Page:Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray.djvu/195

Rh all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. "But do you yourself believe, that all mankind will finally be saved?" God hath included all in unbelief, that he may have mercy upon all. "But will all be finally saved?" God hath spoken of the restitution of all things, by the mouth of all his holy prophets, since the world began. "But still you do not answer my question." Why, sir, for any thing I know, the authors, I have cited, mean, by their words, precisely the same as I do. I adopt their language, because I conceive it expressses [sic] my own ideas better than any set of phrases I could press into my service. This mode, however, has rarely given satisfaction. Persons dare not, in an unqualified manner, deny the validity of scripture testimony; they can only assert, it does not mean as it speaks, and they earnestly repeat the question: "Do you believe," &c. &c. While my responses are drawn from the sacred streams, flowing in the book of God, from Genesis to Revelations, still they importunately, sometimes clamorously demand: "But do you take those scriptures, as they are spoken?" To which I can only reply: I have no reason to believe, that, by saying one thing, and meaning another, men, so upright, have formed a plan to deceive me. An attempt has then been made to prove the texts in question did not, could not, mean as they spake. To which I have answered: Multitudes are on your side; many have laboured to prove God a liar; but I have never yet heard any argument, sufficiently potent, to convince me that He is so.

On the ninth of April, in this year, I received from the church and congregration [sic] in Portsmouth, New-Hampshire, worshipping in the separate meeting-house, a solemn, and affectionate call, to take upon me the pastoral charge of that people; but I was not then convinced I ought to accept an establishment in any place. I passed the spring, and the early part of the summer of 1774, in Pennsylvania, the Jersies, and New-York with persons, who had drank into the same spirit with myself; with my revered friend, and father, with the Mounts, and Pangburns of those happy days. Blessed be God, I have indeed enjoyed richly the consolations of friendship. In Philadelphia I was present at the heart-rending trial of some malefactors, which resulted in their receiving sentence of death; and I could not forbear exclaiming: My bosom swells to rapture, upon the reflection, that I had frequent opportunities of visiting those criminals, and of preaching to them peace, through the fountain opened in the side of the second Adam. The poor creatures seemed much affected. The proclamation of the tender mercies of the Redeemer was more