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his "creating power:" because more good, infinitely more good, upon the whole, was produced by executing his design, than by dropping it. If indeed he had "foreseen" that all his creatures would become miserable, that he should be "able to make "none of them happy," or none in comparison of the rest; that is, if he had foreseen that more evil would be produced than good, that evil finally, and upon the whole, would be prepollent; there may be some reason to say, that in such a case, and upon such terms, he would not have exerted his "creating

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power." Not that even then any creature could complain of being injured, if he was so far from being created necessarily miserable, that he had a fair offer of everlasting happiness. But whatever the Deity might or might not have done, in the case supposed, we have no concern with it at present; as we have all the reason in the world to think, that the good produced by the creation will be vastly prepollent, and that no one individual is created necessarily and unavoidably miserable. And upon this footing I have proved before, that it is consistent with the divine perfections to create intelligent and free beings; though it had been better for some of them, through their own perverseness, if they had never been born.

The purpose of God is to render men happy in a certain order; that is, agreeable to their free nature, and the nature of things; and "without forcing their

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liberty." This purpose cannot be defeated. But the question is, whether "the resistance of man" may not go so far, that no method can be found out to bring him to repentance and holiness, consistently with this order and this purpose? I don't see how

the affirmative of this supposes in God a "helpless "wisdom." No power can perform impossibilities, no wisdom can reconcile contradictions. His wisdom may produce good out of evil; and make these creatures of some use or other in the creation, in ways and methods which we are not aware of: but it may be impossible to restore them in the sense here meant, that is, to bring them to glory and virtue, by any means whatsoever. Force is entirely out of the question, as being utterly incompetent, and incongruous to the end proposed; and moral means may have lost all their influence. If this be the case, there is no room for wisdom to exert itself in their favour; or to contrive any methods to bring them to repentance and holiness. For wisdom, the more perfect it is, is the further removed from doing or attempting any thing in vain. Nor does this argue any defect in the divine wisdom, or lay any imputation upon it, any more than it is a reflection upon Omnipotence to say, that it cannot work contradictions. "It is not a limitation of the divine goodness," says bishop Burnet, nor, I would add, of his wisdom, "to say, that some men and some states "are beyond it; no more than it is a limitation of his power, to say that he cannot sin, or cannot do impossibilities: for a goodness towards persons not "capable of becoming good, is a goodness that does "not agree with the infinite purity and holiness of "God." Nor does this imply that God "proposed a

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design in which he miscarries:" for he never designed to make them happy, by destroying liberty, by inverting order, and in contradiction to the nature, the reason, and truth of things.

Exposition, Art. I.

The great point therefore to be proved by the advocates for a restoration, is, that the damned are capable of becoming good. Till this is done, the rest is all amusement. It is idle and ridiculous to talk of wisdom's contriving and finding out means of virtue, with regard to states and persons incapable of virtue. And here Dr. Burnet steps in and tells us, that he cannot conceive what can hinder their amendment, except a supernatural obduration, nisi divinitus indurentur, "unless they are hardened by "God d." Where I observe, that it is here supposed possible that God may harden them; and therefore such an obduration is not impossible in the nature of things. I would ask therefore why it may not as well be conceived, that free creatures can thus harden themselves? What the doctor suggests, "that "in the future state there will be no room for infi"delity; that the fomes mali will be extinguished; "that there will be no internal concupiscence, and "no external incentive, to feed and encourage their "vices;" supposing it all true, appears to hurt his cause as much one way, as it can serve it another. For what is this but excluding virtue as well as vice? what is it saying less, than that that state is not a state of probation, will not admit of any moral discipline, and is calculated for no moral improvement at all? which is indeed the truth of the case; and though it be destructive of their scheme, and tears it up by the roots, it is the amount of all they have to offer, when they would persuade us that the wicked in hell will some time or other become good and virtuous.

His argument may be reduced to this dilemma: d De Stat. Mort. et Resurg. p. 293.

If the beings concerned have reason and liberty, they will repent; and if they have not reason and liberty, they are no longer to be accounted men. The force of which argument consists in the idea you annex to the word man. If by that term is meant such a creature as man is now, while he is in his probation state, it implies indeed reason and freedom. But suppose such an agent, for the continued abuse of these powers, should be punished at last with the loss of one or both of them, would it mend the matter at all, to dispute whether he is any longer to be called a man? Suppose he is not, (as by the supposition he is not, in the sense of free agency,) he is still a creature, capable of suffering those punishments which he has brought upon himself. But we know too little what degrees of reason the damned will enjoy, or whether any liberty, as that implies a power to repent, and become really good, to determine any thing satisfactorily in this point. A late ingenious writer has advanced a sort of hypothesis, that their punishment will "lead them into a kind of phrensy and madness." And their state of disorder may so far at least resemble madness, as to be equally incapable of morality. The faculties of their minds, their passions, and affections, may be so depraved, and their whole inward system so perverted and spoiled, that they can no longer act or choose what is right and good. Whether beings in such a state of disorder are to be reckoned men, is a point of no consequence at all.

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e

Let us view this matter in another light; and suppose for once that they are still real agents, en

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Archbishop King's Appendix to his Origin of Evil.

dued with reason and liberty. Does it therefore necessarily follow, that they will repent? The state of things may be so changed externally, that they will be no longer able, or have opportunity, to act their vices; but will there be a correspondent change in the inward system? What reason has Dr. Burnet to say, that there will be no "internal concupiscence?" Will not the mind be the same? and the same evil temper, dispositions, and habits still adhere to it? However therefore they may be restrained from the outward acts of vice, they continue the same evil beings; and love the wickedness which they cannot commit.

But the stress of the thing, it will be said, lies here; that though they carry their evil habits and dispositions with them when they first go into hell, yet the punishments of that place will purify them; -will bring them to a sober sense of things;—will make them hate those vices which are the cause of their sufferings, and excite in them by degrees the love of God, and virtue.

It is surprising, nevertheless, if hell be such a state of purification, that it should always be represented in scripture only as a place of punishment. It is surprising too, that a place furthest removed from God, and his heavenly influences, inhabited only by his most accursed enemies, who are banished from his righteous presence, should after all prove the most effectual school of virtue. There is no good reason to believe that these punishments will have any such effect. To say that they will force them to become good, amounts to a contradiction: election is matter of freedom; it cannot be forced. And all means that fall short of this, all moral mo

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