A specific message to a local church, not to a dead world 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me,' Rev 3:20. Few texts have had more falsehoods lavished out upon them thus than this…

“Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth to eternal life,” John 6:27. This text has been considered as undeniable authority for universal invitations of all men to labor for eternal life, and also that it is their duty to do so. This text can never, any more than any other, be an authority for…

First, how the Jews themselves understood and received our text. It appears clearly evident to me, that they understood and received it not as an invitation, an exhortation, or as a command of them to do some other work which they had not done; but as a rebuke and sweeping declaration of their being every way and altogether wrong as…

Second. If this text had any thing in it of the spirit or intention of universal invitation of all men to the things of eternal salvation, it would have been a plain authority for the apostles to all people of the Gentiles. But we have already most plainly shewn, and again affirm, and challenge all the powers of duty faith…

Third. If by our text our Lord had really meant any thing in the spirit of a universal invitation of the unbelieving world unto eternal salvation, would he not, without self contradiction, have uniformly maintained that, countenance through the whole, as the true spirit and intent of his ministry? To be self-consistent, would he not have done so? Methinks you…

Nor hath our Lord in John vi only, denied and condemned all possible truth and consistency in every notion of universal invitations and exhortations to eternal life, but in other places also; as (1) In his thanksgiving address to the Father; saying 'I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the…