Page:Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray.djvu/201

Rh as Peter, and Paul?" Yes, sir, I believe He does, as well as He loved those Apostles before they believed. "Do you believe God loves all the people in the world?" Yes, sir, I do. Then, again, he proceeded most violently, and, that the heresy might be confirmed, he once more questioned: "Do you believe, that God loves all the Devil's children, as well as his own beloved ones?" No, indeed; I do not think God loves any of the Devil's children. "There, there, now he is hiding again." Suffer me, sir, to ask, What is it constitutes the character of the wicked man? "That is nothing to the purpose."

Again I ask, what is it constitutes the character of the wicked man? Here several individuals tremulously asked: "Why do you not answer the question? we are all concerned in it, we are seeking information." "Suppose I cannot; let some one else answer, and, if I like it, I will agree to it." No answer was given, and Mr. C resumed his declamation, affirming, I had said, God loved the Devil's children. I denied the charge, and was again accused of hiding, when I besought the attention of the people, while I explained myself. What are we to understand by a father, and a child, but begetter and begotten? Can you, Mr. C, or can any one present, presume to say, that the bodies, or the souls of mankind, were begotten by the Devil? Is not God the Father of the spirits of all flesh? Is not God the Maker of our frames? and doth not the Apostle say, we are all His offspring? If it be confessed, we all died in Adam, we were of course in Adam; and if we were in Adam, we were what Adam was. But the Evangelist Luke affirms, that Adam was the son of God. We will next inquire, Who are the children of the Devil, and who are the children of God? I humbly conceive, Christ Jesus himself has put the matter beyond dispute, in the ever memorable parable of the Tares of the field, and our obligation to the Redeemer, for explaining it so clearly to his disciples, is indeed immeasurable. I then repeated the parable, and the explanation; and proved from thence, that the abominations of the earth were the children of the Devil, because produced by him; that the iniquities of the people were the tares, sowed by the adversary; that our nature was the good seed, which Jesus sowed. A holy God could not love sin, and, of course, could love no child of the Devil: but men, being his offspring, He once loved them as his own, and having loved His own, He loved them unto the end; that He had proved this to all men, in the Gift of his Son; God so loved the world, that He gave them his Son. Mr. C interrupted: "Nine tenths of all you have said is nothing at all to the purpose:" and again, in terms the most