of the sacred volume. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video, and printed formats. Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reform books, tapes, and videos at great discounts, is on the web at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email by phone at 780-450-3730 by fax at 780-468-1096 or by mail at 4710-37A Edmonton, that's E-D-M-O-N-T-O-N Alberta, abbreviated capital A, capital B, Canada, T6L3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Calvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart. From his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since He condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle was adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying His word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The Prophet's words, then, are very important, when he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind, as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.