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Inconsistencies of Writers on Future Punishment.

from the manner of their death, which, of all the extravagancies of theological dreamers, is one of the most strange and unaccountable, but from the manner of their life. Now, how are we to determine between these two extremes? If, according to the reasoning of this profound writer, we should form such exalted ideas of the divine benignity, in a general view, as exercised in the character of Supreme Judge; how is it conceivable, that, after the future awards of his justice, this benignity, as to the objects of it, should be eternally suspended?

It is difficult to ascertain precisely, what were the sentiments of Archbishop King upon this important subject. In the Appendix to his Treatise on "The Origin of Evil," a work abounding with many weighty truths, he adopts, in a great measure, the orthodox notion, and endeavours to obviate some of the arguments against it in the usual way:-such as the sufferings of the damned tending to enhance the blessedness of glorified saints, by way of comparison and contemplation; a sentiment which, as applicable to the adequate and limited suffering of transgressors in a future state, may be allowed to have some weight; but which, if applied to the doctrine of strictly eterwal punishment, confutes itself. The eternity of this state, however, he observes, is not a doctrine of reason, but of pure revelation. "It appears from the light of nature that there shall be future punishments, but not that they shall be eternal." He further informis us, that they do not proceed from the vengeance, but from the goodness of the Deity;" and then proceeds to offer some opinions which seem to be peculiarly his own :~~~

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"As to another objection, the matter is still in debate, whether it were better to be miserable than not to be at all; and there are arguments on both sides. 'Tis manifest, indeed, that those evils which overbalance the desire and happiness of life, commonly put an end to life itself; and that such objects as are hurtful to the sense, at length destroy it. The same seems to hold good in thinking substances, viz. those things which affect the mind to a higher degree than it can bear, may in like manner put an end to it: for they may be supposed either to drive us to madness; or so far to disorder the thinking faculty, as to make us think

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of nothing at all. Who can tell, then, whether the punishment of the wicked may not lead them into a kind of phrenzy and madness? Thus they may indeed be very miserable, and become a sad spectacle to others; they may be sensible of their misery also, and strive against it with all their power; but while they do not observe or believe that it is founded in perverse election, they may hug themselves in the cause, the effects of which they abhor; being still wise in their own opinion, and, as it were, pleasing themselves in their misery."

"Thus, the more they labour under it, the more they embrace the cause of it, and thereby become their own hindrance from ever getting free; and will not suffer themselves to be any thing but what they are. This we see daily done by mad and frantic persons, and reckon it a part of their unhappiness. The divine goodness, therefore, is not to be charged with cruelty for letting them continue in that existence, though it be very miserable, when they themselves will not have it removed; or, for not altering their condition, which they utterly refuse to have altered. "Tis better indeed for them not to be; but this, in the opinion only of wise men, to which they do not assent; for they indulge themselves in their obstinate election, and though every where surrounded and oppressed with woes, yet will they not aller what they have once embraced, and had rather endure all than repent: as men that are desparately in love, ambitious, envious, choose to bear torments, loss of estate, and hazard of life, rather than lay aside these foolish and bewitching affections. We may easily conceive, then, how the wicked in hell may be iu very great misery, upon the increase of their obstinacy and folly, and yet unwilling to be freed from them.”

The reader will make his own comment upon these passages, and more of the same kind, in the original: for the writer's part, he professes only to regard them as constituting an inextricalle labyrinth, from which, it is probable, he should not readily escape, and into which he hath certainly no inclination to enter: he has, therefore, only to observe, that awful instances of the prevalence of evil habits in the present life, can furnish no criterion as to their influence in the next, where all the objects of sinful gratification

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Inconsistencies of Writers on Future Punishment.

shall be done away, where "hell is open before them, and destruction hath no covering!" that we shall search in vain for this system of insanity in the Bible; and that we should receive with caution some of the opinions of an author, however learned and pious, who could conclude his elaborate and justly celebrated work, in the following man

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The only prose divine remaining, whose sentiments upon this subject we shall briefly consider, is the pious, learned and candid Dr. Doddridge. In his Theological Lectures, Prop. 163, Ed. 1776, he proposes the question with great fairness and impartiality, We cannot enter into all the arguments he has produced on both sides, which would be to repeat much of what hath already been offered: our inquiry here is only respecting his consistency.

He acknowledges that "We cannot pretend to decide, à priori, or previous to the event, so far as to say, that the punishments of hell must and will certainly be eternal;" but gives it as his opinion, on a review of the arguments, "That there is at least so much force on the affirmative side of the question, and in the solution of the preceding objections, as to render it both imprudent and unsafe to go out of the way of scripture upon this head; or to explain those expressions in such a manner, as positively to determine that future eternal punishments, in strict propriety of speech, are not to be apprehended."

Now there is evidently a chasm in this way of reasoning: for if we cannot decide that eternal punishments will take place; and must not be persuaded or express our conviction, that is, according to our conceptions of things, that they will not; we must remain all our lives in a state of tortuous suspense as to one of the leading motives of the gospel, in one

of its principal characteristics; and be utterly unable, in this view, either to understand it ourselves, or to preach or explain it to others, and consequently unable, thus far, to believe it; since we can believe nothing which we do not, in some measure, apprehend: and this, in a question involving our ideas of the moral attributes of the Deity, is a circumstance of prodigious importance. This is not a matter of mere abstract speculation, as to which it is of little consequence on which side the truth lies:-doubtfulness, in such a case, is death!

But it will be said, alas! what can we know of the extent of the divine plans and operations in a future state? "Who can by searching find out God, who can find out the Almighty to perfection?" Shall the Omnipotent be arraigned at the bar of a worm? Shall the delinquent sit in judgment upon the Judge himself? These objections are plausible, and the sentiments themselves founded in truth; but they do not altogether apply in the present case. We are not to renounce our understandings in the contemplation of subjects in which we are so deeply interested, under a false notion of humility and self-abasement. "We may have true conceptions of God, though not full and adequate conceptions."

For be it recollected, that in all our reasonings concerning the Deity, we can reason only as to his perfections and attributes; of his abstract nature and essence, we can, at present, know nothing: and moreover, that if the ideas of those perfections which we derive from his works and his word, should be supposed to deceive us, there are no others to be had: we must begin anew, and launch out into a fathomless ocean, without a pilot, without a helm, and probably without a shore! But it has long been determined as the only legitimate criterion we have whereby to regulate our notions of the Divine Being, to consider the highest perfections of created natures, to subtract every thing imperfect from them, and then to add infinitude to those ideas: "It would, indeed, be a high presumption to determine, whether the Supreme Being has not many more attributes than those which enter into our conceptions of him;

* Wisheart.

Inconsistencies of Writers on Future Punishment.

but it is impossible that we should have any ideas of any kind of perfection, except those of which we have some small rays, and short, imperfect strokes in ourselves." "It is foolish," says Archbishop Tillotson, for any man to pretend that he cannot know what justice, and goodness, and truth, in God are; for if we do not know this, it is all one to us, whether God be good or not, nor could we imitate his goodness; for he that imitates, endeavours to be like something that he knows, and must have some idea of that to which he aims to be like: so that if we had no certain and settled notion of the justice, goodness and truth of God, he would be altogether an unintelligible Being, and religion, which consists in the imitation of him, be utterly impossible."

Thus it is plain, that though we cannot comprehend the extent and mode of operation of the divine attributes, for how can finite comprehend infinite?-yet, we have a sufficient idea of the attributes themselves, that is, of those which relate to us, and of their nature and properties of what, upon the whole, appear to be consistent or inconsistent therewith: and that, although it would be highly improper and irreverend to say, with some weak persons, if such a thing take place, God must be so and so; or, if such a thing be true," then you may burn your Bibles," &c.-yet there is no irreverence at all in saying, such or such a thing is absolutely inconsistent with all our ideas of the divine perfections, and utterly impossible if those ideas be founded in truth. Thus we have clear ideas of the divine benignity and power; and if we take these attributes in connexion, may easily conceive, that the Almighty could instantly and for ever annihilate all sin and suffering, and make his moral creation universally holy and happy; but we know, that though such a process, this holiness by influx, might indeed render intelligent beings happy, it could never constitute them worthy of praise; and that, therefore, this desirable event must be brought about by the co-operation of their own powers, in order to render it consistent with his wisdom and justice, as well as with his holiness. Again, with respect to the attribute of infinite power, simply con

Addison.

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sidered, we know that it extends to every object of power-to every thing that doth not imply a contradictionand yet, we may be more than morally certain, that there are many things simply possible, which the Deity will never bring to pass: as, for instance, to create a world in one instant and destroy it the next; because this would be, according to all our notions, a capricious act, a mark of imperfection, and of the creature, and therefore not to be predicated of the Divinity; all whose attributes are in perfect unison, and who cannot for a moment be supposed to magnify his power at the expense of his wisdom and goodness.

But this pious and benevolent divine (Dr. Doddridge), when emancipated from the trammels of system, and attending to the silent operations of his own sublime and capacious mind, could give his opinion decidedly enough on this point. Thus, though he seems in one place to adopt the common notion, that "the punishment of the damned may be an instructive spectacle to glorified saints;" yet he asks, Prop. 45, "How can the view or experience of misery be necessary to give a virtuous being a more exquisite relish of happiness?" Again, he observes, that if it appear the scriptures declare the eternity of future punishment, these considerations may serve to balance the difficulties arising from principles of the light of nature." Yet, in Prop. 95, on the internal evi dences of a divine revelation, he tells us, "We may be sure such a revelation can contain nothing apparently contrary to the light of nature, because that is the law of God, and he is too wise and too faithful to contradict himself." Then, as to what this light of nature really teaches concerning this doctrine, he observes, Prop. 82, that, "As for eternal punishments, though some of the Heathen did assert them, and many have undertaken to infer them from natural principles; yet it seems, that our natural apprehensions would rather encourage us to hope that the Deity would leave some room for amendment and recovery of happiness in a future state; or, by annihilation, put an end to men's misery, when they appeared humbled by their punishment." An argument, surely, for annihilation, of all others the most inconclusive!

He afterwards proceeds to consider

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Sir G. Hill's Attack on the Character of Dr. Priestley.

a further notion of some of the old di vines, of perpetually succeeding sins and punishments; but this, he says in another place, is not reconcileable to scripture, which uniformly represents the punishments of futurity as inflicted for sins "done in the body."

Such are the inconsistencies into which the greatest minds may fall when treating upon subjects not perhaps wholly mysterious and inexplicable in themselves, but rendered so by the intricate and unscriptural jargon of disputants and systematical writers, to whom they are often inclined to pay a degree of attention and deference far beyond their real deserts. In speculation, therefore, as well as in practice, "Let our eyes look right on, and let our eye-lids look straight before

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[To be continued.]

Ryde, Isle of Wight,

SIR, 15th May, 1816. HAVE always considered the memory of great and good men as a sacred deposit which cannot be too highly cherished and too carefully preserved; and when the reputation which they have justly acquired has been violated, I have attributed it to the grossest ignorance of their exalted worth.

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silence apparently confirm the truth of his remarks.

The superior merits of Dr. Priestley, both as a divine and a philosopher, are well known and acknowledged by every candid inquirer after truth; and no man was ever actuated by a stronger desire to promote the best interests of his fellow-creatures, by means the most gentle, peaceable and praise-worthy. I speak from knowledge; for I was intimately acquainted with him. He had a soul endued with the most benevolent affections, comprehending, in its grasp, the whole human race; wholly unlike those narrow and illiberal men who, from want of education or carly prejudice, have been led to embrace the doctrines and to conform to the worship of an established church, and to despise and consider as dangerous enemies to the state, all those who dissent from it.

What the character of Sir G. Hill may be, I know not; but I hope, and have no reason to believe it otherwise than respectable, notwithstanding this attempt to lower the opinion which every candid and well-informed man entertains of the late Dr. Priestley. We are none of us perfect, and Sir G. Hill has his weak side; let us pity and pray for him.

Country 'squires (and titles are no exemption) labour under great disadvantages. How superficial is their education! how low and grovelingtheir pursuits! Their days spent in hunting and shooting, and their nights in carousing!

In this light I regard the attack of Sir G. Hill on the character of that illustrious man, the late Rev. Dr. Priestley, in the Committee of Supply, on Friday, the 10th instant, respecting an academical institution at Belfast, in which the reporter of his speech Study has no charms for them; and informs us, that he remarked, That literary characters, who dare to inthis institution was likely to be per-vestigate truth and to think for themverted, as persons of a desparate cha- selves in matters of the highest imporracter had wormed themselves into tance-who refuse to subscribe to that school with the view of promoting articles which they are convinced are the politics and religion of Paine and false, though imposed by the highest Priestley; hoping, by these insidious human authority, are, in their judgmeans, to promote their abominable ment, persons entertaining the most principles by inculcating them into abominable principles. the minds of the young. The visitors," he added, "have not been perhaps sufficiently active and many good men have declined interfering."

If the above report be correct, (which, for the credit of Sir G, Hill and the reputation of the honourable the House of Commons, I much question) I am at a loss to account for the silence of those members who could patiently suffer so illustrious a name to be so vilely traduced-and by their

I rejoice to think that we are no longer the slaves of a feudal aristocracy. The mind of man is now beginning to work; it will be found a most powerful engine, and eventually exterminate the deep-rooted errors and prejudices both of religion and politics.

We cannot raise our expectations too high. In the mean time let us aid the progress of truth in every way which lies in our power; recollecting that we are the sali of the earth, and

On the late F. Well, &c.-Mr. Scargill on American Peace Society. 331

the light of the world, and though for a short time we may be reviled and persecuted and our names cast out and irodden under foot by ignorant and slanderous men, we shall in no case fail of our reward. I am, Sir,

SIR,

Your obedient Servant,

B. T.

Bath, June, 1816. I more concerning WISH that you could furnish us the late Francis Webb, Esq. I wish therefore that Miss Milner, of Islington, would grant you her assistance. I was glad to see the mistake corrected, that he was secretary to an embassy sent to the prince of Hesse to hire troops to fight against the Americans. I knew that to be an unfounded assertion, as he was always a most strenuous advocate for the cause of American resistance. The history of his defence against the attempt to rob him was not worth recording. Let your correspondents furnish us with matters of more mo

ment.

Your correspondent who wishes to know where I learned Dr. Chauncey's particular doctrine concerning the successive states of oblivion of the righteous in their passing to higher degrees of glory in a future world, must be informed that I learned it in a long private conversation with himself, which he began by saying, I must pass through many sleeps. The Dr. thought highly of my liberality, and was perhaps more open in his communications with nie than with any person except his son Charles. Though we did not always agree, I always greatly esicemed and loved him.

Lord Stanhope's speech is very interesting. To make us a truly glorious nation, very many of our laws must be abolished. I have been informed of a gentleman who lived about seventy years ago at Birmingham, who in the younger part of his life was guilty of some transgressions which led him to fly into Holland: not being yet cured of his follies, he committed some acts for which he was committed to the Rasp-house, where he must either work or be

drowned: the rasping not suiting bin, and he being informed that might pursue any trade for which he was fitted, and that all his earnings beyond a weekly allowance for his

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board should be regularly paid hin, he chose to make a species of boxes which he learned to execute when at Birmingham. This being what his employers much approved, at the end of every week he received what he thought a considerable sum. He pro ceeded in this way until the time of his imprisonment expired. Being then told that he was at liberty to go where he pleased, he requested that

the Rasp-house until he should earn a sufliciency to support himself elsewhere. His petition was acceded to, and after remaining there some years, he found himself in possession of money enough to live without labour. He returned to Birmingham and took a neat house in its neighbourhood, and, being found a thoroughly reformed and intelligent man, some gentlemen became acquainted with him, and frequently dined at his table. To them he generally related his whole history, and the circumstances which contributed to implant in his breast honesty and integrity and generosity; and he always concluded the feast with toasting the master of the Rasphouse.

If we would only study how to employ the licentious and profligate in some such way, and to impress them at the same time with the principles of true religion, we should soon see purity reign in all our island. We should no longer be shocked with accounts of murders, executions, &c. At present when we go to Morocco, we express our horror at the sight of heads of human beings in the entrances to their palaces, but forget what was seen at Temple Bar soine years ago, and what is still seen in some places in the country.

The memorialist of Mr. Calamy in your last number, was very defective in not mentioning his age, his relationship to the great Calamy, his wife, . and what children survive him. Many other particulars would be satisfactory to your readers.

W. H.

Bury St. Edmunds, 3d June, 1816. SIR,

The will be happy to hear, that HE friends of peace in this counTry exertions are making in America for the diffusion of pacific principles. On Saturday the first of June, I received

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