changing the family that governed; but the Diffenters are for fubverting the whole form and order of government,' &c. &c. &c.

METHODISM. Every tabernacle of Methodists is, in truth, a fchool and feminary for Papifts; and the teachers, whether they know it or not, are agents and factors for Popery: and they seem to be poffeffed of the fame fpirit, as they afpire to the fame dominion and lordship over God's heritage; affect the fame powers, privileges, and prerogatives; excel in all the fame arts of fophiftry and evafion, equivocation, and mental refervation; make the fame merchandice of the word of God, ufurp the fame authority over the purfes and confciences of their difciples, drain the few rich and wealthy of their fubftance, wring even from the hard hands of the poor labourers and fervants their small pittance, and by all means make their religion their gain, or it would be no religion for them.'

HUTCHINSONIANS. Thefe men generally pretend to extraordinary knowledge in the Hebrew language, and thereupon are apt to grow dogmatical; but all their tenets and opinions, whether in philofophy or divinity, as far as they differ from thofe of others, and are peculiar to themfelves, are either myfterious and unintelligible, or if intelligible, are falfe and fanatical.'

PETITIONING CLERGY, &c. &c. If instead of reading only the Cenfeffional, they would read together with it Dr. Ridley's anfwers, wherein he was affifted by our late moft worthy and most able Metropolitan [Secker], they would fee the fophiftry of the arguments detected, the falfity of the facts and quotations expofed, and the whole book as effectually refuted as ever book was; befides the manifeft inconfiftency of a man's pleading for entire liberty of confcience, with all the malevolence and intolerance of a Father of the Inquifition.'

MODERN SOCINIANS. Their writings and apologies ftrike out no new light, furnish no new matter, nor even one new argument to the purpose: they are only a dull repetition of ftale objections, which have been refuted over and over again. But it is not fitting that fuck peftilential herefies fhould be fuffered at any time to walk abroad, without notice or reply. As faft as those hydras revive

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But enough of the Bishop's zeal!-We fhall proceed to a better fubject, in which his charity fhines with a more pleafing luftre. His Differtation on the final ftate of mankind, is defigned to vindicate the ways of God to man, on the liberal hypothefis of a UNIVERSAL RESTITUTION.

There is fufficient reafon to conclude, that God will fully execute his threatenings, as well as make good his promises; and the rewards and punishments, confequent thereupon, will be really and truly everlasting. "The wicked shall go away into everlasting fire;" but the righteous into life eternal:" and as long as they retain the fame qualities, fo long will they keep the fame station; as long as they continue righteous or wicked, fo long will they alfo remain happy or miferable, even to all eternity. But put the cafe, that the righteous fhould fall from his righteoufnefs and commit iniquity, fhould he continue ftill in glory, fhould you think him intitled to

the

the fame privileges and advantages? or rather fhould you not think that he had juftly forfeited all pretenfions to happiness? On the other hand, if the wicked fhould turn away from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, thould he continue ftill in torment? Should not his iniquity be forgiven, and his fin be remembered no more? Should he not fave his foul alive, and be plucked as a fire-brand out of the fire? This I conceive to be the true notion and representation of the eternity of rewards and punishments. Righteoufnefs will be for ever happy and glorified, wickednefs will be for ever miferable and tormented; but if righteoufnefs fhould degenerate and become wickedness, or if wickedness fhould amend and become righteoufnefs, the tables would then be turned, and with the change of their nature their state and condition would be changed too.

But it is commonly fuppofed, that in the next life there can be no fuch changes; every man's condition there is fixed and unalterable: (Ecclef. xi. 3.) "In the place where the tree falleth, there fhall it be:" (Rev. xii. 11.)" He that is unjuft will be unjust fill; and he that is filthy will be filthy ftill; and he that is righteous will be righteous ftill; and he that is holy will be "holy ftill." But, notwithstanding the application of certain texts to this purpose, which have no fuch meaning, this opinion feemeth to be without any real foundation in Scripture, or in the nature and reafon of things. To fuppofe that a man's happiness or mifery, to all eternity, fhould abfolutely and unchangeably be fixed and determined, by the uncertain behaviour of a few years in this life, is a fuppofition even more unreasonable and unnatural, than that a man's mind and manners fhould be completely formed and fashioned in his cradle, and his whole future fortune and condition fhould depend altogether upon bis infancy, infancy being much greater, in proportion to the few years of this life, than the whole of this life to eternity. This life is indeed a ftate of trial, but not a trial to fix our fate for ever, without any poffibility of changing for better, or for worfe, in the world to come: for if the righteous can be but righteous, and the wicked can be but wicked, and cannot act otherwife, there is an utter end of all freedom of will, and morality of action. Their virtue ceases to be virtue, and their fin is no longer fin. Here it is admitted, that we are free moral agents, and feel and enjoy our liberty; and fhall we be deprived of this privilege hereafter, and be bound in the chains of fatal neceffity? It is moft probable, indeed, that the righteous, living in fo much greater light and knowledge, enjoying fo many bleflings, and furrounded by fo many good examples, will lie under little or no temptation to fall from his righteousness; but, however, the thing is poffible; for no creatures, of any rank or or der, of any time or place, are abfolutely infallible and impeccable. Perfect holiness belongeth to God alone. The Scripture affures us, that in the next life men will be made (Luke xx. 36.) " equal unto the angels;" but angels, we know, have apoftatized and fallen; and why, then, may not man, even when made "equal unto the angels" For the fame reafon that the righteous may fall from his righteousness, the wicked may turn away from his wickedness; and this event appears much more probable than the other: for he is cer

tainly under no neceflity to the contrary; he is free to return and repent; and though it may be a matter of fome difficulty, yet there is no real impoffibility. If it were impoffible for him to repent and reform, he would be no longer criminal, and his punishment would be really unjust.

Repentance, therefore, is not impoffible even in hell: but yet you may afk, what reafon is there to think it probable? and I anfwer, because it is impoffible for any creature to live in eternal torments. (Ifa. xxxiii. 14.) "Who can dwell with everlasting burnings?" If nothing elfe, yet his own fenfations and feelings must bring him, one time or other, to an acknowledgment of his fin and of his duty. In the next world, too, there will be no room for fcepticifm and infidelity. The devils are now to" believe and trem ble" (James ii. 19.); but in the next world both men and devils will do more than" believe and tremble:" they muft, whether they will or not, be convinced, by ocular demonftration, by all their fenfes, by all their feelings, inward and outward, of the glory and dominion, of the righteoufnefs and justice, of the power and terrors, of the Almighty; and muft fee, and feel, and know, how hard it is to kick against the pricks;" how impoffible to "refft his will," or to flee from his vengeance. Befides, in the next world their capaci ties will not only be inlarged and improved, but they will not lie under the fame temptations as in thefe frail, perifhing, Refly tabernacles; there will not be the like provocatives to fin in their incorruptible, immortal, fpiritual bodies. Their fenfes will all be quicker, and, confequently, their pains and fufferings will be greater, and their mifery more infupportable. Inveterate habits are, indeed, rooted out with extreme difficulty; "the leopard" may almoft as foon change his fpots:" but furely it is eafier and better" to cut off a right hand, or pluck out a right eye," than with the whole body to lie groveling for ever in "hell fire, where their worm dieth Dor, and the fire is not quenched." There are tempers and fpirits which, instead of being foftened and melted, are rather hardened and petrified, as I may fay, by calamities and afflictions, Some fuch infances may occur in this life, or for a fhort period of time; but what is the period of human life, or hundreds of years, or thousands, or millions, or millions of millions, compared with eternity? As no creature is completely and abfolutely good, fo neither is any completely and abfolutely evil: there is a mixture, more or lefs, of good and bad, of gold and drofs, in every one; but the fire muft in time purge away and confume the drofs, and leave only the gold behind. No creature can be fo totally depraved and abandoned, as to hold out, under the most exquisite tortures, obftinate and obdurate unto all eternity. Some may perfift for a longer, fome for a fhorter term; but in the end all must be fubdued: fo that their punishment may more properly be called indefinite than infinite. In short, if they have any fenfe or feeling, any reafon or underlanding, any choice or free-will, they muft, one time or other, fooner or later, be brought to repentance: if they have none of thefe, they are no better than focks or ftones; and as they cannot deferve, fo neither can they fuffer, any punishment. • For

For what end or purpose is it to be fuppofed, that God ever pamisheth any of his creatures? for fome good end, without doubt; and you cannot well affign any other, or better, than these two reafous-for the correction of the offender, and for an example to others. If the offender be corrected and reformed, the firft end is fally answered, and the punishment should ceafe of courfe. If he ftill remain incorrigible, it is fitting that the punishment should be continued, and increased, till it have the due effect. The other end of punishing, for example's fake, may alfo be of use and fervice, as long as there are any to be influenced by it. But after this world, and all the works therein, fhall be diffolved, after the general judgment, and the different allotments of men and angels, what creatures will remain to whom it may ferve for a warning, especially if every one's condition fhall be fixed by fate, unalterably good, or unalterably evil. It cannot confift with the mercy, or the goodness, or the wifdom, or even the justice of the Supreme Being, to punish any of -bis creatures for no end or purpofe, neither for their own correction, or a warning to others. A Moloch may be pleased with the facrifice of innocents burning in the fire; a God of the Manichees may delight in evil for the fake of evil: but fuch things cannot be conceived without horror, of the God of the Chriftians. It is juft, and wife, and good, and even merciful, to correct a finner as long as he de"ferves correction; to chastise him into a fenfe of his guilt; to whip and fcourge him, as I may fay, out of his faults: if many ftripes will not fuffice to lay on more, to heap coals of fire upon his head, and to melt him down into another nature and temper, fo that he may be made capable of forgiveness. Such feverity is the greatest mercy : and how wretched, in the most favourable view, must be the condition of finners? What fruit can they have in those things whereof, if they are not now, they will be then ashamed? How muft they lament and bewail, how deteft and abominate the, confequences of their own folly and madness, which have reduced them to fuch ftraits and difficulties? What pangs muft they undergo, before the new birth can be accomplished in them? yea "what carefulness, yea what clearing of themselves, yea what indignation, yea, what fear, yea what vehement defire, yea what zeal, yea what revenge?" But any thing is easier and better than to live for ever in torments, Tortures upon tortures, tortures without end, no creatures of the leaft fenfe or feeling can fupport, but must all be brought to fabmiffion at laft; and had they not much better make a virtue of neceffity? Thrice happy are they who need no fuch repentance; next happy are they who repent in time, and are reformed in this life: they are miferable if they defer it; and the longer they defer it, the more wretched still and miserable they will be, and the harder to be reclaimed.

But that which weigheth most in this cafe, is the confideration of the divine attributes and perfections. Such a being as God cannot be fapposed to have produced any intelligent natures for any other end, or with any other defign, than to conftitute them all, in their different degrees and proportions, partakers of his goodnels and happiness. It could never be his original intention to make any of his creatures, and much less the greater part of mankind, as you fuppose,

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for ever miferable. "He would have all men to be faved;" and whence then ariseth the obstruction to his good will and pleasure? or how cometh it to pafs, that his gracious purposes are ever defeated ? Was it for want of wisdom, or power, to fit and make them able? or was there any defect of mercy and goodness to dispose and make them willing to acquire everlafting life? No, you will fay juftly; the fault is intirely in the creatures, and not at all in the Creator. (Ecclef. vii. 29.) "God hath made man upright, but they have fought out many inventions." He made them capable of happiness, but they themselves are the authors of their mifery. But (Aats, xv. 18.) "known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." He forefees the most diftant and contingent actions of all his creatures. He foreknows what courfes they will take, their beginning, their progrefs, their end: and nothing can be more con trariant to the divine nature and attributes, than for a God, all-wife, all-powerful, all-good, all-perfect, to bestow existence on any beings, whofe deftiny he forefees and foreknows, muft terminate in wretchednefs and mifery, without recovery or remedy, without respite or end. He certainly would either have created them of a different model and constitution, or not have created them at all." God is love ;” and he would rather not have given life, than render that life a torment and curfe to all eternity. Man, indeed, must have been made a free, rational, moral agent, or otherwife he could not have been capable of good or evil, of reward or punishment; and it is as just, and reasonable, and fitting, that he should be punished for his evil actions, as that he should be rewarded for his good ones. But God never inflicts punishment merely for punishment's fake. In the midft of judgment he remembers mercy. His chaftifements, like thofe of a loving father, are defigned not to harden men in fin, but to recover them to goodness, to correct and meliorate their nature, to terrify, to compel, to perfuade, to oblige, and at length to bring them to repentance and reformation. His goodness could never give birth to any one being, and much less to a number of beings, whofe end he forefaw, and could not but forefee, would be irretrievable mifery; nor could even his justice, for fhort-lived tranfgreffions, inflict everlafting punishments. Imagine a creature, nay imagine numberlefs creatures, produced out of nothing, and therefore guilty of no prior offence, fent into this world of frailty, which, it is well-known before hand, they will fo ufe as to abuse it, and then, for the exceffes of a few years, delivered over to torments of endless ages, without the leaft hope or poffibility of relaxation, or redemption. Imagine it you may, but you can never seriously believe it, nor reconcile it to God and goodnefs. The thought is fhocking even to human nature; and how much more abhorrent then it must be from the divine perfections! God must have made all his creatures finally to be happy he could never make any, whose end he foreknew would be mifery everlasting.

But poffibly you may object, that by this fame method of arguing it would follow, that the devil and his angels will at last be faved as well as wicked men; and I cannot deny the confequence, which extends alike to all free, intelligent, rational, moral agents whatever; fo neither can the devil and his angels, till they cease to be

devils,