Advocates for devils refuted, and their hope of the damned demolished: or, An everlasting task for Winchester and all his confederates. By William Huntington, S.S. Minister of the Gospel at Providence Chapel, Little Titchfield-Street, and at Monkwell-Street meeting. ; [Two lines from Jeremiah]

Advocates for devils refuted, and their hope of the damned demolished: or, An everlasting task for Winchester and all his confederates. By William Huntington, S.S. Minister of the Gospel at Providence Chapel, Little Titchfield-Street, and at Monkwell-Street meeting. ; [Two lines from Jeremiah]

Table of contents

Title page

TO THE READER.

Advocates for Devils Refuted, &c.

[Page]

Advocates for Devils Refuted, &c.

ISAIA [...] xxxviii. 18.

They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

IN handling these words, I shall invert the order of my text, by placing Hope and Truth before the Pit; and g [...]e you my thoughts under five general heads—and shall

First, Describe a good Hope.

Secondly, Treat of Truth hoped for.

Thirdly, What we are to understand by the Pit.

Fourthly, They that go down into it are without Truth.

And, lastly, Such cannot hope for it.

First, Treat of a good Hope. The word Hope is in common use among most men, and is often used in connection with salvation: "As I hope to be saved" is a common expression, and is often used to confirm a word, or clear a person suspected of falsehood; and generally used by those who are ignorant of salvation, and destitute of all hope in it. There is a hope, so called, that is from self, not from God: as that of a pharisee, which springs from a false supposition of his being more holy than other men; which hope is encouraged by an observation of the conduct of the most openly profane, and comparing himself with them, and looking at his own duties through the false mirror of the other's excess of riot; but then this hope anchors in self, not within the vail; it is founded on legal duties or dead works, not on Christ's merit; it centers in a killing commandment, not in a life-giving promise; it rises from deception in the heart, not from a work of grace; it is the hope of the self-righteous, [Page]not of the justified soul; it is the hope of the hypocrite, not of the saint, and therefore it must perish with the sinner. The hope of unjust men perisheth, you the hypocrite's hope shall perish.

The Holy Ghost, who best knows the state of all mankind, has declared that men in a state of nature are without God, and having no hope in the world. And every sinner who is taught of God will set to his seal that this is true; for, when the killing commandment enters and awakens the sinner's benumbed conscience, when revealed wrath and accumulated guilt meet together in the sinner's soul, his false hope is like a spider's w [...]b; it is no anchor of the soul; it is neither sure nor stedfast; [...] gives way as soon as the storm begins, and down the sinne [...] goes into the horrible pit and into the miry clay, into all real and imaginary torment; and down he would go into despendency, despair, distraction, and perdition too, unless upheld by almighty power: for the entrance of revealed wrath makes terrible work with a false hope. All resting in legal performances, all false props, and expectations of heaven on the footing of human merit, founded on self-confidence, die, and shall never live again. And such is the end of the wicked in death. But the eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall not escape; and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost. Job ii. 20.

A sinner in this state finds himself without hope, and without help; and it is not in his power either to hope in, or expect any thing from God, without divine assistance. Hope is one of the spiritual blessings given us in Christ Jesus; it is a free grace gift, and comes to us by the Spirit of promise, and is wrought in us. It is a rich grant of a gracious God, which leads the soul to Christ Jesus, from whose fullness it comes, and in whom as in its proper object, it centers. It is an anchor within the vail; and, as it is a free grace gift, and has an Almighty Saviour for its object, it is called, in opposition to all false hopes, and to all hopes founded in self and self-righteousness, a good hope through grace. 2 Thes. ii. 16.

Sinners, who are convinced of their sins by the Spirit, know, by experience, that a hope in God is not the produce of nature. Nor can the awakened sinner either obtain it by his own power, or even exercise the least hope in God until the Spirit enables him. It is not with him, whether he will hope and trust in the Lord, but the great question is, whether he may. He can see no foundation to hope on till God discovers [Page]it, nor any object to hope in till manifested to him; nor feel the least hope or expectation in himself, nor ever would, unless produced in him by a divine agent. This [...]e is sensible of, for the burden of im and sense of wrath si [...] him; and he would debase himself to a level with the brute creation, and sit in sackcloth and ashes, could he obtain but the least degree of hope in a dear Redeemer. He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath b [...]rne it upon him. He p [...]tteth his mouth in the dest, if so be there may be hope. Lam. iii. 28, 29.

Hope is not employed about things is us, but about things before us; not about things present, but things future; not about what we have, but what we want. For, if I am in full possession of a thing, there is no room for hope or expectation about it; for how can I hope for what I have got? or expect what is already my own? The self-lost and self-despairing sinner, that is favored with the least degree of hope, hopes for the manifestation of Christ to his soul; but, when Christ is revealed to him, then he is the hope of glory in him. The guilty sinner hopes for pardon, or the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sins, through Christ; and, if God gives him an expectation of it, he shall surely have it, even though he sees it not accomplished. For we are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Rom. viii. 24, 25.

Hope is a grace bestowed upon a helpless, self-despairing, miserable sinner; and performs wonders in desperate cases. On which account it is called a helmet, which is an iron cap to screen the head in the day of battle; and an anchor, which is the mariner's chief dependance in a storm, and when in want of sea room. Hope, therefore, is employed about things hard and difficult, and yet possible. For instance, God sorely threatened the children of Israel, who had married heathen wives. The children of God had married the daughters of Satan. Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel, and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord, which he ought to love, and hath married the daughter of a strange God. The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob. Mal. ii. 11, 12. The hope of a sinner, involved, in this profanity, and against whom the word of God is so explicit and pointed, must have hard and difficult work; and yet, even in this desperate case, through Jesus [Page]Christ and his great atonement, salvation is possible, or else there could be no ground for hope; and there was a possible ground for hope in this case. And Shechaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, answered and said unto Ezra, We have trespassed against our God and have taken strange wives of the people of the land, yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Ezra i. 2.

Hope is an internal hanging of the mind upon a distant object, attended with expectation of help from the object on which the mind hangs. But then there must be some way opened for the troubled mind, with her expectations, to enter in at. The broken law reveals God in terrible majesty: darkness is his secret pavilion, and dreadful wrath is revealed. The curse of the law, the sword of justice, are point blank against the sinner; and he sees it, and feels it: and, as the sinner knows that he is guilty before God, and under the curse, law and conscience both condemn him, and he cannot plead innocent. Sins bar him from God; and terrible majesty forbids his approach, keeps him at a distance, yea, makes the soul fly from before him; but he knows not whether to go from his spirit, nor where to fly from his terrible presence. The awakened sinner sees no way of access to an angry God in a broken law; nor can he hope or expect that God will change his mind, repeal his law, or prove false to his word, in order to gratify him who is an enemy to him. There is no access without a mediator, no pardon without atonement, no cancelling infinite debts without a surety, no gaol delivery without satisfaction, nor justification without perfect obedience.—And Jesus Christ is all these: but while he is hid there is no opening appears, no passage through which hope and expectation can possibly pass to God; but in the valley of Achor he opens a door of hope. Hos. ii. 15.

Christ is the only door; and he that rejects him, and whose hope enters not in by this door, has something vile and damnable even in his very hope. He hopes that God will not deal with him according to his sins, nor according to his absolute threatenings; he hopes that God will change his mind, be perjured in his oath, and lie to his word; which is making God just such an one as himself; but God is true, and every man a liar. He is not man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent. Set aside the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is neither refuge nor anchorage for a poor sinner. [Page] We have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us. Heb. vi. 18.

Hope can only be exercised in this world; for, though in general it is of things future▪ things to come, and things in heaven, yet it is only in this world that hope is employed about them. There is no work for hope in heaven, or any foundation for it in hell. In heaven they see, enjoy, and possess, all that they formerly hoped for; and as they see and enjoy these heavenly glories, there is no room nor exercise for hope about them; for that which is seen is not hope. Nor is there any foundation laid for hope in hel. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

The word of God confines all hope entirely to this world, and to men in this present state. If a man dies in his sins, where Christ is he cannot come; therefore there can be no hope for him. To him that is joined to all the living there is hope; but there is no hope to them that are in [...]ell, for the shall remain in the congregation of the dead. Prov. xxi. 16.

However pe [...]lous a man's case may be, to our appearance, in this life, and however dreadful his state according to our view of things yet, as God only is the searcher of hearts, and whose power i [...] infinite, to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion. Eccles. ix. 4 By a living dog is meant a dumb dog that cannot bark, or a greedy dog that c [...]n never have enough, or a divider of the Lord's flock; bewa [...] of dogs; or an opposer of Christ; give not that which is holy to dogs; or an apostate who returns to his filth, like the dog to [...]is vomit; or a damnable heretic; for without are dogs; or a Sodomite; bring not the hire of a whore, nor the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God. Yet a living dog is better that a dead devil; better than the lion of the bottomless pit, and better than a damned sinner: and for this reason only, because to him that is joined to all the living there is hope, but in hell there is none. The mariner's anchor is of no use in the Bay of Biscay, nor is Mr. Whichester's hope of any use in the bottomless pit. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

The first thing that the awakened sinner hopes for (as before observed) is the revelation of Christ to his soul, and pardon and peace through him. The desire of all nations is to him the one thing needful; and he knows that, if he gets it [Page]not in this world, it cannot be gotten in hell, where "hope never comes, that comes to all." Milton. After this he seeks with his whole heart, and this is the earnest desire of his soul: nor can he ever rest till he has got it; and every let, disappointment, or hindrance, increases his misery, adds to the smart of a wounded spirit, and inflames the plague of his heart, which only knows its own bitterness. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when the desire cometh it is a tree of life. Prov. xiii. 12.

But, when Christ manifests himself to such a sinner, when he shines into his heart, and presents himself to his faith; when he removes the heavy burden of his sins, and chases them from his sight; when he purges his conscience, binds up the broken heart, speaks peace to the soul, silences all its accusers, casts out fear and torment, softens his hard spirit, and conquers his stubborn will; enlarges his soul with love, and rescues his troubled mind from the meditations of terror, and from the gloomy regions of the shadow of death; comforts him on every side, and fills him with joy and peace in believing; then the desire of all nations is come, the desire is accomplished, and it is sweet to the soul. This is a discovery and a manifestation of Christ, which ennobles the mind, and enriches the soul with all true riches and spiritual treasure. To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you the hope of glory. Col. i. 27.

Now the door of hope is not only open, but the way of life is cast up and made plain. The dreadful receptacle of the damned is out of sight and out of mind; every gloomy thought has taken its flight, and not one chained down either to death or damnation. They are all brought into sweet captivity to the obedience of Christ. A divine ray shines on the celestial track, while hope pursues a risen saviour to the unclouded regions of eternal day; while faith stands gazing at the heavenly sight, lays hold of and embraces the refuge, and is no less than the confidence of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen; while hope goes within the vail, anchors there, and hangs fast, attended with an assured and undoubted expectation of eternal glory. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 1 Pet. i. 3.

[Page] This blessed manifestation of Jesus so changes the scene in the poor sinner's soul, that old things pass away, and leave for a while little more than the bare remembrance of them; and all things become new. Oh! blessed experience of a divine and unctuous change of heart! Faith credits, patience waits, and hope springs from what faith brings in. Faith worketh patience, patience experience, and experience hope. Rom. v. 4.

This hope is of God, not of man. It is not a [...]nit of nature, but of grace, all hope in a human a [...]m, a good heart, a form of godliness, in legal obedience, or in the law of commandments, always gives way, as soon as the law enters and s [...] revives: at which time the poor mariner is at his wit's end. A violent storm, and the anchor's broke! Such a poor, withered, condemned sinner, sees no more possibility of any genuine fruit being brought forth in him, to the glory of God, than Abraham could of his seed being as the stars of heaven, or as the sand of the sea shore, when he was an hundred years old and Sarah ninety. But where nature fails, grace prevails; where flesh and blood afford no hope, God does; and when reason can discover no possible ground for either hope or expectation, faith lead us to One with whom all things are possible. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. Rom. iv. 18.

A divine arm is made bare, and an almighty power is put forth, in both these cases. Abraham's faith must fly from withered nature to divine ability. He was persuaded that what God had promised he was able to perform. And Sarah's faith must lead her from all possibility in nature to the power and faithfulness of God; and she was delivered of a child whe [...] she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. This difficult hope of theirs is set forth as a pattern to us.— We are to look to the rock whence we were hewn; and to the hole of the pit whence we are digged; we must look to Abraham our father, and to Sarah that bare us; that, under the same almighty agency and operation, our dry, barren, withered souls, both hopeless and helpless in ourselves, may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Rom. xv. 13.

The immutable and immoveable foundation of this good hope through grace is the veracity of God in the everlasting gospel, the absolute and unconditional promises of eternal life, and all blessedness in Christ Jesus, in whom all is yea and [Page]amen, to the glory of God by us; that is, to the glory of God's free grace by the eternal salvation of our souls. Remembe [...] the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused m [...] to hope. Psalm cxix. 49.

The anchorage of this hope is within the vail. It hangs in all the fullness of the Godhead, which dwells bodily within the vail of Christ's flesh; where it rests sure and stedfast; and, while we are in this militant state, and imprisoned in these clay tabernacles, we must, in every storm, in every difficulty, in every time of trouble and danger, fly to, and take shelter in, this ever blessed hiding place; under whose wings we must make our resuge, till every calamity be overpast.— Turn to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope. Zech. ix. 12.

Faith views divine things as most certainly true; hope hangs on and expects all that God promises, and all that faith credits; while charity is enamoured, falls in love with, and embraces, as supremely good, all that faith discovers and credits, and all that hope hangs on and expects; and casts out all fear, that springs from doubt or distrust about them. Thus these three sisters are all employed; they all hang together, and mutually assi [...]t each other. Faith toils for clearer views, and hope for a stronger hold, while charity labours for more enlargement, more heat, and more enjoyment. Faith works in the mysteries; hope, to bear with patience the crosses that lie in the way of her expected reward; and love labours to keep the world out of the heart, and Christ unmolested, unrivalled, and undisturbed, in full possession of it.— This is the work of FAITH, labour of LOVE, and patience of HOPE, in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now abideth FAITH, HOPE, CHARITY, these three; but the greatest of these is Charity 1 Cor. xiii. 13.

Although hope, at the first rise in the awakened sinner, has to do with things ha [...]d and difficult; yet nothing is more certain than those things that a good hope through grace is exercised upon. And there is a degree of assurance always attends a good hope; which hope, and the assurance of it, are in general communicated to the sinner by the ministry of the word; and are nourished, encouraged, and made to abound, by a constant attendance on the same. The soul that is blessed with saith, hope, and charity, should carry them about to all the feasts, banquets, and sabbaths, that are appointed by the Lord, and enjoined to the household of faith. These graces [Page]should be taken amongst the faithful friends of the Lord, and those that love him in sincerity and truth. And, by the word explained, and by accounts of the experience of others, these graces appear to be genuine, and of the right kind; and are esteemed as such; and God the author and giver or them is glorified for them. By these means we often see the difference between the faith of God's elect, and the confidence of fools; between a good hope through grace, and that of the hypocrite; and between the love and joy that spring from the stirrings of natural affections in a way-side hearer, and that divine and undissembled love of God which is shed abroad in the Heart by the Holy Ghost. By the use of these appointed means, infidelity gets discovered and detested; the old man now and then gets such a blow on the head, or a wound in his members, by the maul or the sharp arrow that makes him stagger again; while faith gets brighter, views, hope a deeper hold, and the bowels of charity are stirred up, made to move afresh, and flow out. We are all called in one hope of our calling; and therefore must cleave together, and assist and encourage each other; and be found in a constant use of the means. We desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence, to the full assurance of hope to the end.— Heb. vi. 11.

The future things which hope is exercised on, and conversant about, are these:—She raises the soul to hang on Christ: and expect, in the great day of the general judgment, to be found wrapt up and enrobed in the righteousness of Christ; which wedding garment, though now upon us, and all that believe, is but dimly seen; but in that day it will appear in all its divine lustre, and in all its inestimable worth, as a raiment of needle work and gold of Ophir; in which alone the soul can stand the judgment with acceptance, and in which alone the soul can be admitted into the realms and mansions of eternal bliss. It is in this raiment that the queen must be brought into the king's palace. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness which is by faith. Gal. v. 5.

Another thing hoped for is the majestic glorious, and tremendous appearance of the ever-blessed object hoped in.— When he shall descend from the third heaven, with all the majesty of infinite divinity, attended with all the glorified saints and angelic myriads, to be admired in all that believe, and to be had in honour of all that are round about him, then to [Page]be of the number of them that shall lift up the head, who shall see his face with joy, and stand with intrepidity before him, approved, accepted, blessed and rewarded, by him, is called looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearance of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. Tit. ii. 13.

Another thing hoped for is the resurrection of the body to an immortal life, and the changing of our [...]ile bodi [...], and fashioning them like unto the glorious body of Christ, whose resurrection was a pledge and earnest of ours. We shall bear the image of the heavenly ADAM, and be like him, and s [...] him as he is. The body of a dying saint is lest in faith to rest in hope; that, as the body is sown in weakness, it shall be raised in power; sown in dishonour, raised in glory; sown natural, raised spiritual; sown in corruption, raised in incorruption. Immortality must be put on; and mortality put off, and swallowed up of life. This is the morning of eternal day, in which the upright shall have dominion▪ The dead in Christ shall rise first; a thousand years before the wicked. The blessed, and the holy, have a part in the first resurrection, and none else. This resurrection, at the beginning of the thousand years, is a resurrection to life; and that at the close of the term is a resurrection to damnation. This is another thing hoped for; for the which we apprehend Christ or are rather apprehended of him. Of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question. Acts xxiii. 6.

These are the great things, the things, future, and things eternal, that hope enters into, hangs upon, and expects. Take away these, the promised enjoyment of them, and the resurrection of the dead in order to it, and the wicked would have the advantage of us. For, although there is much of Christ enjoyed in first love, numberless sweet visits afterwards by the way, and the abundance of life and peace; yet there is so much bitterness, wormwood, and gall; so many oppositions, reproaches, and scandals; so much persecution, temptations, and desertions; that attend a steady profession of, and a close adherence to, Christ, that, if in this life only we have hope in him, we are of all men most miserable. 1 Cor. xv. 19.

Hope sometimes signifies the great reward of inheritance promised to the hoping soul; which is called the hope laid up for us in heaven. This recompense of reward that Moses by faith respected, and which Boaz wished to Ruth, is the true riches, where no moth corrupts, nor thief approach [Page]as; [...]d it is the full and uninterrupted enjoyment of God in endless glory. I am thy exceeding great reword, says God to Abraham. And grace is given us in this life as an earnest of glory in the next. Both are promised, both are given, both come free, and both are sure. The Lord will give grace and glory. Faith is the confidence of glory hoped for, and the evidence of it while and of sight; imputed righteousness is our title to it; and the Spirit or promise is the pledge and earnest of it; and it is sure to all the seed. It is both in the hands, and in the possession, of our Covenant Head; and shall be given to, and eternally possessed by all that are joint heirs with him. The first fruits of this glorious harvest are granted unto us, under the first operations of the Spirit of love and liberty; and many foretastes of it are given by the way; which is a realizing of those invisible things to us, and a wonderful participation of them, which often fills the soul with joy unspeakable and full of glory; while hope is pregnant with the greatest expectations of undoubted and eternal possession, We re [...]ce in hope of the glory of God. Rom. v. 2. But without an imputed righteousness there can be no hoping of the great reward, for the unrighteous shall not enter the kingdom; but, being justified by grace, we are made heirs according to the hope of eternal Esc. Tit. iii. 7.

This hope, which is peculiar to the elect of God, has the eternal God for its author, who is the God of hope. God in three divine persons is the ever blessed object of it. But the second person in the Trinity stands the nearest to it; who, in his incarnation, wondrous undertaking, and finished work, is the do [...]r of hope; and it is he that admits it within the vail, where it is both fure and stedfast. The bases or foundations of it are the everlasting love, good will, irrevocable decree, the eternal purpose, and determinate counsel, of God; his everlasting covenant, and immutable promise, and inviolable oath; the finished work of the Lord Jesus, the gift of the Spirit, and the witness and seal that he gives. All these are sure in Christ to us, and we secure in him. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. Jer. xvii. 7. For surely there is an end, [or reward] and thine expectation shall not be ou [...] off Prov. xxiii. 18.

I now come to my second general head, which is,

To treat of Truth hoped for.

[Page] By truth we are to understand, in the first place, the veracity of God. He is a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is be. Which truth is pledged in every doctrine of the everlasting gospel, and in every promise of the better covenant which in the mouth of the Spirit, is the soul-quickening word of eternal life. God will be true to his dear son, who is our covenant head; and true to his covenant, which was made and which stands fast with him; and he will be true to all his seed, and to every promise made to them in Christ, which will, and must, in the exact fulfilment of every promise, and in the accomplishment of every prediction, respecting Christ and them. Thus divine truth, accompanying every prophecy of good, and every promise made to us in the word, comes forth from the God of truth; and which, in the application of it to us, in the experience of it, power of it, and enjoyment of it, makes us and the whole church the pillar and ground of the truth. And certain it is that the truth of God in his word shall never return void: it shall accomplish the end for which it is sent, and prosper in the thing that pleases God: and at last in the salvation and glorification of God's elect. Truth shall be settled in heaven. Psalm cxix. 89. But then the non-elect are a seed of falsehood; there is no truth in them; their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.—They are not of God; but of their father the devil, who was a liar from the beginning. They cannot deliver their souls, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? And as the tree falis, so it lies: it shall never be turned, nor the state of it ever be altered: for they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

But then it may be objected—If they that go down into the pit cannot hope for God's truth, it looks as if no branch of divine truth will ever appear there—nothing but falsehood; which is confirming Mr. Winchester's doctrine, whose hope is, that God will prove a liar, and be perjured in his oath. Must not the truth of God appear to the wicked in his unrepealed law, in his fulfilmeat of the awful threatening, and in the execution of the righteous sentence according to the just demerit of sin, which ends in an eternal banishment from his presence? I answer—The truth of God will appear in all these: for as is his fear, so is his wrath; both are for ever, and and both are sure; the former to the saint, and the latter to the sinner. But this branch of truth is not hoped for, but hoped against. Hope is always employed about something good, something desirable, and something that the poor sinner feels his need of: hope of the right kind hopes for the mercy [Page]of God, and the truth of his salvation. But these reprobates are a people of no understanding, therefore he that made them will have no mercy on them, and he that created them will shew them no favour; and, if no mercy is to be had on them, nor favour shewn to them, then they that go down into the pit cannot hope for it.

By truth we are to understand our Lord Jesus Christ, in the truth of his divine nature; who is truly, properly, essentially, and eternally, GOD, in every sense of that great and tremendous name, and in all glorious perfections. He is the true God, and eternal life; and in his human nature truly and properly man; and in every covenant character faithful and true. In his prophetic office, in the doctrines he taught, and in the testimony that he bore, he is the faithful and true witness; yea, he is the truth of all the ancient propheties: to him gave all the prophets witness: and he is the truth, sum, and substance, of every doctrine of the everlasting gospel.—He is the angel of the great council, and the first elect in the ancient settlements of eternity. Predestination to the adoption of children, and the choice of God to eternal life, are both in him. Redemption and satisfaction; justification and reconciliation; pardon, peace, and acceptance with God; are all in him, and of him. He is the great and rich gift; and all the invaluable treasures and blessings, that are hold forth in every unconditional promise, are what is called the unsearchable rickes of Christ. He is the substance of all the ceremonial shadows, and the truth of all the legal types.—The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. He is the true tabernacle, which God pitched and not man. And this King, in his divine favour, is the cloud, and this Holy One is the flame, that followed Israel throughout the dreary desart. He is the hidden manna, and the flowing rock; the mercy seat, and the ark of our strength, where all the secret treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid. He is the vail, and the entrance into the holy place; the golden pot, and the blooming rod; the golden table, and the bread of life; the altar, priest, and sacrifice. He is the laborious o [...], that bore the legal yoke; the red heifer, that made atonement; the fatted calf, that feods the prodigal; and the lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world. He is the day-break, day-star, and day-spring, that has visited us, and who has made all those shadows flee away, and nothing but a solid substance is left for us. God having[Page]provided some better thing for us, that they without us sbould not be made perfect. Heb. xi. 40.

He is the fulfilling end of the moral law; by whom it was magnified and made honourable; and by whose obedience, to us imputed, attended with the Holy Ghost and love of God the righteousness of the law is fulfilled IN US, (though not by us) who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Indeed he is the truth of the whole bible. The history of the creation exhibirs his eternal power and god head, being clearly seen by the things that are made; which things were not made (as the Deist fancies) of the things which do appea. Rom. i. 20. The destruction of the antedeluvian world, and of the cities of the plain, is an awful display of his inflexible justice, and of his holy indignation at all sin; while the preservation of Noah and Lot as loudly proclaim his discriminating grace and sovereign clemency. The journals of the patriarchs, and their posterity, are all attended and bestrewn with his faithfulness and truth to them, both in providence and in grace. His tender care of them is clearly seen, and his blessing on them, the provision he made for them, his protection of them, and his love tokens to them. He led them from one nation to another people, and suffered none to do them wrong; yea, be reproved kings for their sakes, saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no barm.

And, although some say, "I can see nothing of Christ in the Song of Sclomon, in the books of Ruth and Esther, &c." yet the book of Ruth exhibits nothing else but the grace of Christ, and the wonderful footsteps of Providence; yea, the conversion of that woman, through whom, by the female line, according to the flesh, Christ came, is a wonderful hint of the salvation of the heathen. And, as for the book of Esther, the hand of the Lord toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies, appear almost in every line, It was he that sent them into Babylon for their idolatry; he was a little sanctuary to them when they came there, and was seen upon a red horse among the myrtle trees, when they came back again. Zech. i. 8. He stopped the lions' mouths in Daniel's den; walked with the three children in the fiery surnace; brought his own captive daughter to the throne of the kingdom; hung Haman at his own expence; and advanced Mordecai from a decreed destruction to the dignity of prime minister. It was this Michael, the great prince, that stood for the children of Israel against the devil in the [Page]courts of Persia; and it was he that resisted him again at the right hand of Joshua, in the land of Israel: in all which he appeared their God, their Saviour, their Ring, and their Mediator. And, as for the Song of Solomon, every line of it proclaims its own author; for there is none that speaketh like him; and, it being a sealed book to the wile and prudent, shews plain enough that it is sacred; and, were all the worldly wise upon the earth to undertake to make a book like it, there would be no more resemblance between theirs and the original, than there is between the prophet Isaiah's predictions and the whims of old mother Shipton. That which flows from a divine spring has both a fulness and satisfaction in it; but that which is pressed from human brains is nothing but a sound from emptiness, and proves a broken cistern to all that seek entertainment therein. This Jesus is the truth of all the bible. Search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. But then, says the Saviour, the world sees me no more. They shall see him as their judge in the great day, for then every eye shall sce him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.—But, as a Saviour, the world sees me no more. These believe not on him. Ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins; and whither I go ye cannot come. John viii. 21. And, if they are to see him no more, and if they cannot come where he is, then they that go down into the pit cannot hope for the truth.

Again, by truth we may understand the Holy Ghost in all his convineing, quickening, regenerating, renewing, sanctifying, comforting, sealing, and purifying, work on the souls of God's elect. The Spirit beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. 1 John v. 6. And so are all his operations and instructions. This blessed anointing teacheth us all things, and is truth, and is no lie. 1 John ii. 27. He guides us into all truth, and bears a true testimony with our own conscience to our justification and adoption; and reveals to us the true mind and will of God, and the true state of our souls before him. He searches the deep things of God, and lets us know what is freely given us of God. He reveals the sovereign grace of God, and his good will to us; and is the life and truth of all grace in us. He purifies our heads and hearts from guilt and falschood, and from the false notions that we entertained both of God and ourselves. He bears a true testimony of Jesus to us; he shall testisy of me. He receives the things of Christ, and reveals them to us; and shews us things to come. It is this ever-blessed Spirit of truth that applies the word of God to the elect sinner; and makes is [Page]effectual, and the power of God, to salvation. The word comes with power, in the Holy Ghost, and with much assurance. He softens the hard heart, meekens the stubborn soul, and gives the engrafted word both a place and a root. He induences, and mightily persuades the mind to yield the obedience of faith, by crediting the glorious testimony; and makes faith work by love, both to the everlasting gospel and its adorable author. He helps our infirmities at a throne of grace, as a spirit of supplication; makes us feel, and points out our wants; dictates every petition that shall find acceptance, and attends the same with confidence; and sends them from off the heart with warmth, fervour and energy. And we have the infinite satisfaction of seeing and feeling that they do not return empty. This holy and ever-blessed Spirit of truth is the earnest of the great reward; the witness, sealer, and comforter of every saint of God. But then this Spirit of truth the world CANNOT receive, because it seath him not, neither knoweth him. John xiv. 17. And, if the world, the non-elected world, cannot receive him, then they cannot be sanctified by him; and without sanctification by the Holy Ghost, there can be no meetness for heaven: the unclean cannot enter there; and without holiness no man can see the Lord. Hence it follows, that, except a man be born again of the Spirit, be cannot see the kingdom of God, much less to enter into it.—And, as the world CANNOT receive this spirit of truth, then they that go down into the pit cannot hope for it.

By truth we are to understand the soul-quickening word of God. Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth. This word, faithfully and purely preached and cordially received, embraced, and credited, is the incorruptible seed, that abides forever. It is called the word of faith, because faith comes by hearing of it, and hearing by the preaching of it. It is called the word of wisdom, because it makes us wise to salvation through the faith of Christ: the word of knowledge; because it holds forth, and reveals, all that is essential to be known both of God and ourselves: it is the word of life, by which we are quickened: it is the word of righteousness, by which we are made just; the word of reconciliation, by which we are made friends; and the word of truth, by which we are made free. But then this word is only made to Christ the elect head, and to his predestinated offspring. For thus saith God, This is my covenant with them, the word that I have put in thy mouth, and the spirit that I have put upon thee, shall never depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, from henceforth and forever. [Page]The promises of the gospel are only to the heirs of promise; the promise and word of eternal life are to none but those that are ordained to it. It is always applied to the sheep; it never was applied to the goats. They that are of God, hear God's word. Others hear it not, because they are not of God; not of God's loving, choosing, and ordaining to life. They are of the world, therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God; he that knoweth God heareth us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. The mysteries of the kingdom are hid from the wise and prudent; the natural man cannot know them; and▪ if he cannot know them in this world, while joined to all the living, he will never get at the knowledge of the truth afterwards; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest. Eccles. ix. 10. There shall be nothing of all these things communicated to a man in the grave. But sure I am, that it must mean an ungodly man to whom none of all these things are to be communicated; for the Spirit of God, that now dwells in all the saints, shall in the great day quicken their mortal bodies, and reveal the great work of God, and the wonderful device that he has framed. Imperfect knowledge shall vanish, and perfect knowledge be made known; and the wisdom of God in the gospel mystery shall be revealed in all the latitude▪ and in all the beauty and glory of it, as soon as the everblessed Spirit quickens our mortal bodies. For now we know but in part, and prophesy in part, and see through a glass darkly; but, when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away; then shall we know even as we are known, and see even as we are seen: and this as soon as the body is quickened in the tomb. For it shall be raised immortal; then it must be immortal before it is raised; yea, raised spiritual and glorious: and thus it shall be raised.—Therefore there will be, to the saints of God, a wonderful work, a strange device, perfect knowledge, and the most consummate wisdom, revealed to the children of God even in the grave, at the Resurrection Morning; for they shall be raised in all this glory. Hence it appears plain, that as the tree falls, whether towards the north or towards the south, where the tree falleth, there it shall lie; and that the sinner who dies in his sins shall find no works, device, knowledge, or wisdom (that shall avail him any thing) in the grave whither he goes. For they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

I come now to treat of the Pit,

[Page] Which word, according to the learned, has various meaniags. The word school is used in four several senses in the scriptures: First, it is taken for hell metaphorically; that is, for deep plunging into extreme sorrow, misery, and danger. Ps. lxxxvi. 13. Secondly, for the local hell properly. Prov. xv. 11. Thirdly, it signifieth the grave. Prov. xxx. 16.—Fourthly, it signifieth the lower, deep, and remote parts of the earth, without any relation to the place of punishment. Ps. cxxxix. 8. To which I may add a Fifth acceptation of this word, for the common place or state of the dead; as Ps. lxix. 47, 48, &c. School signifieth any devouring gulph, or pit, swallowing up the dead; as Numbers xvi. 33.

That there is an awful and dreadful place of punishment, prepared by a just God for the devil and his angels, and for ungodly sinners of mankind, is plain both from the Old Testament and from the New; and this truth is realized to the soul and conscience of every sinner shut up in black despair, and given up to a fearful looking for of judgment in this world; and is often dreadfully feared, and the pains of it deeply felt, even by the elect of God, when brought under the arrests of divine justice, and arraigned at the bar of a broken law: under which dreadful sensations, and awful apprehensions, have sprung those fearful cries, and those earnest petitions, attended with such grievous complaints, so often found in holy writ; put up by those who have sunk in the horrible pit, and who have known and felt the terrors of the Lord. First,

We have the outcry of the despairing sinner: The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites: who among us shall dwell with devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Isaiah xxxiii. 14. Now this people was either in great fear where no fear was, which is not likely; or else, like the devils, they believe there is such a place of torment, and tremble at the dreadful apprehensions of it, and at the displeasure of an angry God, who hath prepared it.

Secondly, We have the dreadful complaints of the elect under their awful apprehensions of this place of torment, when the rod of God has been heavy upon them. Unto thee will I cry, O Lord, my rock! be not silent to me, lest if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit. Ps. xxviii. 1. And again: Let not the water-stood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up; and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me. Ps. lxix. 15 The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and [Page]that he should not die in the pit. Isaiah li. 14. It is clear enough that these awakened souls had awful apprehensions of a dreadful place of punishment; and labored hard to fly from the wrath to come, and to embrace the only hiding place from the storm: and these were delivered from going down to the pit, for God has found a ransom. Job xxxiii. 24.

I know that the word pit has various meanings in holy writ: sometimes it signifies a false church, or a whore, in a spiritual sense: in the communion of which many professors are so entangled as never to get out. The mouth of a strange woman is a deep pit; the abhorred of the Lord shall f [...]ll therein. And a whore, in a temporal sense, is called a pit; whose ensnaring charms have held many a prisoner so fast, that all the lashes of conscience, and all the dread of damnation, could never deter him, till he has fallen a sacrifice to vindictive justice. Many a reprobate has perished in this snare: for a whore is a deep ditch, and a strange woman is a narrow pit. Prov. xxiii. 27.

Sarah's womb is called a pit; who was to be the mother of the elect when past age; from which (though impossible to nature) Christ, according to the flesh, came, and all the elected thousands, both of Jews and Gentiles, in him. Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged: look unto Abraham your father, and to Sarah that bare you. Isa. li. 1, 2.

Pit sometimes signifies deep soul-trouble; in which the heart and flesh both fail; and the poorsoul sinks into heaviness and despondency, while trouble upon trouble rolls over him, like wave upon wave over a drowning man, till all his strength is exhausted in struggling; and down he must go, except Divine Providence interfere. I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. Ps. xl. 1, 2.

Pit signifies any wicked device, intended against a religious person in order to ensnare him and draw him into sin, that they may see his nakedness and reproach his profession: such as the Hottentots contrive to catch elephants in; who dig holes in the ground, in the tracks where those animals come to drink, at the bottom of which stakes are driven, and the upper points of them made sharp; while the top of the hole is slightly covered with boughs of trees, and then green turf laid over; upon which the unwieldly creature steps, and in [Page]he goes. So the wicked often ensnare the just. For without cause have they hid for me their not in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul. Ps. xxxv. 7. But neither of these are intended by the word pit in my text; but hell itself, the place prepared for the devil and his angels.

Dr. Lowth calls it perdition; his words are these—

"For this cause shall it be declared, O JEHOVAH, concerning Thee,

That thou hast revived my spirit;

That thou hast restored my health, and prolonged my life.

Behold, my anguish is changed into ease!

Thou hast rescued my soul from perdition.

Verily, the grave shall not give thanks unto thee;

Death shall not praise thee;

They that go down into the pit shall not await thy truth."

Isa. xxxviii. 16, 17, 18.

That is, they that go down into the pit shall never expect thy truth; for they never were reserved or designed for it, and therefore cannot hope for it, await it, or expect it.

Perdition signifies no less than utter ruin and destruction.— Judas is called the son or heir of perdition, and is said to go to his OWN PLACE, from which he will never remove, being most worthy of it for his dreadful transgression, and pre ordained to it for his sins, in which the bounds of his habitation are eternally fixed. Antichrist is likewese called the son of perdition, being his fellow heir of the same place; because he drives the same wicked trade with Christ and his blood as Judas did; and who will at last go into perdition as well as he, and be drowned in it, for, as for grace or the Holy Spirit, neither he nor Simon Magus have either part or lot in that matter.

Various are the names by which this awful place of torment is called in scripture. It is called Tophet: which place [Page]was in the valley of the son of Hinnom, where the children of Israel sacrificed their children to Molech. They built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire into Molech. Jer. xxxii. 35. Yea, they sacrificed their children to devils, and defiled the land with blood. Ps. cvi 37. This image had arms, (as some say) to hold the infants in, and to which arms they were bound. The image was made hollow within, and a kiln hole was made at the bottom of the image, where the fire was kindled, and kept burning till the child was consumed. Some children they drove through the fire to this idol, and some were fixed, as above, in the arms of it. The priests who officiated at this infernal altar were called chemarims, as it is written; I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place; and the names of the chemarims with the priests.—Zeph. i. 4. At the times of sacrificing these poor children they used to beat drums, &c. in order to drown the cries of them when in the fire: on which account, as some think, this valley is called Tophet; which according to the learned, signifies a drum: and God himself gives it this name to represent hell.

Molech, horrid king, besmear'd with blood

Of human sacrifices, and parents' tears,

Though for the noise of DRUMS and TIMBRELS loud

Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd through fire

To his grim idol; and made his grove

The pleasant valley of Hinnom: Tophet thence

And black Gehenna call'd, the type of hell.

MILTON.

And God compares the wicked to the fuel with which they burnt their children. And God will kindle a worse fire than they did; and be as deaf to the cries of them as they were to those of their poor infants. For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it. Isa. xxx. 33.

Sometimes this place of punishment is called a lair; an allusion to the plain where anciently stood the four cities of Sodom. Gomorrha, Adma, and Zeboim, which the Lord destroyed by fire. This fine plain, well watered by the river Jordan running through it, was the cause of Lo [...] choosing it when he separated from Abraham. It was anciently a very rich fertile valley, of seventy miles long, and twenty over: under its turf was a kind of a rich bitumen, and beneath [Page]that a pitchy slime, (Gen. xiv. 10.) which they used in building. Compare with Gen. xi. 3. But, when God ramed fire and brimstone from heaven upon those cities, the bitumen and slime took fire also. The land of the plain, and the whole country, were all on a flame and smoke. Gen. xix. 28. And God overthrew those cities: Gen. xix. 25; that is, with an earthquake, by which a prodigious mountain was cast up at the west end of the plain; and the whole plain is now a dead seo, called the lake Aspholtites. The rivers Jordan, Jabbok, and Arnon, all run into it at the east end: but there is no way out of it, unless by a subterraneous passage. But what is the most surprising of all is, that, though this lake is fed by fresh water rivers, yet the sea is remarkably salt; and, according to Maundrell, prodigious nauseous. The storm of vengeance which fell upon those cities is the pledge and earnest of the general conflagration. As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. The destruction of the inhabitants of these cities is an emblem of the destruction of all the wicked in the great day; who, as well as the Sodomites, will suffer the vengeance of eternal fire; of which place this sulphureous lake (when all on a flame) was an awful figure or representation. The beast, and the false prophet, (Rev. xix. 20) and the Devil that deceived them; (Rev. xv. 10.) yea, all whosoever were not found written in the book of life; (Rev. xx. 15.) the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Rev. xxi. 8.

Sometimes this place of torment is called a prison, in which all the King of heaven's prisoners are or shall be bound, shut up, and confined. It is prepared for devils, rebels, traitors, reprobates, infidels, hypocrites, heretics, false prophets, and persecutors; and all who descend into it will lie in it until the end of the saint's thousand years reign with Christ in the new earth, herein dwelleth righteousness; 2 Pet. iii. 13 [...] at the end of which time they shall be visited. The Lord Jesus, who has the keys of hell and of death, will bring them forth to the great and grand assize, to take their trial, receive their decisive sentence and their awful doom.

On the very day of this world's dreadful conflagration all the wicked, both devils and men, will be imprisoned; and on the same day the saints will take the kingdom, and begin their thousand years' reign: as it is written. And they shall be gathered together,[Page]as prisoners are gathered, into the PIT; and shall be shut up in the PRISON; and after many days shall they be visited. At that time begins the saint's reign. Then the mo [...] shall be co [...]s [...]ded, and the s [...]n ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mo [...]rt Zion, and in Jerusalem; and before his ancients gloriously. Isa. xxiv. 22, 23. The many days in the above passage are the promised thousand years in Rev. xx. 4. And this reign of Christ is said to be before his ancients, because all the ancient saints; Adam and Eve the first; with Abel, Seth, and E [...]ch; Methus [...]lah, L [...]ech, and Noah; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; down to the last soul that ever shall be called by grace; will reign with him; and it will not be, as it is now, a reign of grace; but a glorious reign; or the Lord will reign before his ancients in a very glorious [...]er.

Again, this place of punishment is called a gulph fixed; which a learned man of God tells me may be properly rendered, as it is in the Dutch annotations, [...]n abyss, or a bottomless pit. Rev. ix. 1. This abyss, or bottomless pit, is said to be fixed; that is, by God's decree of reprobation, which can never be revoked. A bottomless pit affords no anchorage for hope: therefore they that go down into it cannot hope for the truth.

This gulph, fixed by an eternal decree, forever fixes the state of the damned, and forever debars all passage from thence. The elect shall never descend into it, nor the reprobate ascend out of it; as it is written, And, besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulph fixed; (ch [...]sm [...], an opening that can never be closed) so that they which would pass from [...]ue to you CANNOT; neither CAN they pass to [...]t that would come from thence. Luke xvi. 26. Mr. Winchester's supposed passage, and passport, are both prohibited by the decree of heaven; for, although he would pass it, the text says he cannot; the eternal sentence of God forbids it: therefore they that go down into the pit cannot hope for the truth.

Let this dreadful place of punishment be called by what name it may; whether Gehenna, Tophet, Scheol, Hell, Hades, Perdition, Gulph or Abyss, Lake, Pit, Furnace of Fire, Bottomless Pit, or what not—it means the place that God has prepared for the devil and his angels, and for the distruction and perdition of ungodly men. God hath made it deep and large; and all the wicked will be the fuel of it; and the breath of God shall kindle it: and eternal vengeance will feed the flames of it, and keep it burning. The w [...] of a [Page]guilty conscience shall never die: nor shall the brimstone. or the wrath of God, ever be quenched, or ever burn out. God's eternal law shall never be repealed, the curse of it shall never be recalled, nor the sentence ever be revoked.—C [...]r [...]ng their king and their God shall never pass for perfect obedience; nor shall a finite creature's suffering the just demerit of [...] ever give satisfaction to divine justice, or discharge the black catalogue of infinite debts. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

They that are saved must be purged in the furnace of affiction in this world, not in a furnace of fire in the next; they must be cleansed by the blood of Christ in mount Zion, not in hell. Jo [...]l iii. 21. In mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, there shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said; but in hell there shall be none. Truth must make them free in this world, or they will be bound to all eternity; for they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

The mercy and faithfulness of God must be known in time; if they die ignorant of this, they shall never know it hereafter; for God declares that ‘he that made them will have no mercy on them, and he that created them will show them no favor. Wilt thou, O God, shew wonders to the dead? No. Shall the dead arise, and praise thee? Selah. Shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? or thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness!’ No, never. Psalm lxxxviii. 10, 11, 12. For they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

The throne of iniquity shall have no fellowship with God, who frame mischief by a law. Light and darkness shall have no agreement; Christ and Belial shall have no concord: what part hath be that believes with an infidel! The believer hath no part with him: and shall the infidel ever have any part with the believer; one being the child of God, and the other the child of the devil? the one being ordained to eternal life, and the other ordained to this condemnation? No. God has hid their heart from understanding, and therefore he shall not exalt them. Job. xvii. 4.

I come now to my fourth head; which is to shew.

That they that godown to the pit are without truth. Christ is eminently and emphatically the truth; but they that go [Page]down into the pit are without Christ in every covenant character, and in every sense of the word. They have no Mediator: and without a Mediator, there can be no access to God. Christ took not on him the seed of Cain, nor of Canaan, nor of Ishmael, nor of Esau: but he took on him the seed of Abraham, and that after he was appointed, made, and declared, the father of many nations, and in a gospel sense of all the chosen seed. Christ took part of the children's flesh and blood: not that of the reprobate, nor of the rejected seed of old Adam, nor that of the children of the flesh; for these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed; and it was part of the flesh of these heirs of promise that Christ took; for such, and only such, are the children of Abraham in the spiritual sense of scripture. ‘They are not all Israel who are of Israel, neither because they are the seed of Abraham are theyl all the children of God.’ Christ himself will not allow this. The reprobate Jews told him that God was their father: but he tells them that, if God was their father they would love him; and palms them upon their father the devil. And when they claimed Abraham as their father, Christ allows it in one sense; I know that ye are Abraham's seed, (John viii. 37) that is, according to the flesh; but not according to God's purpose and promise: therefore ‘Jesus saith unto them if ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.’ John viii. 39. Christ never calls these his brethren, nor does he claim any kindred to them; but tells them to depart, he knows not whence they are, because they are not of the election. Christ is not their advocate nor their intercessor: he never pleaded their cause in eternity, nor yet in time; nor does he now do it in heaven; nor will he do it in the day of judgment, nor yet in hell: but passes the righteous sentence of the law upon them, and sends them away from him as utter strangers to him: which cannot be called pleading their cause against the devil, when he calls them the devil's own children, and sends them away from him, in company both with the devil and all his angels. Nor did Christ ever pray for these as an intercessor: for, although he said upon the cross, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;’ yet it was for some of the elect in particular that he then prayed; who were very busy at his crucifixion; upon whom Peter charged his blood, and who were cut to the heart at the awful appeal, repented, and believed, and were added to his church. But for the non-elected world he never prayed: ‘I pray for them; I pray not for the [Page]world, but for them which thou hast given me.’ John xvii. 9.

Nor did Christ die for them: he died not for the generation of serpents, nor vipers, nor for the reprobate, but for the elect; not for the dogs, but for the doves; not for the goats, but for the sheep. ‘The good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.’ John x. 11. ‘But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.’ John x. 26. And them that are not his sheep he never died for: and without redemption by blood there can be no salvation from hell. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

Nor did he ever teach these as a prophet. No; he came to them for judgment, that they which see might be made blind: yea, he closed their eyes, stopped their ears, and hardened their hearts; that they should not see with their eyes, hear with their ears, nor understand with their hearts. He never turned them to him, nor took the veil from them; but thanked his Father for hiding these things from them: and declares that the wicked shall do wickedly, and that none of the wicked shall understand. Dan. xii. 10. They may ever learn; but, like Mr. Winchester, they are never able to come to the knowledge of the truth; and the reason is, because the great Prophet of the church never teaches them. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and none else. The natural man discerns not the things of the spirit; nor CAN he know them, either in time or eternity, because they are spiritually discerned.—And the Holy Spirit does not teach the world: The (reprobate) world CANNOT receive him, either in this world or the next, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him. John xiv. 17. Therefore they that go down into the pit cannot hope for the truth.

And, as they that are of this world are not Christ's sheep, so he never gathers them out of it; he never seeks them out, nor finds them. He seeks none but the lost sheep of the house of Israel; and the other sheep, which are not of that fold (namely, the elect among the Gentiles,) these he must bring, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.—For these he died; these he redeemed; these he gathers out of all places, whither scattered in the cloudy and dark days.—The diseased of these he strengthens; the lame he heals; the broken he binds up; the weak he lays on his shoulders; the lambs he carries in his bosom; and those that are with young he gently leads. In the height of Israel he pitches their [Page]fold, in the green pastures of the life-giving gospel he makes them to lie down, and by the still waters of comfort he leads them. But, though this kind Shepherd deals thus with his sheep, yet not so with the goats, as himself says: ‘I will feed the flock of slaughter; even you, O poor of the flock: and I took unto me two staves; the one I called beauty, and the other I called bands, or binders; and I fed the flock.’ Zech. xi. 7. Here is Christ the King of Israel with his beautiful staff, or sceptre, ruling and governing his own subjects; and with his other staff, called binders or bands, which is his shepherd's crook, that catches, holds fast, and detains every sheep of his flock to himself, and to one another in his own fold; while he himself condescends to feed them. But then he has no charge of the goats, he is a shepherd, not an herdsman; nor does he feed them, as himself declares: ‘Then, said I, I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another.’ Zech. xi. 9. Hence it appears plain that the good Shepherd has no charge of these; nor does he put forth his crook among them. Nay, he asked what they would give for his price in this twofold office of mediatorial king and good Shepherd; 'and they prized him at the common price of a bond slave.' Exod. xxi. 32; compare with Zech. xi. 12. ‘Then he cut asunder his staff, even beauty? that he might break the legal, national, and conditional covenant, that he had made with the house of Israel;’ (Zech. xi. 10) for their disobedience to it, and for their rejection of him: ‘and the middle wall of partition was broken down on that day;’ and salvation was proclaimed to the Gentiles: and, after they had sold his blood, and himself as their shepherd and king, ‘then he cut asunder his other staff, even bands, that he might break the brotherhood between the spiritual Jews and Israel after the flesh.’ Zech. xi. 14. 'And it was broken in that day.' Zech. xi. 11. So that ‘they are not Jews that are so outwardly, but are of the synagogue of satan; but they are Jews that are such inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.’ From hence it appears plain that the Lord Jesus does not undertake for the reprobate, the goats, and the seed of the serpent; but for the sheep, which the Father has given him; for whom he died, and whom he ‘redeemed from among men, out of every kindred, people, tongue, and nation.’ Rev. v. 9.

[Page] Nor does the grace of Christ rule over the reprobate.—His kingdom is not of this world; it is not of men, but of God; not supported by worldly means or worldly maxims; nor are the subjects of it of this world, but of God. It is set up in the hearts of God's elect, and in no other. Satan is a king still, and has a kingdom; and his kingdom still stands, and his subjects are led captive by him at his will. Nor is he divided against himself, nor ever will be: witness the infernal lies of Mr. Winchester, who is manifestly, at present, a subject of satan's kingdom; as appears plain by his blindness, ignorance, carnality, hypocrisy, infernal craft, and damnable deception. All which prove, plain enough, that satan (not Jesus) is king oyer all the children of pride; and that he rules in the hearts of all the children of disobedience.—But he (Christ) turns his own people from darkness to light, and from the power of satan to God; and translates them out of the kingdom of satan into his own kingdom, where they find the forgiveness of sins, and a glorious inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in him.—Hence we conclude that, as Christ did not assume the nature of the reprobates, so he is not the mediator, advocate, intercessor, priest, shepherd, or king, of these. God has set his King upon his holy hill of Zion, not upon Sinai; for all that are of the works of the law are under the curse. But the subjects of Christ's kingdom are all righteous persons; agreeable to his sceptre, which is a sceptre of righteousness.—Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever; the branch of my planning, the work of my hands; that I may be glorified. Isa. lx. 21. They that go down into the pit are without Christ in every sense; and therefore have no hope in him, nor can they ever hope for his truth.

Nor does the word of truth ever come with power to them; nor has it any place in them; nor is it ever promised to them: their taste remaineth in them, their scent is not changed; their palate is vitiated; they have no relish for it.—And the reason is, they are not of God; that is, they are not of God's choosing; they are not of God's electing; they are not of God's loving, ordaining, or appointing to salvation.— ‘He that is of God, heareth God's word; ye therefore hear it not, because ye are not of God.’ John viii. 47. The word never comes with power to them; they are never quickened nor illuminated by it, nor ever shall be. Satan, Simon Magus, and old Adam after the flesh, are their fathers; and to them they shall go; and from thence they shall never come. [Page]'He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light.' Ps. xlix. 19; and, if they never see light, then they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

And, as the wicked die without Christ in every covenant character; who is the way, the truth, and the life; and without the words of truth; so they die also without the true God, and without any hope in him. God is the God of Abraham, and of all his mystic seed: the God of Isaac, and of every heir of promise; and the God of Jacob, and of every true Israelite. This is his name for ever, and this is his memorial to all generations. But as for them that die under the curse and condemnation of the law, with the sting of death in their conscience, and the sentence of death in their hearts; twice dead, plucked up by the roots; is he the God of these? No. 'God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.' Mat. xxii. 31. And, as he is not their God, then they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

And shall these dead ones; enemies to Christ and his cause; despising his word and his people; servants of sin and satan; at whose calamity God will laugh, and at whom he will mock when their fear cometh; shall the covetous, whom God abhorreth shall the wicked, whom he hath made for the day of evil; shall the vessels of wrath, fitted by sin for destruction; shall the ungodly, before of old ordained to this condemnation; shall they; upon whom God will have no mercy, and to whom God will shew no favour; they who never were born again, and who can never see the kingdom of God; who are to be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of God, and from the glory of his power; shall these share in the great reward of inheritance? No.—They, that find not the path of life in this world, will never find it in the next; they, that are strangers to the truth at death, shall never hope for it in the pit; and they who have known something of the way of righteousness in this life, and who have departed from it, leaving the paths of righteousness to walk in the ways of darkness; who err from Christ the only way, and walk no more in him—shall never see nor enjoy God in the light and land of the living. ‘The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall REMAIN in the congregation of the dead.’ Prov. xxi. 16. And, if they remain in the congregation of the dead, then they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

[Page] They that go down into the pit are without the truth of grace. God requires truth in the inmost parts; and the gates of paradise are to be opened, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in, (Isa. xxvi. 2) and none else. Grace is given as an earnest of glory.—No grace in this life, no glory in the next. ‘Grace is to reign through righteousness to eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.’—The sinner who dies graceless cannot hope for the truth.

Grace unto repentance must be obtained by all that are saved; 'Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.' The impenitent soul, that goes into the pit cannot hope for the truth.

Sin-pardoning grace must be received if ever a man be saved.—'If ye die in your sins, where I am ye cannot come.' The dead in sin cannot hope for the truth.

Justifying grace must be found in all that are saved. ‘We are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:' but 'the unrighteous shall not enter the kingdom of God;’ consequently they cannot hope for the truth.

Regenerating grace is essential to eternal salvation.— ‘If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his: and, unless a man be (regenerated and) born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ No false prophets—no deceivers—no children of the flesh—no advocates for devils—no liars—shall ever enter that kingdom: they shall ‘see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and they themselves thrust out.’ These can never hope for the truth.

God purges his Jerusalem by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning; and he will purge away the filth of the daughter of Zion. But God's purifying furnace is in Zion—not in hell. God's people are purged by the spirit of burning—not by brimstone; in the furnace of affliction—not in hell torments. No purging of sin shall ever be experienced in the bottomless pit; no deliverance [...]rom guilt, death, or wrath, there. ‘In Mount [...] [...], and in Jerusalem, shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said; and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call;’ Joel ii. 32; and no where else; for they that go down into the pit are without God in covenant—without Christ in every covenant character—without [Page]the Spirit of truth—without the word of God—and without the truth of grace in them; and therefore cannot hope for it. ‘He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?’ Isa. xliv. 20. These can never hope for the truth.

I have long wondered from whence the Arminians got this notion of an universal restoration; there never was one text in God's book to countenance or support it. I though it had been a branch of Pythagoreanism; but, on referring to a note in Virgil's Aeneid, I rather doubted it; for I find that Plato, Socrates, and others of the ancient philosophers, held the sentiment as well as Pythagoras. The following passage from Pitt's translation of the Aeneid contains the substance of Mr. Winchester's doctrine: but from which of the heathen philosophers Virgil has taken it, or whether he has compounded their different opinions, and reduced them into the following system, is a point, I believe, undetermined.

"But while on earth, by earth-b [...]rn passions tost,

The heav'nly spirits lie extinct and lost;

Nor steal one glance, before their bodies die,

From those dark dungeons, to their native sky.

Ev'n when those bodies are to death resign'd,

Some old inherent spots are left behind—

A fullying tincture of corporeal stains

Deep in the substance of the soul remains:

Thus are her splendours dimm'd, and crusted o'er

With those dark vices that she knew before:

For this the souls a 'VARIOUS PENANCE' pay,

To purge the taint of former crimes away.

Some in the SWEEPING BEZEZES are confin'd;

And hung on high, to whiten in the wind.

Some cleanse their stains beneath the GUSHING STREAMS,

And some rise glorious from the SEARCHING FLAMES.

Thus all must suffer; and, those suff'rings past,

The clouded minds are purified at last.—

But, when the circling seasons, as they roll.

Have cleans'd the dross long gather'd round the soul:

When the celestial fire, divinely bright,

Breaks forth victorious in her native light;

THEN WE, THE CHOSEN FEW, Elysium gain,

And here expatiate on the blissful p [...]ain."

PITT's VIRG. b. vi. p. 203, 204.,

Here seems to be the foundation of the doctrine; only the poet has devised three ways of purging away sins. Some are bleached in the wind, some washed in the streams, and some purged in the flames.

[Page] However, Mr. Winchester differs from Virgil; for he makes no use of the streams, or the wind, only of the flame. And in his purgation and restoration he includes all men and devils, but Virgil, a chosen few. And by this doctrine of devils he exhibits satan to be a mere fool, and not half so wise as the scriptures represent him; for it is clear that satan aimed at the destruction of Christ from the manger to the cross: and must not satan in this be greatly divided against himself, to aim and plot to destroy his great restorer? But the truth of the matter is, that the devil knows better than Mr. Winchester, who never yet either believed or trembled, as the devils do. Satan knows that in God's book there is no promise of good to him; and that God's voice is not to devils, but to the sons of men. Thou art cursed above all [...]itle, and The Lord rebuke thee O Satan, is all that falls to the share of devils in the scriptures of truth. Their restoration is the mi [...]e of poor Winchester, which contributes but little either to himself or them. We read of some who are made to be taken and destroyed; and nothing can be added to this work, or taken from it. I come now to my last head; which is to shew that they who go down into the pit without truth cannot hope for it, either devils or men.

And 1st. Because of the decree and appointment of God; for ‘God hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.’ Prov. xvi. 4. And there are some that are called ‘natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed; who speak evil of the things they understand not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption.’ 2 Pet. ii. 12. These are called ungodly men, who were before of old ordained (palai progegrammenoi; OLIM PRESCRIPTI, that is OF OLD PRESCRIBED, or, OF OLD BEFORE APPOINTED) to this condemnation. Jude 4. ‘Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them.’ Jer. vi. 13. These reprobates are appointed unto wrath; from which appointment the saints are secured: ‘For God hath not (etheto, POSUIT) appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.’ 1 Thes. v. 9. These are said ‘to stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also (etethesan, FOSITI ERANT) they are placed or appointed.’ 1 Pet. ii. 8.—This decree of reprobation, or pre-appointment of God, immutably fixes the doom and eternal state of the wicked; as it is written, ‘And shall cut him asunder, and (thesei, PONET, ASSIGNABIT) shall assign, or appoint, his portion with hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teech.’ Mat. [Page]xxiv. 51. This decree or appointment, is a mountain of brass, (Zech. vi. 1.) that cannot be moved—a mountain that the wicked shall never surmount; and the bottomless pit is a g [...]lp [...] fixed, that can never be passed over. Luke xvi. 26. Therefore they that go down into the p [...]t cannot hope for thy truth.

2. If it be objected, that God's appointment to wrath, (1 Thes. v. 9.) and to a portion with hypocrites, (Mat. xxiv. 51.) is neither eternal nor immutable; then I ask what shall become of the saints? The same word that appoints the reprobate to wrath, appoints the saints to salvation by Christ; and the same word that appoints the sinner's portion with hypocrites appoints the saints to a kingdom.—The words are the same in the original, and only vary in their tenses; for the word etheto, (1 Thes. v. 9.) [...]hes [...]i, (Mat. xxiv. 51.) and etethesan, (1 Pet. ii. 8) are all derived from the Greek verb title [...]i; which signifies to place, or appoint; and the word di [...]tithemi (Luke. xxii. 29) is the same verb compounded with a preposition. Now, if this foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Ps. xi. 3. If God's appointment to wrath and destruction can be removed, his appointment to grace and glory may be removed also. A foundation for hope in hell would make the pillars of heaven tremble. But let God be true and Mr. Winchester a liar. God is of one mind, and none can turn him; and we know that Mr. Winchester would be of another mind if God should turn him from darkness to light. Men may fall, and be suc [...] and broken; but the scriptures cannot be broken. False prophecies shall fail; but not a jot or tittle of the law shall ever fail, nor the word of Christ ever pass away. Therefore they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

3. The date, or duration, of the eternal torments of the wicked, s [...]ems to be another immutable obstacle in the way of the restoration of devils. The state of the wicked bears the same date and duration as that of the just; and both are expressed by the same word. Thus, in Mat. xxv. 46, ‘And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.’ Here the fame word that fixes the date of the sinner's punishment, fixes also the life of the saints. The word aionios is used to describe the everlasting punishment; and the same word is affixed to the saints everlasting life: kolasin aionion, everlasting punishment; zoen aionion, everlasting life. See Mat. xxv. 46 and the same word is again used in Jude 7; 'suffering the vengeance of eternal fire,' poros aionion (gen. [Page]ease.) When the everlasting punishment of the wicked, and the vengeance of eternal fire, are ended; the everlasting life of the saints in glory must, of course, end at the same time; for both bear one and the same date. And, as for the restoration and glorification of devils, that is to commence when the Most High and immutable God shall cease to exist, and eternal divinity be no more. The same word that asserts the eternal existence of the one, asserts the eternal chains of the other; as it is written, ‘For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen; being understood by the things that are made; even his eternal (aidios) power and Godhead.’ Rom. i. 20. This is a divine assertion of the omnipotent, eternal and infinite divinity of our ever adorable Lord and Saviour: and by the same word is the eternal chains of the infernal criminals asserted. ‘And the angels (or principalities) which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting (aidiois) chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day.’ Jude 6. And this word (aidios) is only used in these two places in the New Testament. Hence it appears plain that the eternal power and Godhead of Christ, and the eternal chains of devils, are asserted and supported by one and the same word, and both bear one and the same date; so, of course, the nonexistence of Christ and the restoration of devils must be at one and the same time; which is but a poor ground of hope at the best; for at the time Mr. Winchester sends the devils out of purgatory, at the same time Christ must cease to exist, and there will be no RESTORER to enjoy: and, without Christ, heaven itself would add but little felicity, either to devils or to Mr. Winchester. The above date of the sufferings of the damned is an undeniable proof of the assertion in my text, that they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

4. All the race of Adam are not included in the covenant of grace, much less fallea angels. The covenant that God made with Noah differs much from that which he made with Christ; the former reaches to all, the latter but to few.— ‘And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; and with every living creature that is with you of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth, with you; from all that go out of the ark to every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any [Page]more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations; I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of the covenant between me and the earth, and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.’ Gen. ix.— This covenant reaches to all, both men and beasts; it secures the world from a flood, but not from being drowned in destruction and perdition: it did not secure Canaan from the curse, nor Sodom from the vengeance of eternal fire. But the covenant of grace with Christ secures from both: it provides a righteousness which justifies from the curse, and it secures from wrath to come, confirmed by the oath of God: ‘For, as I have sworn that the waters of Noah shall no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.’ The covenant made with Christ does not extend to all mankind, nor to the beasts of the field; but only to the elect of God, called a seed. ‘A seed shall serve him, and it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.’ Ps. xxii. 30. But then the children of the flesh are not the children of God; ‘but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.’ Rom. ix. 8. To these, says the Almighty, I WILL be their God, and they SHALL be my people; which words are not mentioned in the covenant made with all flesh. The covenant of grace, made with Christ, includes none but the heirs of promise; a seed given to Jesus, to be redeemed and saved by him: which are sometimes called the holy seed, (Isa. vi. 13) and sometimes the seed of Israel, which are all to be justified in Christ Jesus. Isa. xlv. 25.—This seed must be all gathered to Christ. I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather them from the west. Isa. xliii. 5. ‘I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.’ Isa. xliv. 3. These are the objects of God's choice, the purchase of a Redeemer's blood, and the travail of his soul; which he views with delight. ‘He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.’ In behalf of these the covenant was made with him, and in their behalf it stands fast. ‘As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; my Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and sorever.’ Isa. lix. 21. Here is the everlasting covenant, and here are [Page]the glorious promises of it; in which the Spirit of truth and word of truth are made sure to all the seed.—For these, and to these, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ; nor shall grace and truth ever depart either from him or them. But then what have devils and reprobates to do with these, when the children of the flesh are not the children of God; but a sinful nation; a seed of falsehood—a seed of the adulterer and the whore— a seed of evil doers, that shall never be renowned? Isa. xiv. 20.— Aud, if they are never to be renowned, then they that go down into the pit cannot hope for the truth.

5. The fifth obstacle in the way of Mr. Winchester's universal restoration is, God's declaration of never forgetting any of the works of the wicked. The favour that God bears to the objects of his choice is often expressed by a remembrance of them. ‘God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew those cities in which Lot dwelt.’ Gen. xix. 29. And thus God remembered Rachel; Gen. xxx. 22; and God remembered Hannah. 1 Sam. i. 19. And indeed the elect can never be forgotten; for Christ was made of God unto them wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, from all eternity; and as such, 'the righteous are had in everlasting remembrance,' (Ps. cxii. 6) when the very 'name of the wicked shall rot.' The pardon of sin is often mentioned by a non-remembrance of it: ‘I will be merciful to their unrighteousnesses, and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more.’ Jer. xxxi. 34. That is, I will blot them out of the book of my remembrance, for my dear Son's sake; and they shall come into my mind no more, nor ever appear before me as an aggravation; nor before my people to their condemnation; and, if they are sought for, they shall not be found, for there shall be none. But though the righteous are ‘to be had in everlasting remembrance;’ (Psalm cxii. 6) yet there are some that he never will remember; that is, he never will remember them 'with the favour that he bears to his own people,' (Ps. cvi. 4) but forget them. ‘Therefore, behold I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave to your fathers, and cast you out of my presence: and I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.’ Jer. xxiii. 39, 40. Utterly to forget a man is to shew him no favour: ‘He that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour.’ Isa. xxvii. 11. The sins of such men were never blotted out by the blood of [Page]Christ, and therefore must stand upon the book of God's remembrance against them forever. ‘The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond; it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altar. The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.’ Amos viii. 7. If the name of the wicked shall rot, and God will utterly forget them with respect to either favour or mercy; and if the sins of such are to stand upon the book of his remembrance forever, unpardoned and unblotted out by the blood of Christ; and this confirmed by the solemn oath of God, by the excellency of Jacob, which is God himself; then it must follow that they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

6. The sixth impediment that lies in the way of this universal restoration is, that 'the great atonement of Christ does not, shall not, yea, cannot reach them;' and ‘without shedding of blood there is no remission;’ and Christ did not die for every individual of mankind. ‘He gave his life a ransom for many;’ yea, for all the elect, to be testified in due time. But it is not, it never was and it never will be testified to all mankind. Christ ransoms bis elect from the curse of the law, from spiritual and eternal death, from temporal death as a penal evil, and from the power of the grave; yea, and from this dreadful pit mentioned in my text. ‘Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.’ Job xxxiii. 24. But, although this ransom is the procuring cause of God's elect being delivered from going down into the pit, yet it never did, nor ever will, deliver one sinner from the pit that goes into it, when once ‘judgment and justice take hold on him Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke, then a great ransom cannot deliver thee.’ Job xxxvi. 17, 18. And, if this great ransom cannot deliver them, then there can be no other gaol delivery for the damned than that which lies in the whims of Mr. Winchester, who knows neither the scriptures nor the power of God. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

7. The seventh particular that militates against this jubilee of devils is, that Christ himself keeps the keys both of hell and of death, as well as the keys of the house of David: and as they become no hand but his, so he will never trust either the pope or Mr. Winchester with them. It is he that admits all his elect into his own household; he shut N [...]: [Page]the ark, and the world out; and he lets the wise virgins into the [...]ptial chamber, and shuts all the foolish virgins—dogs —sorcerers—and all liars— [...]. Yea, the old serpent the devil will be bound and imprisoned by his hand; and at last the devil, and all his angels, together with all that live and die in famn's interest, shall be banished from his presence, and be confined in the bottomless pit forever and ever. ‘Christ openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth.’ Rev. iii. 7. ‘Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.’ Such are shut up under the law, shut up in unh [...]lief, shut out of the wedding chamber, and shut up in the prison of hell, (Isa. xxiv. 22.) and there can be no opening. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

8. The eighth impediment in the way of this universal gaol delivery is, the inviolable oath and veracity of God. ‘There are two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie.’ In the behalf of God's elect they are brought in to uncourage the strongest assurance, and, to establish an everlasting consolation. To these God shews the immutabilty of his counsel, confirmed by an oath. Heb. vi. 17. And there is an awful denunciation, confirmed by oath against the wicked, which divine reracity must make good; for ‘God is not man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it? hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?’ Num. xxiii. 19. ‘In that day will I perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house; when I begin I will also make an end: for I have told him that I will judge his house forever, for the iniquity which he knoweth, because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not; and therefore I have sworn (juravi) unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged by sacrifice nor offering forever.’ 1 Sam. iii, 14. Such desperate and willful sinners as these find no sacrifice for sin; a great ransom cannot deliver them; they shall not be purged either with sacrifice or offering forever; and God has sworn to it; therefore they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

But, if this oath and threatening, and the date thereof, (forever) be objected to, then let Mr. Winchester object to all the following oaths, which are the same—the very same.— ‘For I have said, Mercy shall be built up forever; thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. I have [Page]made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn (juravi) unto David my servant; thy seed will I establish forever, and build up thy throne to all generations.’ Ps. lxxxix. 2, 3, 4. And again; ‘Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was a time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness; yea, I sware unto the [...], (juravi) and entered into covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine.’ Ezek. xvi. 8.—Again, ‘The Lord sware, and will not repent, thou art a priest forever and ever, after the order of Melchisede [...].’ The eternal throne of Christ, the eternal establistment of his seed, and the mercy of God to them; together with the eternal priesthood of Christ, and the everlasting covenant with the elect in him; are all established, fixed, and settled, by oath: all which must be, removed, and God be proved to be perjured, before hir. Winchester's gaol delivery can take place: for the state and doom of the damned are fixed by the same oath: and the duration of their state bears the same date as the other. ‘I have sworn (juravi) that I never will forget any of their works.’ Amos viii. 7. ‘I have sworn (juravi) that the house of Eli shall not be purged forever,’ 1 Sam. iii. 14. ‘Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.’ Ps. xcv. 11; Heb. iii. 11. ‘They could not enter in because of unbelief; for he that believes not is condemned already, and the wrath of God abideth on him.’ It abideth on him, and shall never be removed from him, for he that believes not shall be damned. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

9. The ninth obstacle in the way of this universal reprieve is, that there is no forgiveness in the day of judgment, nor in hell, for them that die in their sins. The elect are pardoned in this world, and justified freely from all things; and they shall be pronounced blessed, pardoned, and justified, at the bar of God in the great day; and to this end they shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. But they, that are not blessed nor pardoned in this world never shall be pronounced blessed or pardoned in the world to come; for not in hell, but in ‘Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call, shall there be deliverance. The fountain is opened for the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem;’ not for the congregation of the dead, nor for them in the depths of hell. ‘Ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins. Whither I go ye cannot come. I said therefore unto you that ye shall die in your sins, for if ye believe [Page]not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.’ John viii. 21, 24. And, if where Christ is they cannot come, th [...] they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

10. We know that there is a sin unto death which is the great transgression; and which is unpardonable, and therefore must militate hard against Mr. Winchester's universal restoration. ‘But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.’ Mark iii. 29. But not only these desperate sinners, but all who die impenitent and unpardoned, shall be excluded from the kingdom of heaven. ‘They that sin without law shall perish without law; and they that sin in the law shall be judged by the law;’ and they that hear the gospel, and believe not, shall be damned; and, if they are, their sentence shall never be recalled; for they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

11. They who perish are without a helper. The sinner that falls into this pit will soon find all his hopes of a restoration perish with him. These petty contrivances are trumped up by satan only to amuse him while he is in the land of the living. But lies are no refuge from the storm, nor is falsehood a cov [...] from the tempest. ‘When the rains descend, and the floods come, and the winds blow, and beat upon such an house, a will fall; and great will be the fall of it, for wo to him that is alone (without Christ) when he falleth, for he hath not another to lift him up. They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy God, O Dan, liveth, and the manner of Beersheba liveth, even they shall fall and never rise again.’ Amos viii. 14 They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

12. The eternity of God's displeasure forbids this restoration. 'As is God's fear, so is his wrath; the fear of the 'Lord is clear, enduring for ever. Ps. xix. 9. And of the same duration is his wrath. ‘They shall call them the border of wickedness, and the people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever.’ Mal. i. 4.* ‘Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt’—Dan. 12, 2. The state of the former is fixed by the sentence or blessing of the everlasting gospel, and the state of the latter is [Page]fixed by the sentence or curse of an eternal law; and both are sure, ‘for it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one tittle of the law to fail.’ Luke xvi. 17. It can never fail of the execution of its righteous sentence upon the wicked, nor of its eternal duration, and the eternal wrath that it reveals. and on the other hand, ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away;’ (Mat. xxiv. 35) shall not pass away unaccomplished, unfulfilled; consequently the eternal salvation and glorification of the elect are sure to all the seed. Rom. iv. 16.

13. The sinner's debt book is another obstacle in the way of this universal enlargement. We know that God is called a creditor; and perfect obedience to the precepts of the law is due to him; but all have sinned, and the sinner is God's debtor. Some owe fifty pence, and some five hundred, and some ten thousand talents; and such are bound over to punishment, unless these debts be cancelled, which they cannot be, but by the blood of Christ; for without shedding of blood there is no remission. But then Christ died for his sheep, not for the goats; he redeemed his people from among men, he did not redeem all men: as a surety he did not pay their debts; the book debt, the hand writing, is still against them; it is not taken out of the way; it is not nailed to the cross; their sins are not blotted out of the book of God's remembrance; ‘and God has sworn by his excellency that he never will forget any of their works.’ Amos viii. 7. ‘The unrighteous shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven;’ imputed righteousness is not on them; and they have no righteousness of their own; and without righteousness they ‘cannot stand in the judgment, nor shall they ever stand in the congregation of the righteous? Moses says, 'This shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all the things that are written in this law;’ but here they have all failed. And if a man contracts a debt of fifty thousand pounds, can his lying in jail be called discharging it? Or is there any law in being which allows that lying in jail fifty years is an equivalent to the discharge of a lawful debt of fifty thousand pounds sterling? If this be laughed at, what becomes of Mr. Winchester's doctrine? if a man's carcase suffering in jail cannot be called paying his just debts; can weeping, wailing, and gnashing of of teeth, lamentation, mourning, and wo, be called obedience to the moral law? If justice once imprison the sinner, ‘I tell thee thou shall not depart thence till thou hast paid the very last mite.’ Luke xii. 59. Mark that—till thou hast paid: [Page]Christ is not the surety of such; the debt is their o [...]n. And can looking up, and cursing both their King and their God. (Isa. viii. 21.) be called ‘fulfilling all righteousness, or loving God with all the heart, and soul, and mind, and strength?’ or can sinners cursing, accusing, and tormenting, one another in hell, be called loving their neighbor as themselves? No: the sufferings of a finite creature cannot atone for sins declared to be infinite. Job xxii. 5. All obedience produced in hell is extorted, not drawn; it is eye service, not obedience; dead works, not spiritual service: the grave cannot prais [...] thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

14. Strict justice forbids this universal reprieve. The flaming sword of justice was sheathed in the very soul of the good Shepherd, in behalf of the sheep: and by the blood of the covenant the elect are sent forth out of the prison, wherein is no water; and to the strong hold, which is Christ cruc [...]ied, the prisoners of hope turn themselves. But this ransom does not, cannot, redeeem from the pit: ‘therefore the word bathed in heaven must come down on Idumea, and the people of God's curse to judgment.’ And wherewithal shall such sinners come before God, or how themselves before the Most High! Will the Lord be pleased with their crying to the ro [...] and mountains to fall on them? Shall they bring their oaths and curses for their transgression, and their just torments for the sin of their souls? Perfect holiness, perfect obedience, and and atoning blood, shall be found upon every soul that enters the kingdom of heaven; without these no man shall ever see it; therefore they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

15. The order of the Almighty prohibits this restoration. God is not the author of confusion, but of peace and order. And sure I am that the restoration of devils and reprobate [...] would breed more discord and confusion in heaven, if possible, than it has in the brains of hir. Winchester. Some would be with Christ that are called, chosen, and faithful; and others in the same company that are rejected, reprobated, and faithles [...]. Whatever brings a man to heaven and glory, that will be his theme and the subject of his song when he comes there. But this would make sad discord: Some would triumph in God's eternal love; some would celebrate his wrath; some his election of them, and others his reprobation; some would hymn his mercy, others his anger; some would sing his blessing. [Page]and others his curse; some would praise his faithfulness and truth, others his perjury and falsehood; some would be ascribing salvation to the Lamb, and others to the torment of devils; some praising their Surety, and others their own sufferings; some ascribing all to free grace, and others to their suffering the penalty of the law; some would glory in the blood of Christ that has cleansed them, and others in the damnation of hell that has purged them. This would be all discord, but no concord: and this must be the case when the sheep and goats, the seed of Christ and the seed of the serpent, when the persecuted and the persecutors, when they who bore the burden and heat of the day and they who stood all their days idle in the marker place, get together. But this shall never be; the children of God and the children of the devil shall never dwell in o [...] mansion; nor shall the Lamb's wife and the whore of Babylon eve [...] sit together upon one throne. ‘Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?’ Ps. xciv. 20. No, never; therefore they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

16. The never-dying worm of the sinner's guilty conscience is another impediment in the way of this deliverance from purgatory. Contracted guilt is the sting of death, and the strength of sin is the law of God, which will bind the sinner over and hold him fast, and will never let him go. The just wages of sin is death spiritual, temporal, and eternal; and sin and guilt, when revived and stirred up by the curse and wrath of God, will ever exist, and ever torment; and of sin conscience will ever accuse upon every bitter reflection of past rebellion; and nothing can ever silence or quiet it, purge from it, kill it, or bury it, but the atoning blood of Christ, which never was, and which never will be, applied in hell; but in Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call. Those that die under the wrath of God, ‘a great ransom cannot deliver them:’ therefore 'their worm shall never die.' Isa. lxvi. 24. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

17. The unquenchable fire of hell torments militates hard against this recovery of the damned. ‘The wrath of God, revealed in the law against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, is a fire kindled in his anger, and shall burn into the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.’— [Page]De [...]. xxxii. 22. And what shall appease an angry God, o [...] quench this unextinguishable flame? Nothing can do it but the blood of Christ. But for the reprobate this wa [...] never shed, and in hell it shall never be applied. Neither shall the fire of the wicked ever be quenched (Isa. lxvi. 24;) as it is written, ‘Then shall he say unto them on the left hand Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting (aionion) fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels.’ Mat. xxv. 41. The wicked are 'cast into everlasting (aionion) fire? Mat. xviii. 8. And it is a fire that is not quenched, (on sbenutai) Mark ix. 44. It is a [...] that never shall be quenched, (to asbeston) Mark ix. 43. Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity, for [...]cy shall be his recom [...]se. Lies shall be no refuge from this tremendous tempest, nor falsehood any covert from this eternal storm. No false doctrines, nor false prophets, shall ever deliver any from this fire, or even themselves ‘from the power of the flame.’ Isa xlvii. 14. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

18. Gods absolute declaration to dis [...]nna and make void all such leagues and covenants, made with death and hell, seems to be another let or entanglement upon this universal restoration. 'There are many devices in a man's heart;' this we know; but it is 'the counsel of the Lord shall stand,' both against the wicked and in behalf of the just: and there is nothing in all the predeterminate and revealed council of God that even countenances, much less supports this universal restoration. There is no ground of hope for it in the eternal law, 'for not a tittle of that shall ever fail:' it shall never fail of its being or existence; it shall never fail of its threatening, of its curse, of the wrath it reveals, nor of the administration of eternal death. It is the ministration of death and condemnation; and the wages of sin, which the law threatens, is sure, and eternally secured, to all that trust in it, are of the works of it, and die under it. Nor is there any ground of hope for this universal salvation from hell in the everlasting gospel, the awful sentence of which is eternal damnation; as it is written, ‘But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Gnost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.’ The words are much more forcible in the original, (ouk echei aphesin eis ton aiona all, estin aioniou kriseos)— ‘has no forgiveness to eternity, but is obnoxious to everlasting judgment.’ Mark iii. 29. Christ saves his people from going into hell, not out of it; he delivers them from going down to the pit by his ransom. Job xxxiv. 24. But those [Page]whom God takes away with a stroke, and in his wrath, ‘this ransom cannot deliver’ Job xxxvi. 18; th [...] [...]emains no more sacrifice for sin to them. This covenant, which extends s [...]ation to the damned, was never made by God, nor was it ever made with Christ; it was contrived many hundred years ago by the heathens, who ‘were without God, and having no hope in the world;’ and was adopted as an article of faith into the popish church, after the Romans had cast off Christ and his yoke, and appointed themselves another head instead of him, namely, the son of perdition; and is called purgatory, of which the pope (we are told) keeps the keys, and out of which sinners are to come in answer to popish prayers, as they tell us; but according to scripture, they are to come out when the eternal power and Godhead of Christ shall be no more; and when the eternal life, glory, and kingdom, of the faints is at an end; for these all bear one and the same eternal date. Nor will one person in the everblessed Trinity ever have any hand in this restoration: not God the father; 'for he is not the God of the dead' (Mat. xxii. 32;) nor Christ, 'for they are none of his' (Rom. viii. 9;) nor the Holy Ghost, for they 'have neither part nor lot in this matter,' (Acts viii. 21) and the 'world cannot receive him.' John xvi. 7. Hence it appears plain that this covenant of restoration lies wholly with the ancient heathens, the papists, Mr. Winchester and his confederates. But God will destroy it. ‘Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding places. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.’ Isa. xxviii. 17 and 18. And wo be to them that are thus trodden down: ‘for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury, for the day of vengeance is in mine heart.’ Isa. lxiii. 3, 4. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

19. The next wall of partition between the children of God and those of the devil is, the irreconcileable and eternal enmity that God has put between the woman's seed and the seed of the serpent, and between Christ and Satan. Nor did the dear Redeemer come into the world to make up this breach; it is perez uzza still. No mediator was ever sent to stand in this gap. Christ came not to make up this breach; he ‘came not to send peace upon the earth, but a fire; yea, a [Page]sword; and from henceforth there shall be five in one house; three against two, and two against three; and a man's foes shall be they of his own house; yea, the father against the son, and the son against the father; the daughter against the mother, and the mother against the daughter,’ &c. &c. This enmity never was, nor ever shall be, slain; this breach shall never be healed; this perez uzza shall never be closed; nor shall any advocate, days-man, mediator, or intercessor, stand in this gap. Christ reconciled God to us, and us to God; and the elect Jews to the elect Gentiles; but he never reconciled the reprobate [...] God, nor God to them; no, nor the church to the world— [...]o far from it, he declares that 'you shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.' Jeremiah was ordered twice never to lift up either prayer or cry in this breach. Jer. xvi. 11, 12. No, the sin unto death is not to be prayed for. Neither Jeremiah, Noah, Daniel, or Job, are sufficient for this work. The matter is settled by the threefold solemn oath of God, that neither Noah, Daniel, and Job, could ever turn, or alter, the mind of the Most High; nor should they deliver either son or daughter, but only their own souls, by their righteousness. Jer. vii. 10, 11, 14; Ezekiel xv. 16, 18, 20. And, as for Christ, he never undertook it, nor ever attempted it; and therefore it is not likely that Mr Winchester should perform this strange work, or bring to pass this strange act, seeing they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

20. The threatened destruction of every false prophet hangs heavy upon this doctrine of salvation for reprobates and devils. If they are to be destroyed that preach it, they shall never be saved that believe it. And Mr. Winchester bids fair for this character; he appears not to have one beam of true light (the light that is in him is darkness,) nor one grain of grace. He is an utter stranger to the fall of man, to his own depravity, to the spirituality of the law, to the terrible majesty of the Most high, and to all scripture and the power of God: what he knows he knows naturally, and in these things he corrupts himself. But God is in honor bound to stop the mouth of every gainsayer, to vindicate his own truth, and expose every liar, and to destroy every false prophet. ‘And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and I will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel, and they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity; the punishment of the prophet shall even be as the punishment [Page]of him that seeketh unto him.’ Ezek. xiv. 9.10. A lying prophet will contribute no more towards this universal restoration than the pope by his pretended release from purgation, who is himself declared to be the son and heir of perdition. God will never set his seal to the lies of Plato and Virgil, nor upon those men who engraft the fables of heathens upon his everlasting gospel. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

21. ‘The law is made for the lawless and disobedient, for ungodly, and for sinners;’ it is their law and their rule; and there is nothing in that law under which the sinner lives and under which he dies, that has the least tendency to a reconciliation with God, nor affords the least encouragement to expect it; but all the reverse: it reveals sin, and stirs it up; it makes the offence abound, and sin become exceeding sinful; it is the strength of sin; and the motions of sin, which are by the law (that is, which are by the law discovered, and by the law forbidden,) work in the sinner's members to bring forth fruit unto death; and this fruit will ever be brought forth in hell; the heart will ever conceive malice against God, and the mouth will bring forth its blasphemy: for the law worketh wrath in this world, and how much more in hell! If the apprehension of its curse works distraction and madness, what will the execution of its sentence do? Wrath, hatred, enmity, desperation, and rebellion, are sadly stirred up in the awakened sinner, who is ordained to life, by the threatenings it gives, the bondage it communicates, and the vengeance it reveals. The wages of sin, which the law gives, is eternal death. This raises the mind of the sinner to hate God, and all that is good. ‘The carnal mind is enmity against God; it is not subject to the law of God, nor can be.’ And by the law this enmity never was, nor ever shall be, slain; nor is there any reconciliation offered in it; nor shall any ever be effected by it; and therefore the wrath that the law reveals, and works shall never be removed from the wicked; nor shall the vail, that is upon the heart of the sinner that dies under the law, ever be removed either. The rich man in hell is as ignorant of salvation by Christ, which was prophesied by Moses and the prophets, as ever he was. ‘Nay, father Abraham, but, if one went unto them from the dead, they would repent.’ No, says Abraham; ‘if they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.’ Luke xvi. 30, 31. So ignorant are they, that in the dreadful day of God they will [Page]pray to the rocks and mountains to fall on them; and at the very bar of God they will plead their own merit, though some of their souls will then have been in hell five or six thousand years. ‘When saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee not? thirsty, and gave thee no drink? naked and clothed thee not? sick, or in prison, and visited thee not?’ And others will knock, and expect to enter the guest chamber, without either grace in their hearts or any righteousness on their souls; and when they are condemned they will fret themselves, and curse both their King and their God, and so continue for ever and ever: for the law shall never be repealed, nor its sentence ever be recalled; nor can the law ever work any thing in them but indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish. And, as to the covenant of grace, it never was made with any but Christ, and his seed, and his seed's feed. By Christ's seed is meant his children, who are called; and by his children's seed is meant their converts, not hypocrites: for ministers do not beget goats thro' the gospel, but they beget their own likeness. Their seed or converts, partake of their grace, which Christ communicates by their instrumentality. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ; these two always go together; but they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

22. Nor is there any thing in the fiery torments of hell of a humbling, softning nature, any more than there is in the fight of a gallows to a criminal who is going for execution; nor is there any thing in hell torments of a purging or purifying nature, any more than there is in lying on the stones in the cells of Newgate, to the keeping of a man clean, comely, and healthy. It is not intended to purge, but to punish.— The devils, who have been a hell to themselves, and have been filled with dreadful torments for some thousand years, are as foul, filthy, and unclean as ever. They are full of all mischief, malice, cunning, deceit, guile, hypocrisy, and falsehood; as unhumbled, unsanctified, unrelenting, and as rebellious and impenitent, as ever; and so desperate against God as to to tempt awakened sinners to curse him: witness Job, Paul, Solomon, and others. And in the great day the devil will make sinners do it; and in this malice they will ever remain. And so ungrateful is the devil, that he torments them the most who are the greatest friends to his interest; witness Judas, Saul, and Haman. Nor will he ever give Winchester one tribute of praise for all the pains he has taken about his restoration. It was Satan who set the sons of Sceva to abuse [Page]the name of the Lord Jesus upon the apostles; and he drove them out of the house both wounded and naked when they had done his work. And Mr. Winchester will get little more for all the favour and friendship that he has shewn to satan. These spirits will never be humbled, nor reconciled; nor will the flames of hell ever purge them. Nothing can cleanse them from sin but the blood of Christ; and that is wholly confined to the elect, to the house of David, to Jerusalem, to mount Zion, and to the remnant whom the Lord shall call.— Nothing can reconcile a rebel but the love of God; but the wicked are children of wrath. Nothing can subdue sin, or renew the sinner, but God's grace and Ho [...] Spirit. But they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

23. The rest that God has provided, appointed, and promised, never was designed for the reprobate. This ‘rest remains for the people of God:’ but all are not his people; some bear the name of Loammi, ‘for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.’ Hosea i. 9. ‘You hear not my words, because ye are not of God.’ The people of God are they whom God has chosen in Christ, whom Christ has redeemed from among men, and whom the Spirit sanctifies.— This rest is promised to them, and to none else. And, if the unbelieving Israelites could not enter into the temporal Canaan because of unbelief, much less shall infidels enter into the heavenly country that Abraham sought. The elect enter into rest in this life by faith in Christ; they rest from the burden of sin, from their legal labour for life under it, and from rebellion and war both against God and conscience; and this is an earnest of that rest that remains to the people of God: nor shall the wicked ever enter into it, to applaud their own sufferings, and sing the glory and praises of hell torments among them, for ‘the wicked shall cease from troubling and the weary shall be at rest.’ The oath of God secures us from this noise and trouble. ‘I have sworn in my wrath, that they should not enter into my rest.’ They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

24. The kingdom of heaven was never prepared for all men, only for Christ and his subjects. His ‘kingdom is not of this world;’ his kingdom is from above, and consists of subjects chosen and born from above, chosen out of the world, and who are not of the world, as Christ is not of the world. He is King in Zion, where God commanded the blessing; not of Sinai, where the curse remains. He is King of saints, [Page]such as are set apart for the purpose of God, and not of sinners rejected; satan is their king, and rules in the bearts of the disobedient still. Christ's subjects are transtated from satan's kingdom, and others are left in it: and Tophet, not heaven, is prepared for that king, and all his subjects. He is the king of misery, and they are the much wood. Isa. xxx. 33. None but they who are of the faith of Abraham, and blessed with him, none but they who are ordained to eternal lise, shall ever enter that kingdom. 'Christ has power over all flesh;' and to this end, ‘that he may give eternal life to as many as his Father hath given him,’ and none else. The rebel he awes with terror, curl [...] him by his power, lets him loose, and checks him at his pleasure, just to serve his own purpose: but the chosen vessel is conquered, humbled, and brought to submit to his reign and sceptre by irresistible grace. And such shall be admitted into Christ's kingdom. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ And to these he will say, ‘Come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.' But he never will say, 'Come, ye cursed, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord:’ for they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

25. Whatsoever God promises to do for a people, he has appointed prayer to be the mean of bringing it to pass.— ‘Thus saith the Lord, I will yet be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.’ Ezek. xxxvi. 37. Let the things be whatever they may, they are all to be fetched in by prayer and supplication. Now, if Mr. Winchester does not make prayers, supplications, intercessions, and giving of thanks, for reprobates, devils, and damned sinners, and all his dear friends in hell, that his doctrine may reach them, and be fulfilled in them—he either does not in his heart believe in his own doctrine, or else his conscience so lashes him for his lies, that he dare not pray to God for the fulfilment of his ministry. When God was about to bring Israel out of Egypt the Spirit of prayer was poured forth. What I am warranted to preach I have a warrant to pray for. But, if we have no warrant to pray for them, we have none to preach to them. And sure I am that such intercessors must pray against the decree of God, the truth of God, the existence of God, the law of God, the holiness of God, and the immutability of God: and who against these can be heard? Now we have no warrant to intercede with God for devils, no grant to pray for the damned, nor for the murderers of saints— only ‘that God would avenge the blood of his servants on [Page]them who shed it.’ We are to pray for all men in authority, that we may live a peaceable life; but not for the salvation of all men. Christ prayed not for the world: not are we allowed so much as to pray for such as bear the evident tokens of perdition, or of the unpardonable sin. ‘There is a sin unto death, I do not say that ye shall pray for it,’ 1 John v. 16. And the reason is, because the pardon is never to be granted.—Nor does the Spirit ever help the infirmities of a child of God, at a throne of grace, for any person that is dead, though the nearest and dearest friend he ever had: for he believes in his heart that the die is immediately cast upon the death of the person, and the doom forever fixed, and that prayer will then avail nothing. And in this I can appeal to the experience of all good men who are taught of God. David wept, fasted, and prayed for the child, as long as life lasted; but when it was dead he left off. 2 Sam. xii. 22. His prayer would not bring the child back to life; much less will prayer bring a soul from hell to heaven. Now, if we are not even in this world to pray for an unpardonable sinner, are we to pray for him when in the bottomless pit? Purgatory, and salvation from it, and prayers for the dead and damned, are not from Christ, but from antichrist. The notion was invented by Plato, Pythagoras, &c. it was adopted by the pope for gain, and is supported and defended by Mr. Winchester as his last refuge from the storm. But for my part, I shall never have any opinion of Mr. Winchester's sincerity, in his doctrine of universal restoration, unless he adopts the mass, absolution, extreme anction, prayers and paternosters for the dead; for all these things are inseparably connected with purgatory, and restoration from thence. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

26. The doubtfulness of Mr Winchester's mission and commission from Christ to preach this doctrine is another entanglement upon his system. When Christ sent his apostles out he endued them with power from on high; filled them with the Holy Ghost; armed them with grace and truth; and bid them preach the gospel to every creature; and that he that believed should be saved, and he that believed not should be damned. All whom by their ministry they bound on earth, in heaven were bound; and all whom they loosed on earth, in heaven were loosed. They were to seek the kingdom of God, and the elected subjects of it; to seek the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and the sons ordained to peace among the Gentiles; and to ‘endure all things for the elect's [Page]sake, that they might obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.' And Paul was sent 'to turn men from darkness to light, and from the power of satan to God, that they might receive the forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in Christ.’ But there is not a word about the salvation of devils and reprobates in all their commissions. They were not to convert men from natural darkness to utter darkness; nor from truth into the law of nature to the lies of satan; nor from hell to heaven; nor were they sent to turn sin from satan, nor satan to God; much l [...]ss to convert souls from union with Zion to fellowship with devils: but they were sent to turn sinners to God from sin and Satan. Satan's kingdom is usurped, and Mr. Winchester's authority is assumed. He has no grant, warrant, mission, or commission, to enforce such a restoration in all the book of God. It is not to be found amongst all the commissions God ever gave, either to apostles, prophets, saints, or angels. And as it is a human device, and not the counsel of God, it shall not stand: for they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

27. The characteristics that attend Mr. Winchester in this his office militate hard against him. The apostles and ministers of Christ were to be hated of all men for his name's sake; and ‘blessed are ye when men revile and persecute you for righteousness sake.’ But Mr. Winchester's doctrine is well calculated to cause the offence of the cross to cease; for who can object to such a doctrine? None but the children of God! Impostors, apostates, hypocrites, ministers of satan, hirelings. Simonists, rebels, traitors, desperadoes, persecutors, perjured persons, whoremongers, Sodomites, usurers, grinders of the poor, oppressors, witches, wizards; yea, and devils also, if they have but faith, must approve and rejoice in this doctrine: ‘but he that preaches to please (such) men cannot be the servant of Christ;’ then he must be the minister of satan, for there are but two masters. ‘Wo unto you, says Christ, when all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets.’ Luke vi. 26. This scriptural mark of a minister of satan, and this awful wo of the Lord Jesus, militate hard against Mr. Winchester as an ambassador. They are none of the signs of an apostle, but of an impostor; for it is promising a people what they shall never have; for they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

[Page] 28. Moses has given us a rule to try a false prophet by▪ ‘When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord; if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him.’ Deut. xviii. 22. But how are we to try Mr. Winchester? His commission is to reprobates, devils, and damned sinners; and their restoration from everlasting burnings is the subject of it. But then how are we to get a sight of the seals of his apostleship? All that ever descended into hell are there still: there is not one of all these that has ever appeared as a living witness of the truth of this doctrine—not one of these that has been made a partaker of his grace—not one has ever appeared to bear witness of his universal charity before the churches—not one living epistle for Mr. Winchester's restoration is to be found is heaven or earth, nor indeed are they to appear until time is no more. And here the devil has out witted us all, and one would think even Moses himself; for we cannot bring Mr. Winchester to this touchstone of Moses till the heavens be no more, till all things be eternally fixed, and consequently till Moses's rule can be of no use. ‘We don't want to know the speech of them that are puffed up, says Paul, but the power.’ 1 Cor. iv. 19. But then Mr. Winchester's power is not to be known till this universal delivery of the damned commences. This scheme, satan, is well planned, and deeply laid, and is a notable proof that thou art not divided against thyself! Nevertheless I will stick to my text: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

29. There is nothing more sure and certain than the truths, blessings, and promises, of an everlasting gospel; let them promise what they may, they are sure to all the seed. A preacher of the gospel should not be a sceptic, one that doubts of every thing; but should be at an assurance about his own state, and at a point about his doctrine. 'The gospel that I preach is not yea and nay,' says Paul; ‘but yea and amen in Christ Jesus, to the glory of God by us. The fruit of righteousness is peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever.’ But Mr. Winchester is at a point in nothing. All are to be saved—but by whom? all are to come from hell—but how? and all are to get to heaven—but when? Where is his yea and amen to these things? When shall they come to perfect day, who shall never see lights? Ps. xlix. 19. who is to kill the never-dying worm? Who is to put out the unquenchable slame? And when are they to come [Page]out who are to remain in the congregation of the dead? Who is to unlock the gates of hell? And who is to remove the gulph that God has fixed? How much weeping and gnashing of teeth will satisfy divine justice for finite crimes? And how many oaths and imprecations, such as ‘cursing their king and their God, will do, in order to magnify the law and make it honorable?’ And how many years suffering in eternity (when time shall be no more) will it require to appease the wrath of offended majesty? and when is that wrath to be done away, which God says abideth upon them?—Mr. Winchester must beat a point, and come to some conclusion, about these things, in order to establish his reputation as a minister of the gospel.—Preachers of Christ do not run at an uncertainty, nor fight so as to beat the air; nor does the gospel give an uncertain sound. Driving every thing into eternity, and into hell, is gaining the time with a witness. However, if there is nothing certain or conclusive in Mr. Winchester and his doctrine, there is in my text; for they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

30. Boasting dies sadly in the way of this restoration. The man who suffers the law in his own person is not indebted to the king's favor. I have already proved that no person in the holy Trinity will ever have any thing to do with this gaol delivery; they have declared it, and my text proves it.—These devils must get to heaven by the merit of suffering the law—not in their surety, for they have none; but in their own persons. 'The wages of sin is death;' this I know; but whether the wages of finning and suffering in hell-fire can be everlasting glory in heaven—is the great question. If this can be proved, there is room enough for boasting, but not before God. All the substance of a man's house is to be [...]ontemned, if offered to purchase love. All the cash of Simon Magus was to perish with him for offering to buy the Holy Ghost. The Jewish pharisees were to have the greater damnation for expecting heaven on the footing of dead works and long prayers. And what damnation shall he be thought worthy of who is promising the kingdom of heaven, which is the Father's good pleasure to give, as the reward of them that suffer the just demerit of sin in the damnation of hell?—They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

31. The mansions of bliss are promised to the elect, not to those who die in sin; and a seat at the Lord's right or left hand shall be given to them only for whom it is prepared: nor [Page]for Judas, for he is gone 'to his own place,' prepared, appointed, and intended for him. And the angels who left their own habitation, who kept not their first estate, who abode not in the truth, but who were charged with folly, are reserved under chains to the judgment of the great day: and, as for all the rest of the reprobate, they shall certainly share in the same abode. ‘He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world; surely, such are the dwellings of the wicked; and this is the place of him that knoweth not God.’ Job xviii. 18, 21.

These mansions were prepared in the purpose of God; but they appear to have a second preparation by the ascension of Christ, and by his entering into the holy place as our representative, to appear in the presence of God for us.

This blissful abode is sometimes called perfect day; but there are some who ‘go to the generation of their fathers, they shall never see light.’ Ps. lix. 19.

Sometimes they are called peace. ‘He shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds.’ Isa. xlvii. 22.

Sometimes these glories are set forth by a kingdom. The ‘wicked shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God, and they themselves thrust ou [...];’ for, unless 'a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God:' and the world cannot receive the Spirit of God.

It is called 'entering into the joy of the Lord;' but this joy is not for all. ‘Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and howl for vexation of spirit.’ Isa. lxv. 14.

It is called entering into the glorious liberty of ‘the children of God;’ but some are bound hand and foot, and cast into utter darkness; and this at the end of the thousand years reign. Instead of coming out of hell, their souls are cast in-into it a second time.

It is called ‘entering into the heavenly Jerusalem; but without are dogs, sorcerers, whoremongers, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie: yea, nothing shall enter in that defileth or worketh an abomination.’

[Page] It is called 'entering into the king's palace;' but there are some who shall depart, under the curse of God, into everlasting punishment.

It is called 'entering into the wedding chamber,' from which the foolish virgins are for ever excluded. The state of the just and unjust shall never be altered in the day of judgment, no [...] to all eternity. As they rise, so shall they continue. Some shall bear the image of the heavenly Adam, and some the image of the earthly Adam. The former shall be approved (1 Cor. xv. 43.) and the latter despised. Ps. lxxiii. 20—Hell shall never refine the former, nor sin defile the latter.—They shall unalterably and eternally remain as they rise.— ‘He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still.’ Rev. xxii. 11.

32. The credulity and emptiness of those who believe in this restoration are point blank against it. No vessel of mercy, chosen of God in Christ, ever received or died in the faith of it, because it is not an article of the faith of God's elect. No person that ever was born again believed in it, because it is not to be found among all the things which the Spirit of God teaches the heirs of promise: besides they have passed from death unto life by faith, and are never to come into condemnation, much less into damnation; therefore they have no call for it. The pious professors who embrace this lie for want of shelter, are persons made sensible that they have no part in Christ, and who are driven from every claim upon God by the force of truth and conscience; whilst, by hiding themselves under such falsehood, they tacitly acknowledge that all their former pretensins to faith in Christ Jesus, to a spiritual birth, conversion to God, and adoption into his family, were nothing but falsehood, and their whole profession nothing but deceit and hypocrisy. None but such professors as these have any call to 'make their bed in hell,' (Ps. cxxxix. 8) or to scrape any acquaintance with devils. But then persons who can dare to be stage-players in the ‘great day of atonement,’ act the part of 'hypocrites in Zion,' where the king of heaven keeps his court—are, and must be the blackest characters that exist, except devils. These are the persons who embrace purgatory, and confess their faith in it: but as they have acted such a base part in Zion, having made shipwreck of their own faith and conscience, and having turned from [Page]the holy commandment delivered to them, like the dog to his vomit, the credit of such men in religious matters is of little weight, and their testimony of little worth. 'Let God be tr [...] and every man a liar.' Romans iii. 4. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

33. The name of reprobates are not enrolled in the spiritual court; ‘their witness is not in heaven, their record is not on high.’ Job xvi. 19. They are not found written ‘among the living in Jerusalem,' or 'among them that are ordained to eternal life;’ their names are not written among the members of Christ; Ps. cxxxix. 16; they stand not in the Lamb's book of life. They have sought their register there, but all in vain; therefore truth and conscience, those great reformers, have thrust them as unclean from the royal priesthood. They could not make their calling and election sure: and therefore they are making their reprobation clear, and their damnation certain. But how the generation of serpents are to escape the damnation of bell, (Mat. xxiii, 33) is a question asked by the Lord of Hosts, and shall never be answered either by reprobates or devils; for they that go down [...] into the [...]it cannot hope for thy truth.

34. There are three characters in this world that cannot embrace Mr. Winchester's lie. And they are these: the soul that is born from above, made free by the truth and who stands complete in Christ; the next is a sinner alarmed, awakened, convinced, and convicted by the word and Spirit of God; and the third is such an one as Spira, a man shut up in despair, or given up to a fearful looking for of judgment. 'He shuts up a man, and there can be no opening.' Job xii. 14. The Spirit of truth forbids the two former; and the sente [...]e and earnest of eternal damnation forbids the latter. Hypocrites and wretched apostates; men of hard hearts and seared consciences, void of life and empty of thought; such as are blinded by devils and duped by impostors; the untaught of God, who are ever learning; and the natural simpleton, who believes every word; are the recipients of Mr. Winchester's grace; and these trust in vanity, and vanity shall be their recompense. They expect hell, and it is to be feared their expectations will not be cut off: and they hope for a restoration; but the hope of the hypocrite shall perish; for they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

35. After the general judgment, when the earth and all he works of it are burnt up—when the devils are confined [Page]in everlasting chains—when the sun that rules the day, and the moon that rules the night—when the revolutions of day and night, weeks and months, times and seasons, years and millenniums—and when all the planets, by which times and revolutions are measured, are no more— I say, to talk of times, periods, and ages, when a [...] is VAST ETERNITY, is talking nonsense; unless, like Milton, they mean "ages of endless date." It is arguing against the Saviour's oath, ‘who swears by him that liveth for ever and ever, that time shall be no more.’ Rev. x. 6. Mr. Winchester cannot fix the period when this restoration is to take place. It cannot be at the end of the millennium, for then the souls and bodies of all the wicked descend into hell.—To fix the time is impossible. So that, upon the whole, his uncertainty is like Bellarmine's purgatory; the former is little less than eternity, and the latter little less than hell torments.—And we may warrantably put them both together, and call them, as God does, eternal damnation, prepared for all lyars; for they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

36. The unwarrantable liberty that Mr. Winchester has taken with God, and his word, proves him to be a blind, hardened, arrogant, presumptions man. God will not have hardened reprobates thrust into his covenant, nor bastards and children of the devil palmed upon him. Christ has delivered these into other hands. ‘Ye are of your father the devil.’ And who, but Mr. Winchester, would thrust Cain, Esau, Judas, and devils, into the brotherly covenant, (Amos i. 9) and mix them among the fraternity of Christ? The bond woman and her children, Jezebel the prophetess, the witch of Endor, and the whore of Babylon, are all brought into the Saviour's green bed, (Song i. 16) and put together with his bride, ‘his undefiled, who is but one, the chosen daughter of God, the only one of her mother, and the choice one of her that bare her.’ Song vi. 9. This daring insolence will never go unresented, nor unpunished. God will avenge himself of his enemies, and ease himself of such a company of adversaries as these; for ‘without holiness no man shall see the Lord,’ nor shall the Spirit of truth ever be communicated to sanctify the damned; for they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

37. Man Mr. Winchester assign any reason that is peculiar to faith, or any natural reason that is common to man, why Christ should be set forth for a sign that should be spoken against; Why he should be despised and rejected of men, [Page]the scorn of the world, and the stumbling block of the wicked? and why they should be eternally blessed, whosoever should not be offended in him?—Why he should be called a deceiver, a fellow, yea, Beelzebub the devil; and his followers be hated of all men for his name's sake? and why they who resisted these enemies unto blood should be owned and honoured before the angels of God; while such as were awed by them, and became fearful of their rage, should be the first rank that should march to hell?—Why the wicked should curse both their King and their God in the day of judgment, when their restoration is drawing so nigh; and at the same time this Saviour, who is their stumbling block and rock of offence, against whom all their indignation is leveiled, should be their only savious, and their universal restorer? Some impressions of the future punishments and promised rewards of God have ever been deeply stamped on the minds of the children of men, however lest, bereft, rude, or uncultivated, they may have been. Hence we read, among the heathen writers, of the gulph of Tartarus, or hell, Orcus, or Hades; of Pluto's cave; of the infernal rivers, Cocytus, Acheron, Styx, and Phlogethon; of harpies, gorgons, hydras, and furies (intimating perhaps the horrors of a guilty mind); and the punishments of Ixion, Tantalus, Sysiphus, and others. We read also of the Elysian plains, the happy abodes of the just after death; and of a particular number ordained by fate for the enjoyment of them. So Virgil writes of "a choice selected few," and of the "chosen few who gain Elysium." But there is no reason to suppose that even the heathens believed in the restoration of all the condemned criminals in hell; such as Cacus, Sysiphus, Tantalus, Ixion, the Titans, the Belides, &c. We do not read of any purifications by fire, wind, or water, passing, or to pass, upon these; that seems entirely confined to "the chosen few," to qualify them for Elysium. The idea of universal restoration was never by God implanted in nature, nor was it ever revealed by grace.

Plato, the heathen philosopher, circulated this purgation by fire, and restoration from hell, three hundred years before Christ; and Origen, according to the account of the learned, was the first that brought it into the christian church. But then the heathens worshipped devils, not God; and these our Gentile fathers inherited lies, (Jer. xvi. 19) and this is one; for they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

[Page] Nor can any reason be assigned why the devils should have such an inveterate hatred to Christ, if he is the great restorer of them; nor why Satan should from age to age tempt the Children of Christ, as he did Job to blaspheme; Peter, and numbers more, to deny him; nor why he should stir up princes to oppose him and murder his children, and the Pope and Mahomet to revile him; Simon Magus, and the judaizing teachers, atheists, deists, Socinians, Arians, and Arminians, to oppose and traduce him; to seduce and mislead his followers; to attempt to weaken his interest and destroy his kingdom. No reason can be assigned for all this malice of devils, if Christ is their great benefactor; nor can any reason be assigned why the devil should seek the death and destruction of Christ, from the manger to the cross; nor why he should tempt the Lord to self murder, and to worship him; nor why he should stir up the Jews to crucify him, and bring him under the curse of God. Had all their schemes succeeded, their restoration must have miscarried. In all these things Satan must be divided against himself; unless it can be supposed that Mr. Winchester, and none else, is in this secret. But the truth of the matter is, the devil's faith is firmly fixed in the everlasting curse and wrath of God; and therefore he asked Christ if he was come to torment him before the time. In these things the devils believe, and tremble; and in this the devil is right, and Mr. Winchester wrong; for they that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth,

39. In all other pits there is hope, but in this mentioned in my text there is none. There is hope in the horrible pit, for many have been brought out of that; and there is hope in the grave; the dust of the saints shall rest in hope; but in the bottomless pit there is none.

The eternal existence of Christ, and the eternal chains of the devils, bear one and the same date. The everlasting state of the just, and that of the wicked in hell, bear one and the same date. And both are fixed by the word of God and by his inviolable oath; which are 'two immutable 'things, in which it is impossible for God to lie.' They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

40. Mr. Winchester, in all his books, has not published one truth in defence of this restoration; nor has he produced, nor can he produce, one text, in God's book to prove [Page]such a gaol delivery; if he can, let him send that text out; and, by the help of God, I will try this apostle, and have no doubt but I shall find him a liar. Rev. ii. 2.

This doctine of the restoration is denied by God the Father upon oath. Amos viii. 7; Heb. iii. 11. It is denied by Jesus Christ the judge of quick and dead. Mark ix. 44. It is denied by the Holy Ghost, and by the eternal decree of heaven. 1 Thes. ii. 11, 12. It is denied by every prophet and apostle that has mentioned the state of the damned. Isa. lxvi. 24; Mal. iv. 2; 2 Thes. i. 9; Jude 7; Pet. ii. 12. It is denied by the sanction of the eternal law; (Luke xvi. 17.) by the awful sentence annexed to the everlasting gospel; (Mark xvi. 16) by the angel Gabriel; (Dan. xii. 2) by the experience of every child of God; and by the Spirit's witness and the truth of grace in all saints. It is denied by Abraham the father of the faithful in heaven, and by the groans of the damned in hell. Luke xvi. 24, 25, 26. It is denied by the feelings of Cain, Esau, Judas,, and every despairing sinner. It is denied by the law of nature; by the testimony of heathens, who only mention 'a chosen few;' and by the conduct of devils. It is denied by the internal monitor of every minister of satan, and consequently by the conscience of Mr. Winchester himself, the worst of liars; for they that go down into the pit must not, shall not, yea cannot, hope for thy truth.

THE END.

Notes

*

The word in Ps. xix. 9, and that in Mal. i. 4, though not the same, imply the same thing, and therefore are frequently put together, as Ps. x. 16.

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ADVOCATES FOR DEVILS REFUTED, AND THEIR HOPE OF THE DAMNED DEMOLISHED: OR, An Everlasting Task for Winchester and all his Confederates.

By WILLIAM HUNTINGTON, S. S. Minister of the Gospel at Providence Chapel, Little Titchfield-street, and at Monkwell-street Meeting.

The Lord hath not sent thee, but thou makest this people to trust in a lie.

JER. xxviii. 15.

KEENE—(NEWHAMPSHIRE:) PRINTED & SOLD BY C. STURTEVANT JUN. & Co. M,DCC,XCVI.

TO THE READER.

[Page]

CHRISTIAN READER,

IT is well for us that our sovereign Father has founded Zion, and laid an elect, tried, precious, sure, and everlasting, foundation there; and has brought, and daily brings, the poor (the spiritually poor) of his people, with resignation and submission to his sovereign will, to trust in it: while those who wage impious war with God's discriminating grace, and rebel and kick at the immoveable foundation that he has laid, are led by satan into an empty profession, in order to spy out our liberty, and bring us, if possible, into bondage. These compass Zion's walls, count her towers, observe her palaces, and mark her bulwarks, only in order to attack her invincible fortresses with the feeble force of carnal logic: and, after all the assaults that have been made, not one strong hold is brought to ruin, nor ever will be; for God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved. Ps. xlvi. 5. The Highest himself shall establish her. Ps. lxxxvii. 5. Hence it is that not one of her cords have ever been loosed yet, nor shall one stake ever be moved. To the sovereignty of this glorious founder, and this elect foundation, the legal workmonger, the wise above what is [Page]written, the lofty with his terrible looks, the consequential child of the flesh, the self-dependent and self-sufficient Arminian, cannot submit, and therefore are driven to the utmost extremity. They have hung on the conditional promises of the old covenant, and on their own perversions of the holy scriptures, till they have been beaten out of all these refuges by the force of sound argument; and some of them have been driven out of the curious web of fleshly perfection, and obliged to escape, both wounded and naked, by the devil himself, who has led them by sin into public contempt and scandal. They are driven out of self-righteousness also by the curse of the law and the flashes of revealed wrath, and they begin now to be driven out of all confidence in the flesh by the menaces, rebukes, solemn appeals, and lashes, of honest conscience; so that they are driven to their wit's end, and begin to relinquish all pretensions to any union with the assemblies of mount Zion. The case of these hypocrites is more desperate than that of the pharisee, who rests secure in the law; more perilous than that of the fool, who trusts in his own heart; worse than the palace of the strong man armed, which is kept in peace; more terrible than that of the dog, for whom there is hope while joined to all the living; more dangerous than that of Joab at the horns of the altar; and more deplorable than that of those who pray to the rocks and mountains; for these tacitly own, even in public print, that they have no hope but in the congregation of the dead, nor any guests but in the depths of hell.

[Page] I say they tacitly acknowledge this, for it is out of the abundance of the heart (Christ tells us) that the mouth speaketh. Now if Mr. Winchester's faith and hope do not center in this restoration from hell, he preaches what he does not believe; which is acting the part of the worst of hypocrites; and, if he does believe and expect to be damned himself as well as his confederates, he then fulfils the scripture, by believing that himself and his followers shall both fall into the ditch; and this establishes his reputation as a blind guide. And certain it is that they must be much in the dark, and far enough from perfect day, or they would never grope for an anchorage in a bottomless pit, or for hope of light in utter darkness. But so it is; they are come at last to the land of forgetfulness, and to the generation that shall never see light; they are come to the Gog and Magog army, to death the king of terrors, to an innumerable company of devils, to Lucifer son of the morning, and to satan the king of all these. This is dealing with familiar spirits indeed; this is peeping and muttering with a witness. But should not a people seek unto their God? Should they seek (instead of the living) unto the dead? Isa. viii. 19; a community without God, without Christ, and without one friend in heaven: and these are to bribe justice by suffering in hell fire! But the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery. Job xv. 34. And desolate they must be, or they never would scrape acquaintance, claim kindred, or cultivate friendship and fellowship, with such a company as this. O, my soul, come not thou into their secret! unto their assembly, mine honour,[Page]be not thou united! Gen. xlix. 6. I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils; ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; ye canot be partakers of the Lord's table and the table of devils. 1 Cor. x. 20, 21. We may now sound the trumpet, and cry, To your tents, O Israel! for the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, truth and conscience, have driven these Hebrews into their holes.

When Mr. Winchester writes another dialogue, he shall not need to dress up an automaton figure to cuff about in his book, for he shall not want an antagonist as long as God spares my life and the use of my limbs; for I know that there is not one text in the Bible that holds forth, or promises, directly or indirectly, salvation from hell torments, either for men or devils; if there be, let him produce it. He has not produced one yet. But he calls for "the spirit of Moses and of Christ, of meekness and love, to canvass the subject." The meekness and love of Moses were of God; they were graces from him, which Mr. Winchester never had, nor can he describe either. The meekness of Moses was exercised in the cause of truth, not falsehood; and towards the children of Israel, not towards the Amalekites, nor devils. Moses is a sworn enemy to satan and all his friends.—And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring: this shall be a statute for ever to them throughout their generations. Levit. xvii. 7. If the going out of the affections after satan in idols be termed whoring, and is forbidden by an eternal statute, what shall we say of Mr. Winchester, who [Page]has entered into a solemn league and covenant with them, and has bound himself up in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity with devils? Nor does the love of God, as described by Moses, extend itself to all intelligences, like that of Mr. Winchester; not to devils, nor yet to the wicked who are dead, nor to all mankind living. Yea, he loved the people; all his saints are in thy hand, and they sat down at thy feet; every one shall receive of thy words. Deut. xxxiii. 3. This is God's eternal love of choice, of approbation, and delight. This is entailed on his saints, sanctified and set apart in his eternal purpose. These are in his hand, preserved in Christ and called, and out of whose hands none can pluck them. These are not wise above what is written, nor proud, doating about questions when they know nothing; but are humbled to submit to divine revelation, and to sit at the Lord's feet to learn.—They do not fly to Plato, Pythagoras, Socrates, Virgil, and the son of perdition, to know the things of eternity.—Every one of these sit at the Saviour's feet, and receive his words. This is the everlasting love of God to his saints, as described by Moses; this is all free, and of grace. But the love of God to his other creatures is only seen in providence. God loveth the stranger in giving him food and raiment, (Deut. x. 18) and no further. What right has Mr. Winchester to call for the meekness and love of Moses, who is a stranger to the love of grace, is in the bed of loves with devils, and who stretches the love of God to a restoration of all fallen intelligences, when God himself has revealed or extended it no further to strangers than giving them food and raiment? [Page]And what right has he to expect or call for the love and meekness of Christ? Did Christ in his day exercise meekness to such enemies to him as Mr. Winchester? Did he doat or fawn over the blind guides, the painted sepulchres, the graves that appeared not, and the scullions who made clean the outside of the cup and platter? Did he call them Philanthropists, men of candour, friends to mankind, men of love, of candid judgments, and liberal sentiments? Did he not call them wolves, devourers of widows' houses, thieves, and robbers; children of hell, vipers, serpents, adulterers; and palm both them and their works upon the devil himself, and promise them the greater damnation? And did he show, or exercise, or entail, any love upon these? Did he not tell them that he came into the world for judgment to them, that they that saw might be made blind? And he will come for judgment to them the second time, when he will require from that generation all the righteous blood shed from the blood of Abel.

Reader, I have not in this work gone through what he has written upon this subject, in canvassing and sifting his perversions and damnable sophistry. This, I find is already done by a Mr. MASON, whose book, I believe, is just out. It is easy for a man to sit down and quote from scripture a thousand texts, and say all these favour a notion; but it is another thing to bring one plain text, which, in its literal, grammatical, and received sense, proves it. Mr. Winchester has adopted the former method, in order to deter men from answering him. For to reinstate such a multitude of [Page]texts in their own proper light, and to refute all his carnal arguments drawn from them, would fill a quarto volume, to answer a twopenny squib. Mr. Winchester was aware of this; and he may thank Satan for his council. What he has aimed to prove is, the universal restoration of devils, and all sinners, from hell to heaven; and my aim is, to prove him a liar, and his speech nothing worth. Job xxiv. 25.—And upon scripture ground I am w [...]ling to meet him; and, by the help of God, to dispute the point as long as he pleases; for God does not allow him one text in the Bible to support his doctrine. He may choose which text he pleases; I have no doubt but the Lord will enable me, or some other of his servants, to recover every text that has fallen among these thieves.

Reader, beware, lest, being led away by the error of the wicked, you fall from your own steadfastness. This awful doctrine is calculated to bolster up the awakened sinner, to embolden the hypocrite, and to encourage the presumptuous, by promising life and glory to those who work all uncleanness with greediness. The Lord deliver us from this, and every other, path of the destroyer, for the sake of his dear Son. Amen and amen.

W. HUNTINGTON, S. S.

PADDINGTON, MAY 12, 1794.

Information about this book

Title statement

Advocates for devils refuted, and their hope of the damned demolished: or, An everlasting task for Winchester and all his confederates. By William Huntington, S.S. Minister of the Gospel at Providence Chapel, Little Titchfield-Street, and at Monkwell-Street meeting. ; [Two lines from Jeremiah]

Huntington, William, 1745-1813.

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Text Creation Partnership,

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Ann Arbor, MI :

Date

2011-05.

ID [DLPS]

N23157

ID [TCP]

N23157

ID [STC]

Evans 30610

ID [NOTIS]

APW4188

ID [IMAGE-SET]

30610

ID [EVANS-CITATION]

99010157

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Early American Imprints, 1639-1800 ; no. 30610.

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(Evans-TCP ; no. N23157)

Transcribed from: (Readex Archive of Americana ; Early American Imprints, series I ; image set 30610)

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— Advocates for devils refuted, and their hope of the damned demolished: or, An everlasting task for Winchester and all his confederates. By William Huntington, S.S. Minister of the Gospel at Providence Chapel, Little Titchfield-Street, and at Monkwell-Street meeting. ; [Two lines from Jeremiah], Huntington, William, 1745-1813..

Extent

ix, [2], 12-71, [1] p. ; 20 cm. (8vo)

Printed & sold by C. Sturtevant Jun. & Co.,. Keene--(NewHampshire:) :: M,DCC,XCVI. [1796].

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