Acts, who had had a hand in Christ's crucifixion, and innumerable instances of persecutors and others, who have been brought to repentance since those days. Such were converted by gentler means than those pains of hell, in what the Scripture calls everlasting burning; and that without any infringement of liberty necessary to their being moral agents. It would be unreasonable to suppose, that all those eighteen, on whom the tower of Siloam fell, were good men. But Christ would not have his hearers imagine they were worse than themselves; and yet intimates, that there was a possibility of their escaping future misery by repentance.

3. So far as pain and affliction are made use of to bring men to repentance, it is apparent God can make infinitely less severe chastisement effectual, together with such influences and assistances of his Spirit, as are not inconsistent with the persons' moral agency in their forsaking sin and turning to God. And, if it should be said, that none of them had the habits of sin so confirmed, as all such as die in sin; I would answer, That this is very unreasonably supposed; and if it should be allowed, yet it cannot be pretended, that the difference of guilt and hard-heartedness is proportionable at all to the severity of the chastisement used for purgation. If no more than ten degrees of pain, or one year's chastisement be requisite for the overcoming of five degrees of strength of the habit of sin, one would think, that less than 100,000 degrees, or 100,000 years' chastisement, should be sufficient to overcome ten degrees of strength of the same habit.

§ 22. If the torments of hell are purifying pains, and are used by a God of universal benevolence towards his creatures, as necessary means for the purgation of the wicked from sin, and their being fitted for, and finally brought to eternal happiness in the enjoyment of the love of God; then it will follow, that the damned in hell are still the objects of God's mercy and kindness, and that in the torments they suffer, they are the subjects of a dispensation of grace and benevolence. All is for their good; all is the best kindness that can be done them, the most benevolent treatment they are capable of, in their state of mind; and, in all, God is but chastising them as a wise and loving father, with a grieved and compassionate heart, gives necessary chastisement to sons whom he loves, and whose good he seeks to the utmost; in all he does he is only prosecuting a design of infinite kindness and favour. And indeed, some of the chief of those who are in the scheme of purifying pains, expressly maintain, that instead of being the fruits of vindictive justice, they are the effects of God's benevolence, not only to the system of intelligent creatures in general, but to the sufferers themselves. Now, how far are

these things from being agreeable to the representation which is made of things in the Holy Scriptures?

The Scriptures represent the damned as thrown away of God; as things that are good for nothing; and which God makes no account of; Matt. xiii. 48. As dross, and not gold and silver, or any valuable metal; Psalm cxix. 119. "Thou puttest away all the wicked of the earth as dross." So Ezek. xxii. 18. Jer. vi. 28-30; as salt that has lost its savour; as good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men; as stubble that is left, and as the chaff thrown out to be scattered by the wind, and go whither that shall happen to carry it, instead of being gathered and laid up as that which is of any value. Psalm i. 4. Job xxi. 18. and xxxv. 5; as that which shall be thrown away as wholly worthless, as chaff and stubble and tares; all which are thrown away as not worthy of any care to save them; yea, are thrown into the fire, to be burnt up as mere nuisances, as fit for nothing but to be destroyed, and, therefore, are cast into the fire, to be destroyed, and done with. Matt. iii, 12. and xii. 30; Job xxi. 18; as barren trees, trees that are good for nothing; and, not only so, but cumberers of the ground; and, as such, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire. Matt. iii. 10. and vii. 19. Luke xiii. 7; as barren branches in a vine, that are cut off and cast away; as good for nothing, and gathered and burned. John xv. 6; as thrown out, and purged away, as the filth of the world. Thus, it is said, Job xx. 7. that "the wicked shall perish for ever, as his own dung." They are spoken of as those that shall be spewed out of God's mouth; as thrown into the lake of fire; as the great sink of all the filth of the creation; Rev. xxi. 8. "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their share in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone." As oriers and thorns, that are not only wholly worthless in a field, but hurtful and pernicious; and are nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned; Heb. vi. i. e. the husbandman throws them into the fire, and so has done with them for ever. He does not still take care of them, in order to make them fruitful and flourishing plants in his garden of delights. The wicked, it is said, shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world; Job xviii. 18. Instead of being treated by God with benevolence, chastening them with the compassion and kindness of a father, for their great and everlasting good, they, at that day, when God shall gather his children together, to make them experience the blessed fruits of the love of an heavenly Father, shall be shut out as dogs; Rev. xxi. 7, 8. with chap. xxii. 14, 15. And are represented as vessels of dishonour, vessels of wrath, fit for

nothing else, but to contain wrath and misery. They are spoken of as those that perish and lose their souls-that are lost; (2 Cor. iv. 4.). Those that lose themselves, and are cast away; those that are destroyed, consumed, &c.; which representations do not agree with such as are under a dispensation of kindness, and the means of a physician, in order to their eternal life, health, and happiness, though the means are severe. When God, of old, by his prophets, denounced his terrible judgments against Jerusalem and the people of Israel, against Moab, Tyre, Egypt, Assyria, &c., which judgments, though long-continued, were not designed to be perpetual; there were mixed with those awful denunciations, or added to them, promises or intimations of future mercy. But, when the Scripture speaks of God's dealings with ungodly men in another world, there are nothing but declarations and denunciations of wrath and misery, and no intimations of mercy; no gentle terms used, no significations of divine pity, no exhortations to humiliation under God's awful hand, or calls to seek his face and favour, and turn and repent. The account that the Scripture gives of the treatment that wicked men shall meet with after this life, is very inconsistent with the notion of their being from necessity subjected to harsh means of cure, and severe chastisement, with a benevolent, gracious design of their everlasting good: particularly the manner in which Christ will treat them at the day of judgment. He will bid the wicked depart from him as cursed.

§ 23. We have no account of any invitations to accept of mercy; any counsels to repent, that they may speedily be delivered from this misery. But, it is represented, that then they shall be made his footstool. He shall triumph over them. He will trample upon them as men are wont to tread grapes in a wine-press, when they trample with all their might, to that very end, that they may effectually crush them in pieces. He will tread them in his anger, and trample them in his fury, and, as he says, their blood shall be sprinkled on his garments, and he will stain all his raiment, Isaiah Ixiii. at the beginning; Rev. xiv. 19, 20. and chap. xix. 15; in which last place, it is said, he treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. These things do not savour of chastening with compassion and benevolence, and as still prosecuting a design of love toward them, that he may in the end actually be their Saviour, and the means of their eternal glory. There is nothing in the account of the day of judgment, that looks as though saints had any love or pity for the wicked, on account of the terrible long-continued torments which they must suffer. Nor, indeed will the accounts that are given, admit of supposing any such thing. We have an account of their judging them, and being with Christ in condemning them, concurring in the VOL. VII. 50

sentence, wherein he bids them begone from him as cursed with devils into eternal fire; but no account of their praying for them, nor of their exhorting them to consider and repent.

They shall not be grieved, but rather rejoice at the glorious manifestations of God's justice, holiness, and majesty in their dreadful perdition, and shall triumph with Christ; Rev. xviii. 20. and xix. at the beginning. They shall be made Christ's footstool, and so they shall be the footstool of the saints. Psalm lxviii. 23. "That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same." If the damned were the objects of divine benevolence, and designed by God for the enjoyment of his eternal love, doubtless it would be required of all God's children to love them, and to pity them, and pray for them, and seek their good; as here, in this world, it is required of them to love their enemies, to be kind to the evil and unjust; and to pity and pray for the vilest of men, that were their own persecutors, because they are the subjects of God's mercy in many respects, and are fit objects of infinite divine mercy and love. If Christ, the head of all the Church, pities the damned, and seeks their good, doubtless his members ought to do so too. If the saints in heaven ought to pity the damned, as well as the saints on earth are obligated to pity the wicked that dwell here, doubtless their pity ought to be in some proportion to the greatness of the calamities of the objects of it, and the greatness of the number of those they see in misery. But if they had pity and sympathizing grief in such measure as this, for so many ages, what an alloy would it be to their happiness! God is represented as whetting his glittering sword, bending his bow, and making ready his arrows on the string against wicked men, and lifting his hand to heaven, and swearing, that he will render vengeance to his enemies, and reward them that hate him, and make his arrows drunk with their blood, and that his sword shall devour their flesh. Deut. xxxii. 40, 41, 42, and Psalm vii. 11, 12, 13. Certainly this is the language and conduct of an enemy, not of a friend, or of a compassionate, chastising father.

§ 24. The degree of misery and torment that shall be inflicted, is an evidence, that God is not acting the part of benevolence and compassion, and only chastening from a kind and gracious principle and design. It is evident, that it is God's manner, when he thus afflicts men for their good, and chastens them with compassion, to stay his rough wind in the day of his east wind; to correct in measure; to consider the frame of those that are corrected; to remember their weakness, and to consider how little they can bear. He turns away his anger, and does not stir up all his wrath. Psalm lxxviii. 37, 38, 39. Isa, xxvii. 8. Jer. xxx. 11. and xlvi. 28. And it

is his manner, in the midst even of the severest afflictions, to order some mitigating circumstances, and to mix some mercy. But the misery of the damned is represented as unmixed. The wine of the wrath of God is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, that they may be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment shall ascend up for ever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night. Rev. xiv. 10, 11. They are tormented in a flame that burns within them, as well as round about them, and they shall be denied so much as a drop of water to cool their tongues. And God's wrath shall be inflicted in such a manner as to show his wrath, and make his strength known on the vessels of wrath, and which shall be punished with everlasting destruction; answerable to that glory of Christ's power in which he shall appear at the day of judgment, when he shall come in the glory of his Father, with power and great glory, in flaming fire, to take vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the gospel. Can any imagine, that in all this God is only correcting from love, and that the subjects of these inflictions are some of those happy ones whom God corrects in order to teach them out of his law? whom he makes sore, and bindeth up? Job v. 17, 18. Psalm xciv. 12. There is nothing in Scripture that looks as if the damned were under the use of means to bring them to repentance. It is apparent that God's manner is, when he afflicts men, to bring to repentance by affliction, to join instructions, admonitions, and arguments to persuade.

But if we judge by scripture representations of the state of the damned, they are left destitute of all these things.-There are no prophets, or ministers, or good men, to admonish them, to reason and expostulate with them, or to set them good examples. There is a perfect separation made betwixt all the righteous and the wicked by a great gulf: so that there can be no passing from one to the other. They are left wholly to the company of devils, and others like them. When the rich man in hell cries to his father Abraham, begging a drop of water, he denies his request; and adds no exhortation to repentance. Wisdom is abundantly represented in the book of Proverbs, as counselling, warning, calling, inviting, and expostulating with such as are under means for the obtaining wisdom, and as waiting upon them in the use of means, that they may turn at her reproof. But as to such as are obstinate under these means of grace and calls of wisdom, till the time of their punishment comes, it is represented, that their fear shall come as desolation, and destruction as a whirlwind; that distress. and anguish shall come upon them: and that then it will be in vain for them to seek wisdom; that if they seck her early, they