ALthough I am not so vain as to flatter my self into a conceit, that either the first or the second Apprehensions of All, or of Most are like to be as partial in my Favour, or Candid, as a Generous and Noble friends: Yet to obey you, and to acquit my self of some part of what I owe you for your Kindness to my former Discourse, and for your Civility to me, I am at last resolv'd to Expose Another to Mercy; well Assured that whatever Entertainment Ruder hands may give it, It shall receive in Yours, and in those of worthy Persons, none but what is Fair and Equitable. And this is all it desires. Which that you may afford without Repugnance, I must oblige you to consider, that if you do not find in this Essay, no more than in the Former, the Gratification and Delight that Novelty in things is wont to bring with it, you ought not to impute it either as a Fault to the Author, or as a Defect to the Work, but to ascribe it purely to the Fulness and Riches of your own Mind; it being that alone which renders you uncapable of such agreeable Surprize and Pleasure, as not a Few Resent in what appeareth New to them, because indeed there can but little seem so to one of your Endowments and Knowledge. But what talk I of things New: For as to my first Essay, whosoever shall but give himself the trouble to Remind the Method I imployed therein, will easily Determine I never had design of innovating new Notions, seeing if I had, I could not hope to evidence them in the wayes I there propos'd (to do it) either from the Scriptures, by which I was to regulate my self in all I said, or from the Philosophers. You may believe I only courted Truth, and that I resolved to express my self in common Notions, and to common sense, in Reasons that were suitable to Mankind; fully Perswaded, that the things I treated on were of so ample, and so large a Nature, that no Arguments, no Notions of Scholasticks, or of any other private Faction, Party, Sect, or Division of men, would ever Adaequate, and Suit, and fit them. Notions deduced from common sense, are only capable of Adjusting things of common Concernment. And if I my self have any regard for these Conceptions, which have had the Fortune to entertain the World with Variety of Discourse, 'tis only for their plainness and facility, because I take them generally to be such as every body that attends, will think he had the same before, and that he never thought otherwise: Which if they were not, I should be very much inclined to suspect them False, since I am apt enough to think it to be as true of Truth, as of the God of Truth, that it is not far from any of us, if we will but feel and grope after it. Certainly those Conceptions are not most likely to be truest, which are most elaborate, and farthest fetcht; but which are easiest and most natural. Truth lyeth not so deep in the Well, as many (with Democritus) think, and who thinking so, do often overlook it.

And having made you this Apology for the Plainness of my first Essay, I hope I need not add, that in this second you are not to expect Profound, Uncommon, Deep, Elaborate Notions, but Easie, Natural, Sensible, Plain and Obvious Ones, [such as whoever reads, may comprehend] in what I shall rejoyn to your Letter. which, that my Reply unto it may be the more distinct and orderly, I shall distribute into three Parts, and so proportion and adjust my Answer; of which

The First containeth matter of Reflection on Others.

The Second, matter of charge on Me.

The Third, matter of Exception, or Argument against Divine Goodness.

Of these in Order.

And first concerning the first Head, matter of Reflection on Others, These are not only Dogma's of the Hobbists, and Mahometans, but of Gentlemen of the Geneva Twang.

And here I beg pardon for disowning that knowledge you impose upon me, concerning worthy Persons of the Geneva Perswasion; (for I presume, you mean Geneva Perswasion by Geneva Twang, a term I profess I do as little understand in any other sense, as I believe it not to be Canonical or Receiv'd in this.) For I know not any under that Notion so forsaken of their Wits, or their Religion, as in terms to Assert, God Rules by Will, that he hath no consideration of his Creatures comfort, but only of his own Glory; that he made the Greatest part of men to Damn them and triumph in their Ruine, and that he cruelly exacts Impossibilities, and obliges men to come, when yet he knows they cannot.

But, if there are any under that, or other Notions, who affirm and assert such things, (though properly I may not call them Atheists) and indeed it were a Contradiction in the Adject so to do) yet I think, I shall not be Uncharitable in believing that they that are none, have made many; since I know not any more effectual way of inclining and disposing men unto Denyal of the Being of God, than to Represent and Paint him out to them, in Idea's not agreeable to common Reason, nor Sense. You may sooner make them believe themselves to be no men, than that there is such a God. They that have been constantly told that Contradictions cannot be, and that God himself can never make them be, will very hardly be induced to believe, that God himself is, if the very Notion they are taught of him be a contradiction. And who can reconcile the Roughness of these. Expressions of the Absolute and Tyrannical Empire of God, to those other softer ones of his Goodness and Kindness, and Tenderness for men? Certainly, the Will of God by which he doth all things, is not absolute, and meer Will, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Counsel of Will; and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Good Will, Good Pleasure. And thus all men should speak.

True it is, that all do not, for some, especially (the) Moderns, in Vindication and assertion of Divine Dominion and Soveraignty, have biassed too much to one Extream, using terms sounding not a little harsh in mild and temperate Ears: as others on the contrary, in contemplation and assertion of Divine Goodness and Clemency, have also done to the other. The Reason of mens running to extreams in this matter, and of their aberration from the mark and scope to which they should direct their thoughts, is, that they look on God abstractly, under one or other Attribute, whereas they ought to consider him in all his Attributes together; and all these, in all their several and respective Aspects, as they have a mutual Influence upon, Concernment with, and Respect, Order, and Habitude unto each other. For such an Agency on one another, and such a Complication and Concernment have the Attributes in God, that it is as true of them in their Connection in the Godhead, as of the Persons of the Trinity, that One is in Another, or rather, that they are together in God, so as that one receiveth some modification (as it were) and some respect from the other. You may believe of all the other Attributes, in their mutual and respective Aspects, what I shall instance but in One, I mean Divine Goodness, which as it is complicated [for Example] with alike Greatness; so it receives, a Character therefrom, and must be suitably deferred to. Thus David, there is mercy with thee that thou mayest be Feared; Mercy, that thou mayest be feared; and therefore God is to be feared for his mercy, because he is as Great, as Merciful; and so Moses, Fearful in Praises; Fearful Objectively and Passively; God is to be feared while we praise him, and for this reason, because he is Almighty as well as Beneficient, Dread Majesty as well as Gracious, and consequently, not only the Object of our Love and Praise, but of our Fear and Dread. We ought not too abstractly to consider God under One Attribute, without reflecting on him under others, for we must rejoyce with trembling; while we Rejoyce in his Goodness, we must also Tremble at his Greatness. He is Good, and He is Great also.

Concerning the second head, matter of Charge on me.—But Sir they are not Atheists, &c.

And so much for the first part of your Letter, and in return to the second; or as to those Reflections you suggest me to intend, in making the Atheist Personate you tell not who; I utterly disclaim them, and profess with all imaginable clearness and sincerity, that though I know a sort of persons (far enough from being Atheists) that do argue against others, in terms somewhat resembling some of those wherein I dress mine, yet I was not guilty of a Design of so much weakness, as in what I said to Reflect on them for that as such. I am free to say of all Reflection in the Present matter, as some are wont to say of far fetch' • Jests, that he alone does make the Reflection, that can understand it to be One. For my part, I abhor Reflections and Hard words, as neither Philosophical, nor Civil, nor Christian. Nor did I introduce the Atheist to personate another, but to speak for himself. But while we are mentioning Reflections, give me leave to ask, if you your self reflected not on Gentlemen of the Geneva Twang, while you were yoaking them with the Hobbists and with the Mahumetans.

Concerning the third dead; point of Argument, or Exception against Divine Goodness.

And having (as I hope) in what I have offer'd, fully vindicated my self from all that sinister Interpretation you Insinuate me subject to, I am now according to the Order you observe in your Letter, oblig'd in the Third place to vindicate Divine Goodness, from those Exceptions that do seem to lye against it, in relation to Eternal Punishment.

Which that I may do the more Distinctly, and to your full contentment, I will Reduce the Arguments you Urge about it, to four heads.

Of these in order, and first to the first Argument, the seeming improportion of Infinite and Eternal Punishment to Finite Transgressions.

—Give an account (you say) how it is consistent with Divine Goodness to inflict Infinite and Eternal Punishments for Finite Transgressions.

And here, you will give me leave to Awaken in your thoughts an Observation, which no question you have made your self long ago, that Opinions and other Motions of our Minds, are as often the Result of Constitution and Complexion, as of Reason and Judgement. For That Consideration in a person of a tender, sensible and compassionate Temper (such as your own) is sufficient to account to any that Reflects upon it, for the Difficulty he may find his Thoughts to make, to conceive it consistent with Divine Goodness, That Infinite and Eternal Punishments should be inflicted on the sinner, but for Temporal and Finite Transgressions.

But for your fuller satisfaction in the present Scruple, and an Impregnable and clear Assertion of Divine Godness, as well as Iustice (which also is concerned) from all the Ignominious Apprehensions under which they seem to lye in this Matter, I shall here particularly Evidence, First, That it hath pleased God to order and appoint for sin, Infinite, or Everlasting Punishments and Torments, to be inflicted Hereafter. Secondly, That there is not any Inequality or Improportion between the Punishment ordained, and the Sin, but a great Equality and Proportion. Thirdly, That it is a great Instance of Divine Benignity and Goodness to ordain Eternal Punishments, and to threaten men with them, as a suitable means in order to their Reformation in the present World, and to their salvation in the future. Fourthly, That it being Goodness to Ordain the Punishment, and to threaten men with it, in order to the compassing those Good and Gracious Ends upon them, It is no Want of Goodness, no more than 'tis Injustice, to Inflict it on the Obstinate and Irreclaimable, on whom these Good Designs are lost and defeated.

Of these in Order.

And First, That it hath pleased God to order and appoint for sin not only Temporal, and Momentany, but Infinite and Eternal Punishments, and that he threatens men with them, is a great Truth; such an One as is so fully setled in the Holy Scriptures, that I Admire how any who Pretend to read these, can make any Q • estion of it. For what expression can be more significant and full, than that of Iohn? that the Blessed Jesus, when he once hath gathered • all his Wheat into his Granary, 〈◊〉 burn up the chaffe with Unquenchable Fire; Alluding in it (likely) unto that of Isaiah, their worm shall not dye, neither shall their Fire be quench'd. Nor is that of Iesus Christ himself, in the Form of the Sentence (hereafter in the day of Judgement) to be pronounced on the Wicked, less Pregnant, Depart from me ye Cursed into Everlasting Fire, prepared for the Devil and his Angels. And as full as either, is this of our great Apostle, that the Lord Jesus shall hereafter be Revealed from Heaven, with his mighty Angels, in flaming Fire, taking Vengeance on them who know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Iesus Christ, who (saith he) shall be punished with Everlasting Destruction, from the Presence of the Lord, and from the Glory of his Power. Everlasting Destruction, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the same word to shew the Everlastingness of that Destruction as to shew the Everlastingness of God himself: It is here 〈◊〉 Everlasting Destruction, and otherwhere, it is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Everlasting God. I know 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 sometimes used to signifie a Duration that is not Everlasting; but you see it also used to signifie One that is: And the Subject Matter must determine the Sense.

And who can once Question the Perpetuity and Everlastingness of Future Punishments, that seriously considers the Greatness and Infinity of the Wrath that shall inflict them? They are to be the Issues of the Utmost Wrath of God, and therefore are not simply called Wrath, but Wrath in the Day of Wrath; Men treasuring up unto themselves infernal Torments, being Affirmed in the Sacred Writings, to treasure up Wrath unto themselves against the Day of Wrath.

And Judge how great a Wrath that is, since all Resentments in the heart of God proportion and adjust him? Without Question, whatever is in God, is in him according to the Vastness and Capacity of God; so that seeing God is absolutely Infinite in Being, and also is Immutable and Unchangeable, Wrath and Hatred, as well as Love and Good Will, as they exist in him, are also so. The Wrath of the King is as the Roaring of a Lion; what then is the Wrath of the King of Kings!

It is true, the Anger of Almighty God is in the present Dispensation trusted in the hands of Jesus Christ, [All Iudgement is committed to the Son] and therefore for the present, since He, who hath the letting out of Wrath, is partaker of the Flesh and Blood of the Brethren, and so of kin to us, no wonder if it be let out according to Humane Measures, and with some consideration, and respect for man; which yet hereafter in the World to come, when things shall be no longer in a Mediators hands, but God himself who is inexorable, and inflexible but in his Son, shall immediately be All in All, and do All in All, is not to be presumed or hoped. So that though Divine Wrath break not out on sinners altogether in this World, yet in another it will. There is a Day of Wrath, and of the Revelation of the Righteous Judgement of God.

Here perhaps it may be offer'd, that Jesus Christ is so invested in the Government of things, that he has not only the managery of them before the day of Judgement, but is also to conclude the Scene in it, and consequently that the Sentence then to be pronounced, since it is to be so by a man, will be past on men with some allay and abatement. But it must be minded, that though the Son of man shall Judge the World, yet that he shall come to do so 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in the Glory of his Father, or in Divine Majesty; as who would say, that when he Judges, He will lay aside those Humane considerations and Respects he had before, and as he appeared more like man in all Precedent Transactions, so that He will shew himself like God in this last. Beside, He will immediately resign the Government, assoon as he hath passed sentence; and (as I noted before) then God shall be All in All, so no Mutation, no Alteration (after that) of States or Things.

I confess, Philosophy as clear and quick-fighted as she was in other Articles of Christian Doctrine, was but obscure and dimm in This. For though she saw a day of Judgement, and Rewards and Punishments in the Future Life, for whatever should be done in the Present, as is evident not only in Plato, both in the Story of Erus in his Rep. and in that fabulous tradition of which in Gorgias he maketh Socrates Relater; but also in Plutarch, in his Consolation to Apollonius, and in his Golden Treatise of Divine deferring of Punishment. So in Seneca, in Iamblicus, and in many other of the grave and antient Philosophers.

Yet for want of Understanding of the Interest that Jesus Christ hath in Things Now, and by consequence, unhappily mistaking in taking measure of the Distribution of Rewards and Punishments hereafter, by what is at present; She saw not their Eternity and Infinite duration. For whoever readeth Plato in his Book of Laws, cannot doubt of his Opinion in the matter; Plutar. de iis q. tar. • Num. co • rip. nor is Plutarch less plain, who in the Fable of Thespesius of Soles, expresly tells us, that Infernal Punishments are Purgatory and Medicinal, Clem. Alexand. Str • w. l. 5. as Ephesius also thought the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Infernal Fire to be. And withal, that there is a certain Term set for their Duration and Continuance, which expires, when the soul is fully cleansed, purged and Refined by them, from all Infection of Matter, and all its Filth. Finis autem (faith he) & terminus tormentorum ac purgationis existit, quum concreta exempts est labes, Pl • t. de iis qui tard. à Num. cor. anima que splendida & ab omnibus ma • ulis & labe reddi • ur pura. This was Plutarch's Opinion of Infernal Torments, and Seneca can own no other, as will appear hereafter, when we shall shew his notion of Punishment.

Yes, Virgil. apud Lactant. Instit. l. 7.6.22. and if we will believe Virgil in the Eloquent Lactantius, it was in his time a General Tradition (for he but Relates what he himself had heard, sit mihi fas audita loqui,) That the Damned Spirits, after they have suffered in the Infernal Gulf a thousand years, the Punishments inflicted on them (for their sins) are at the expiration of the said Term, to be sent to Bethe, there to take a Cup of Oblivion or Forgetfulness. And having drunk there their Fill, Benummed with a Mortal Sopor, and consequently Irrecoverably losing and forgetting All they did, or suffer'd before, are then Restored to a new Condition, and Re-admitted into Heaven, where they live again in all Felicity and Happiness, till not contented with it, but Longing to make another Tryal of their Fortunes here below on this Terrestrial Stage, they be accordingly disposed into Proper Vehicles, and (so) Reappear in Our World to expiate that Folly and Weakness of leaving the Other. This is the Round. A Revolution and Hypothesis to which the Origenian is so like, that I believe it a Daughter; and so believed St. Augustine, Aug. de Ciuit. D • i, l. 11.6.23. who mentions and confutes it as Origen's. Again, who feeth not in this (Hypothesis) That Lethe, that Fiction of the Poets, Answers to the State of Silence, which some Learned men improve, and stand upon so much in Their's! I lay it down as certain, That Lethe is the State of Silence. But let Maro speak himself.

This was the Old Hypothesis; so Dark were former Ages: Yes so dark were former Ages in the Point of Death Eternal, or of the Perpetuity of the Punishments in the other World, that before Christ, they seemed scarce at all to Understand it. This (I take it) is the meaning of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, when in the first Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, he saith, the Wrath of God is Revealed from Heaven; namely, that the Light of Nature, by which I understand the Catholick Tradition of the World, as well as common Reason, did not manifest the Perpetuity of infernal Torments, but that before the Preaching of the Gospel, which is a Revelation of the Mind of God from Heaven, men as little apprehended the Wrath of God for sin, in the Duration and Eternity thereof, as they did the Righteousness of God, for Salvation from it. It is the Gospel bringeth both Eternal Death, and Eternal Life to Light. This Knowledge is an Effect of the Light of Revelation, and not of the Light of Nature. The Wrath of God, as well as the Righteousness of God, is reveal'd from Heaven. Oppositorum eadem est scientia.

But yet as clear a Revelation as there is Now from Heaven in the Gospel, of Eternal Wrath on Sinners, as the Philosophers before ignor'd it, so there are many Christians since, not only Origen and those who follow him, but also others, who make a scruple to admit it: concerning whom and their Dogmata, together with the Censure of the Church on Origen for this Conceit, you have the Excellent St. Augustine in a Chapter of his Treatise of the City of God, Aug. de Ciu. dei, l. 21. c. 17. designedly discoursing in these terms. Now I must have a Gentle disputation with certain tender hearts of our own Religion, who think that God, who hath justly doomed the Damned to Hell fire, will after a certain space, which his Goodness shall think fit for the merit of each mans guilt, deliver them from that torment. And of this Opinion was Origen in far more pittiful manner, for He held that the Devils themselves after a set time expired, should be loosed from their torments, and become bright Angels in Heaven, as they were before, but this and other of his Opinions, chiefly that Rotation, and Circum-volution of misery and bliss, which he held, that all mankind should run in, gave the Church cause to pronounce him Anathema, seeing he had lost, &c. But to Return.

Thus Infinite Eternal Punishments are (you see) ordain'd for Sinners. But of the Nature of them, and where they are Inflicted, as I cannot hold my self obliged to discourse here at large, so I shall not; Only thus much I will say, that Hell, it noteth not so much a Place, as a State; and yet in regard that that State must needs be in some Place, I will offer somewhat, first, as to the Place, and then, as to the State, or (if you please) the Kind and Nature of the Torments of Hell.

For the Place: The old Theologists among the Heathen (if we may believe Macrobius) before Philosophy was Extant, esteemed the Body Hell, and that the Soul descended into Hell, when first it came into the Body: Antequam studium philosophiae (saith he) circa nature inquisitionem ad tantum vigoris adolesceret, Macrob. in Some. Scip, • . 10. qui per diversas gentes autores in constituendis sacris ceremoniarum fu • runt, aliud esse inferos negau • runt, quàm ipsa corpora, quibus inclusae animae, carcerem foedum tenebris, horridum sordibus & cruore patiuntur.

And Basilides that conceited Heretick, as also the Marcionists before him, held the same Opinion, that Souls that had committed sin in another Life, did come to satisfie and suffer for it in this; Than which (as a Father tells us) nothing could be said with more Extravagance and Folly. Lactant. de falsa sap. c. 18. Quae ignorantia effecit, ut quosdam dicere non puderet, idcirco nos esse natos, ut scelerum poenas lueremus, quo quid delirius dici possit, non invenio. Ubi enim, vel quae scelera potuimus admittere, qui omnino non fuimus? Nisi forte credemus inepto illi seni, qui se inpriori vita Euphorbum fuisse mentitus est.

But some of the Platonists (for, as the lately mentioned Macrobius informs us, there were of three Opinions concerning it among them) affirmed that the Place of Hell was all that space between the Moon, or (as they Lov'd to speak) the Ethereal Earth and This; the Description whereof, as I receiv'd it from the Author, because it may afford an Entertainment to the Curious and Inquisitive, I will represent at large out of Him. Macrob. in Som • . Scip. c. 11. Inferos autem Platonici non in corporibus esse, id est, non à corporibus incipere, dixerunt, sed certam mundi ipsius partem Ditis sedem, id est, Inferos vocaverunt. De loci vero ipsius finibus inter se dissona publicarunt, & in tres sectas divisa sententia est. Alii enim mundum in duo diviserunt, quorum alterum facit, alterum patitur. Et illud facere dixerunt, quod cum sit immutabile, alteri causam & necessitatem permutationis imponit: Hoc pati, quod per mutationes variatur. Et immutabilem quidem mundi partem à Sphaera quae aplanes dicitur, us que ad globi lunaris exordium. Mutabilem vero à luna ad terras us que dixerunt. Et vivere animas dum in immutabili parte consistunt, mori autem cum ad partem ceciderint permutationis capacem. At que ideo inter Lunam terras que locum mortis & inferorum vocari, ipsam que Lunam vitae esse mortisque confinium, & animas inde in terram fluentes mori, inde ad supera meantes in vitam reverti, nec immerito existimatum est. A Luna • nim deorsum natura incipit caducorum, ab hac animae sub numerum dierum cadere, & sub tempus incipiunt. Deni que illam Aetheream terram physici vocaverunt, & habitatores ejus Lunares populos nuncupaverunt, &c.

But whatever this Macrobius tell us of the Platonists: Certainly, according to Plato himself, to most of the Fathers, and to the subtile Schoolmen, the Place of Hell (which, as these last affirm, must be as far as possible from that of Heaven) is subterranean, and near the Center: Of which in Plato's Phaedo, we have a large Description, not only in respect of all the Punishments and Torments in it, but of the several Limbi and Prisons. 'Twould be too long to repeat what he saith of it. lamblicus in a place of his Protrepticks hints the same Opinion. Praestantior quippe (saith he) anima cum diis habitat, Iambl. Protr • p. cap. 13. & circum circa coetum profectionem suscipit, meliorem que finem assequitur. Quae autem injusta opera contigit, impio que opere at que impietate oppleta fuit, ubi ad loca judicii subt • rranea venerit, aequam justam que poenam consequitur. Quorum causa omnia faciend • sunt, ut interea, dum vivimus, virtutis prudentiae que participes simus. And what other thing doth that of Plutarch intimate — Sed summa duntaxat Terrae Sole illuminantur: Plutarch. de prim. frig. Interiora Caligo, Chaos, Orcus nominantur. Ac profecto Erebus ille terrenarum est tenebrarum Obscuritas.

Now of the three Opinions mentioned, the Holy Scripture seems to some to favour that most, which Perswades the Air (to be) the Place of Hell; for it is in Tartarus, or in the Air the Daemons are imprisoned in the Chains of Darkness; and the Devil, who is called the Devil of Hell, is styled in Holy Writings, the Prince of the Power of the Air, or as some translate it, consistently enough with this Opinion, the Prince of the Power of Darkness. I say consistently with this Opinion, since it is the Air that is by Many Antients [as well Poets as Philosophers] asserted the darkest and obscurest thing in Nature, atqui ne Poetas quidem latuit (saith Plutarch) Aerem primo • enebrosum, Plut. ubi supra. &c. and so Phornutus, Phornut. de Nat: Deor. At postremo Animas accipientem Aera 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 vocarunt ob Tenebras, (ut ipsi quidem censebant) quum pro • sus nobis disparuerint, qui eo sub terram concesserunt. So conformably to them doth Peter speak, when in the second Chapter of his second Epistle, he saith God did Tartarize the Angels in Chains of Darkness, or put them in Chains of Darkness in Tartarus; or as we translate it very well, Imprison them in chains of Darkness. For Tartarus is the Prison of Justice, so Socrates in Plato's Gorgias, whence Plutarch had it in his Treatise de consolatione ad Apollonium—qui vixisset injuste & impiè is in vindictae ac justitiae Carcerem, quem Tartarum appellant, abiret. And this Tartarus is in the Air. So Hesiod in Plutarch, Proinde ex frigore Tartarus appellatus est, Pl • t. de prim. frig. Quod Hesiodus it a declarat, Tartaron aereum.

But though the Scripture seem (to some) to favour this Opinion most, that Hell is in the Air, yet there is a Text which looketh fairly for the more received that 'tis Subterranean, namely that of Iob. 26.5. Not indeed as our Translation (scarce intelligibly) renders it, Dead things are formed from under the Waters, and the Inhabitants thereof; but as the Original, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The Rephaim or the Giants do wail, sorrow or Groan under the Waters, and the Inhabitants of them. The Giants are under the Waters.

Now it is as certain that the Rephaim or Giants (of whom we read in Gen. 6.) are in (the depths of) Hell, as that they here are said to be under the waters. For in Sacred Scripture, the Congregation of the Rephaim, or the Place of the Giants, is a Paraphrase thereof, so Prov. 21.16. The man that wanders ou • out of the way of Understanding, shall Remain, we translate it [in the Congregation of the Dead] but to the letter, in the Congregation of the Giants or in Hell; and Prov. 2.18. Her house inclineth unto Death, and her Paths unto the Rephaim, or Giants, to Hell.

What other then is Iob's meaning, than that the Giants are in Hell [They wail]? and consequently that Hell is Subterranean and Infernal, [They wail under the waters]? So that the Tartarus wherein these Monsters are, in his Opinion, is not that of Hesiod, A • d Plat. i • P • aed. who if Plutarch took him Right, did place it in the Air, but Homer's who makes it an Abysse or Gulf of Waters. I said if Plutarch took him Right, for it may be doubted, since the Epithet of Tartarus • ereus on which he bottoms that Perswasion, Plut. de prim. frig. is as well in Homer, who thought not so, as in Hesiod.

I am abundantly confirmed in the sense given, not only by what some Learned men have largely written on the Text, with whom you may consult at leisure, but especially from a Passage in the accurate Pausanias, Pausanias in Arcad. which I could not but Remarque, when I read it. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 That Homer was the first that sang that the Titans or Giants were Gods (Inhabitants) in that Place which is called Tartarus or Hell. So plain a Comment this is on that of Iob. The Giants groan from under the Waters, and the Inhabitants of them. The Giants are in Hell, and there groan, which that none ought to doubt to be the true meaning, there immediately follows, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Hell is naked before him. But this Hell is under the Waters; and so is Homer's.

For my part, I am apt to think that Hell is of a Vast Extent, and that the bounds and limits of it, are not so strict and narrow, as the most imagine. It may not be confined within the Air, nor within a certain Cavity and Hollow under the Earth; Happily it is as large and comprehensive as the whole Elementary World; which that indeed it is, what already hath been urged about it upon the several Opinions, does in some degree Evince. And it may be Hell hereafter, will not be the same with that which now is Hell. But secret things belong to God.

This for the Place of Hell, and for the Kind and Nature of the Punishment which is therein; It doth not only consist in Loss and Deprivation, but also in Pain and Exquisite Torments. For this Reason it is called Fire, and the rather called so, because (that) Hell it self is styled in the Sacred Scriptures 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a word deriv'd from others in the Hebrew which signifie the Valley of Hinnon, a Place wherein the superstitious Israelites, with an Inhumanity that cannot be expressed, did offer up their Children in the Fire to Moloch.

Not that Infernal Fire is Material and Corporeal, or that it is a Proper, but (only) Metaphorical Fire. A Fire it is, but such an one as is prepared for the Devil, and for his Angels, which if it were Corporeal or Material, since Corporeal and Material Beings act not on Incorporeal, Immaterial Spirits, it could not be imagined to be. Again, as the Worm that never dyes is Metaphorical and Figurative, so is the Fire that never goeth out. Besides, Hell is generally called Tartarus, and that as Plutarch tells us for the Coldness of it [ex frigore Tartarus appellatus est.] Plut. ubi sup. Nor is this a Fancy only of Poets, or of some few Philosophers, 'tis Scripture, That in Hell is Weeping and Wailing and Gnashing of teeth: and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 est algentem quassari & contremiscere, to shake and gnash ones Teeth for cold. In Plato's Hell, which he describes in his Ph • do, there is both Fire and Water.

But though in Hell there be no Proper Fire, yet since the torments in it are frequently compared to Fire, and with the addition of Brimstone, it must needs consist (whatever some imagine) in some thing equally as Dire, as Insupportable, as Tormenting, and as Vexatious as that. Which that it does, we have not only Plato's Testimony, Plat. l. 9. de Leg. but (if we will believe him) the common sentiment of all the World to Evince and Prove i • . It is (saith he) a Common and Receiv'd Tradition that Infernal Torments are most Atrocious and Insupportable; a Tradition so received in his time, that he most Pathetically inveighs against the Irreclaimable Obdurateness, and Obstinacy of men, whom that Consideration could not awe and terrifie: You may read it in his own terms in his Book of Laws.

Again, Infernal Torments are not only most Atrocious and severe, but extended both to body and soul. And it is so great Reason that the Body should as well suffer as the Soul, That some have thought it not unlikely, that the soul, as it did not sin but in the Body, so it doth not suffer but with it: That 'tis Soul and Body in conjunction that do make man, and it is man, not the Soul without the Body, not the Body without the Soul, but Soul and Body soder'd into one Compositum that sins, and that which sins must suffer. The Man sins and the man must suffer.

But I drive it not so far, for the Soul in state of Union to the Body, as it liveth in it, so it acteth by it, the Soul as so is Actus corporis, and is nothing but what relateth to the Body, and consequently all its Actions are Organical; yet since it can be separated, and, though not as Anima, yet as Ens can subsist alone without the Body; It is in that Estate Responsible [and just it should] for what it did in the other. I say just it should; Plat. in P • aed. Philo de Agricult. For the Soul it guides the Body, it governs it, and to use a comparison that hath had the Honour to have been a Philosophers, is to it as a Rider to his Horse; who though he goeth no where, but where the Horse carries him, and Acteth nothing but by it, yet since he governs the Horse, which goeth as Directed, no wonder if unhors'd and on his own legs, he suffer for the Trespasses he made his Horse to commit. He suffers on foot for what he did on Horseback.

All I infer is, That 'tis highly Reasonable that the man who sinned with his Body, should suffer in it, as well as in his Soul; and that 'tis Just that they who were together in the Crime, should also be conjoyn'd in the Punishment, as indeed they shall, for we must all Appear before the Iudgement seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his Body, 2 Cor. 5.10.

So much for the first Particular, that there are Eternal and Atrocious Punishments ordained to be inflicted in the other World both on Soul and Body, for the sins of Men committed in this. I am now in Prosecution of the Order I proposed to my self, to Evidence the Second; which is, That there is not any Inequality in the Punishment ordained to the sin; but great Equality and Proportion.

Which to effect with all imaginable Evidence and clearness, I will first lay down a Truth acknowledged by all that know any thing (viz.) That every sin is committed against God, who not only is most Excellent Majesty, but also Infinitely Good unto the sinner himself, and consequently that 'tis Infinite in Aggravation. Then [in the second place] I will make it Evident and Undenyable, that that Infinite Aggravation which is in every sin, by Reason of its Object, is the Bottom, Ground, and Foundation, whereon the Perpetuity of its Punishment is Erected. Thirdly, I will fully prove (to Obviate some exceptions which may lye before me) that though Insernal Punishments be all of them Perpetual, and consequently Infinite protensively and in duration, yet that Intrinsecally and Subjectively they are but Finite. And when I have acquitted me of what I promise you on these points, then in the fourth place, I shall lay before your eyes, in a full and more express delineation, the great Equality and Proportion between the Sin and Punishment; which I will abundantly confirm by many more considerations I shall add.

And for the first, That every Sin is committed against God, who not only is most Excellent Majesty, but also Infinitely Good, and to the sinner himself, cannot be denyed by one that Understands the Nature of sin. Against thee, the Royal Psalmist saith,Psal. 51.4. thee only have I sinned. The Wrong and Injury may be against man, as that of David was against Uriah, but the Sinfulness therein is only against God. There is in every sin a Transgression, Lev. 16.16. Deut. 17.2. [Their Transgressions in all their sins] or a Breach and Violation of the Law of God, and in this the sinfulness of sin consists. This importing in it Inexcusable 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and contempt of God. Such is the Nature, and such the Object of Sin.

Now the Moral Evil is in any Action receives an Aggravation from the Object (of it,) and that Relation the Offender stands in towards that; for instance, what is but Assault and Battery upon an Ordinary Man, is Treason on the Prince: To strike ones Soveraign is a Capital and hainous Crime, Unexpiable but by the Blood of him that does offend in that kind, when yet to give a Private Person a Blow, is not so. Arist. de Mor. • 5. c. 8. So Aristotle, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , If any be so Hardy as to strike a Magistrate, he ought not only to have Blow for Blow, but to be severely Punish't. Thus the Philosopher; and it was one of the Laws of the Twelve Tables, Re, Persona, Tempore, Loco Atrociores injuriae judicantor, That Injuries were to be esteemed to receive Aggravations by the Person offended, Labeo apud Olde • dorp. in leg 12. Tab • l tit. 11. so Labeo interprets it, Persona atrocior injuria sit, cum Magistratui, cum Parenti, Patronóve fiat. The Injury is rendred more Atrocious by the Person, when it is done to a Magistrate, a Parent, or a Patron.

And granting This, Then How immense and infinite an aggravation must we of force Acknowledge in all sin, when we consider in it that Contempt, Scorn and Parvipension of God, which does compose it? That it is against a Majesty so Excellent, and High, against the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords: against the Heavenly Father, the Great Creator, the Great Benefactor, him from whom the sinner hath Receiv'd his own Being, and all the Goods, Comforts and Advantages of it.

Most certain it is, that those considerations in inferior Objects, which scatter'd and dispersed, do render Actions under greatest Guilt and aggravation, are all Concentred to aggravate what ever Action man is guilty of against God. For if it be an Aggravation of the Crime among men, for the Subject to Affront his King, for the Child his Father, for the Vassal his Lord, for the Obliged his Benefactor; God is King, is Father, is Lord or Owne • , is Benefactor, &c. and the Sinner is his Subject, his Child, his Own, his Obliged.

Yes, and all the Aggravations Reflected on the faulty Action by this Transcendent Object, are as much Superiour to those deriv'd from any other, as those Considerations which in God are aggravating, do transcend the same that are so in man. As much as God himself in Excellency is above Man, This King above all other Kings, the Heavenly Father above an Earthly, this Soveraign Benefactor above Inferiour Benefactors, of so much greater Guilt and aggravation in all respects, is a crime against the former, than it can be against the latter. The Degree of Aggravation bears Proportion to the Excellency which Effects it.

This the Antient Romans had some understanding of, and therefore to Protect Persons invested with (the Soveraign) Power and Authority, from all Affronts, they were wont to style them Sacred, to the End that by consideration of the Name and Character of God upon them, Subjects Apprehending so much more Horror in the Crime, might be scared from Attempting what otherwise perhaps (without it) they would have soon presum'd to do. So Floccus, Floc. in Prae • at. ad lib. depotest. Rom. Romanis Legibus cautum est (saith he) u • omnes. Potestatem habentes, quò plus apud eos majestatis esset, Sacrosancti appellarentur, ut si quis quempiam in magistratu violasset Religio judicaretur.

By this time I make no question but a small Objection which hath ministred but too much matter of Perplexity to some, will offer none to you, namely, that it will not follow that Sin is therefore Infinite, because against an Infinite God, no more than that it is Good, and Iust, and Holy, and Omnipresent and the like, because against a Good, a Iust, an Holy and Omnipresent God. For you see I argue not the Infinity of the sin, barely from that Infinity which is in God, so as if this Attribute in him did Physically (as some would speak) and Naturally imprint its like upon the faulty Action; no, this Infinity in sin is not a Natural Infinity, but a Moral, not Infinity of Being, but of Guilt and Aggravation, and consequently, such an one, as cannot be derived but from such Considerations [Moral] as are able to Reflect it. It is not deriv'd Physically, but Morally. I doubt not but you comprehend my meaning, that Sin is not to be affirmed Infinite, meerly because it has an Infinite and Transcendent Being for its Object, For this the mentioned Objection fully evidences, but because there are Perfections in the Divine Nature, such as Goodness, Greatness and the like, that are of a Quality to Greaten the Offence, and Fault against them; which Perfections being Infinite, do make the Aggravations they Reflect upon the crime or sin Proportionable. For it is a manifest, a Plain and an Infallible consequence, that if a crime against obliging Goodness, or the like Consideration (for what is instanced in One will hold in All) be great; and against a greater Goodness, it be a greater crime; then a crime against an Infinite and inconceivable Goodness, must needs be a crime of Infinite and inconceivable Guilt: Ut se habet simpliciter ad simpliciter, ita magis ad magis, & maximè ad maximè.

Hence it follows, that no sin is small. For not to stand on this Subtilty, that there is a kind of Boundlesness and of Infinity in Sin, Sin being in its very Nature a transgression or Excess of Bounds, the Law it setteth bounds and limits unto mens Affections, but sin transgresseth them. I say, not to stand on that Consideration, the Conclusion Evidently follows from what I have already offer'd. For if every Sin be Transgression, and essentially imply a Violation of the Law of God, a Preferring of Our Unruly, Profane, Unrighteous, Evil Wills before His, which is Holy, Just and Good, and consequently, be an offering of Indignity, and (as it were) affront to Him, it is easie to inferr, that None is small, since to violate the Divine Authority and Pleasure, and to despise it and contemn it for our Own, cannot be imagin'd so.

I the rather do Enforce this great, Truth, because I know many Atheistically inclined, who deride the Doctrine of the Fall of man occasion'd by the eating of an Apple, as a senseless and absurd conceit. It cannot penetrate their Understandings, that a Wise, and Just, and Good God should conceive so great Anger and Indignation for so small and poor a thing, that He should expose the First man, and all Descendants from him, to the danger of Eternal Ruine, for no more than eating an Apple. And what is an Apple to be compared with Mankind, and with all its comforts! In the day thou eatest, thou shalt dye the death, Demad. apud Plutarch. in Solon. looketh better like one of Draco's Laws, which for their Inhumanity, were noted to be written in Blood, than like a Sanction of Gods.

And indeed an Apple is no great matter, nor is the eating of it in it self a Greater; But then it is no small matter neither to offer an Affront to God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, to scorn and contemn most Excellent Majesty, to oppose his Will, to break his Bands asunder, and cast away his Cords, which Adam did in eating. And what is offer'd by the Atheist in order to extenuate and abate the Guilt, doth extreamly aggravate and heighten it, that he would break with God for (but) an Apple, as one resolved to deny himself in nothing, to keep in with God, and Please Him who is his Maker and Soveraign. Verily He that will break for an Apple, will break for any thing. Without doubt, It was an Ample Demonstration of the Infinite Benignity and Goodness of God, that He did not choose a greater matter to exercise the Vertue and Obedience of the First Man in, who might very well have forborn the Apples of but One Tree, when he had so many Others bountifully Accorded to him, to Oblige and gratifie him. Indeed had God Requir'd Proof of Mans Obedience in a matter absolutely necessary to his Comfort or Delight, it might have minister'd some colour of Excuse for his Failure. But now there is None. 'Twas but an Apple, no more that God denyed him, and would he run the hazard of Divine Displeasure, and Expose his own Eternal Happiness for That? What Pretext can there be for a Plea, that he would be faithful in greater matters, that broke his Faith for so small a One? Some find the Breach of all the Commandments in This. Verily, That Adam disobliged God for an Apple, it argues the greater contempt of God, and the greater Injustice in Adam. For this I appeal to Aristotle, who speaks home to All I have said. 〈◊〉 . l. 1. c. 15. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 —Those Injuries are greater which proceed from a greater Injustice; on which consideration, the least things done, may be the greatest wrongs. So Callistratus accused Melanopus, that he had defrauded the Maker of Shrines of Three Half-pence, &c.

But to Return. This Sin Objecctively is Infinite, and it is on this Infinity of Guilt and aggravation which is in Sin by reason of its Object, that the Perpetuity of its Punishment, or to use your own expression, the Infinity thereof is grounded, which is the Second thing to be Proved.

And the first Consideration to Evince it (which I shall insist upon again hereafter, when I more expresly shew the Proportion and Equality between the Sin and Punishment) is, that there is nothing else in the Punishment of meerly Finite Beings, but the Perpetuity or Infinity of its Duration, that can answer that Infinity and Vastness of Guilt and Aggravation which is in the Sin, by Reason of that Infinite Goodness and Transcendent Majesty, that is the Butt and Object of it. Nothing in the Punishment but its Infinite Duration answers the Infinity of the Guilt and Aggravation in the Sin.

But beside this main consideration, there is another that Establishes it, namely, that Eternal Death or Perpetuity of Punishment, is threatned unto sin as sin [every sin] and therefore must be bottomed on something is in sin as sin [in every sin] which what it should be is unimaginable other than the Aggravation it receiveth from the Object; which if you suppose it but to be, then will all things be adjusted, and (as I shall evidently shew hereafter on the fourth Head) will all lye Even and Square.

Nor is it a Barr unto the Truth alledged and Pleaded for, but rather a Confirmation, that the Punishment which Jesus Christ sustained in behalf of all that will receive him, who suffering in their stead, is understood to bear what they should, was in its utmost Duration, and Extent but short and momentany: For as much as it is evident, that the Punishment in Him receiv'd the same Infinity, or Reputation from the Subject, he being GOD-MAN, that the sin of man Receiv'd from the Object, which was GOD. For if in the One, God was sinn'd against, in the Other, God suffered; the Blood of Christ was the Blood of God. The Sin was Infinite, it was committed against an Infinite God; the Punishment was infinite, it was suffer'd by an Infinite Person. Not that Christ suffer'd as he was God, God as God cannot suffer, but he who was God, suffer'd. Passions, as Actions are of Persons or Supposites, and as the Infinity of the Object made the Sin Infinite in Aggravation; So the Infinity of the Subject suffering, made the Punishment so in Value and Reputation. Thus Christ suffering for us, suffered but a moment, though we, had we suffered for our selves, were to suffer to Eternity.

So congruous it is, and so agreeable that the Perpetuity of infernal Punishment should be bottom'd on the aggravation which the sin receiveth from its object: but yet as evident a Truth, and as Perspicuous as it seemeth, Many there are who cannot Acquiesce and rest contented with it, Who think themselves obliged to Account for this Article, in a very different way and manner from that so lately proposed.

They tell us, tha • men are therefore Infinitely Punished, or as some express it, Punished in Gods Eternity, because they sin in their own, they sin as long as they live, and therefore suffer for it, as long as God Lives. Of which Assertion there are two senses, of which I must acknowledge that they seem tolerable, and to bear some Weight, (for in the third it is a Jingle, most unworthy of the Gravity and Judgement of the men that use it.) The first is, That thé Damned should they live for ever here, they would sin for ever, and so are Punisht not for what they have done, but what they would do. The Second, that in Hell they never leave sinning, and that therefore God will never leave Punishing.

Truth is, it were all one to me and my design, which is to evidence the Perpetuity of Internal Torments, to have it bottomed on either these considerations (one or both) if I thought them able to support the weight of it, or on the former I have laid. But not having that Opinion of their great sufficiency and strength some others have, and knowing that a weak and ruinous foundation, most times betrayes the Fabrick; I am unwilling a Doctrine of so much concernment and importance unto all mankind, and to all Religion, should be oblig'd to stand or fall with them. Wherefore, that for the future none may build upon them, I shall bestow a little of my time, and exercise a little of your patience to shew their Weakness.

For the first then, that the Damned would sin for ever if they lived for ever here, and that therefore they are Punished for ever. I say it seemeth not an Account that can be owned with any safety to the honour of Divine Iustice, seeing to those that weigh things, and that know That only to be Just which is Equal, it appears not so Consistent with it, that the Punishment should be Actual, Real, Effectual, when the Sin for which it is inflicted, is only Possible, Hypothetical, and on Supposition (only.) That which would be, never was in Act, and it seemeth very hard, and most unworthy Infinite and Soveraign Righteousness and Justice, That there should be Punishment inflicted actually, for sin that never was (in Act.) Non-entities have no Praedicates, and can do Nothing, if the Sin never was, it can merit no Punishment. 'Tis • rue the Intention of evil is sometimes Punisht, where there is no evil Effect, but then the Intention is the Crime. In all I have said, I suppose the Objection to proceed of the Event, and not of the Design, that the Damned would for ever sin, if they liv'd for ever; not that they Actually and explicitly resolv'd to sin for ever. (For) this case is rare, if possible. In this the malice of the Will would be Infinite, and so he that had an Actual Will or Resolve to sin for ever, if he could, would deserve for that to be punished for ever. The will which is the Cardinal and Grand Principle of what is Moral in an Action, might justly pass for the Deed. But of all the Damned few, if any, can be conceiv'd to have such Resolves and Intentions.

Nor is the second Opinion, That the Damned are subject to Eternal Punishment in Hell, because they sin there Eternally,] of more Importance than the former. For though the Damned sin materially, and perpetrate in Hell the same Actions (some of them) which they did on Earth, and for which they suffer in Hell, yet 'tis a great Question, whether they may rationally be affirmed formally to sin there, since there is no Law there: Hell is no part of Gods Kingdom, those in it, are not subjects, but condemned Rebels; and there is no Transgression; and consequently no Sin, where there is no Law.

Nor is their doing Actions which in themselves were sinful formerly, and which perhaps are still so in Others, an Argument they sin now in it. For as the Beasts that are not under Law, though they do the same Actions that men do, yet do not sin in doing them as men sin, so the Damned that do the same Actions, yet being now Exiled and Banished by God from under his Protection, and from his Kingdom, into DUCER Darkness, and consequently, are no longer under the Law of his Kingdom, they do not sin in what they do, but suffer for what they sinn'd. Hell is not a Place of Sinning, but of Punishing. Their Sin there is their Punishment.

Again, a Person once condemn'd to dye for Treason, cannot in our Law, be Judicially called in question for any subsequent Act, because he is Civiliter mortuus; His former Attainder of Treason is the highest and last work of the Law, in the eye of which he is Dead, after that, and so unable to commit offences. And why, after Sentence pronounced by Divine Justice on the Guilty Sinner, may not he be looked on as Dead in Gods Law, and as uncapable of doing any thing against it more? Is not the State of Hell in Scripture call'd the Second Death?

But to Destroy the both Opinions at Once, with one Argument; Eternal Death is threatned unto men for sin in this life, and the sentence of it is Pronounced on the Damn'd for this; Depart from me you cursed into Everlasting Fire; and why? for I was an hungred, and you gave me no meat; I was a thirst, and you gave me no Drink; I was a stranger, and you took me not in; Naked, and you cloathed me not; Sick, and in Prison, and you visited me not; Therefore Depart from me, you Cursed, into Everlasting Fire. Now, is Eternal Death be threatned unto men for sin in this Life, and the Sentence of it be pronounced upon them for what they have committed here; it cannot Rationally be presumed, that the Everlastingness of the Punishment should not be founded on some thing in the sin already acted in the present world, but only either on the Hypothetical Perpetuation of it in this, or on a Fancied Continuation and Persistance in it Hereafter in the Other.

And having said thus much, you cannot doubt of my sense of what the Learned Parker further offers out of the Schoolmen, in his Treatise de Descensu, which because it is a Learned Passage, and one, that by Representing the Variety of Opinions about the thing whereon I now discourse, will also represent the Difficulty of deciding in it, I shall give you entirely.— Atqui nostrum, Park. de Desc. lib. 4. quòd in medio, tutissimum iter est: Christum nempe, &c.— But our Opinion lyes in the middle in which it is most safe to go, namely that Christ endured the very Pains of Hell as to their Substance, which were due to us, and yet avoided their Eternity. To make this clear, We Deny that Infernal Eternal Pain is absolutely due to All Sins; and withal, with the Schoolmen, particularly with Iohanne's Scotus, and with Iohannes Picus C. of Mirandula affirm, that some Distinction must be made in this matter. There are Three things then that ought to be considered by us in sin: The first is the Aversion that is in it from God; and to this the Pain of Loss which is Infinite is due, forasmuch as it is the Amission of an Infinite Good. The second is a Conversion to what is Perishing and Transient, and to this the pain of sense is Due, which is Intensively Finite, Agreeably as that delight and pleasure the sinner takes therein is Finite. But thirdly, there is to be considered also in sin, either the Continuation and Persistence (of the sinner) in it, or his Cessation from it. It is only with the first of these that Eternity of Pain doth hold proportion. The second is adjusted by a but Temporal enduring of the Pain. It is Objected that every sinner sins in his Eternity (as Gregory speaks) forasmuch as he hath cast himself upon a necessity of sinning, from which he cannot possibly be Restrained by any endeavours of his own: This indeed is true, and therefore the Eternity of Punishment doth naturally follow their sin; But yet this hinders not but that if sin be supernaturally interrupted, by Repentance, in that case Extremity only, and not Eternity of Punishment should be the Due; as which answers the greatness of the sin but finitely committed; And this is that which Scotus contends for, and which the Count of Mirandula demonstrates at large, namely, that to sin continued to Eternity both in the Guilt and Filth, Eternal Punishment is due; but that it is in no wise necessary, nor exacted by Divine Justice; that Eternal Punishment should be inflicted for sins, that are not continued to Eternity, but abandoned by Repentance. Now things being so, 'tis easie for Every Body to discern how Iesus Christ endured the Pain of Hell, without the Eternity; especially, That being remembred which we said before, That He sustained not the Infernal Pains of those actually Damned, but only of those that were to be so. [Non Damnatorum poenam gehennalem sustinuisse, sed Damnandorum tantum.] Verily the Use of this Distinction here is very great, since those that are Actually Damned sin far otherwise than the Elect that were to be so: So that Eternal Torment is in Justice due to Them; but to these Extream Torment (indeed) is, but not Eternal. This is clear in a simile. Imprisonment is no part of the Debt, but is Justly due to him that abides in Debt. And thus it is in the Elect and Reprobate, of which the former paying the Debt in Jesus Christ, and (renewed by the Holy Spirit) ceasing from sin are freed from that Eternal Prison of Hell, in which the Damned are Tormented for ever, because they are for ever in Debt, and abide for ever Polluted with the Filth, and with the Guilt of Sin. The Case then is thus, Christ suffered only for the Elect, who were to be Damned, to whose sins ceasing by Repentance, not Eternity, but Only Extremity of Punishment was due. So that Justice Requir'd not that Christ should Endure the Eternity, but only the Extremity of the Torments of Hell.

This is the Notion of the Learned Parker, which yet I must acknowledge I cannot Entertain a thought of but with Repugnance; for to me it seemeth very Harsh, if not directly contrary to Sacred Scripture, That Death Eternal should not be the Due of every sin; For though indeed Perpetual Torments are not inflicted on every sinner, and for every sin, yet they are deserved and merited by every sin, and due to every sinner. The wages of sin is Death; Death Eternal, for it is opposed to Eternal Life. And if Almighty God be pleased to forgive and Pardon upon Repentance, it is his Free-Grace, and not his Justice but in respect of that well-order'd and Immutable Covenant, wherein he has oblig'd and ty'd himself to do so; so indeed, he is faithful to forgive.

Nor is Hell a Sheriffs Ward in which the Debtor is Imprisoned till he pay his Debt: For Imprisonment on Account of Debt is not so intended as a Punishment upon the Debtor, for not having paid, as to be in lieu of Payment, and satisfaction of the Debt: But 'tis ordain'd to Necessitate him, and to compell him to Pay it. Whereas all Infernal Torments are truly Poenal, Design'd for satisfaction to the Law and Justice, and Not by way of compulsion, to make the Prisoner pay a Debt, which, when he is in Hell, it is impossible for him to Do, since that Design were Irrational. In vain are those means which are Referred to Ends that they can never compass. Nor can it consist with Wisdom to Institute such. The Punishments of Hell are Debts; Nor are there are Other which they are ordained to constrain the Prisoner to pay. If the Scripture speak of lying in Prison, till men Pay the Utmost Farthing, it must be Understood of the Eternal Punishment to be Undergone (in Hell.) This is the Only Debt there to be paid, of which no Abatement can be had. It is expected to the Utmost Farthing, and this is all that that Phrase imports.

Thus you see I differ both from this and other Excellent and Learned Persons, and why I do (so) about the Ground on which the Perpetuity of Infernal Punishment is rais'd, I say the Perpetuity, for though I have acknowledged Infernal Punishments to be Perpetual, yet I cannot easily be brought to own them to be Infinite, but with Distinction, they are not Infinite in Essence or Being, 'but only in Duration or Continuance, and consequently are not to be called Infinite in any sense, but because they are Endless.

For questionless the Torments which the Damned suffer in Hell, are intrinsecally and subjectively Finite, and as Finite as the sins themselves intrinsecally and subjectively are, for which they be Inflicted. For since all Reception is according to the Measure and Capacity of what Receives, the Torment, Pain, or Punishment inflicted on a Finite Creature, and received by it, neither is intrinsecally, and subjectively Infinite, nor indeed can possibly be. So that if the sin subjectively and intrinsecally be Finite, the Punishment ordained is not subjectively and intrinsecally Infinite: which was the third thing to be proved.

And this Re-minds me of the fourth thing I promised, namely, to Represent expressly the Proportion between the Sin of man and the Punishment of it. And this Proportion is manifest. For if the Sin of Man subjectively be Finite, and Unequal as well as Finite, the Punishment of that sin subjectively is also Finite, and Unequal as well as Finite; there are Degrees of Torments in Hell, as there are Degrees of Guilt in sin; and if the Punishment be Infinite Protensively and in Duration, it is because the sin is so Objectively and in Aggravation: And Infinite objective Aggravation (for such is that of sin, as we have formerly evidenced it) cannot be Proportion'd in the Punishment of a meerly Finite Being, but by its infinite Duration and Extent. Once the sin is some way Infinite, but the Punishment of a meerly Finite Being, neither is, nor can be any wise so but in Duration. Wherefore the Punishment would be Unequal to the sin, if as this is Infinite in Aggravation that were not also so in Duration. But this I hinted before.

And now Sir, upon the whole you will be pleas'd to Judge what Inequality there is, or what Unjustice, or rather what great Equality and Justice in Divine Proceeding, wherein you cannot but receive abundant satisfaction, as to the Equity and Righteousness thereof, if to what Considerations have already been presented you concerning it, you but add the following.

First, That the Proportion which is observed in Distributive (or as Aristotle calls it, Dianemetic) Justice, is not Arithmetical, but Geometrical; or (as they love to speak) the medium it observeth, is not medium Rei, but Personae, that is, that Persons are as much consider'd in the Distribution of Rewards and Punishments, as things themselves. Yea and more.

Secondly, That in Proportioning of Punishments, to make them Just and Equal, it is not Requisite that their Duration should exactly be adjusted unto that of the sin's. A short and momentany sin, if aggravated in the circumstances, may in great Justice have allotted to it long and tedious Punishment. A Truth so obvious, that were it not Unnecessary, I might abundantly enlarge in instancing it; and I would have offer'd somewhat of mine own in that kind, but that the grave St. Austine, from whom I make no question but you will take it better, Aug. de Civit. l. 21. c. 11. hath happily prevented me. He tells us, Some of the Adversaries of Gods City hold it Injustice for him that hath offended, but temporally, to be bound to suffer pain Eternally, this they say is utterly Unjust. As though they knew any Law that adapted the time of the Punishment to the time in which the Crime was committed. Eight kinds of Punishments doth Tully affirm the Laws to inflict: Damages, Imprisonment, Whipping, Like for Like, Publick Disgrace, Banishment, Death and Bondage. Which of these can be performed in so little a time as the offence is, excepting the fourth, which yieldeth every man the same measure that he meteth unto Others, according to that of the Law, An Eye for an Eye, and a Tooth for a Tooth? Indeed one may lose his eye by this Law, in as small a time as he put out another mans by violence. But if a man kiss another mans Wife, and be therefore adjudged to be whipt, is not that which he did in a moment paid for by a good deal longer sufferance? Is not his short pleasure paid with a longer pain? And what for Imprisonment? Is every one judged to lye there no longer than he was a doing his Villany? Nay, that Servant who hath but violently touched his Master, is by a Just Law doomed unto many years Imprisonment. And as for Damages, Disgraces are not many of them dateless, and lasting a mans whole life, wherein they bear a Proportion with the pains Eternal. Thus the Father.

Further, I propose it to the serious consideration of Intelligent and Prudent men, if that Punishment, how great, how long soever, be too great, or too long, which for all its greatness and for all its length, is Unsufficient in the threatning of it to deterr from the sin; it is the End that Measures and Proportions all the Means that lead to it; and the sole Intention, Design and End of God in menacing and threatning Punishment, is to Deterr and fright from sin. If the End be considerable enough, the Punishment threatned can never be too great. Besides, it argues great malice, when great Threatnings can't deterr. However, It becomes God to threaten, and punish too as a God; Sin is Indignity, and Gods Anger is his Defence; if mortal men kill the Body Temporally in their Anger, it is like the Immortal God, to Damn the Soul Eternally in his.

In fine, What if in an Age wherein Hypotheses are taking, I should offer this, (which yet, what I have proposed already, evinces to be more than so) that perhaps the Constitution of the other World may require, that what ever state is in it be Perpetual, as the Make of this requires, that all things in it should be Otherwise; and consequently, that 'tis as agreeable and natural, that all Punishments as well as all Rewards, should be Eternal in the Future Life, as that all in this should be Temporal. But when I say it may be as agreeable, and as natural, that all Punishments in the other Life should be Eternal, as that all Rewards, I would not have you to conceive I think that to be a Demonstration, which is generally current, and passeth with the most for One, namely, That because the Rewards of Heaven are Eternal, therefore the Punishments of Hell are also so. I acknowledge that it will not follow. For to do Good (for so it is to Reward, or to Remunerate) it carries in it more Agreeabless, and more Congruity to the Divine Essence, and is an Emanation from it more Connatural, and consequently more Free, than to Punish is, or to inflict Evil; This being call'd his strange work, which that is not. It is for this Reason, that God is so much more Benign and Liberal (as the Holy Scriptures plainly shew us) in Assigning Large Rewards, than He is Severe and Rigorous in Ordaining Dreadful Punishments; For if (as he is said to do in the second Command) He visit the Iniquity of the Fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth Generation of them that Hate him; He sheweth Mercy to the thousandth of them that Love Him. So wide a Difference there is! The Allotment both of Rewards and Punishments depends on the Divine Will; and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Lenity, Moderation, Propensity to Favour is the Natural Vertue of the Will.

And thus much by way of Demonstration of this Great Truth, that there is no Inequality, or Improportion in the Punishments Ordained (though Endless) to crimes or sins, but great Equality and Proportion; and that the Soveraign Rector was neither Arbitrari • us and Wilful, nor Unjust, but both Wise and Righteous in assigning them. What I am next engaged to Perform, is to evince him Good therein as well as Iust, and, that in ordaining and threatning Endless and Eternal Punishments to sin, he has as much Consideration of the Humane Interest and Concern, as of his Own.

But before I may Proceed to argue and Evince this Verity, it will be necessary for a clearer and fuller stating of it, to distinguish between the threatning of Eternal Punishments, and the inflicting of them. Which I note here, because I hold my self obliged but to demonstrate now, that there is Goodness in ordaining and in threatning of Eternal Punishments, as hereafter I shall prove, that there is great Justice, and no want of Goodness in the inflicting on laying them on, and those who merit them.

And who can question the Goodness and Benignity of God appointing and threatning unto men Eternal Punishments, if he seriously consider that his doing so was absolutely necessary for the whole World to Regulate it, and to keep it in order, by awing mens minds, and by repressing their exorbitant and wild Emotions, and consequently, by preparing and qualifying of them for Instruction in, and for Performance of the common Offices and Duties of the humane life, as well as of the divine? The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom, saith Solomon. Knowing the Terror of the Lord, we Perswade men, saith the Apostle. Plato in his Politicks makes the Establishment of Punishments in another Life fundamental to Government in this. Plat. de rep. l. 2. Plat. in Prota • . And even Mr. Hobbs acknowledges, Hobbs de co • p. polit. pa • t. 1.c. 5. that the Punishment instituted before sin, serveth to the Benefit of mankind, because it keepeth men in peaceable and vertuous conversation by the Terror; and Pythagoras knew as much, for he so pressed this consideration of a Judgement and Wrath to come, in order to the restraining men from Vice, and to the inciting of them to Vertue, that he is celebrated for it by Iamblicus, Iambl. in • it. Pythag. c. 30. as Author of the Doctrine. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 — And he (speaking of Pythagoras) invented another way and method of Reclaiming men from Injustice; which was to threaten them with Future Judgement to be passed on Souls. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 — He understanding it of Infinite Advantage, to strike fear of wrong and Injustice, &c. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . And this saith Clement of Alexandria, Clem. Alex. in Pedag. l. 1.c. 8. is a Gracious Method to strike men with fear and terror, that they may not sin.

Now, no scruple can be made of This, that to design the Present and the Future happiness of man, is a worthy and adorable effect of infinite and transcendent Goodness, and if the End be so, how can the most agreeable and proper means to compass and effect it, be the contrary! It is the Goodness of the End that makes the means Good. Certainly, we ought to hold belief, that God hath very much obliged and engaged us, by dealing with us in a way so congruous, as that of menacing and threatning is; nor are we able to defend our selves against so Good, so Pious a Resentment, if we soberly consider (this) That he that threatneth, plainly shews he hath no mind to inflict; and that Threatnings are fore-warnings of Evil, designed and intended to this very End, that those to whom they are made, may timely shun and avoid it. Matth. 3.7. So Iohn, O you Generation of Vipers, who [by menacing you with it] hath fore-warn'd you to flee from the wrath to come? Questionless he cannot but be Good in threatning evil, who threatens it for that Reason, that he may not be enforced to inflict it. This was the sense of Clement of Alexandria, Clement. Paedag. l. 1. c. 8. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 —It is manifest that who so threatens Evil, has no mind to inflict it, nor is he willing to do what he threatens.

But why Eternal Punishments? (will you say) I answer, That besides the Justice of it, the menacing of Infernal Punishments (the lusts of men are so Exorbitant and high) is not sufficient to subdue and quench them; there must Eternity be added to Extremity in the Torments, to make the threatning of them an effectual means to reclaim men; and when that is done too, all is little enough; there are millions in the world whom not that consideration, as tremendous and as Direful as indeed it is, is able to deterr and fright from their Vices. If the threatning of Eternal Torments can effect no more, how much I pray you would the threatnings of shorter ones effect! Future things are distant and remote, and what are so, do seldome influence. Great Punishments in another World would awe but little, if they were not also Perpetual, it is the Eternity that adds so much to the weight; and the weight of the torments, that makes them over balance, when they are compared with the sin. Purgatory is not half as scaring as Hell. The Emphasis of the Punishment is as much upon the Duration, as upon the kind of it. Go you, sayes Christ, not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , not barely into Everlasting Fire, but into the Fire, the Everlasting Fire, the Emphasis is on the Everlastingness of it.

So Advantagious is the threatning of Eternal Torments, and so useful to the World, that the Soveraign Rector in taking that method, has not only given Abundant Proof of his Wisdom and Prudence, but also of as much Benignity and Kindness. A Truth of which the Antient Heathen had a Glimpse, and therefore they call'd the Furies (who are the Executioners of Divine Revenge in the other World) EUMENIDES; not (as most too frigidly and poorly have conceited) by reason of their Imbenignity, Inexorableness and Inclemency, but for that (by the Punishments which they are talkt of to inflict upon the Wicked) they happily occasion very much Good, Benefit and Advantage unto Mankind. For so I understand Phornutus, Revera, Phornut de Nat. D • or. saith he, speaking of the Furies, sunt & Hae Deae venerandae, & Eumenides, eò quod Naturea Benignitatem ad homines dirigunt, vindicando scelera.

From what I have presented you on this Head, it is not Difficult to Conclude what sense one ought to have of Mr. Hobb's Notion of Hell, Hobbs Leviat. par. 4. c. 45. and of the Texts that concern it. He tells us, that the Texts that mention Eternal Fire, Eternal Iudgement, or the Worm that never dyeth, contradict not the Doctrine of the Second and Everlasting Death, in the Proper and Natural sense of the Word Death. The Fire and Torment prepared for the Wicked in Geenna, Tophet, or what place so ever, may contitinue for ever, and there may never want men to be tormented in them, though not every One, nor any One Eternally; For the Wicked being left in the State they are in after Adams sin, may at the Resurrection live as they did, Marry and give in Marriage, and have Gross and Corruptible Bodies, as all mankind now have, and consequently may Ingender Perpetually after the Resurrection, &c.

Now, not to mention the Confusion and Perplexity in this Notion, what will Mr. Hobbs make of that Description the Evangelist gives of Hell, wherein the Torments of it are painted out so Dreadfully by Fire and Brimstone, by a never Dying Worm, &c. It is but a solemn piece of Mockery, a Bugbear, a Mormo that can only fright those weaker Apprehensions that do not throughly understand and see it? Hell to those that know it, for all this Tragical Description of it in the Gospel, is a Paradise of Pleasure, such a Place as all the Wicked would elect and choose for their Heaven, a Place of Eating and Drinking, of Marrying and giving in Marriage, and why not of Quaffing, Carousing and making merry? In a word, no worse a Place than this Earth; and the state of sinners in it, no worse nor better (so over-merciful a God we have) than that of Men before the Deluge. [The wicked, saith he, being left in the state they were in after Adams sin, may at the Resurrection live as they did.] As if the wicked in the Old World, had in it suffered and undergone their Hell, and that they had not been Reprieved for that time, from the Wrath to come. Here is a Hell for Sinners that would tempt them to be so. Is this Wrath in the day of Wrath? this the Utmost that God can do? Is Tophet Prepar'd of Old, and Geenna, and the Lake of Fire and Brimstone, and the Place prepar'd for the Devil, and his Angels, come to this? Is this the Terrour of the Lord, with which the Apostles perswaded men! Who would care for Hell, if this so soft and easie ae Place be Hell! Ay, but the Fire is Eternal.

And what if Fire and Brimstone prepared for the Wicked in Geenna be eternal, and there never want men to be tormented in it, but that there be an Eternal Succession of the Wicked to keep in and feed that Fire? This will not Help the matter; For though the Fire be Eternal, yet seeing there is no one to lye Eternally therein, The Punishment is not Eternal; not doth the Perpetuity of the Fire, bring an Aggravation to the Punishment and suffering of the sinner, since if he feel it not Eternally, it is to him all one as if it were but Temporal. What doth it matter to a Criminal whose Execution is to be but short, how long the Gibbet stand, or how many others be hang'd on it after him? So to Interpret Eternal Fire, is to Trifle with it.

But this is a too Absurd and Gross Conceit for me to Exercise your Patience longer on it; wherefore to Apply my self unto the last particular; Not to mention what Abatement Goodness may be thought to make in Hell Torment, since this is secret, I shall only endeavour to demonstrate what suffices for my purpose, that it is not want of Goodness, no more than 'tis Injustice, to Inflict Eternal Punishments on those to whom they are threatned, when the Good Designs and Ends for compassing of which they were so, are altogether defeated.

And in order to the stating and inlightning of the present point, I will offer all my Notions and Conceptions about it, under three Heads.

First, I will endeavour to Establish this Truth, That Eternal Punishments are not Inflicted, but on the Obstinate and Irreclaimable.

Secondly, I will Demonstrate, that it is but just to Punish them Eternally that are Obstinate and Irreclaimable.

Lastly, I shall evidence there is no want of Goodness in inflicting of Eternal Punishments on such. So far the doing so is from being thwarting and inconsistent with it.

That Infernal Torments are not inflicted, but on the Obstinate and Irreclaimable, cannot but be manifest to all that soberly consider, that the Divine Heart as well as Divine Arms are ever open to the Penitent and Converting, and that the great God, Resenting as he is of injuries and wrongs, yet sheweth not his wrath for any, but on the vessels of dishonour, those whom he hath first endured with much long-suffering, who notwithstanding all his Obligations on them, and all his endearments, Audaciously persist as long as life enables, to Provoke him. Can any thing be more Express, or more full, than is the Declaration which he makes in favour of the Penitent? If the wicked will turn from All his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my Statutes and do that which is Lawful and Right, Ezek 18.21, 22, 23. He shall surely live, he shall not dye. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him, in his Righteousness that he hath done, he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should dye? faith the Lord God, and not that he should return from his wayes and live? Again, when [whensoever]V. 27, 28. the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doth that which is Lawful and Right, he shall save his soul alive, because he considereth and turneth away from all his Transgressions that he hath committed, He shall surely live, he shall not dye. So manifest it is that none Perish but the Irreclaimable and Unrepenting.

For this Reason as well as Others are such forlorn wretches on whom infernal Torments shall hereafter be inflicted, compar'd to chaff, to wild Trees, to dry Trees, they being so Perverse, so Corrupt, so desperately Overgone with Wickedness and Lusts, that there is as little hope of working on them in the Methods Appointed by Divine Wisdom to that End, as of converting chaff into wheat, or of Receiving fair, and good and pleasant fruit from a wild and crabbed Tree, or from a wither'd and dry one. The Chaff only shall be burned up with Fire Unquenchable. And the Tree only that will not bring forth Good fruit, is to be cut down. And what Husband-man would not cut down a Tree that is but Cumber and Burthen to the Ground?

And this Re-minds me of the second thing, which I propounded to be evinced, namely, That for God to Punish with Eternal Torment the Obstinate and Unreclaimable, is so far from being Hard and Unrighteous, that there is nothing more Agreeable to Justice, and to the common sentiment and notion which we all have of it, than This.

For First, If God inflict Eternal Torments on men, it is but what he told them of before that he would do, if they did not Reform, (which was fair) He striketh not but after He hath threatned, so that if they would themselves, they might avoid the Effects of his Anger; which if they do not, the blame and Imputation is not to be laid on God, who deplores them, and who gave them warning, but on themselves that would not take it. On this consideration God himself insists to Justifie his dealings, and when he had Accounted thus for them, he upbraids the Israelites with great. Injustice and Unreasonableness, for not acknowledging the Equity and Righteousness of his Procedure. Yet ye say, the way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel, is not my way equal? are not your wayes unequal? When a Righteous man turneth away, &c. and when the wicked man turneth away, Ezek. 18. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29.

Again, if God were Good, and Wife, and Just in threatning as we have evinced him, he cannot be Unrighteous, Evil or Unjust in inflicting; it is but Vindication of his Word, and what he is obliged to in point of Honour, and in point of Justice to himself, to make them to feel the Verity and Truth of Comminations and Threats, who heretofore did mock and scorn them. They who do not Reform and Convert upon the threatening of Eternal Death, when God makes it, do by interpretation laugh at That, and dare him; it is as if they should say, we care not for his threats, nor fear them, let him that makes them do his worst. And what shall God in Honour then do, when he is challeng'd to do his Utmost, but the Justice which he owes himself, to make them feel the Dire Effects of his extream displeasure, who so despis'd it and him? Should he only threaten and not inflict, what were his Threatnings, but Ridiculous Fooleries! Once, Threatned He has, and he will execute his Threatnings. He cannot deny himself.

And supposing it to be a piece of high Justice to God, it cannot be unjustice to the sinner, to make him an Eternal Instance of Divine Displeasure, for ut Verum vero, sic justum justo consonat. There is as great a Consonancy and Agreement in all things which are Just, as there is in all things which are True: What is but Just to One, that cannot be Unjust and Unrighteous to Another. Indeed it is the Goodness of the great God to bear with men so long, and to try so many and so likely methods to reclaim them: But it is but Justice, when all endeavours to Reduce them, become Unprofitable and vain, to let Justice to himself, and to the sinner take its course. I say Justice to the sinner, for He inflicts but what the sinner merits. We have already proved an Infinity of Guilt in every Sin.

Finally, There is so great Reason that the Obstinate and Irreclaimable should be Eternal Instances of wrath, that by the Light of Nature, many wise and knowing men among the Heathen thought so. For Socrates, Plato, Plutarch and many others, though, as I have shewn already, They held infernal Pains to be Medicinal and Purgatory, and in that respect to be Finite, yet they also held, that Persons overgone with Wickedness and Vice, who were Obstinate, Perverse and Irreclaimable, are given up unto ERINNYS to abide in Torments, with that most Dreadful Fury for ever. Arist. Rh • t. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 l. 1. c. 15. The crime is Great saith Aristotle 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which is Immedicable. If sayes Plato, Plat. in Phaed. Any for the Greatness of their Crimes do seem Incurable, Id. in Gorg. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 — 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Them a Iust Fate does Hurry into Tartarus or Hell, Plutar. de iis quitar. à Num. cor. from whence they never Return. Thus He in Phaedo. And I find the like in his Gorgias. Thespesius in Plutarch reports the same.

So Just it is and so Righteous to make the Obstinate and Irreclaimable to suffer Torments as Everlasting as their Souls. But you will say, perhaps it may, but how Good is it • For though it may be called Goodness to Awe and Threaten men with Endless Torments in Order to Reform and Imbetter them; and, if they will not be imbetter'd and reformed by the threatning, it may be Iustice, but how can it be called Goodness to Inflict them?

I might answer, as some others have before me, That Divine Iustice is a Perfection, and consequently a kind of Goodness, That there is no possible Inconsistency between the former and the latter, that to be Just is to be Good. But that, since the Objection doth proceed of Moral, and not of Metaphysical and Abstract Goodness, it would look too plainly like an evasion, rather than an answer, to think to put it off and Baulk it with this.

Wherefore taking Goodness in a Moral sense for Kindness, Benignity, Clemency, I hold my self obliged to evince there is no want thereof in the execution of Divine Justice, by Inflicting infinite eternal Punishments. Nor is there, for certainly there cannot be a want or culpable Privation, Absence or Defect of Goodness, in Administrations wherein it ought not Properly to be; Privation or want it is Absentia debiti inesse, The Absence of that which ought [one way or other] to be in or Present; and therefore seeing Goodness it self Obliges not the great God to shew it in the mentioned circumstances [on the Obstinate and Irreclaimable] and consequently, it ought not to be further exercised on them, there is no want thereof, if it be not.

Now there can be nothing clearer, than that Goodness obliges not the Great God to give Perpetual Demonstrations of it to the Irreclaimable and Obstinate; For Divine Goodness, as the Humane, is seated in a middle between the two extreams of Cruelty and Weakness, and is to be directed in the Exercises of it by Reason and wisdom. Now it is against all Reason, that Goodness which is but cast away upon the Stubborn and Incorrigible, should be everlastingly continued to them; for if it were, the Exercise thereof in such a circumstance, would not deserve the Honour of that name, since, though to bear long be Goodness, to bear alwayes, and with the Insolent and froward, is not so, but Weakness. Goodness obliges not God to shew it where there is no Reason He should, and where there is no Reason he should not. God owes Juslice to himself. He is His Own End. Hear Aristotle in the case. Arist. d. morib. l 4. c. 11. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 — They who manifest no Displeasure for the things for which they ought, seem fools, as well as those, that are not Angry neither As, nor when, nor with whom they ought: for they seem to be without Sense and Resentment, &c.

But to exemplifie the Reason, to render't more convincing; what if a Father, after he hath long threatned his Disobedient and Rebellious Son with disinherison and utter displeasure, do at last upon his Sons Persistance in his Follies, proceed to make him feel in effect what was threatned, Doth it argue any want of Fatherly affection, or kindness in the Parent, whose Bowels yearn, who would rather than the better part of his estate, it may be of his Blood, he could reclaim and turn him? No, but a Noble and exemplar piece of Iustice which He owed to himself; which if he had not executed in the present circumstances, after so much injury and affront done to him, and so much Patience and endurance exercised by him, the world would accuse him of impotent and fond Indulgence, and of most pittiful weakness. And is so Irrational and impotent a Fondness inexcusable in man that hath Infirmity of Nature to Apologize and plead for it, what would it be in God that hath none? 'Tis Reason only obliges to be Good. Indeed so long there is Reason to be Good, in the Reason of Goodness, as there is no Reason against it. To be good against Reason, is Folly and Weakness, not Goodness.

But it may be, you will say, But why so much Haste then? and why doth God Precipitate a Sentence, which he might much longer defer? Perhaps, had he but deferred it a little longer, those that have not converted, would convert.

I answer, Every man hath his Time, and the Order of the Universe, that Frame and Constitution of things, whereby they ever are in Flux and Revolution, allows no more; many they be who are to Act their Parts on this Terrestrial Stage, and those that are before must go off, and take their leaves, to make room for those that follow: every one must have his turn, there is a settled Law and Order of Nature, and, according to it, One Generation passeth, and another cometh. One must pass, that another may come. Now 'tis highly Rational and Congruous, that Divine Wisdom should conform to the Laws it self hath made; and no less so, that this consideration of the shortness and Uncertainty of Humane Opportunities and Seasons, should excite in man a due and thorough care to improve them; it being extream weakness for Him, by any Omission to neglect and Trisle with the Present, that knows himself not sure of the Future; it is, to day if we will hear his voyce. This is the great Reason why God has rendred humane life so Uncertain, namely, to Prevent the Oscitancy and Delayes, that man is subject to, I come as a Thief in the Night, watch therefore.

Nor may it be thought that longer time would effect what those advantages the present time affordeth doth not. Nothing will reclaim the irreclaimable and Obstinate; that very space to Repent, which doth intenerate and mollifie the vertuous and ingenuous, it but confirmeth and emboldens the stubborn and wicked; there is enough afforded in the present time to Operate on those that do not harden their Hearts, and no forbearance, no Patience will have a good effect and operation upon those that do. To day if you will hear his voyce, harden not your Hearts: his Voice is loud enough to make men hear, if they harden not their Hearts, and stop not their Ears.

In fine, How long should God try? What bounds and limits would you set his Goodness? When He hath stay'd one year, would you not demand another? When he hath waited one and another, perhaps if he would stay the third, the sinner might Repent; and you might as well demand a thousand years as one, and as well a Myriad of years as a thousand. How long shall God await and expect? Surely For ever, if Delinquent man shall vote it. Man will never think that God hath tryed long enough, and God only knows when he has.

Thus I have evinced all I undertook to do upon the first Argument, and all was necessary I should. I have evinced that there are Eternal Punishments; that there is equality and Proportion between the Punishment (as Endless and Eternal as it is) and the sin; I have evinced that the threatning of Eternal Punishment, in order to the compassing the Present and the Future Weal of Man, is an Instance of Divine Benignity; and also that the Infliction of them on the irreclaimable and Obstinate is a great Evincement of Divine Justice, and none of any want of Goodness, Kindness or Clemency.

And now when I recall my thoughts, I find them tempted to suggest to me, That all the labour I have put my self to in writing, and (put) you to in reading is superfluous; the matter might have been concluded more effectually in fewer words. For what if God whose only End is his Glory, and the Demonstration of Himself in all his Attributes and Perfections, willing to shew his Just and Dreadful Wrath upon his Open enemies, should execute and hang them up in chains of Darkness, to make them Everlasting Instances and Monuments thereof to Saints and Angels? What if God will?

And I the rather stand on this Argument, because it looks so like the Great Apostle's, But O man, who art thou that Replyest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that form'd it, why hast thou made me thus? What if God willing to shew his Wrath, and to make his Power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath sitted to Destruction? We ought to acquiesce in all Divine Appointments, and to believe them (to be) Just, when we know them to be Gods, because his Will is Justice, and it is his Prerogative not only to Ordain the time when, and the manner how, but also the Duration and extent of all the Punishments of the wicked, how long they are to endure, as well as of what weight they ought to be. Pl • tarch. de iis qui tard. à num. corrip. For so Pindarus in Plutarch, so Religious was he in this point.

Quod, &c. inter multos alios Pindarus quoque testatur, qui optimum appellat Artificem, Gubernatorem & Dominum rerum omnium Deum, utpote verè Justitiae factorem & creatorem, cui soli definite convenia • , quando, quomodo, ac quous que scelestorum unusquisque plecti debeat.

And so much for the First Argument, the seeming inequality of Infinite and Eternal Punishments to Finite Transgressions, I now proceed to the Second, from the Nature of Punishment.

Punishment, say you, (According to the Notion We have of it,) is either for the Good of the whole, or of the Part, and 'tis inflicted, Not to torment the Criminal, but either to Amend him, or the Society of which He is a Member, that both may Enjoy the Comforts and the Sweets of it: but what of Good in Everlasting Punishment is there to either of These, &c.

I know not whether the Present Argument will signifie the less with you, (for with me it will not) after I have told you that the Notion it is Bottomed on, Hobbs de corp. polit. part. 1. c. 3. art. 10. is Mr. Hobbs's, and that it is in him I find, That the Law of Nature ordaineth that no Revenge be taken upon consideration only of the Offence Past, but of the Benefit to come, that is to say, That all Revenge [by which he means Punishment] ought to tend to amendment either of the Person offending, or of others by the example of his Punishment, which (sayes he) is sufficiently apparent, &c.

A Notion so Unhappy in its Tendency and Influence, that it will effectually Perform what you urge it for, in all that can design so ill to improve it. Of this its Tendency Mr. Hobbs himself is well aware, Hobbs de corp. polit. ch. 5. art. 11. and therefore he endeavours to remove the Scandal he foresaw his Dogme would on this account administer to serious and considerate Persons; but in such • way as really does Aggravate it, concerning which I shall say more hereafter. But to return to you.

It was not (I believe) from Mr. Hobbs for whom you manifest no good Resentment, that you received this Notion of Punishment, nor do I think you comprehend the Hobbists (though you see you might) when you say the Notion WE have of it—there are other Persons of a fairer Reputation in the World both for Learning and Religion than you perhaps esteem Mr. Hobbs, or any of his Sectaries (to be) who are of the same side you take.

What Plutarch's Notion of Punishment is, you may inferr from what I have already offer'd on the first Argument; and for Seneca and Plato, both of them seem entirely yours. Seneca sayes expressly, and for what he saith, he quoteth Plato, that this ought to be consider'd in every infliction of Punishment, that it be designed either to amend the wicked, or to remove them, and that in both, respect ought not to be had to what is Past, but to the Future, for asmuch as Plato affirmeth, No Prudent Rector will inflict Punishment on any man, because he hath offended already, but lest he should offend again; it being impossible that things Past should be recall'd, but not so that things future should be Prevented. But happily, you will like it better in his own language, and therefore take it so. Hoc semper in omni animadversione (saith he) servabit, Sen. d: Ira, l. 1. ut sciat alteram adhiberi, ut emendet malos •• alteram ut tollat. In utroque non praeterita, sed futura iutuebitur. Nam ut Plato ait, Nemo Prudens punit, quia peccatum est, sed ne peccetur. Revocari enim Praeterita non possunt: futura prohibentur & quos volet nequitiae male cedentis exempla fieri, palam occidet: non tantum ut pereant ipsi, sed ut alios pereundo deterreant.

Lipsius affirmeth this Passage to be cited out of Plato de Legibus, Lips. con. • Se • . l. 1. d: Ira • ot 177 and for that purpose he produceth the following Text, which indeed hath something like it.— E Platone haec sumpta 9. de Legib. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

But I find a more express and pertinent one in his Protagoras. Plat in Protag.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 .

Nor is this the only Pertinent Citation to be had in Sene • a, there are many more of like Import, of which yet there is but One that for its Fulness and Conformity of sense to yours, I shall at present note; 'tis in his first Book of Clemency, wherein there is the following Paragraph. Sen. de Clem. l. 1. Transeamus (saith he) —ad alienas injurias: in quibus vindicandis • aec tria lex secuta • st, quae princeps quoque sequi debet: aut ut cum quem punit, emendet, aut ut p •• na • jus caeteros meliores reddat; aut ut sublatis malis securiores caeteri vivant.

But to come nearer home, I find a Learned man, and he One that though he were not a Profest Divine, yet in Divinity has merited in many things as much as most that are, I mean Grotius, who owns the same Notion of Punishment with that which you Propose as yours, For he saith, Ius puniendi in rectore, Grot. de Satisf. Christ. c. 2. &c. non est aut jus absoluti Dominii, aut Ius Crediti. Probatur hoc primo ex fine, qui optime sole • distinguere facultates. Nam Ius absoluti dominii ut & jus Crediti comparatum est ejus gratiâ, qui id jus habet: at jus puniendi, non punientis causa existit, sed causa communitatis alicujus. Poena enim omnis Propositum habet Bonum commune, ordinis nimirum conservationem onem & exemplum: ita quidem ut rationem expetibilis, non habeat, nisi ab hoc fine, cum jus Dominii & Crediti per se sunt expetibilia. Hoc sensu Deus ipse Dicit se poena eorum qui puniuntur non delectari.

And I will add to Grotius his Testimony, Dr. Stil. Discourse concerning the Sufferings of Christ, c. 1. sect. 4. for the Resemblance and Conformity it hath therewith, that of a Worthy Person of our own, who also tells us (as the Author last mentioned) That the Obligation to Punishment arises from the Injury the Publick sustains by the Impunity of Crimes, of which Magistrates are to take care, for the Reason of Punishment is not because a Law is broken, but because the breach of the Law tends to dissolve the Community by Infringing of Laws, and the honour of those who are to take care of them; For if we consider it, the measure of Punishment is in a well ordered State taken from the Influence which crimes have upon the peace and interest of the Community, therefore, Pride, Avarice, Malice, are not Punish'd by Humane Laws as severely, as Theft, &c.— So that the common note talked of Fiat Justitia & pereat mundus, is a piece of Pedantry, rather than true wisdom—And that hence it appears in Humane Laws, the Reason of Punishment is not that such an Action is done, but because the Impunity in doing it may have a bad influence on the Publick interest, but in debts the right of Restitution depends upon the Injury received by a Particular Person, who looks at no more than the Reparation of his loss by it.

I make no question but whatever Perswasion you may possibly have had before, you have this now, that I will do you all the right imaginable in the Argument, seeing I acknowledge (that) the Notion that is its Basis and Foundation, hath such Authority to countenance and favour it: which that I may, I shall reduce the Reason which you urge, to Form, and so display it in its Utmost Evidence and Force, and then joyn Issue upon it. And in Forms it runs thus, All Punishment which is inflicted justly, is inflicted either for the Good of the whole, or of the part. But Everlasting Punishment as such, is neither inflicted for the Good of the whole, nor for the God of the Part. Therefore Everlasting Punishment as such is not inflicted justly, and consequently, not at all. For Everlasting Punishment is none, if not Just.

Or thus,

All Iust and Righteous Punishment is inflicted, not to torment, but to amend the Party Punished, or the Society whereof he is a member, that both may enjoy the sweets. But Infernal Everlasting Punishments are not, cannot be inflicted to amend the Punished, or the Society, but only to Torment the Offendor. Therefore, &c.

This is your Argument in Form, wherein I take it to be so conclusive, so cogent against Mr. Hobbs and men of his Perswasion, that I see not how on his Principle the force thereof is avoidable. The Answer he vouchsafech it, is utterly uncapable of being applyed, Neither of the Propositions in the mentioned Syllogism, are in the least considered. A Truth you will assoon acknowledge as you shall have read what he sayes. Hobbs de corp. polit. part. 1. ch. 5. sect. 11. Concerning Revenge, saith he, which by the Law of Nature ought nor to aim (as I have said r. 3. sect. 10.) at present delight, but future Profit, there is some difficulty made by such as object the continuance of Punishment after the Day of Iudgement, when there shall be no place neither for amendment, not for example. This Objection had been of some force, if such Punishment had been ordained after all sins were part, but considering the Punishment was instituted before the sin, it serveth to the benefit of mankind, because it keepeth men in Peaceable and Vertuous Conversation by the terror, and therefore such Revenge was directed to the Future only.

Who seeth not how unapplyable to either Proposition in the mention'd Argument this Answer is? besides the great Harshness, that Revenge should not regard the Past, but the Future; and as great a mistake [or Ignoratio Elenchi] as if the thing is question were the Instituting and Ordaining of Eternal Punishment, whereas indeed it is the Inflicting, between which there is no little Difference; since if the Menacing and Threatning of Revenge respects the Future, yet the Execution and Performance of that Revenge, doth in common sense regard the Past.

Wherefore seeing Mr. Hobbs's Answer will not satisfie a thinking man, I must Essay to give the argument another, wherein though I might content my self simply to deny the Major, namely, that All Punishment which is inflicted justly, is inflicted either for the Good and Reformation of the Party Punished, or for Example to Others: yet considering of how great advantage it may prove, not only to detect a false Notion of Punishment, but instead thereof to Settle and Establish a true One, I shall in order thereunto expartiate in my Answer. And there are four things that I will do in it.

To the First. And what is Punishment in the common sense and Notion which all the World has of it, but Infliction of some Evil [of Pain] on an offender for some Past offence? Or as others judge it fitter to express it, Gret de I • re Bell. l. 2. c. 20. An Infliction of a Natural for a Moral Evil. Malum Pane propter malum Culpe, Malum Passionis propter malum Actionis, Evil of Suffering for evil Doing. Indeed the Notion strictly taken, immediately agreeth but to Corporal Punishment, as it is distinguisht from Pecuniary, That being called Poena properly, this Mulcea; But yet it Secondly agrees to Mulcts also; For these, though in Propriety of Language they be not called Pains, are yet called Penalties; to signifie they are not Punishments, but in that Respect wherein as Evils, they do Afflict and Pain.

This then Is the true and proper Notion, and the most agreeable to Holy Scripture, of Punishment as it abstracteth from Divine and Humane, and it importeth in it somewhat as the matter, somewhat as the form. For the matter, it importeth Pain; for the term Pain in English, is deriv'd from Poena, the word for Punishment in Latine; and indeed what ever is inflicted could not be a Punishment unto the Party, if it did not some way Pain him. For the Form, it importeth a Relation to committed sin, in recompence of which, and as a thing deserved, the Pain or Evil is, inflicted; for Pain inflicted without Relation unto some Offence and Transgression, may indeed be called an Affliction, but to make that Pain a Punishment, it must regard some Injury, some wrong done, for expiating which it is inflicted. Thus Punishment it is Retributive, and that it is so, the very Terms that signifie it in the Greek, do also manifestly show; in which Language it is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , all which imply a Retribution and so the Learned Selden understood it, Selden. de jur. nat. & gent. l. 1. c. 4. who sayes, Ex ratione & essentiâ Poenae proprie dictae est ut pro peccato seu culpa aliqua impendatur, &c. Omnigena enim est partim Retributiva, &c.

In this Notion Punishment is really Revenge, and indeed in general is styled 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Revenge by Plato in Gorgias, Vindicta by A. Gellius, and Ulpian that great Lawyer, defineth it Vindicta noxae, Vid. cic. de Inviat. l. 2. A Vindication of received wrong. For what other is Revenge, than what I have described Punishment, a Retribution of Evil, a rendring Evil back again for evil received, or a making him to suffer evil, that hath first done it: Only, it looks in common Usage, as if in some formalities they differ'd, and that to make Revenge Punishment, there were requir'd a Sanction of it by Law, as if to render Evil, where there is no Law to countenance and favour it, were bare Revenge, but where there is, it were Punishment. This I say, it seems, for whether any such Distinction be indeed to be allowed or not. I make a great Question, For as much as all Revenges antiently were called Punishments, Genuine and Proper. So Pausanids,— Pausan, in Laceri • . 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The Antients were wont to call Revenges Punishments.

Nor is Castigation or Chastisement (whatever Scaliger and others think) to be excepted; for as Punishment, it is Retributive, it looketh backward, and is inflicted in the name of merit for some transgression past, and consequently is Revenge; though as it looketh forward to the Future, and is intended to Reform the Party, and to prevent his doing so again, it is but a Remedy, or Medicine. I say it again, that Castigation in the Prospect of it, is not Punishment; and in the Retrospect it is Revenge; Silden de Fare Nat. & G • nt. l. 1. c. 4. and so saith Selden in the place before quoted, Omnigena enim est partim • altom Retributiva, tametsi simul etiam fuerit medicinalis, ut in Scholis loquuntur, seu emendationi sive ipsius peccantis sive aliorum adhibita. Neque, san • Platonicum illud neminem Prudentem Punire quia Peccatum est, sed ne peccetur, verum satis esse potest, nisi intelligas, &c.

And from what I have already offer'd it doth evidently follow,

First, That it is not warily expressed by you, that Punishment is not inflicted to Torment the Criminal, you might as well have said, that Punishment is not inflicted to be Punishment; it is Essential unto Punishment to be Afflictive, for otherwise it could not be the issue and effect of Wrath or Anger, which yet I shall evince it presently to be. To vex and grieve the offender is the proper end of Anger, and its proper design, and it is in this, as Aristotle tells us, Ar • st. Rh • t. l. • c. 5. that it differs from Hatred and Malice.— 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

And this brings me to the Second Consectary, That all Punishment as inflicted on transgressors for Offences P • st • inia • issue and effect of Anger, for what else is Anger but as Aristotle hath defin'd it, and as our own Experience sensibly evinces it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 an Appetition in Desire of Revenge, Arist. Rbet. l. 2. c. 2. and consequently, Punishment is in satisfaction and contentment to Anger. Hence the Scripture Paraphrases Punishment, by the letting out of wrath or Anger.

I know the famous Scaliger defineth Anger otherwise, Scal. Exerc. 313. that it is not Appetit •• s Ultionis, but Depulsinis, not a Desire of Revenging, but • verting Evil. A Notion not a little opposite to common sense, and to be admired how possibly it could be his, who was so wrathful and Vindictive a Man, and when from his own experience, was as capable is ever any was of knowing better. But I take the Answer to him to be very Pertinent, which Cardan, a Scholar as Substantial and as Real, and every way as great as himself, has given long ago on this occasion, Cardan. Actio. 1. contra caelumn. Verum locum (saith he) & 〈◊〉 open invenit, quibas, suaes ineptias dissunderet. Utinam vera esse • t quae definit: saepe anim •• lia quaer • r • soleo, que non nvenio • piud uliquem. Sed absit ut ab illo accipiam, qui nec ab aliquo veterum significata haec accipit, nec ostendit quod ita fi •• sed vult, quae simplics narrationi, 〈◊〉 dictatori, atqui • e ovacula •• ipiam, &c.—

Again, the Sentiment of S • nec • that Noble Stoick, which also Gratius owns as his, That Justice is not Ira, but Ratio, that Justice is Reason, and not A • ger, is alledged. A • if, it were impossible that Justice should be Reason, if it were Anger. A Notion worthy only o • Persons who believe the Affection to be Intrinsecally evil, or who understand them in their Irration •• excesses only, as Seneta did when he talked so, Vid. A • ist. de Mer, l., 4. c. 11. and not of those that can believe that they be natural that they are ascribed to God that under Regulations and within their Bounds, they are not Evils, but Perfections, We may be • ng •• and not sin. For my part, I am with those Philosophers of whom I read in Plutarch, Plutar. de Procr Anim. i • Tim. Vid Laclan. de Ir • Dei, c. 37 • & 21, & • . who think that there is Reason in Passion. Once Animal in man is Rationale, Humane Passions, Regulated and Conducted by the Mind, are no Irrational Extravagancies, or Emotions Opposite to Humane Reason, but Vertues that partake it, and in themselves Accomplishments that Integrate the Humane Nature, without which it would be Lame, Imperfect, Defective.

In a word, Vindictive Justice, as Justice, it is Reason; as Vindictive, it is Anger; and though it be not that Anger which is excessive and extravagant, a thing so far from being governed by Reason, and participating of it, that 'tis inconsistent with it, and is a Perturbation that transports a man beyond all Bounds. Yet Anger it is, as Anger is that Rational Inclination that a Person hath to vindicate himself, for those Indignities and those Affronts that are done him. In this sense all Punitive Justice is Anger, and in this sense also 'tis Reason, so that 'tis not true to say, that Justice is Reason and not Anger, Plat. 11. de rep. Arist. 3. Eth. Nico. c. 8. apud Lipsium. Com. in Sen. l. 1. de Ira. For Punitive Justice is both, it is Reason and Anger, or Reasonable Anger. In fine, I oppose to Seneca's Authority, that of Plato and of Aristotle.

So much in general for the Nature of Punishment. Now touching the Ends of Punishment, and that Division which is made thereof in reference to them; I say, that seeing there are several Parties in every Punishment that is Inflicted, of which the One is Agent, He that Punishment; the Other Patient; he that is Punished, and then the circumstants and standers by. The Punishment may bear Relation to them all, and in conformity to those Relations, as it is expressed by several Titles, so it also has as many several Ends and Designs.

For First, In relation to the Agent; or to him that doth Inflict, in which respect they call it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Revenge, it is design'd in Satisfaction of his Anger, to assert and free him from contempt offer'd, and so to make Reparation to, his lost, or injur'd honour. Noct. A •• . 6. c. 14. Hence 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 quasi 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or as A. Gellius—iccircoque id vocabulum à conservatione honoris factum putant.

That Reparation of lost and injur'd Honour is intended in Revenge, or Punishment, is Unquestionable, in as much as Revenge, which I have defined Retribution of evil, is not only expressed in common language, by I will be quits with him, I will meet with him, I will be even with him, in respect of which it is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (ie) Re • aliation; but 'tis also expressed, by I will make him know himself, I will make him know whome he hath to do with, before I have done with him • and this is Reparation of Assaulted Honor. Hence it is that Vindication, which originally and at first did signifie Revenge, was afterward employed to signifie Assertion or Defence; because the true Design of Revenge is to assert and free the taker of it from that contempt, and that neglect which was shewn him. Arist. Rb • t. l. 2. c. 2.

And truly, there is nothing sweeter than Revenge, as it atchieveth this End; it carries in it so much satisfaction and gratification, something so agreeable and so delightful, that common sense as well as Aristotle tells us, Arist. Rbet. l. 1. c. 11. & l. 2. c. 2. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Revenge is sweet. No wonder therefore that it is so Natural to seek Revenge, since it is so sweet; there is nothing more Delightful than to Overcome an enemy, and to Regain lost Honour; a Delight so Pure, so Abstract, that tis 'not Unworthy of Almighty God himself, who is affirmed to Assume it. He rejoyceth over his Adversaries.

'Tis is relation unto this end, that Anger cannot satisfie it self, as Malice does, that evil be inflicted upon him that hath provoked it; It requireth further that he be sensible of that Evil, and who inflicted it; for if he be not, it cannot compass this its End thereby; It removeth not contempt, it maketh not the enemy to know himself, no nor to know him neither with whom he hath to do.

In fine, This end is so inseparable from Punishment, that whosoever does inflict this, must needs propose it; and if he do not actually propose it, he is in Reason to be interpreted to do so virtually, in respect of the Person he sustains, which is of one so impaired, so injured in his Honour by some contempt shewn him, that he cannot choose but vindicate it. This is the proper end of Punishment as Punishment, and in respect of this, Punishment is meer Punishment. Hence God when he threatens to Revenge and Punish, words it, I will make them know that I am the Lord, &c.

So much for Punishment as it respects the Party that Inflicts it; but as it respects the Party punished, so 'tis called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Castigation, and is intended for his Good, and Amendment. For Instance, a Father so corrects his Child, a Master his Servant, not meerly by way of Vindication, for that he hath been bad, but by way of Reformation, that he may be made better. Folly is bound up in the Heart of a Child, and the Rod of Correction must fetch it out. Thus Punishment is Physick.

But if we consider Punishment in Reference to the standers by or Assistants, so it is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Example; a word used also in the Scripture, Ioseph was not willing to make Mary a [Publick] Example [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] and those things are written for our examples [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] and is Designed to deterr and fright others from committing like transgressions; and thus also Punishment is Physick.

And so much for the First Particular, to explicate the Nature and the Ends of Punishment, wherein I have evinced it (as such) to be Vindictive; I now proceed to the Second, which is to shew, that Punishment in this notion of Vindictive, is not incompetent to God, but that as he punishes, so he is an Avenger; and that the Punishments which he inflicts, are not only Castigations and Examples, but Revenges.

And there is nothing more perspicuous than this Truth; for First, Therefore he Assumeth Anger, wrath and Indignation to himself, nay, Jealousie, to shew he minds his Glory, that he will not bear contempt, that it is no good despising of him, that if he be despised, as he wanteth not the Power, so he will not want the Will to avenge for it. The thought that God will avenge; it striketh men with fear, and the fear of God is the Beginning of Wisdom; they that fear him cannot flight him. So Aristotle, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Arist. Rhet. l. 2. c. 2. He that fears cannot flight or contemn.

Again, He hath ingrafted a Vindictive Principle into every thing that hath sense; there is not a Worm but has it, and he that hath ingrafted Revenge, shall not he Revenge? for if he that Planted the ear, must needs hear, and he that made the eye, must needs see; and he that gave a heart to man, must needs understand; then surely he that hath implanted in every living thing a Principle of Revenge, in order to its own defence and conservation, must needs be one himself that will take it.

Thirdly, And it being legible and manifest in Nature, Vi • . Frat. Adag. tit. ultin. Courtar de • xag. Deor. • . 307, 308, &c. no wonder if the very Heathens saw it. For besides the Adrastia and Nemesis of the Poets, that Sanctuary and Asylum (that) they have made 〈◊〉 injur'd vertue, I find as much in Livy, ad Deos Vindices entolerandae 〈◊〉 confugiam. So Seneca, S • nt 〈◊〉 immortales lenti quidem sed certi Vindices generis humani, &c. And there is a plain and full assertion of it in the Laws of the Twelve Tables, of which the first (we have) is, Ad Divos adeunto caste; Pietatem adhibento, Opes amovento, Life up Pure hands to God; Exercise Piety; Use no costly and expensive Ceremonies. Qui secus faxit, Deus ipse Vindex erit. He that doth otherwise, God will take Vengeance upon him. It is Deus erit Vindex, not erit Judex, Cit. d • leg. l. 2. Cicero's Observation, V • d. Arist. de man. ad fin. it is not that God will Judge, but that he will Avenge.

Fourthly, But I insist too long in arguing a Point that is so manifest for what is plainer than that God is one that executeth Vengeance, since he appropriates it to himself; Vengeance is mine, and I will repay it; for he not only own himself therein to be a Revenger, but he claims it as his great Prerogative to be so; Vengeance is mine, it is not man's, I will repay. And no less than this did Seneca imply in saying, Sen. insap. no • cad. Inj • ria. c. 18. Let this therefore be for our comfort, that although our frailty omitteth Revenge, there will be some one who will revenge us on an Audacious Proud and Injurious Enemy.

But you will ask me, why doth God Appropriate Vengeance? and how doth he Execute it?

I answer First to the first Question, that therefore Vengeance is appropriated unto God, because in every wrong, iniquity, injury or sin, which in its utmost comprehension and extent he hath severely forbidden, there is contempt of him; and his command, so that though the Hurt and Injury be done to man, yet there being also in it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and Neglect of God, it were an Insolence that could not be excused, for the Creature to take the matter out of his Creators hands, who is infinitely more concerned in it than he. This were for man to frustrate and defeat (as much as in him lyes) the Vindication and Revenge of his Superiour and Lord, and by a Presumptuous execution and Pursuit of his own. God sayes, Vengeance is mine. I am more concerned in the Injury than Thou. Thy Enemy wrongs thee, but he contemns me; and therefore since it is so much my Interest to see it taken, do thou leave the Revenge to me. And to leave it to God, is but a piece of Deference and Respect we owe him. So Aristotle, Arist. Rhet: l. 2. c. 16. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . It is Pie • y (as one doth Paraphrase it) to leave the matter to God, who if there be any fraud or cozenage, will surely Revenge.

And How is Vengeance executed by him, which was the Second Question I supposed you to put, but either immediately and in his own Person, or mediately and by his Ministers of State and Magistrates? Vengeance is God's, but he hath betrusted it with men to execute and let it out; I have said ye are Gods, Magistrates that bear the name, they have the keeping of the Honour and Vengeance of God; it is God hath put the Sword into their hands, and to appeal to them for Vengeance is to go to God for it. God doth Revenge, when they do, Vengeance is mine, and I will repay. This is the Charter wherein the Magistrates vindictive Power, or Right of the Sword is conveyed. Men must not right themselves, it is God must right them. For this End he hath appointed men on earth in his name to do it, this is the Basis and Foundation of Magistratical Power, and this is the sole consideration that makes the Prosecution of Injuries Lawful. Were not Magistrates Gods, there could be no complaining to them, for redress of Grievances, nor going to Law before them, in Vindication of our Rights and Properties, for Vengeance is Gods.

I make no question, but by this time you see the little excursion I have made in this Particular, is not impertinent, but that I was obliged to it, to obviate the Prejudices some have taken up against the Vindictiveness of Punishments in general, and consequently of Divine Ones; namely, that Humane Punishments are so Rectoral, as not to be vindictive or effects of Anger. But you see now, that Magistrates as Rectors are Gods, that as such, they are invested with Vindictive Power, and are in the Place and Stead of God, to execute His Anger for all Dishonour and contempt done him; so that the Obligation unto Punishment, in a rightly instituted Commonwealth, ariseth not only from the Danger that not unlikely may accrue unto it by the Impunity of crimes, but also from the dishonour and Affront is offer'd in them unto God, the Soveraign Rector. So far is Fiat justitia, ruat coelum, from being a piece of solemn Pedantry. Yes, it is a Principle of solid and substantial Wisdom. God is the First Author, and therefore He is the Utmost End of Humane Societies, 'tis by him, and therefore for him that Kings Rule,. and Princes decree Justice. Of this Perswasion were such Illustrious Romans as accused of Parricide (for having murdered his Sister) that Horatius (one of the Tregemini) to whom all Rome was so obliged, and so freshly; and what they Urg'd in order to procure Justice upon him, evinces that they thought the doing of it on All Wisdom, and that as much as Common-wealths are interessed and concerned in Punishments, Dio •• ys. Ha-lica •• ass. l. 3. All-mighty God is more. Hi longa oratione proserebant Lges (sayes Dionysius) que nemini quempiam indemnatum occidere permittunt: recensebant que ; exampla Deorum irae in civitates que inulta sivissent scelera. Yes, and in the same cafe, so scrupulous and tender was the King himself, that though the People upon Appeal made to Them, had acquitted that Deserving Criminal, yet Tullus Hostilius out of the great Respect, Fear and Reverence which he paid to his Deities, would not but in the way of Expiation and Sacrifice. Rex ramen non contentus hominum calculis, & de Religione solicitus, accitis Pontificibus jussit placari Deos, atque Genios, & caede Iuvenem expiari legitime.

Nor is what I now assert with so much confidence, more than what the Great Apostle hath asserted long before me, in Rom. 13.1, 2, 3, 4, 5. For nothing can be plainer, than that in the Text alledged, Paul affirms what I have, (1.) That the Magistrate is a Revenger, for he not only calleth him a Terror to the Evil (which implyes it) but in terms a Revenger. He is the Minister of God, a Revenger. (2.) That Revenge taken by the Magistrate, as the Sword with which he takes it, is God's. He beareth not the Sword in vain, He is the Minister of God.

(3.) That Punitive Justice is Vindictive, and Punishments Effects of Wrath, not the Wrath of Man, but the Wrath of God, He is the Minister of God to Execute, What? Justice to be sure. But that Justice is Wrath, Divine Wrath; He is the Minister of GOD to Execute WRATH.

For First, Humane Laws (as also Law-givers) are not alwayes what they should be. And we must distinguish Humane Laws. For these are either Universal, such as are coincident with Laws Divine, and do Prohibit or Injoyn, what they do: or else Municipal, and more Particular, founded only on the Profit and Utility of such as Consent to them. Now Humane Laws of the first sort, which I called Universal, are properly Laws, and do oblige the Conscience, as being of Divine Appointment and Sanction, and the Punishments annexed to them must be executed on offenders, they being Vindicts and concerning God. But Humane Laws indeed of the second sort, which I would rather call Agreements of the People or Compacts under a forfeiture, do oblige no farther, than as they are of Advantage; Nor by the breaking of them incurr you other Danger than of the forfeit was agreed on, to those to whom you have made it, who may Dispence. For every one may depart with his own Right, though none with anothers. Again, if Pride, Avarice, Malice are not punished by Humane Laws of the first sort as severely as Theft, &c. So neither are they in the present World by the Divine, which yet Regard God; and it is because they have not that Malignant Influence upon the Publick, which Theft and others like it have, and consequently, that in that Respect they are not so Evil. But Thirdly, though the measure of Punishment be taken as you see I grant in part it is, from the Influence that crimes may have upon the peace, and interest of the Community, yet it follows not but that such Punishment inflicted, may be Vindictive. And Vindictive 'tis, for God ordained it. And he ordaineth greater Punishment for such than other crimes, for that they having Tendency to Ruine and Dissolve Common-wealths, which it is as well his Care, as great Concernment to maintain and uphold, are more offensive and provoking to Him, than Others. Cic. in Som. Scip. Nihil est (sayes Cicero) illi Principi Deo qui omnem hunc mundum regit, (quod quidem in terris fiat) acceptius quam Concilia, Coetusque hominum jure sociati, quae Civitates appellantur. And so much for the Second Head.

I am now in the Third Place to shew the kind and species of Eternal Punishments, whether they be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Whether they are meer Revenges, in satisfaction and contentment of Divine Justice and Anger; or Castigations, intended only to Reform and amend the punish'd; or in fine, Examples, design'd to Edifie the standers by, and make them Careful what they do.

And to be plain, I hold Eternal Punishments now threatned, and One Day to be inflicted on the Wicked that despise them, all Vindictive, or Effects of Wrath; And that the great Design and End of God in them is to Rescue his engaged Honour and Glory, and to satisfie and please himself in Trophies of his Justice, and in Triumphs over vanquisht Enemies.

Now that Eternal Punishments are principally, if not solely designed for the Honor, Glory, Triumph of the Great God, is evident, in that the day of Iudgement (wherein the sinner shall be damned to them,) is the last day; when all Administration, Government and Rectory shall cease, and be no more; And consequently cannot be intended either in favour of the punished themselves, or for Examples to others.

Perhaps some who love Hypotheses, as many do in this too Curious Age; will tell you, that the Eternal Punishments and Torments of the Damned are Examples unto Saints in Glory, and that they are designed as a means to settle and establish them in that condition; it not being to be thought that any in it can incline to change, when they shall ever have before their Eyes so Dire Examples of changing. And Socrates in Plato, who makes the damn'd in Hell Examples unto those in Purgatory, is in part of this Opinion, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Socr. apud Plat. in Gorgiâ. (sayes he) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , —But others are extreamly wicked, and by Reason of their wickedness become incurable. Of these, Examples are made, who indeed being incurable, receive themselves no advantage and benefit, yet others do, who see them suffering for their sins, the most extream, most sharp, and most tremendous torments, and that to Eternity.

And for confirmation of it, it may be colourably offer'd, that the Devil who affected to leave his first Habitation, and to change it for another, had not had an instance them of that Exorbitancy and folly in any kind; nor had Adam, whole Easie Nature was abused by that Serpent into a like Extravagancy and weakness with his, then had one in his own. For had either of them had an Example, it is to be presum'd, he would have found therein a Perfect Cure for Curiosity, that Impotent and Fond Emotion, which prov'd so Fatal to both.

I say Curiosity, which I apply as well to Faln Angels, as to Faln Adam, because it seemeth not unlikely, an Unhappy Curiosity of knowing this Inferiour World, and perhaps of making an Experiment of Misery and Evil, whereof hitherto they had but heard, that rather than Pride, or any Impotent and senseless Ambition of being either Equal or Superiour to their Maker (as the most think;) or, (as Tertullian and Cyprian do) Their Envy at the Honour and Happiness of man was the Lust inclining them to leave their First Habitation, and to exchange't for Another. This was that which made them Descend, they were disposed to try those other Regions. And Really the History of their Fall or Descent, as it stands on Record in the Sacred Volume, So • rat • p • d Plat. i • Phaedon. which is not much unlike what Socrates in Plato hath concerning it, countenanceth this Opinion, it being said in Iude, that they kept not their, Original and first state [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] but (which is added Exegetically) that [as Persons not contented with it] they left their proper Habitation. Jude 6. In doing which, as they committed Sin and Evil, so they found its Punishment: God for that Extravagance and Weakness (of theirs) both Excluding them for ever from Heaven, and converting the Place they so affected to be in, into a Hell to them, 2 Pet. 2.

This is the less improbable, for that they tempted Eve and Adam with the same consideration, you shall be like to Elohim; presuming (as it may be rationally thought) that that was likely to become the most Efficacious and Successful bait unto others, that had proved but too Powerful a One unto themselves. They by Elohim but meaning themselves, which yet was understood by Adam (probably as they would have it) to signifie God. Thus the Devil put a Fallacy and Cheat upon our first Parents, and for that is called a Lyar from the Beginning. He Equivocated with them. You shall be as Elohim, [They understood as God; the Devil meant as his Fellows:] and wherein as Elohim, but by knowing by their own Experience Good and Evil; and truly so they did, by woful Experience; they knew Good in Paradise, and Evil out of it; As the Devils knew Good in Heaven, and Evil in Hell. But this by the way, to Return.

But though another might presume to bottom the Eternal standing of the Good Angels, on the Dismalness of that Condition, which they see the Faln Ones have plung'd themselves into, by leaving their first Habitation; and who would try again, or wish to have Experience of Hell, Evil, Misery in himself, that has seen, or still sees so dreadful an Experiment thereof in others? And he might also think himself as able to account in like manner, for that eternal confirmation of the glorified Saints in Heaven, by the tremendous observation of the Dire Examples of the Damned in Hell, eternally depending in their eyes. I say, though another would account and reckon thus, yet I dare not: There is in my Judgement an Infinitely higher ground than this, both of the Fixation and Establishment of Glorified Saints and of standing Angels. For (as I take it) it is Incorporation and Ingraffment of the former, and also of the latter into Jesus Christ, and the Inhabitation and Indwelling of the Great Eternal God in them, as in his own house, that doth Establish and Confirm them; it being the Prime Design of God in all that has been, and all that shall be done in the World, but to build unto himself a Spiritual House, and Temple wherein he may Reside for ever; whose House ye are. Christ is Master-Builder, Ministers Inferiour Builders, the work both of Christ and Ministers is Edification and Building. To whom coming as to a living stone disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, Elect and Precious, you also as lively stones, are built up a Spiritual House.

By this you see Eternal Punishments are not designed for Example, much less for Castigation and Amendment of the Punished Hell is not a Purgatory, as the Treefalleth, so it lyeth: Judgement is the Final and Conclusive Act of dispensations: No, Eternal Punishments are neither Castigations, nor Examples, but meer Revenges, intended to Assert Divine Honour, to satisfie Justice, and in a word, intended to remove away from God, all that Dishonour and Contempt, that hath been put upon him by sinners.

And this also was the Notion that the Antients had of the last Judgement, for they held the Justice of the great Judge Rhadamanthus to be Avenging and Vindictive.

So Aristotle, — 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Arist. Eth. l.. 5. c. 8. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 And they seem to call this the Justice of Rhadamanthus 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 —If any be Requited in the same kind, or suffer what he has done, he is served Right.

And so Hesiod, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Hesiod. oper. &c dier. l. 1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 with such an one God is Angry, who in the End will take severe Vengeance for all Iniquities.

But this is a thing that seems so harsh to you on many accounts, that to settle your belief concerning it, I must now perform what I promis'd in the fourth place; namely, answer the Arguments you apprehend to militate, and fight against it: and first for Mr. Hobbs's he saith, Hobbs de corp. polit. part. 1. c 3. s. 10. Revenge when it considereth the offence past, is nothing else but present Triumph and Glory, it directeth to no end, and what directeth to no end, is therefore Unprofitable, and consequently the Triumph of Revenge is Vain-glory, and whatsoever is vain, is against reason. Thus Mr. Hobbs.

But 'tis as easie a matter to defend my self from Mr. Hobbs in this Particular, as to Repulse a weak and tir'd Assailant: for though I do acknowledge that Revenge as it respects offences past, is Glory and Triumph; for therefore I asserted that God did Glory and Triumph in his Revenge [He Rejoyces over his Adversaries:] Yet that his Glory, Triumph and Rejoycing over them, because it is not directed and referred to a Further end, should therefore be Vain, is inconsequent. For it is a most improper expression to say an End is vain; an End as such hath no end. Nor can there be an Infinite Progression in Ends, any more than in Efficients, and though Destinates are said to be in vain, if either they are insufficiently, or not at all referred to their Ends, yet that which is no Destinate, but is the Ultimate and furthest End of all that are, is not vain, though it cannot be referred to another. Now Divine Glory is the Utmost End of all things, God himself in all he does referreth to it, and obligeth us to do so in all we do; so that although it cannot be denyed but that Humane Glorying, or the Boasting of men in themselves, because it is not (as it ought to be) and indeed cannot be directed to the Divine Glory, which is the Ultimate End, is therefore vain; yet that Divine Glory and Triumph it self, which is the matter of the greatest satisfaction of God, and is the Utmost and furthest End he can propose to himself, who ultimately minds himself, and cannot possibly do otherwise, that that is vain, because it hath no further End, is not only a Blasphemous, but a foolish Assertion. The last End can have no further End; indeed no end can as an end, because as an End it is last. Gods Glory is simply the last End; no flesh shall Glory in his Presence, let him that glories, glory in the Lord. The glorying of men is vain Glory, because not referred as it ought to be to God; but the glory of God is solid and substantial glory, because the End of all.

Again, But you will tell me out of Grotius in the Place before cited, that God delighteth not in the Death or Punishment of those on whom it is inflicted, that is, to use the terms of another Learned Person; of whom I also made some mention before; that as a Governour or Rector he delights not in it, as expedient for himself, and that because the Right of Punishment is not existent for the sake of him that Punisheth, but for as much as all Punishment regards the Common-weal or Society, it is existent for the sake of that.

But I have already proved, that the Obligation unto Punishment resulteth not solely, nor principally from the Injury the Publick may sustain, by Impunity of Crimes, but from the wrong, and Injury and Contempt of God that is in them; which whosoever seriously considers that Societies themselves are for God, and that Punishment it self is in the Nature of it vindictive, cannot easily deny. Temporal Rewards and Punishments as well as Magistrates and Governments, are Divine Ordinances, and therefore directed to Divine Glory, as to their last end. God is the Soveraign Rector, and designs his own Honor, as well as mans Good. He is Dishonoured, as well as the Common-weal endangered, if Punishments be not duly Executed. For this cause he threatned the Israelites, that if they found not out the Sacrilegious Person, and Punisht him, He would forsake and leave them.

And for that that it is said in Sacred Scripture, that God delighteth not in the Death of a sinner; the meaning is not that, if sinners will be Obstinate, Perverse and Refractory, he can't derive his satisfaction from his Justice, in rejoycing over them to do them evil, for that he can, Vid. Eras • i Adag. tit. Ult. Mal. according to the Proverb, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . But that he deferreth and delayeth Punishment, and with much Patience, Long-suffering and forbearance endureth all their miscarriages, and all the Insolencies of the wicked; as who should say, He would rather they would turn from their Wickedness and Folly, and live, than Persist therein and dye. So he waiteth to be gracious. The Long-suffering of God is Salvation.

It is in this sense that God is said not to Punish and correct the children of men willingly, viz. That he beareth with them long; for in common language those Expressions are Equivalent and much the same, Chartar. de Imag. Deor. f. 110. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , it is long before Jupiter inspects his Note-book, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Jupiter unwillingly takes notice of it: Erasm. in Adag tit. Qui ult. Mal. and so Erasmus understands them, who tells us, sero dat, aut punit, gravatim id facere videtur, That whoso deferreth either to oblige or punish, He seems unwillingly to do it. It is thus that God delighteth not in the death of a sinner, and that He willeth it not; comparatively he wou'd rather that he should Repent and Live; and interpretatively, he delayeth to inflict Punishment, as it were expecting an occasion, that he might with Honor omit it.

And this in answer to the General Exceptions you put in, namely, The seeming Improportion betwen a Finite Transgression and an Infinite Punishment, and the Inconsistency of Eternal Punishment with the End of Punishment; As for the more Particular ones, I shall in their order now consider them, and first for that of the odd Circumstances of the most that are Christians. You say,

Not to urge that the most that are Christians lye and live under such odd Circumstances, that they are very near an impossibility wholly to subdue, and suppress the influences of Sense, and yet must they be Plagued or Punisht with Unspeakable and Eternal Tortures?

I answer no, for 'tis impossible for any while immur'd in the Body, wholly to subdue the Influences of sense, and should none arrive at Heaven, but who had first arrived to a State of Perfection here on Earth, Heaven would be empty, and Hell full: That Perfection which is to be our aim on earth, cannot be our attainment, or our achievement but in Heaven. Here sin will be Indwelling in us as long as there is flesh incompassing us. It is not Perfect, but Sincere Obedience that is exacted by Grace.

For, that Perfection cannot be attained in the present world by any that descend from Adam, is evident: in that Concupiscence or Lust is Original, Native, inlayed with our very Tempers; We are begotten in sin, and in the Fervency or Heat of Lust and Appetite, and consequently having such Impressions made upon us in our very Rise and Conception, and augmented, and improved in us by our after Acts, 'tis as impossible for us totally to rid our selves of these, as of any other Instincts, and Propensions of Nature. We may check them and restrain them, but cannot destroy and eradicate them. This Body must be new-moulded, new-cast, before it can be wholly freed of the lusts that infect it. Therefore the Apostle when he would be Discharged from his sin, thus expresses his Option, who will deliver me from the Body of this Death!

I know that Jesus Christ was a Man, and that he lived in the midst of Temptations without the Danger and the Power of any, and that he is the Great Example of Divine Life; but I also know the Devil who coming unto us doth find so much, coming unto him, found nothing in him. For he not being begotten or conceived in the Ordinary way of Generation, as all others are, with the common Fervency and Heat of Lust or Appetite, but on a Pure and cold Virgin, and by the Holy Ghost, had no Original Concupiscence or Lust to be awakened and excited in him, as in us, by the many Objects presented daily to the sense. Now external causes work little without there be internal ones to co-operate, Inefficax est causa Procatarctica sine Proegumena.

But to return; Again, the Christian Life here is compared to imperfect things, to Fighting, to Running, to Growing, to Walking, in a word (compared) to Motions; and what is Motion but Imperfect Act, Actus entis in Potentiâ, quatenus in potentiâ. What is in Motion is but in tendency unto Perfection, but hath not yet arrived to it. In Motion there are two terms. The Term from which, and that in this is here on Earth: And the Term to which, and this is in Heaven, and between these is the Motion.

Truly Sir, Our Holiness is not our Righteousness to justifie our Persons; 'tis too Imperfect and Defective to do that, 'Tis not our Inherent but Adherent Righteousness, not the Righteousness within us, but the Righteousness imputed to us, that must bottom all our Hopes; And I the rather say this, because I am a little jealous (by reason of the supposition on which the Argument you urge is grounded) that you hold the Opinion which is now the Ascendent, That Imputed Righteousness is Phancy, and that it was not the Design of Jesus Christ, nor of the Gosple to advance and set up that, but only that which inheres in us.

Were I sure of what I but suspect that you are indeed of this Opinion, and that your Argument hath Aspect that way, I should more fully set my self to oppose it, and to establish that Egregious Verity and Truth of Christian Doctrine concerning Righteousness imputed, as One that ministers as much unto the Comfort, and Repose and Quiet of Conscience, as any other. But since I am not sure, I shall say the less of it now.

Only thus much I will say, that certainly the great Design of God in sending Iesus Christ into the world, was to make His Righteousness, the Righteousness of God Illustrious, in opposition unto that of man, or the Righteousness of the Law; there being Nothing within the compass of the Humane Understanding that can more contribute to illustrate and set off the Infinite and Transcendent Majesty of the great God, as to his Wisdom, Goodness and Justice, than the Declaration he hath made from Heaven of his Righteousness in Jesus Christ, that he is Just and a Justifier; Iust to Punish Christ that assumed on himself the sin of man, and a Iustifier of those that are in Christ, whose Punishment he bore.

The Inherent Righteousness, that Romanists and others so insist upon, is nothing as a Righteousness to boast of, but that Pharisaical one displayed by our Blessed Saviour in the Instance of it which he gives in Luke, Luke 18.10, 11, 12. I thank thee O God that I am not this nor that, but do this and that: Wherein there is an Acknowledgement of God as Author and Inspirer of all the Good he doth, but withal an Exaltation and Advancement of self, I thank thee, there is the One, I am no Extortioner, no Adulterer, nor Unjust: I fast twice in the Week, I give Tythes of all that I possess, there is the Other. It was very well done that he fasted, that he gave Alms, &c. but yet not so well as to Incourage him to boast therein before God.

Verily the Great Design of Jesus Christ and Christianity is not to exalt, but to depress self; He that glories must not glory in the Flesh, not in anything he is, not in any thing he doth, though by Divine Assistance. For by that must all have been done, that either was or could be done by Adam in Innocence, it must have been done by Gods Assistance; and yet for all that, Room enough there was for Boasting and Glorying, then in that Transaction, whereas in this of Grace, or in the Dispensation of the Life and Immortality by Jesus Christ, there is Absolutely none at all.

No, the Design of Christ and Christianity is instead of Pharisaical and Legal Righteousness, which consisteth in our doing and performing of the works of the Law (as by Divine Assistance and enablement we can) to Institute another, that of the Son of God, the Lord our Righteousness, who is appointed to invest and cover with his, all those that sensible of their own Unrighteousness and Imperfection, do apply themselves unto him for it. Except your Righteousness exceeds the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees [which consists in their own doing, &c.] And the Christians doth Exceed it, his is the Lord Christ, it consists not in his own doing for himself, which is but short and imperfect, but in Christs doing for him, which is full and Perfect.

That it doth so is evident,Luke 18.13, 14. in that the Publican in whom the Christian Righteousness is represented, hanging down his head, as one ashamed of himself, and ashamed to come into the Divine Presence, not boasting of performances and works, but confessing and acknowledging of sins, humbly imploring Grace and Mercy, was rather Iustified than the Pharisee, that is, according to the Scripture Language, was Justified, and not the Pharisee. The like of Paul, who had as much according to the Law to boast of as another, yet in the matter of Justification, when he comes to make Reflection on his best Performances, he in comparison of Christ, esteems them all but Dung and Dross; and is to far from standing on them in point of Righteousness, that he first renounceth all Presensions of his own thereto, and then intirely devolves himself on Jesus Christ for it. Such is the Christians Righteousness, 'tis not his Holiness within, but Christ without that Justifies him.

This is that method of Iustification of sinners that was contrived by Divine Counsel and Goodness, and that is displayed in the Gospel; God imputeth not sin unto believing sinners, but imputeth to them the Righteousness and Sufferings of the Lord Christ; he reckoneth as if sinners suffered in their own persons, and did what Jesus Christ hath done and suffered for them, and so acquitteth them and sets them free, as those that by their Surety have contented Justice, and satisfied the Law. Thus is Christ made of God unto us Righteousness; Vid. Michael. in Arist. Moral. l. 5. Camerar. ad e • nd. His 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Satisfaction to Divine Justice by Suffering (for in this sense I find the word to be often used even in Heathen Writings) as well as his Performance is Reputed Ours.

Nor is this Licentious Doctrine and an Inlet to Profaneness, for what shall we say then, shall we continue in sin that Grace may abound, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein; know you not, &c. Rom. 6.1, 2, 3, 4. But now being made free from sin, and become servants unto God, you have your fruit unto Holiness, and the End everlasting life, verse 22. Without Holiness no man shall see God. Faith worketh by Love. If ye love me, keep my Commandments.

I would have offer'd more on this Exception, but that you seem not to insist your self so much upon it. It being Another to which I am proceeding, that it seems awakens in you far more feeling and more vive Resentments. For so I judge, when I find you saying, how much more dismal and tremendous doth it look, that those People in America, Japan, China, Lapland, &c. that lye under an unavoidable ignorance, I mean morally so, that yet these poor creatures for what they cannot help, shall be cast into Everlasting Darkness, &c.

Truly Sir, I apprehend not the Reason why you instance in the Americans, Iapaneses, Chineses, as People lying in a state of Unavoidable and Invincible Ignorance of Jesus Christ, and of the Methods of Salvation, since Jesus Christ is preached among them, though with some mixture, and the Christian Doctrine, if you will believe History, hath been witnessed to among them, as at first it was among others, both by the Martyrdom of those that brought it, and by their Miracles.

You know by whose incitement the famous Francis Xavier (that Papal Apostle) undertook the Indian Expedition for the saving of souls, and what success attended both him and those that followed him in that design in India, China, Japan; whereof you have a large account not only in the Indian and Japanick Epistles, but also in the Commentaries of Emanuel Acosta, expressly written on that subject. And how industrious and careful the Great Bishop hath been (in this to be commended) to advance the same Design in America, and what the setled order for it is, I make no question but you may have read in many, which I might name. But I will not give you the trouble of Reflecting longer on Modern and Recent Accounts, since there are others far more Antient by which it may be made appear, that Christ was early preach't among them. But of this you may be pleased to consult Paget and Purchas, cum multis aliis.

You see by this how fair an Opportunity I have to evade, but am not Sophister enough to do so, seeing as you mean the Objection, there is something weighty and momentous in it, namely, that it seemeth inconsistent with Divine Goodness that poor Creatures lying under unavoidable and invincible Ignorance of Jesus Christ, and of the method of Salvation by him, should be damned to eternal Darkness and sorrow for what they cannot help, and that to use your own expression, there are no Reserves for their Ac • ing for an happiness they have no notice of, &c.

Believe it Sir, it is no easie matter to account for all the Phaenomena of Providence, and particularly for This, of which, when we have said all we can, we cannot say as much in Vindication of Divine Goodness, Justice or Wisdom in it, as God can say in his own. His thoughts, they are as high above ours, as the Heaven is above the Earth; and what is unaccountable and dazeling to men, is not so to God.

I say not this as if I thought the present Difficulty less accountable than many others, but to let you see I have a right sense and apprehension of its being One; wherein when I have told you what hath satisfied me about it, (for I have had the same Perplexities, and the same scruples) you will happily receive what also may conduce to satisfie you, both from the Holy Scriptures and from Reason.

In order hereunto I shall by way of Premise, explicate and settle a Verity that ought to be receiv'd by all Christians as Fundamental to their being so, namely, That there is no Salvation but by Iesus Christ, which established, I will in satisfaction of the scruple evince, First, That God is not obliged by his Goodness to dispense an equal light to all mankind; but that being Free and Soveraign in all communications of his Grace, he doth inqually dispense it, to manifest himself so. But yet, that Secondly, To whomsoever be affordeth least light, he affords enough to leave them inexcusable and without cause of complaint; because he doth afford them more than they improve, or use. And Thirdly, What in this occasion will abundantly illustrate and set off Divine Goodness, as well as Justice; he requireth not from men according to the light and means they have not, but according unto what they have, expecting less from them to whom he hath afforded less, and only more from these who have the opportunities and the means of doing more.

And First, By way of Premise; I lay it down as Fundamental in the Christian Doctrine and Profession, That there is no salvation but by Iesus Christ, for it is he the Son of God that hath assumed humane Nature; that hath satisfied in it the Divine Justice; that by his Obedience and Death, hath rendred God Attonable to man; and that hath procured all the terms (whatever they be) on which Divine Majesty is pleased to transact again with us, and to receive us into favour. He is the Prince of peace, that Glorious Intercessor, that hath gone between the wrath of God and us, but for whom Apostate Adam had been lost for ever, and there had been no more reserves for Happiness, or overtures of Grace for him and his Descendants, than for the faln and Apostare Angels. Christ is the Foundation-Stone, the Chief Corner-Stone in this building. God so lov'd the world, that he gave his Son: This is my beloved Son, through whom I am well pleased. Sacrifice and Offerings thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared for me. Lo I come. The Lamb slain from the beginning of the world.

This I take it is the meaning of that known expression,Acts 4 11. There is no other name given under Heaven by which we can be saved, but the name of Iesus, viz. That no other Person is to be acknowledged to have the Honour of being the Procurer of Peace and Reconciliation for us with the Divine Majesty, and of having marked out the way to glory, but only Jesus Christ, it being too important and momentous an Affair for any but Emmanuel, or Jesus, one that is God as well as man, to undertake to manage. For who but God-man could dare to go between God and man?Mat. 1.21, 22, 23. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people: that it might be fulfilled, They shall call his name Emmanuel; which is by Interpretation, God with us. The Connection must be noted, it evinces that he only could be Iesus, that was Emmanuel: thou shalt call his name Iesus—that it might be fulfill'd—they shall call his name Emmanuel; as if Iesus and Emmanuel were but One name. There is no other name given, but the name of Jesus, whereby we can be saved: It is not the name of Moses, nor of Pythagoras, nor Plato, nor of Mahome • , or of any other meer man; these are not names that merit this honour. It is Iesus is the only name; it must be God with us that saves us.

The Practical Belief of This is called faith in Christ; and is a thing so absolutely necessary to salvation, that without it 'tis impossible to please God, or be accepted with him. But as absolutely necessary to salvation, as belief is, it is not so in every Degree, or every Act of it; there are Degrees of Faith, and there are several Acts; there is a Formal and explicite apprehension and belief of this Truth in so many terms, that there is One God the Father Almighty, Propitiated and Attoned towards men; and that there is One Mediator, Jesus Christ Godman that hath attoned and propitiated him. And as there is a Formal and Explicit, so there is a Virtual and Implicit Apprehension and Belief of it, which he has that believes that God is; that he is Gracious and Benign; that he pardons sin; and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him. And one may as well implicitly and virtually Believe as Will. For as he implicitly and virtually doth will the means, although he doth not actually Reflect and think upon them, that effectually doth will the End; so he that does explicitly believe that God is gracious and well-pleased, He doth implicitly believe in Christ, in whom alone he is so; the explicit belief of the Conclusion, is the implicit and virtual belief of the Premises.

This Virtual and implicit Faith he may be said to have, who feareth God and worketh Righteousness, whether he be Jew or Gentile; for he that feareth God and worketh Righteousness, cometh unto God [by doing so;] and he that cometh unto God, must needs believe that God is, Heb. 11.6. and that he is a Rewarder. A Faith that many of the Gentiles were as well the Owners of as the Jews, for which they were accepted of God: So Peter, Of a truth, Acts 10.34, 35. I perceive that God is no Respecter of Persons, but in every Nation, he that feareth him, and worketh Righteousness, is Accepted with him. And doubtless there were many Cornelius's and Iohn is plain, He that worketh Righteousness, 1 John 2 • 29. is born of God. Such Gentiles are called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , The Fearers of God, Acts 12. 16. 26. and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or Worshippers, v. 43.

I pray Sir consider Rahab the Harlot,Heb. 11.31. and what kind of Faith it was for which she has the Honour of a Monument unto this day? and for which her self and all her household were saved,Josh. 2 9, 10, 11. viz. The Lord your God is a God in the Heaven above, and in the Earth beneath: This was her Faith; and the Ground and Basis of it, what was it but Report and Fame? We have heard how the Lord dryed up the water of the Red Sea for you, when you came out of Aegypt, and what God did unto the two Kings of the Amorites; We have heard. All heard, but she only believed savingly; and therefore hid the Spies, which the rest would kill. This was her Faith, she had heard of God, the True God; and who had not? and she believed that God was, and that he was a Rewarder, therefore she hid his Servants, which was her work of Righteousness. All believed and trembled, we heard and our hearts melted, which is the Faith of Devils; but she believed and wrought Righteousness, she hid the Spies. Her's was a saving, because a living, a working Faith.

'Tis true; some of the old believers are Illustrious Instances of Faith, and of its vigor and power; for though the day of Christ were far off, yet they saw it clearly, and distinctly; Abraham; sayes Christ, saw my day [though] far off. So Jacob, The Scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a Law-giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, unto him shall the gathering of People be; and so Iob, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that I shall behold him standing on the earth.

But yet I find them not explicitly a Praying in the name of Christ, or doing any thing therein. So; hitherto (sayes he unto his own Disciples) you have asked nothing in my name;John 16.24. nor were they yet obliged, since he was not to be so exalted, but after he had drunk of the brook in the way; it was then the Comforter the blessed Spirit was to come, and give his Testimony for him in the Hearts of men, after which His Name was to be honoured.John 16.26. When I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me. In that day you shall ask in my Name. Before all was done in the Name of God; but since the Comforter, all in Christs Name. There is no other Name under Heaven given, that is, no other name of any Person on earth is appointed in which we can approach to God, and so be saved. Indeed the Antients prayed towards the Debir or Oracle, or Ark which typified Christ, and so implicitly and figuratively prayed in his Name, but yet explicitly and formally they did not.

I confess there are not a few, both Pious and Learned that herein differ from me, who believe the Antients prayed Formally and Explicitly in the name of Christ, and who apprehend themselves abundantly confirmed in that belief, by one expression in Daniel, Dan. 9.17. Now therefore O God, hear the Prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy Sanctuary that lyeth Desolate, for the Lords sake; for the Lords sake, that is, say they, for Christs sake. But to omit that for the Lords sake may be refer'd to desolate, as it is in some Translations, wherein the Comma is not put to desolate, but to Sanctuary; as if the sense were, that for the Lords sake the Sanctuary was desolate: I say omitting that, and taking it for granted to referr to hear, and lift up the light of thy countenance; yet whosoever doth compare it with the following Verses, must needs acknowledge, that for the Lords sake is for Gods sake, for his Name sake, his Honours sake,Dan. 9.19. it being so explained, v. 19. O Lord hear, O Lord forgive, O Lord consider and do it, defer not for thine own sake, oh my God; for thy Name is called upon this City, and upon this People.

And thus much by way of Premise, I now apply my self to give a more particular answer to the Exception, by making evident and clear the several Propositions which I mentioned for that end, and which evinced and made out, will abundantly illustrate this matter, and absolutely satisfie your mind, in a scruple which cannot but be much abated already.

And first, That God is not obliged by his Goodness to afford equal light to all. For though Divine Goodness be a Perfection essentially inherent in him, yet in the Exercises of it he is Free and Sovereign; the emanations of that Glorious Attribute not being as some imagine them, as Unrestrainable and necessary as those of Light from the Sun, and Heat from Fire. No, it is as well a great Truth as commonly received, and that the Divine Goodness is seated in the Divine will, and is (as it were) a certain mode of it; The Goodness of Almighty God, it is his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Good pleasure, Good-will, and consequently being but a certain kind or manner of will, must in all the exercises of it be as free as this is. Divine Goodness is nothing but the Divine Good-will, or a Propensity in the Divine Will to be doing all the Good that in his Infinite Wisdom he sees meet.

Now the will of God (if to discourse thereof as of Mans, be not too great Presumption) is not a Necessary and Determined, but a Free and Undetermined Principle; and the Nature of it as to Liberty and Freedom, consisteth in an Unrestrained Unconfined Amplitude of Acting. Whereof he cannot doubt that seriously considers what (of another Purpose) I noted in my former Treatise, viz. That as what is lower on the Scale of Being, and more immersed in matter, is more confined and determined; so that what is higher, and superior, and more spiritual, is in proportion according to the measure of its advancement on the Scale, more undetermined and free. For thus, a little to illustrate and set out the matter in Examples, Plants and Vegetables are less determined in respect of Action, than are the Minerals and Fossils. Again, the meerly Sensitive or Irrational Animals are less determined than the Vegetables; Men less than they; and not improbable, the Angels less than men; But God who is above them all, a Pure Act, possesses Amplitude of Action, as Infinitely much transcending all theirs as is his Being. All Determination and confinement is from Matter, all Indetermination and Unconfinement from Form. God is therefore most Free and Undetermined, because most Formal and most Pure Act.

But by this Infinite Amplitude and Liberty of Action, I would not have you understand me to intend wilfulness; as if the Will of God, which is the Principle and Rise of all External Actions, were meer will, and that in that Will, there were not also Wisdom, Justice, Goodness and Holiness. For it were to have a most Unhappy and mistaken Apprehension of me, as if I coin'd a Notion of the great God, and of the freedom of his Will, that could not be endur'd by any that did either know, or fear him.

No, But by this Amplitude of Action, or Liberty of the Divine Will, I mean no other but a most illimited Capacity and Power in God, to do what seemeth best and most agreeable unto himself to do; and that is best and most agreeable for him to do, which is most convenient and congruous, and most becoming all his Glorious Attributes, his Wisdom, his Benignity, his Sovereignty, Majesty, &c. as who would say, it is a Free, Unconfined, Unnecessitated, Undetermined Power of doing or not doing what he pleases. Now he doth what he pleaseth, that does whatever pleases him; and what can we imagine to please God, but what is (most) agreeable and congruous to him? and what is (most) agreeable and congruous to him, but what suiteth (best) with all his Attributes? So that it is not meer will that is the Principle or Reason of the Divine Actions, but, as the Holy Scriptures happily express it, it is counsel, counsel of Will. His Will is will, it is Soveraign and Free, but it is also wise; and Good, and Just, and Holy. God does what he will, and because he will. But yet whatever he does is Wise, and Good, and Holy, because his Will is so.

But you will say, I grant enough for your Argument as now I have explained my self; for if the meer and naked Will of God be not the sole Reason or Rule of his Acting, but that his other Attributes do influence and guide him in it, and so his Goodness and Benignity doth challenge some share; then seeing there is no Respect of mens Persons with him, but that in his sight all are equal; and also seeing Goodness obligeth not to make a Difference, where there is none already, 'Tis Unconceivable how any should be made, and how he should not deal alike benignly [be Bountiful and Good alike] to All.

I answer; That indeed Benignity and Goodness hath a Great, though not the sole hand in moving or inclining the Divine Will; that God is no Respecter of mens Persons; that both Jew and Gentile are as One to him: No humane Qualities of Wit and Ingenuity, of Learning, of Beauty, of Civility, or the like, which rather are Effects than Motives of Divine Favour, do at all affect or move him. Further, nor will I deny, that Divine Goodness and Benignity as such, obligeth not God to Discriminate or make a Difference between Man and Man; but then; as it obligeth not to make a Difference, so it obligeth not to make none, but it leaves him free to follow the motions of his other Glorious Attributes, such as either Wisdom, Soveraignty, or some other of his admirable Excellencies do inspire and infuse him with. But chiefly his Soveraignty; for all his Practical and Active Attributes (for such I call these which (seem to) have an Influence upon him in his Acting) are all Will. Soveraignty hath Place in All. And this brings me home.

For do you ask me, how it cometh to pass there is a Difference made between man and man, Nation and Nation, in respect of the Light and Knowledge of God? I answer, God makes it, who dealeth not alike to all; and do you further ask me, Why he dealeth not alike to all? I answer further, it is to shew he is not bound to do what he does to any; and that if he sheweth mercy, it is because he will shew mercy; not from any obligation on him whatsoever, much less any engagement from the Object, but ex mero motu, of his own alone Election and Choice.

It is for this Reason that he so delighteth in Election and Reprobation, that he not only sheweth them in mankind among particular and individual Persons, he chooseth Jacob, and rejecteth Esau; and among Nations, he choosed the Iews, and he refused the Gentiles; of all the Nations of the earth, I have chosen you; and among the Gentiles, he enlightens some sooner, others later, some more, some less: but also in the kind of Angels, thus he elected those that stood, and he rejected those that did not: All is to shew how Soveraign and how Free he is, in whatsoever he doeth. Hence the Scriptures speak so much of Election, and of Gods Purpose according to the Election, and of the Good pleasure, and of the will of God.

Thus God in all the Exercises of his Grace is Free, not only from all Determination and Necessity of Nature, but from all engagement by any foreign and extrinsecal Respects whatever in the Object; and it is to manifest himself so, that he so diversly dispenses it; to some he manifesteth more, to some less, to those in one way, and to others another; All according to the Counsel and Advisement of his own Will, and not according to the Humor, or Deserts of ours.

So much for the first Proposition; but Secondly, Though God dispenseth not an equal light to all, yet to whom he hath dispensed least, he hath dispensed enough, if not to save them, (which many of the Antient and most Learned Fathers thought) yet he has to leave them Inexcusable, and without Defence, as our Apostle exprestes it,Rom. 1.20. — 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

Certain it is, as I proposed in the first Assertion, That the Dispensations of Almighty God in point of Light and opportunities of Grace, are not equal every where; for if they were, there would be as little Beauty, Ornament and Lustre, as Variety in them, since 'tis in the Moral World, as in the Natural; wherein Day and Night, and Diverse Graduations of the Light and Darkness in them, are necessary to compose it, and to set it off with some Advantage and Beauty.

But though there be a Diverse and inequal Dispensation of the Light, some have more, and some have less, yet so Extensive is Divine Goodness, and so large, that all have some, and that some (as little as it may be) Enough to silence Obloquy and Contradiction: A Truth that cannot be Refused in consideration of the Antient Gentiles, with more reason than it can be doubted in respect of the Antient Jews, who had the Oracles of God.

For the Antient Gentiles (for so I call those before Christ, in contradistinction to the Jews) though they had not Moses, and the Law and Prophets to instruct them in the method of salvation; yet they had Tradition, and they had Philosophers and Philosophy; The Persians had their Magi; the Babylonians and Assyrians, Vid. Laert. in Pr • em. their Chaldeans; the Indians; their Gymnosophists and Brachmans; the Celts and Gauls, their Druides and Semnothei; the Greeks, their Philosophers; in a word, All of them they had Divines and Prophets, Vid. infra. who were Preachers to them of the fear of God, and of Righteousness. And you know I have already evinced in the Premise, That to fear God, and work Righteousness, suffices to render one accepted with him, and this Philosophy taught.

Now by Philosophy I understand not any one kind or Species of it, as either the Barbarian, or the Grecian, the Stoic, the Epicurean, the Platonic, or the Peripatetic; Clem. Alex. l. 1. Str • mat. but (as Clemens Alexandrinus also doth) All that Truth or Verity divided and dispersed among them; and of this I say, It was a Ray or Beam of Jesus Christ, the Original Light, [the Light that enlightneth every one that comes into the World] afforded to the Gentiles to conduct and guide them to God: and so sayes the Father, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 So both the Barbarian and the Greek Philosophy containeth in it a certain Portion of the Eternal Truth; which it Borrowed not, or derived from the Mythology of Bacchus, but from the Theology of the Eternal Word himself. Thus Clemens of Alexandria; and indeed it is the main Design of his Stromata [Books he called so, because in them he collected these Dispersed Truths] to manifest the Consonancy and Agreement of the Old Philosophers, with the Verities of the Christian Religion.

I know the Great Apostle affixeth on Philosophy an Epithete that seemeth not agreeable to this Assertion, he calls it Vain Philosophy, Col. 2.8. and cautions those he writes to, with very much concern, more than once against it; but who ever well considers that he represents the Jewish Ceremonies, which in their Institution were Divine and useful methods for happiness, as beggarly and carnal Rudiments, Gal. 4.9. as Elements of the World, and under other hard names, he will not find himself surprized at his doing the former; or necessitated to confine the Philosophy of which he speaks, Clem. Alex. l. 1. Strom. as Clemens Alexandrinus does, to the Epicurean that denyed Providence, and all Respects and care of God for the World.

For I make no question but whosoever seriously Reminds the Circumstance of Time wherein the Apostle wrote, that it was after the Effusion of the Blessed Spirit, and the bringing of the Life and Immortality to light in Jesus Christ, will easily agree that his Principal, if not his sole Design in so severely reflecting on the Ceremonies of the Iews, and on the Philosophy of the Gentiles, was to oblige both the one and the other to abandon and forsake their A, B, C. And that since there is a fuller and a clearer Demonstration, or Discovery in the Gospel of the way of Life, It is to wean them from those Darker Ones, that serv'd their turn before. And indeed, though God connived at men in the dayes of their Ignorance, yet now he calleth all to Repent.

And verily it is a great Truth, that as he would not have the Jewish Law, so much less would he have the Gentile Wisdom to supplant the Gospel. All the Light before Christ, whether that among the Jews, or that among the Gentiles, was but Moon, or Star-light, designed only for the night preceding; but it is the Sun must Rule by Day. Now the Gospel dispensation is the Day, and Christ the Sun that makes it; by whose Alone Light we must walk. For as in Nature, the Light afforded by the Moon and Stars, which is of great Advantage, and very much administers to our Direction, and Comfort in a Journey by night, yet in the day is none; The Moon and Stars that shine by night, and then make other things Visible, they are Invisible themselves, and Dark by day; So in the Moral world, not only the Law of Moses to the Jews, but that Philosophy and Wisdom among the Gentiles, that before the coming of the Lord Christ, while it was yet extream Dark, was of extraordinary Use and Benefit, It is no longer new of any to them, nor to be insisted on, since He is come. For now 'tis broad Day. One would be glad of Moon-light, or Star-light, that is to travel by night; but he delires, and is out of his Wits, that would preferr it before the Sun by Day.

By this time, you see how my Opinion of the Old Philosophy, that it was a kind of Star-light derived from the Sun of Righteousness, and pointing to him, is so far from being in Derogation to the Gospel Grace, that it rather highly Illustrates and Establishes it; the Philosophers themselves, as well as the Prophets, being (as it were) as so many Stars that shined in a Dark Place, and with a borrowed lustre,2 Pet. 1.19. until (in Peters own expression) the Day-Star arose from on high.

But this Assertion, so many prejudices lye against it, is not of a Nature to be entertain'd assoon as presented; wherefore I shall crave your leave to offer somewhat by way of Confirmation, which though I might do by very probable conjectures, both from the Paerabolical and Figurative way of Institution used by Jesus Christ, so conformable to that of Plato; and the Interrogatory and Questionary, so like to that of Socrates and others, and from the Honour put upon Philosophy and Philosophers, not only by God himself in giving some of them the Preheminence, in an extraordinary manner, by a Starry Messenger sent on purpose, first of all others to behold the blessed Jesus in the Flesh, and to Recognize him King; but also by the Antient Christians, who not only Permitted, but Assumed their Formalities and Customs. I say, though I might confirm this Truth by these, and many other very Probable Conjectures, yet I rather choose to go a Plainer, and more Demonstrative way, by particularly Instancing the several Doctrines of the Grave Philosophers, and Wise men among the Gentiles, and shewing how agreeable they are to those of Christians; and that, to vindicate my self from all Temerity and Rashness in affirming what I have, as well as to afford an entertainment that will neither be unpleasing, nor unuseful to many. Indeed, it will put the Doctrines of the Christian Religion beyond the Contradictions of the Atheist, to a Person that shall see them to be such as have obtained among wise men in the most Antient Ages, and Universally over all the World.

And forasmuch as to the Moral part of Christian Religion, there is not so much doubt but that the Heathen had a great Intelligence and Understanding of it, as whoever readeth Homer, Hesiod, Theognis, Socrates, Plato, Xenophon's Cyrus, and Oeconomus, Isocrates, Tully's Offices, and Seneca, cannot but acknowledge; therefore I shall not stay you here with any long Discourse on that point.

Wherein that I may not overwhelm you with a multitude of Instances that do occurr, for to say all I might, were to translate whole Volumes: I shall only offer for a taste what is at present in the compass of my memory, upon the three Heads, Of Piety to God, of Righteousness to man, and of Sobriety to our selves; Resolving for your greater satisfaction, and that the argument in hand may have the more Light and Efficacy, to Parallel the Testimonies of the Poets and Philosophers, which I produce, with others of a like Importance in the Holy and Inspired Pen-men.

And first for Piety to God.

First, That God is to be worshipped. Ianbl. de vit. Pythag. f. 138. Pythagoras that great Philosopher referred all to this: and before him Orpheus, whom Pythagoras imitated; but to be particular, He must be worshipped,

First, Spiritually, Purely, Holily.

Cato, and the Heathen Liturgies.

Si Deus est Animus, nobis ut Carmina dicunt,

Is tibi praecipue sit purâ mente colendus.

If God be a Spirit, as Poets say, or rather as we are taught in Liturgies or solemn Prayers, he is chiefly to be worshipped by thee, and with a Pure mind. Christ in Iohn 4.24.

God is a Spirit, and will be worshipped in Spirit, and in Truth.