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from the faith; but in this departure from the faith it is on account of feducing fpirits actuating men, in rebellion; for the doctrine taught by them is peculiarly the doctrine of fatan, for he firit rose in rebellion in heaven, and he has been conftantly pract fing and preaching the fame doctrine ever fince. This rebellion includes in it all the opposition that is made against Chrift and his kingdom, whether of providence or grace, among devils and among men. The apoftle fays this fhall take place in the last times, which cannot mean that it never exilted before in no degree whatever, but that at or near the close of fatan's reign on earth, whether in his Pagan dominion, or Mahometan and Papal delufion, a more direct and barefaced rebellion against Jehovah will appear among men, as though fatan were visibly at the head of them. It is as it were reducing all former modes of rebellion into one point, and as it were challeng

falfe accufations may then be in dulged with the greatefl freedom; incontinence will be a very fashionable practice, and the marriage tie be no longer binding; then the foft and gentle manners that render fociety agreeable will be exchanged for favage fiercenefs; good men, those who are on the fide of religion and order, are to be defpifed, neglected and contemned; then alfo men may, if they please, betray the most important trufts; then men will believe that fenfual pleafare and gratification, indulged without any control is the chief good of man; Deity is confidered by them only as a fervant to ferve them in all their carnal defires or inclinations; and fo far they will pretend to pay a respect, to the Great Jehovah but no farther; all reli- | gious forms that may be adopted by them will be calculated for nothing more; having a form of God. linefs but denying the power of it. All this will ferve to fhew that the apoftle truly faid fuch a time is perilous. That fuch men and fuching the Almighty to fingle combat. principles and practices are now on the theatre of this world, none who have any information or knowledge of the world will deny. Scarcely any prophecy in its fulfilment, has exhibited clearer evidence of its truth and certainty than this; fo that we may know that it is the last time.

Such a time and fuch characters St. Paul mentions, in few words, in his first letter to Timothy, in the beginning of the 4th chapter, where he fays that "the fpirit fpeaketh exprefsly that in the laft times, fome fhall depart from the faith, giving heed to feducing fpirits and doctrines of devils, *fpeaking lies in hypocrify, &c." It may be noted here, that the apoftle has refpect to falfe profeffors of Christianity, by their departing

This time and ftate of things will produce fear and trembling among the friends of God; diftrefs and anxiety will fill their minds, from many confiderations. But at all times they have their resources, and at this time in particular I ap prehend they may receive abundant confolation and fatisfaction, from the fame fpirit of prophecy that has told us of the perils and dangers of the prefent time. The prophet does not leave the Church of God in a gloom, but at the close of the relation he adds an example, of a like cafe, in the time of Mofes, when God came down to deliver his friends from the hands of their perfecuting enemies, for he adds, "Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Mofes, fo dothefe alfo refift the truth, men of corrupt

minds reprobate concerning the counteracting him in his working faith; but they fhall proceed no miracles in order to remove the farther, for their folly fhall be man-plagues, what they did, if any ifeft unto all men as theirs alfo thing, tended to increase them. was." This being held out as a They did not relieve Pharaoh nor perfect example of the nature, pro-his people in the leaft, but involved grefs and final overthrow, of the them in greater calamity. So at prefent combination and exertion this day, notwithftanding all the of fatan's adherents; if we look charm there is in the cry of liberty back on Jannes and Jambres and and emancipation from the fhackles fee how they fucceeded, we may of government and religion, their thereby difcover what will foon cafe is evidently growing worse, be the fate of the present rebellion and they are finking deeper and against all law and government, hu- deeper in calamity and woe. zd. man and divine. The prophet The magicians, of whom Jannes fays they shall proceed no farther, and Jambres were chief, did not no farther than what? Why no effect any thing more than the farther than Jannes and Jambres hardening of Pharaoh's heart, in did; for their folly, that is the fol- order that more plagues might be ly of the present rebels fhall be added, as well on themselves as on manifeft unto all men, even as all Egypt; they did not in the theirs was, that is as Jannes' and leaft retard the deliverance of God's Jambres' was. The two cafes are people, they did not at all increase fimilar in thefe refpects, viz. 1ft, their burdens, nor did they effect They ftrove by their magical art the deftruction of any of them : to make Pharaoh believe that Mo- neither did they obtain any more fes was an impoftor and that his dominion over them, for themfelves God was not to be regarded and or for Pharaoh. Both loft ground they could prove it by doing the in that refpect, and fo continued fame miracles that he did. (Now until both Pharoah and they were Jannes and Jambres according to drowned in the depth of the fea. the Jewish tradition were two fons It may be afked, why the magi of Balaam, and were the chief ma cians did not advise Pharaoh to gicians then at Pharaoh's court.) imprifon Mofes and ftop his workSo the infidel philofophers of the ing fuch wonders as to confound prefent day, renounce all revealed them, and destroy their influence religion and endeavour to prove over him? It was becaufe God that all the meffengers from God are was with him, and had engaged to cheats and liars. They are repro- fucceed him in his errand to Phabate concerning the faith. For raoh. And why too did they not a fhort time thofe magicians feem- obtain an edict, to put all the IFed to fucceed, but their folly and raelites to the fword? It was beweakness foon appeared; for altho' caufe the time was come, for them they appeared to equal Mofes in to be delivered, from that yoke of working two or three wonders, bondage. They had been afflicted yet they could proceed no farther, by the Egytians long enough; and but confeffed to Pharaob, that the they were not permitted to inmiracle, of bringing lice was the creafe their affliction in any degree, finger of God. What was pecufor the time with them and Phaliar in their folly of withstand-raoh was the last time of his reign ing Mofes, was, that inftead of and ufurpation, and the last time VOL. I. No. 8.

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of their felfering under his rod; with what we often fee in the therefore the agicians were allow-world, the uninterrupted profpered to proce no further. Theity of notoriously wicked perfons apostle, in brining up this example and their children, for feveral of the progrefnd end of the ene-generations together?" mes of truth, and applying it to the faff times, refpecting the gofpel, may include in it, the last time or ending of Satan's perfecuting the Church, and of the war that the fpirit of prophecy had faid fhould be made with the faints in which their enemies were to overcome them and kill them; and that it is the last of their fuffering by being in the wilderness, as fpoken of by St. John in the Revelations. That as Jannes and Jambres withstood Mofes, at the time that the Church

of Ifrael was to be freed from bon

dage, and effected nothing, but

their own deftruction

;

fo thefe

men at the prefent day, who oppofe the truth, will produce no evil to the church, but bring on themselves fwift deftruction; and the friends of God will be compleatly fecured and delivered from their malice and rage.

M.

An answer to queflions, respecting
God's vifiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon their children.
MESS'RS. EDITORS,

IN the 239th page of your Magazine, an answer was de. fired to thefe queftions, "How is it to be understood, that God vifits the iniquity of a father upon ' his children down to the fourth generation; and how is this confiftent with individual refponfibility?" Exod. xx. 5. "For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, vifiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate me." 39

"Further, How is this confiftest

obfervations will be suggested, Ņ anfwer to these queries, fome which should nothing better be prefented, you are at liberty to infert in your Magazine. By vifiting the iniquity of the father upon finful exercifes or actions of parthe children, is not meant, that the to their children, that the children ents are fo imputed or transferred do in fact become guilty of these. This transfer of perfonal exercifes, is both abfurd and impoffible.and fo of guilt from one to another,

Neither does it mean, that God views or confiders children as guilparents, as fome have expreffed it. ty, in any fenfe, of the fins of their For God views every thing, as it really is; and therefore cannot confider children as actually guilty of the perfonal finful exercises of their parents, fince it is not in fact the cafe.

But by "vifiting the iniquity of the father upon the children," is meant bringing evils, temporal or fpiritual, upon children in confequence of the fins of their parents, and as a token of his difpleasure against them. Whenever the Most High brings upon perfons any evil, in confequence of the wickednefs of their parents or ancestors, he then, according to his threatening, vifits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children.

But this idea may be more clearly illuftrated by adverting to facts. When Korah, Dathan, and Abiram impioufly rebelled against the Lord, he caufed the earth to open her mouth, and fwallow them up with their wives, fons and little children. Thus by deftroying the

children of these wicked men, as a token of his awful difpleasure against their daring impiety, God vifited upon them the iniquity of their fathers. So the children of Achan, who took of the accuffed thing at Jericho, were, by the exprefs command of Jehovah, stened to death with their father, and in confequence of his fin.-The children and infants, who perished in the deluge, and in the deftruction of Sodom, were visited for the iniquity of their fathers. For they fuffered these awful judgments on account of the exceeding wickednefs of their parents.

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God alfo permitted Abfalom to rife up in a moft unnatural and wicked rebellion against his father, and thus to bring himself to a wretched, untimely end, in confequence of the fin of his father in the matter of Uriah. To punifh David for his wickedness in this affair, God fays, "Behold, I will raife up evil against thee out of thineown houfe." This denunciatiou was fulfilled in the wicked rebellion of Abfalom, which ended in his own ruin.Omitting many other inftances, recorded in scripture, where children have fuffered peculiar evils in confequence of the fins of their fathers; the Jewish nation are a remarkable example of this kind. For more than 1700 years, they have been vififited with the most awful judgments, temporal and spiritual, as a token of God's difpleafure againft the aggravated guilt of their ancestors; who rejected and murdered the Lord of glory, impiously imprecated his blood upon themselves and pofterity, and cruelly perfecuted and destroyed his faithful fervants. Soon after this, the great body of that nation were deftroyed with unparalleled cruelty and flaughter. The remains of this wretched people were fold in throngs as flaves, and

have ever fince been scattered up and down in almost every nation upon earth. In very few countries have they been allowed the common rights of fubjects; but have been oppreffed, abufed, trampled upon, and even murdered with impunity. And often have they as a people been banished from one country and another, and their property and children cruelly torn from them. Thus God has, in a very remarkable manner, accomplished his awful threatenings against this nation, as delivered by Mofes, Deuteronomy 28th chapter, that he would fcatter them among all people; that they fhould become a proverb and by word among all nations; that among thefe nations they fhould find no ease or reft; but the Lord would give them a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and forrow of mind; and that the Lord would make their plagues wonderful, and the plagues of their feed, even great plagues, and of long continuance. And during this long period, they appear, as a people, to have been under the most awful spiritual judgments-to have been given up to a peculiar hardnefs of heart and blindness of mind. According to the declaration of the apoftle, "God hath given them the fpirit of flumber; eyes that they fhould not fee, and cars that they fhould not hear, unto this day."

In the various inftances now mentioned, God vifited the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, by bringing upon them temporal and spiritual evils in confequence of the fins of their parents. And children are always thus vifited, when they experience any evils or calamities on account of the wickedness of their parents or ancestors. When therefore the children of thieves, drunkards,

ters are fubjected to poverty, difgrace, and other evils, through the vices of their parents, or are fuffered to run into thefe fame deftructive vicious courfes; or when the children of irreligious parents are left to follow their evil example, and thus to bring upon them felves everlasting deftruction; God then vifits upon them the iniquity of their fathers. This is alfo the cafe, when children are deftroyed by carthquakes, peftilential fick neffes, and other judgments, which are fent upon particular places, on account of their wickedness and as a token of the divine difpleafure. In thefe various ways God, in his providence, is continually vifiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children. He does it now, as really as he did it in paft ages; for he declares it to be a part of his character, and this is unchangeably the fame forever. It is alfo confimed by facts, which continually take place around us, in which we fee, that children do experience evils on account of the vices and mifconduct of their parents.

murderers, and other vile charac- | fpeaks of "vifiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation" he does not declare, that he will never visit their iniquities upon their children beyond the fourth generation.-And it appears in fome inftances, that children do, for more than four generations, experience evils in confequence of the wickednefs of their parents.Thus on account of the finful neg left of Eli, God fays, "There fhall not be an old man in thine houfe forever. I will judge or punifh his houfe forever, for the iniquity which he knoweth; becaufe his fons made themfelves vile, and he reftrained them not." So to punith Gehazi, for his covetoufnefs and falfehood, the prophet Elifha declared, that the leprofy of Naaman fhould cleave unto him, and unto his feed forever.-God alfo commanded Saul to destroy the Amalekites on account of the injury, which their ancestors did unto Ifrael, when they came out of Egypt, more than 400 years before. The Jewish nation have been vifited, for the iniquity of their forefathers with peculiar judg ments for upwards of 1700 years. All the pofterity of Adam, in confequence of his tranfgreffion, come into the world with depraved difpofitions; and fo on account of this their finfulness are expofed to all the evils and miferies of this life, and to everlafting destruction in the future. Thus for almost 6000 years God has vifited upon mankind the iniquity of their first fathers.

But the declaration, " For I the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, vifiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children" is not a pofitive declaration, that he will in every inftance vifit the iniquity of the fathers upon their children. But the expreffion is general, implying, that he frequently does it, or that he may juftly do it in all initances, where he fees fit With out any violation of his truth therefore he may in his fovereign mercy difpenfe with this mode of proce It appears therefore, from facts, dure, whenever he pleafes. But that the expreffion" unto the third it is owing to his fovereign good- and fourth generation" must not nefs, that he does not in every in- be defigned to limit God's dealings tance, execute this denunciation, in this way precifely or certainly to by visiting the iniquity of the fath the fourth generation. Accord ers upon the children.-When Godingly the expreffion feems to be of

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