your avaricious money-getting man is generally a character of wonderful discretion. It might be expected that he would be exact to count his gains, and would be the last to barter possessions which he might hold for ever, for a wealth that shall be taken from him, and shall not profit him in the day of wrath. Then, for those servants of sin, the effeminate sons of sensual pleasure, these are a feeble timid race. It might be expected that these, of all men, would want firmness to brave the danger. Yet so it is, the ambitious pursues a conduct which must end in shame; the miser, to be rich now, makes himself poor for ever; and the tender delicate voluptuary shrinks not at the thought of endless burnings!

These things could not be, but for one of these two reasons, either that there is some lurking incredulity in men, an evil heart of unbelief, that admits not the Gospel doctrine of punishment in its full extent; or that their imaginations set the danger at a prodigious distance.

The Scriptures are not more explicit in the threatenings of wrath upon the impenitent than in general assertions of God's forbearance and mercy. These assertions are confirmed by the voice of Nature, which

loudly proclaims the goodness as well as the power of the universal Lord. Man is frail and imperfect in his original constitution. This, too, is the doctrine of the Scriptures; and every man's experience unhappily confirms it. Human life, by the appointment of Providence, is short: "He hath made our days as it were a span long." "Is it, then, to be supposed, that this good, this merciful, this long-suffering God, should doom his frail imperfect creature man to endless punishment, for the follies-call them, if you please, the crimes, of a short life? Is He injured by our crimes, that he should seek this vast revenge? or does his nature delight in groans and lamentations? It cannot be supposed. What revelation declares of the future condition of the wicked is prophecy; and prophecy, we know, deals in poetical and exaggerated expressions." Such, perhaps, is the language which the sinner holds within himself, when he is warned of the wrath to come; and such language he is taught to hold, in the writings and the sermons of our modern sectaries. He is taught, that the punishment threatened is far more heavy than will be executed: he is told, that the words which, in their literal meaning, denote endless duration, are, upon many oc

casions, in Scripture, as in common speech, used figuratively or abusively, to denote very long but yet definite periods of time. These notions are inculcated in the writings not of infidels, but of men who, with all their errors, must be numbered among the friends and advocates of virtue and religion: but, while we willingly bear witness to their worth, we must not the less strenuously resist their dangerous innovations.

The question concerning the eternity of punishment (like some others, which, considered merely as questions of philosophy, may be of long and difficult discussion,) might be brought to a speedy determination, if men, before they heat themselves with argument, would impartially consider how far reason in her natural strength may be competent to the inquiry. I do not mean to affirm generally that reason is not a judge in matters of religion; but I do maintain, that there are certain points concerning the nature of the Deity, and the schemes of Providence, upon which reason is dumb and revelation is explicit; and that, in these points, there is no certain guide but the plain obvious meaning of the written word. The question concerning the eternal duration of the torments of the wicked is one of these.

From any natural knowledge that we have of the Divine character, it never can be proved that the scheme of eternal punishment is unworthy of him. It cannot be proved that this scheme is inconsistent with his natural perfections - his essential goodWhat is essential goodness? It is usually defined by a single property,

ness.

the

love of virtue for its own sake. The definition is good, as far as it goes; but is it complete? does it comprehend the whole of the thing intended? Perhaps not. Virtue and vice are opposites; love and hate are opposites: a consistent character must bear opposite affections towards opposite things: to love virtue, therefore, for its own sake, and to hate vice for its own sake, may equally belong to the character of essential goodness; and thus, as virtue, in itself, and for its own sake, must be the object of God's love and favour, so, incurable vice, in itself, and for its own sake, may be the object of his hatred and persecution.

Again, it cannot be proved that the scheme of eternal punishment is inconsistent with the relative perfections of the Deity - with those attributes which are displayed in his dealings with the rational part of his creation : for who is he that shall determine in what proportions

the attributes of justice and mercy, forbearance and severity, ought to be mixed up in the character of the Supreme Governor of the universe? Nor can it be proved that eternal punishment is inconsistent with the schemes of God's moral government: for who can define the extent of that government? who among the sons of men hath an exact understanding of its ends - a knowledge of its various parts, and of their mutual relations and dependencies? Who is he that shall explain by what motives the righteous are to be preserved from falling from their future state of glory? That they shall not fall, we have the comfortable assurance of God's word; but by what means is the security of their state to be effected? — Unquestionably by the influence of moral motives upon the minds of free and rational agents. But who is so enlightend as to foresee what particular motives may be the fittest for the purpose? Who can say These might be sufficient - these are superfluous? Is it impossible, that, among other motives, the sufferings of the wicked may have a salutary effect? And shall God spare the wicked, if the preservation of the righteous should call for the perpetual example of their punishment?

Since, then, no proof can be deduced, from any natural knowledge that