from Edwards, and we will see further how God has been represented; which would not be so much worth notice, if he was not represented the same by divines of the present day.

He says, in his sermon entitled, "Men naturally God's enemies," vol. 7, p. 198,

"When you come to be a firebrand of hell, you will be a fireband in two respects, viz. as you will be all in fire, and full of the fire of God's wrath; and also as you will be all in a blaze with pite and malice towards God," [towards the deil too,] "you will be full of the fire of malice, as Fou will with the fire of divine vengeance; and both will make you full of torment. Then you will appear as you are, a yiper indeed! You are now a viper, but under great disguise; a wolf in sheep's clothing; but then your mask will be pulled off; you shall lose your garments and walk naked. Rev. xvi. 15. Then you will as a serpent, spit poison at God, and vent your rage and malice in fearful blasphemies; out of that mouth, out of which when you open it will proceed flames, will also proceed dreadful blasphemies against God. The same tongue, to cool which you will wish for a drop of water, will be eternally employed in cursing and blaspheming God and Christ."

One might conclude that he meant all this as a burlesque on hell; but as, in truth, he did not, the abomination of the representation is greatly augmented, when we consider that poor little infants, who never did any harm, nor ever had so much as a single thought of evil, are also "little vipers spitting poison at God." And after all this, he says, in another sermon, "On the pun

ishment of the wicked," same vol. pp. 387, 388. "We can conceive but little of the matter.But to help your conception," [after all this terrible and horrid description, which we might suppose would never have entered into the heart of man to conceive, we must have something to help our "conception!" conception!" Well, let us hear what it is,]"imagine yourself to be cast into a red hot oven, or brick-kiln, or of a great furnace," [I wonder he did not mention Nebuchadnezzar's, heated seven times hotter than it was wont to be,] "where your pain would be as much greater than that occasioned by accidentally touching a coal of fire, as the heat is greater. Imagine also," [yes it is all imagination, and the very worst and wickedst kind of imagination,] "that you were to lie there a quarter of an hour, as full of fire within and without as a light coal of fire, or a red hot piece of iron, all the while full of quick sense; what horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace! and how long would that quarter of an hour seem to you! If it were to be measured by a glass, how long would that glass seem to be a running! And after you had endured it for one minute! how overbearing to you would it be to think that you had to endure it the other fourteen!"

"But what would be the effect on your souls, if you knew you must lie there enduring that torment to the full of 24 hours? and how much greater would be the effect if you must endure it a whole year? and how vastly greater still, if ou knew you must endure it a thousand years? ) then, how would your heart sink, if you hought, if you knew, that you must endure it

forever and ever! That there would be no end! that after millions and millions of ages, your torment would be no nearer to an end than it was at first. [O Lord, thou madest me a poor, fallible, weak creature; I was weak and ignorant, in consequence of which I did wrong; wilt thou not have mercy on me and forgive me? I have suffered a great deal: it appears to me much more than I deserve for the sins I committed.* And what wrong I did, did not injure thee, or mar in the least thy happiness. I did thee no wrong; and even if I did, I did not do any thing with that intention; and I can't undo what I have done. What good can it do thee, or any being in all thy creation, for me thus to suffer? Surely a good being cannot take pleasure in beholding the sufferings of another, and when with no good purpose to the sufferer, nor no other creature.† O Lord! I understood, when I was in the other world, that thou wast merciful, and that thy mercy endureth forever: (and though I acknowledged I was wicked, in consequence of a nature which thou gavest me, or with which I was born, and with which I often thought I then suffered according to my sins,) I had hopes in thy mercy. I so often heard that thou wast a merciful Being; and from thy goodness to man and all hy creatures which I saw in thy creation all

"There can no proportion be,
Between their sin and misery,
For finite crimes, infinite pains,
The thought Jehovah's honour stains."
"What pleasure can to God arise,
Or to the blest above the skies,
To see in endless pain consign'd
So great a part of human kind ?”

Ο

around me, I had reason to believe that thou wast merciful; I trusted in thy mercy; and though I knew I was a sinner, I still expected thou wouldst have mercy on me.* Must I be eternally disappointed, and forever thus suffer? Lord forbid it! The time I lived and sinned in my former state of existence, appears but a moment; that time has vanished almost to nothing, in comparison to the time I have suffered. O my God! (for thou art my God, though I am in hell! thou hast power over me,) wilt thou not have mercy on me, and deliver me out of this intolerable pain, and I will love and praise thee, which must be more agreeable to thee, (and to all who are happy, for me to join them in praising thee,) than to hear my dolorous groans and screeches in this extreme misery! Lord Almighty, have mercy on me, forgive me, and deliver me, or else I beg let me fall into a state of non-existence. This would be enough to move the heart of any being but Calvin's God, (i. e. according to the ideas he had of him,) or Calvin himself, who could burn poor Servetus in a slow fire, though he begged for his life, and send him to an eternal hell.†

"Can boundless mercy cease to flow,
Whilst on the burning plains below
His creatures groan beneath their pain,
And never visit them again?"

+ If Calvin had believed that Servetus, after suffering a cruel death. would go to heaven, he would have been more excusable in burning him; but as he believed he would go to an eternal hell of fire and brimstone, there is no excuse for him; but rather to say of him in the words of the poet

"O man, unpitying, if of man thy race,
But sure thou sprangest not from a soft embrace;
Some rugged rocks' hard entrails gave thee form,
Or raging seas produced thee in a storm.

HOMER,

But let us hear further what his followers say of the cries of those in hell, and whether any pity will ever be taken on them.] "God will not hear prayers in hell. He will not hear the prayers of the damned, if they could pray; but they cannot pray! They can do nothing but curse and blaspheme. You never, never shall be delivered. But your torment in hell will be immensely greater than this illustration represents." And much more he has, equally abominable and derogatory to the divine character. But I pass over it, to page 418. In his "sermon on the eternity of hell torments." He says, "How dismal will it be when you come under this racking torment, to know assuredly that you never, never shall be delivered from them; to have no hope. When you shall wish that you might be turned into nothing, but shall have no hope of it; but after you have worn out the ages of the sun, moon and stars in your dolorous groans and lamentations, without rest day or night," [what! will there be day and night in hell; may not the poor creatures have some rest a-nights?] "nay, not one minute's rest shall you have," [poor creatures, I think they are to be pitied,] "nor shall you have any hope of ever being delivered; when after you have worn out a thousand more such ages, yet you shall have no hope; but shall know that you are not a whit nearer the end of your torments; but still there are the same groans, the same shrieks, the same doleful cries, incessantly to be made by you, and that the smoke of your torments shall still ascend forever and ever,' [there appears to be a deal of smoke, where will it go to? It must go somewhere,] "and that your