Let us affirm then that Chrift died for all men, even for those who reap no fruits by his death, but perifn everlastingly: and if his death was of that efficacy, as to have been defigned. even for those that perifh; fo dreadful an effect cannot be imputed to the will of God, or to any defect in the facrifice, but to fome other caufe. Let it remain then a fixed and im moveable truth, that it is the will of God to have all men faved, that he takes no pleasure in the death of a finner; and yet at the fame time let us own, that multitudes of fouls, which Chrift came to ranfom, are loft eternally.

Behold here a great difficulty which whilft fome have endeavoured to remove, they have fallen into fuch inextricable mazes and perplexities of error.

Indeed there is nothing fo fruitful as error; one falfe principle will lead to an hundred falfe conclufions; and when men have once fet out with a wrong bias, every flep they take, carries them fill farther out of the way. This has been the misfortune in the present cafe. From partial views of the nature of God, and too limited notions of his government, men have formed fuch hypotheses as undermine his very being; deriving all the torrent of evil, from the very fountain of goodness, making the gracious Father of mankind more barbarous than the worst of tyrants, nay even more fanguinary and implacable than the Prince of darkness. Which would never have been done had they not from mistaken places of fcripture, formed to themselves principles inconfiftent with the general tenor of the Gospel, and contradictory to the nature and attributes of the Almighty.

Such is the doctrine of the abfolute decree, which they fay is gone out from all eternity; while the children being yet unborn, and incapable of doing either good or evil, are determined to a state of happiness, or mifery; no regard being had to any motive in the perfons predeftinated to falvation or damnation. Who fees not under the notion of fuch a God as this, the cruelty of a Saturn devouring his own chil

dren,

dren, not out of any jealoufy of being depofed, or any other intereft of his own; but merely to gratify a licentious and arbitrary tyranny; which they impiously call the manifefting the glory of his juftice? Who difcovers not at the fame time the inexorable fate of the Stoics, excluding all contingency from nature, all liberty from the fouls of men, evacuating all the industry of mankind, and fruftrating the exhortations and reproofs of the Gospel? To fee men thus bewildered in pernicious errors, whilst they labour by abfurd diftinctions to get out of them, confounding the order of Nature, rooting out the providence of God, and cutting off our very notions of good and evil, virtue and vice, creates I know not whether more horror at their doctrine or compaffion to their weakness. [To be continued.]

An extract from a Courfe of SERMONS, upon Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.

THIS

[By a late Author.]

[Continued from Vol. XII. page 657.]

HIS is reprefented in feripture as "a great white throne." It will be fuch a feat of judgment, no doubt, as was never erected upon earth. The throne of the highest Em perors will be as the turf feat of a peafant, in comparison with it. And it will be, it feems, an awful flate-chair of light. Light will form the body of it. Light will form the feat and the fteps. And the whole will appear as one dazzling throne of light. It will be "like the fiery flame, and its wheels as burning fire;" and "a fiery ftream fhall iffue and come forth before it."

Mounted on this, will appear the Judge of all the world. And his appearance will be full of majesty. St. John fays

thus

thus concerning him; "I faw a great white throne, and him that fat on it, from whofe face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was no place found for them; and I faw the dead, fmall and great, ftand before God." No words can more frongly defcribe the dread and formidable appearance of the God-man, as feated on the circle of the fky, and preparing to judge mankind. The earth and the heaven, it is faid," fled away from his face, and there was found no place for them." In thefe moments of judgment, the whole creation will be covered with darkness, except what iffues from the crofs and throne of light. It will be all trembling, probably to its immediate deftruction. And it will be ready to drop inftantly into nothing, as foon as the judgment is over. But when nature shakes through all her frame at the fight of his countenance, what must be the impreffion from it upon the fouls of the finners, shuddering as they all stand before him, having the terrors of his eye directly bent upon them, and having the lightening of his countenance flashing immediately at them?

"

Thus feated on" the throne of his glory," and seeing "all nations gathered before him," he will open the books of memorial, which have been carefully kept by God, and which contain the transactions, the thoughts, and the characters of every the moft trifling individual among men. These, the fure and un-erring records of heaven, are now to be folemnly opened. And every man is to receive his fentence, according to what is registered there. "I faw," fays St. John, "the dead, fmail and great, ftand before God; the books were opened; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works." Such regifters cannot be neceffary in themselves to God. His mind, to which things paft, prefent, and to come are all equally near; and which remembers the flighteft tranfaction that passed a thousand ages ago, as readily as one that happened VOL. XIII.

E

only

only a minute fince; this muft furnish him with the knowledge of every thing neceffary to judgment. But God is fre quently pleased, as in this cafe, not merely to use expressions that lie moft level to our, understandings, and beft ferve to explain his awful powers to us; but even to act in such a manner, as shall strike most upon our minds in the reading, and be most affecting to our fpirits in the feeing. Thus he keeps an exact account of all the behaviour of men, and has kept one for all the generations that have rifen and fallen fince the days of Adam. And thus he will produce these wonderful hiftories at the end of the world, and all mankind "fhall be judged out of thofe things which are written in the books, according to their works." A part of these hif tories has been already given us in the Bible, in the relations and characters of the good and bad which we meet with there. The whole will be then read to the attending worlds of men and angels. And every character will ftand forth in its true colours. The difguifes, which ignorance, which partiality, which the fpirit of the world, are perpetually throwing over the characters of perfons around us, will be all taken away by the certain hand of God. And the man will appear as he really was. The hypocrite will be fhewn to the world in all his naked uglinefs. And the man who fancied all religion to be hypocrify, who at least confidered almost every outward appearance of it to be fo, and who was particularly careful to banifh it from converfation, and to keep it out of company; fuch a man as this, the frequent creature of the present times, will find himself put down in those rolls of truth, either as a blasphemer against the majefty of religion, and a direct enemy to God and godlinefs, or at least as a poor mean wretch, that was afhamed of his God, and afraid to acknowledge him.

But let us fuppofe, That we see the Books opened at this inflant; That we now hear them read aloud to us, and that we are every moment in dreadful, or in hopeful expectation of coming

coming to the parts which concern ourfelves. The grand archangel, who lifted up his fingle voice to fummon the dead from their graves, is perhaps employed in reading them. And, at the close of every character, a kind of preparatory judgment is pronounced by the God-man. Let us alfo suppofe, that we see this defcription of him, given by Daniel, actually prefented to our eyes. "The Ancient of Days did fit, whofe garment was white as fnow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and its wheels as burning fire; a fiery stream iffued and came forth before him: thousand thoufands miniftered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was fet, and the books were opened." These books are defcribed in fcripture as confifting of several, which contain the tranfactions of all good and of all bad men in life, and of another, which bears only the names of the good recorded in it. "The books were opened," fays St. John; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of thofe things which were written in the books, according to their works; and who soever was not found written in the book of life was caft into the lake of fire." And then shall our Saviour" feparate them one from another, as a fhepherd divideth his fheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left." Let us fuppofe, that we now fee all this in others, and that we now feel it in ourselves.

[To be continued]