nition of a friend, when he fees us wander out of the way, is certainly adventitious and frequently fortuitous. Yet, by these means, we learn more perfectly and embrace more eagerly the terms of falvation. The arguments, therefore, against the mediation of Chrift, as well as against the affiftance of the Holy Ghoft, will in proportion, though infinitely less, be inconclufive against the agency and inftrumentality of our fellow creatures. Why any thing, which is not the effect of our own endeavours, should contribute to our happiness in another world, is matter of gratitude, not of vain curiofity, our conviction of the fact will be fufficient to establish its propriety. Amidst disappointment therefore and forrow, amidst temptation and every kind of wickedness, we may rely upon the great Phyfician of our fouls, who will cure all our maladies, unlefs we counteract his defigns. We may deceive ourfelves, but he continueth faithful.

It is another abuse of reafon to enter into a minute enquiry concerning the nature of the rewards and punishments of another world. The general judgment is defcribed in the most awful language of human judicatures; an account is to be given, the Books are to be opened,

and

and the fudge fhall feparate the righteous from the wicked. The righteous fhall fine as the brightness of the firmament, and the wicked shall be configned to everlasting darkness and flames. All these descriptions, with others which it is not neceffary to enumerate are intended, through the medium of the senses, to make an impreffion upon the mind; they set forth the impartial justice of our Creator and Redeemer, they fet forth exquifite happiness and exquifite mifery, of which nothing we fee or know can give us real conceptions. To give locality to the manfions of blifs and of misery is faid to be unphilofophical. The reality of their existence is the only effential point, which a Christian is bound to believe concerning them. The pains and the pleasures of the mind, even in this vale of mifery, can only be described by fenfible ideas. But who ever contended that fuch ideas are adequate? How then could it be expected that any language fhould exprefs the blifs or the wretchedness of those, who fhall rife with new faculties and powers, to enjoy the one or to fuffer the other, to all eternity?

Concerning the intermediate ftate between death and judgment, it is another abuse of rea

B 3

fon

j

son to make minute enquiry. All your information, (if fuch it can be called, where no particular account is given or feems intended to be given) is drawn from the promise made to the penitent thief, and from the declaration of St. Paul, That to be with Christ was far better for himself. And all the conclusion we can draw is fimply this; that, after our diffolution, we fhall continue to exist, and that we may hope for fome portion of happiness immediately, if our converfation have been fuch as becometh the Gospel of Christ. But here our curiofity is checked; here have commenced thofe perplexing, embarraffing queftions concerning the fleep or the intermediate state of the foul, and from hence probably first sprung the doctrine of purgatory. To him, who is convinced that there is no work nor device in the grave, whither he is going, it is a fufficient incitement to Religion, that the defires and inclinations he cultivates in this world will follow him into the next, and whatsoever he foweth that shall be also reap,

Another abuse of reafon has been to attempt an expofition of the Doctrine of the

Luke xxiii.

i Phil, i,

j Phil. i. 27. Trinity

k

Trinity, by comparisons and familiar illuftrations. Perhaps we shall be reminded * of the three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, the water, and the blood: as compared with the three that bear witness in heaven.

Here this fimilarity is not a fimilarity of nature, but of certain and concurring evidence. It was the error of the primitive Fathers to imagine that they could render the doctrine intelligible by familiar inftances, fuch as rays of light iffuing from the sun, and torches lighted, without diminishing the fource. In the darker ages, men proceeded to the groffeft degree of ignorance by exhibiting this mystery in visible reprefentations. Well might the Almighty have remonftrated in the language of the prophet. To whom will ' ye ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like? Every true friend of religion wishes that much less had been faid, that much less reasoning had been employed, upon the subject; that it had been difcuffed with humility, and without refinement; much tumult and distraction would have been prevented in the early ages of the Church, much altercation would have been prevented in later 1 If. xlvi. 5.

款 1 John. v.

1

times. The attention of men would have been turned more upon the practical than the fpeculative parts of religion, and by lefs difputation they would have become more feriously and truly devout.

The last abuse of reafon, which it feems neceffary to point out, is in the doctrine of Predeftination and Election. A future opportunity will be taken to prove, that in the Calvinistical fenfe of the words, neither our Saviour nor his Apostles inculcated any such thing. In the mean time, if we begin to reafon, we shall never be able to explain, why the Almighty should give exiftence to any creature, who, He forefaw, would be miferable to all eternity, let the cause of that misery be what it may. If we proceed, every step will but the more bewilder us: we fhall conclude against the eternity of future punishments, or, with the Poet, we fhall find out a temporary ftate of fuffering, or, with the Romanift, have recourse to a purgatory. Thus we shall weaken the force of those threats which prefent to the finner a worm that never dies, and a fire that shall never be quenched. If we imagine ourselves in the number of the elect, we shall prefume; if in the number of the reprobate,

we