hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." And in the close of that chapter it is added, " He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life ; but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." Not that there is any thing meritorious in this grace more than in any other ; for, as a grace, it is inferior to love ; but salvation is annexed to this rather than to any other, because this alone unites us to the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we are accepted, and by whose merits we are saved.
To the term Salvation is opposed another of a most awful import, namely Damnation: as the former cannot be limited to any temporal deliverance, so nei- ther can this be limited to any temporal judgment : for, not to mention the express and repeated declarations that the punishment of the wicked will be as " a worm that dieth not, and a fire that is not quenched," our Lord, in the very words before us, contrasts the con- sequences of unbelief with the consequences of faith; thereby manifesting, that they were to be considered by us as of equal magnitude and duration : and, in his account of the final sentence which he will pass upon the righteous and the wicked in the day of judgment, he describes the happiness of the one and the misery of the other by the very same epithet, in order to cut off all occasion of doubt respecting the continuance of either : " These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." We are constrained, therefore to acknow- ledge, that the threatening in the text includes nothing less than the everlasting misery of the soul, under the wrath and indignation of God.
This, tremendous as it is, will be the fruit of un- belief; " He that believeth not shall be damned." We must not suppose that the unbelief here spoken of characterizes only professed infidels, who openly avow their contempt of Christianity ; for then it would by no means afford a sufficient line of distinc- tion between those that shall be saved, and there that shall perish ; seeing that there are many who profess