SINCE the education of youth, the company they keep, and the early impreffions made on them, have fo great an influence towards their leading virtuous or vicious. lives, that is, in rendering them happy or miferable; how neceffary is it, above all things, to educate young perfons in principles of piety and virtue, and inure then betimes to good habits? Can a child poffibly receive any benefit equal to this from a parent or guardian? Can a parent or guardian receive a higher fatisfaction than by fuch a conduct, and the fruit that will probably be reaped from it?

SECONDLY, As to the circumftances which determine mens religious belief being out of their power: let any man afk himself, if he thinks it morally poffible, that thofe who lived two thousand years ago in Athens or Rome, or any where elfe out of Judea, when paganism was in a manner the univerfal religion, could avoid being pagans? Or if a perfon born of, and educated by Mohammedan parents in Turkey, and who per

Z 3

haps

punishments in the prefent world lefs juft or reasonable. When Zeno, author of the Stoic philosophy, was beating his fervant for theft, he cried out, 'Tis part of my fate to be a thief. Yes, firrah, fays his mafter, and to be punished for it too. To which Zeno might well have added, and by means of punishment, it your fate to be reclaimed from roguery.

may

be

haps never heard of any other religion than that of his own country, or was brought up with the utmost prejudice and averfion against all other religions he might have heard of: let any one, I say, ask himself, if fuch a perfon could be other than a Mohammedan? And respecting those born and educated where that which we esteem the only true religion is taught and profeffed, fuppofe fome of these, after the most careful and deliberate confideration, the most diligent and impartial inquiry, and the most fincere defire to be rightly informed, should doubt of or difbelieve certain articles in religion which fome think essential, is it confiftent with juftice that fuch perfons fhould therefore be made for ever miferable?

BUT

SECTION III.

UT were it in the power of all mankind to be virtuous and religious, and to believe every article of the true faith, a question, and a very confiderable one too, will still remain, i. e. whether for unbelief and temporal faults it is reasonable or equitable that men fhould be eternally tormented, and fuffer terrible and inconceivable punishments, when no good purpose whatever can poffibly be answered by them?

LET

LET men lay afide their prejudices, and confult reafon; let them confider the nature

of things, and the justice and goodness of God, and then anfwer this question. In truth, when men fay, that juftice requires the Deity fhould punish finners and. unbelievers in this manner, they talk they know not what. But this we do know: that to punish without fome good end, or to a degree beyond what the neceffity or the nature of the cafe requires, would proceed from revenge or cruelty, and not from juftice. To pretend, therefore, that the Deity punishes in fuch a manner, is to blafpheme his holy name. How then can God be glorified in thus punifhing his creatures, in making the works of his hands for ever miferable? Surely thofe who fay he is, talk very weakly or very impiously. Men frequently fpeak of the glory of God without any just fentiments concerning it but if they are able to judge at all what his glory confifts in, and think in any degree reafonably about it, they must fuppofe it is partly in his infinite power, wifdom, and goodness, and in communicating happinefs to his creatures: we may be certain it cannot confift in cruelty. Such dia-bolical wretches as a Muley Ifmael, a Kouli Khan, or a Louis le grand, may have placed their glory in making men miferable; but furely

Z 4

furely it is the greateft folly or impiety to affirm this of the Deity.

SECONDLY, In confirmation of this doctrine it is faid, that very great men, divines efpecially, have believed and taught it. That is granted: but perhaps many have taught this doctrine who did not believe it; and fome of thefe, as hath been already obferved, may have done fo with a good, and others with a bad defign.

very

HOWEVER, We have already feen, that great men frequently fall into very great errors, and that it is oftentimes more difficult to convince them than the common people. But perhaps fo many eminent perfons have not fallen into this error (the belief of eternal punishments) as is generally supposed.

An eminent divine hath taken much pains to prove, that the ancient philofophers, even the theistical, did not believe a future ftate of rewards and punishments, tho' they were perpetually inculcating this doctrine to the people: "After having read their history,

confidered their characters, and examined "their writings with all the exactnefs I was "able," fays this author, "it appeared evi"dent to me, that these men believed nothing of a future ftate of rewards and punishments, which they most industriously " propagated

*

propagated in fociety." Again, “It is a future ftate, then, of rewards and punish"ments in general, that I undertake to prove "NONE of the ancient philofophers believed." And further, "The ancient fages held it law«ful, for the public good, to fay one thing "when they thought another ".” So it is very likely may certain modern fages and christian divines have done; fometimes for public good, more often for PRIVATE

INTEREST.

NEVERTHELESS, that very great men, divines especially, have taught this doctrine of eternal punishments, and fome of them have believed it, will be readily acknowledged. Among the former may be included the late archbishop Tillotson, who preached and published a sermon, already quoted, or

THE ETERNITY OF HELL TORMENTS ".

But whether this excellent prelate was not too wife and humane to believe fuch a doctrine, and only taught it because, as he says himself, he thought it a great discouragement to fin, I fhall not prefume to determine.

That

The Divine Legation of Mofes, Vol. I. p. 318.

u Ibid. p. 321.

İbid. p. 320. works, vol. I, Sermon 35.

* The word humane is here used, because we think, as is mentioned in the beginning of the Effay on Religious Cruelty, that one principal caufe of mens believing God to be cruel is, that they are cruel themselves,