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everlasting to things of limited duration, to mountains upon account of their firmnefs, and to the Mofaic ordinances on account of their obligation during the allotted period of the Jewish polity; yet can this be any argument, that the word muft mean a limited period, even where there is nothing, either expreffed or implied, in the connexion or nature of the thing, to restrain and limit its fignification? certainly not: it is not the method of understanding language; and as GOD has vouchfafed to speak to us in the language of men, his word must be subject to the common laws of interpreting human language.

THE fame word is ufed in fcripture to express the duration both of future punishments and rewards: thefe fhall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.* As no one

doubts,

*THE original word is aavos, though the English tranflators have chofen to vary the expreffion, and

by

doubts, whether the blifs, here promised to patient virtue, be not properly everlasting, fo every one is led to infer, that the punishment, here threatened to difobedience, is of equal duration. Nay, when the fcripture expreffes the infinite duration of GOD, who is the fountain of all being, and can confequently have no end; the fame word is used to express this amazing attribute. The eternal, immortal, invifible and only wife God. i. Tim. i. 17. And, unless there be fomething in the nature of creatures incapable of fuch a proper eternity (which we know nothing of) we have more reafon from scripture to apprehend, that future punishments continue as long as GOD exifts, than to fuppofe them temporary, fhort, and tranfient.

by that means loft in fome meafure the folemnity of the antithefis. "Thefe fhall go away into everlast"ing punishment, but the righteous into everlasting "life.

BUT

BUT a fanction, fo awful and important, refts not upon loofe conclufions. It has pleafed GOD to enforce it in a manner, that admits not of mifapprehenfion; in pofitive terms, exclusive of every poffible idea of finitenefs or ceffation. They shall be caft, fays the fcripture, into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth: they shall have no reft day nor night, and the smoke fhall afcend up forever: their worm shall never die, and the fire shall be never quenched. No law was ever more explicit, no penalty more clearly pointed out to univerfal notice. Here is no room to plead ignorance; here is no room for mistake or evafion.

BUT, you will fay, reafon revolts, humanity trembles, compaffion fhudders at the fuppofition. Can he, who made us capable of tendering at the thoughts of fuch fufferings, want compaffion himself? Can he exact, what he makes us commiferate as a fevere infliction ? Can

Can the Lord forget to be gracious, and fhut up his loving kindness in difpleafure?

In answer to this I would observe, that if we must reafon from our own fentiments and apprehenfions about the ways of GOD-which we certainly have no right to do in matters of exprefs will, as he may have a thousand reafons for what he does beyond our ideas or comprehenfion-but if we must reafon about his ways from our own imperfect views; let us act at leaft as becomes men, and argue rather from the principles of found reafon, than the erring impulfe of blind inftincts. Let us only confider him as a MORAL GOVERNOR, prefiding over fuch free actions, as are the fubject of human government; and then, if we must judge of his ways-I almost tremble to mention it we must judge of him from what we ought to do as magiftrates, than what we feel, as partial individuals.

COM

COMPASSION and juftice, we very well know, are often at variance in human measures. Do we not often pity criminals under punishments, which our better reafon at the fame time approves ? Do we not approve of penal laws, though we melt at the rigor of their execution? Nay, does not the Judge himself frequently com-. miferate, while the exigences of fociety. oblige him to condemn ?

THE Divine Benevolence can by no means be confidered as a blind principle, diftributing happiness promifcuoufly without regard to the qualifications of the creature; but as a rational principle, under the direction of other perfections, wisdom, justice, and order.

HUMAN creatures make but a small part of the divine kingdom. They are the loweft in the fcale of intellectual creation. There are various claffes rifing in noble progreffion between

them

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