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In support of the argument, let me ask again if possible to place a free being in the midst of ble which it shall be impossible for him to abuse? not to abuse our blessings be all that is required can we reasonably complain of any punishment as which shall result from the breach of a law thus me and benign?

Besides if there were no sort of sacrifice to be mad should have no power of recommending ourselves to he might as well have made us other than free tures; we might as well have been so many wa talking machines, and should have had just the power of evincing our love and devotion to our M as any other machine has of recommending itself to who made it. That man should have failed to r mend himself to his God, is no more a proof th might not have done so, than a child's eating a forb apple, is a proof that he could not better have of him who forbade it.

But, it will be said, human parents forgive their dren however often, and however intensely they of provided that they be sorry for what they have don even whether they be sorry or not. Shall God b merciful than man? A kind earthly father never w estranges himself from the most undutiful son. should he. We forgive the offences of our children why? We have ourselves many offences to be forg Ill might sinners condemn sinners. But God has no tie upon him to remit sin, and for him to do so, th we might account it mercy towards those who ne such remission, would be cruelty to the universe sides.

To compare God's paternal government of his creatures with the government which a human father exercises over his family, is moreover, altogether unfair. Man is called by a natural instinct, intended to ensure the preservation of the race, to a partial and overweening affection for his own offspring; to consider their interest in preference to the interest of all other created beings. God regards with equal eye" all his creatures, and can not consider any one order or individual of them, at the expense of any other order, or individual."

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CHAP. VII.

On the probable duration of Future Punishment, as deducible by the inferences of Reason, from the necessary character of an all-perfect Governor of free and intelligent Beings.

If God be a being so perfectly just as we are wont to

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think, and if he have really placed all his intelligent creatures originally on the same terms, i. e. with exactly the same power of obeying or disobeying him, and exactly the same temptation to do so, it follows, that if we could ascertain the fit punishment of any rebel against God's government for his rebellion, we should know the fit punishment of all other such rebels. I say rebellion, because as I have all along endeavoured to shew, it is only as such, and not at all for its own sake, that any act can be sinful.

Let us suppose that an intelligent being of the highest order (whom, because that name will do as well as any

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other, we will call Satan) should rebel against his Maker, and stir up his fellows to rebel also. Let us suppose that he should wage impious war in heaven, and try to overthrow the perfect government of his omnipotent Maker. Should we say that the Almighty made a cruel or unjust use of his power, if, having hurled the rebel from his abode, he should deprive him of all his quondam power and happiness, and restrain him for ever from all possibility of renewing his impious attempt ? Surely not. Now if man being like Satan, a free agent, and immortal, should have engaged in an act of rebellion as direct, he would, if the premises be just, be the fit subject of one and the same punishment. No matter how insignificant in itself the act, if it were done in direct and wilful opposition to the known or supposed will of God. No matter if it should have been the mere eating of an apple which God had forbidden to eat; or a vain attempt to climb to heaven by means of a high tower; or any thing else as silly. In any of these cases, the act of disobedience constitutes the whole offence. God would be no more in danger from the attempt of any one of his creatures, than any other; all hold their power but from him, and from all he could withdraw it in a moment. When compared

with us, indeed the higher orders of intellectual beings. are great, and powerful, and glorious; but compared with our common Maker, we all sink into one and the same insignificance. The sun is immense when compared with this our globe, but like that, a speck in infinite space.

If all rebellion subject us, as a fit punishment, to a future eternal privation of happiness, and all be rebellion which is something done contrary to the known or supposed will of God, then any wilful opposition to the known or supposed will of God subjects us, as a fit punishment, to that eternal privation of happiness, which, we confess would be the due award of rebellious Satan.

to the performance of the required service, so his punishment must be most severe, who fails in that part of his required service, which it was most easy to perform. Let us suppose that the Almighty should lay an absolute command on men to refrain with equal care, from eating the apples of a certain tree, (other trees not interdicted, producing them more apples than they could possibly consume) and from avenging the seduction of a sister, by the death of the offender. It is obvious that to eat the forbidden apple, would be beyond all calculation a greater crime than to inflict death on the seducer. It is obvious that, in this case, to eat an apple would be infinitely a greater crime than to commit murder. By as much as it is more easy to refrain from eating an apple, than from avenging the ruin of a sister, by so much more criminal would be the rebellion of him who committed the former act, than his who committed the latter, and by so much would one deserve a severer punishment than the other. Both would have drawn upon themselves utter ruin, and the eternal privation of those blessings which they had been accustomed to enjoy, but the former would have. exposed himself to greater condemnation. I know not if it be possible to conceive a heavier crime than eating the forbidden apple would be, without supposing disobedience where there was absolutely no sort of temptation to disobey.

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Thus then, eternal privation of happiness is the fit punishment of any rebel against his Maker. But privation of happiness, to a being remembering his former state, would be excessive misery; the prospect of a never ending sameness of unblest life, must be exquisite suffering. And therefore we are led to conclude that condemnation to a state of eternal misery is the fit punishment of all rebels against God's government.

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What assurance can our Almighty Father possibly have that a rebel, whom he has once tried in vain, should ever cease to be rebellious? What method for keeping such an one from mischief, and interfering with the harmony of the universe, but the depriving him of all power; confining him in endless, impotence ? To say that we should have done better if God had tried us longer, is to allow nothing for the force of habit; the more habitual any sin is, the less our chance of leaving it off; and therefore to have given us a longer trial would as I have elsewhere shewn bring us into greater danger; would leave our escape less probable than it at present is. On the whole then, the eternal punishment of any rebel against God's government would be a measure, better than any other, calculated to ensure the general order of the universe, and it is a measure which we are bound to suppose that an all-wise Ruler, who must do every thing in the best possible mode, adopts....

CHAP. VIII.

On original Sin, as deducible by the inferences of Reason, from the necessary character of an all-per·fect Governor of free and intelligent beings, &c. &c.

IF

F we allow that all men have rebelled against their Maker, that none have expiated their rebellion, and that the harmony of God's general government requires the punishment of unexpiated sin, I know not why we need recur to what is called the doctrine of original sin, to shew that we all stand before God as condemned culprits.

In a future chapter.

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