HELE. 
G 
= 
3 
é 
w 
ich 
writer, however, fuggeits, that thefe threats 
nifhment, which are expreffed in 
mited manner, may be underftood in a co:ditional and 
i i ing violence to the words, and 
without fapping the foundations of God’s truth.- It may 
be fuppofed that eternal punifhments are threatened to fin 
and finners; that is, to the former as long as it is praétifed, 
or, as long as it exifts; to the latter fo far as they are finners, 
or fo far as they continue to offend againit the ‘defigns and 
ordinances of their creator. If the divine threats may be un- 
‘deritood, with this limitation, it would not follow, that 
punifliment mutt endure to all eternity, if, in fome portion of 
modes of ex 
this interpretation. 
‘with regard to 
with the limitation, that the wicked remain ob- 
jects of God’s wrath as long as they are wicked. See alfo, 
1 Cor. vi. 9, 20: fee alfo the paffage above referred to, re- 
S aatie, Row! Ninevites. In fimilar cafes, we may expe 
every thing from the mercy of ( and that his threats 
may be conditionally underftood, when they are uncondt- 
tionally exprefled. 
If it be afked, why thefe threats were unconditionally 
>é 
ss) 
in an unconditional manner. 
are confined to the teaching us, 
here, to fecure happinefs hereafter, They extend not to a 
future life; they tell us not how we mult condu@ ourfelves 
in it : they only affure us, that we thall be in it what we are 
fitted for by our conduct in the prefent life, 
be a {late of the moit jutt and ; 
: ; 
works we orm, 
They teach us, that he 
worm dieth 
spre which our Saviour might have chofen, 
Se 
s 
3; on which, according to this ftate of the cafe, refls the 
whole doétrine of the future ftate of the bleffed, and of the 
damned, it leaves to be anfwered by philofophy. 
n the other hand, it has been alleged, as we ‘have al- 
ready obferved, that eternal punifhments for finite offences 
are inconfiftent with the juftice of the Divine Being. More- 
over, it is faid to be inconfiitent with the goodnefe and 
mercy of God, to give exiftence to a number of ration] 
creatures, who, he faw, would be eternally miferable, and 
to leave them in fuch circumftances, as thofe in which it is 
i+ plain they are left, if all who die impenitent pafs into.ever- 
To th 
and the chara¢ter of God 1 f ign, and bess 
and honour of his government. Befides, if we compreherd 
within our firvey the whole extent of the divine government, 
in its relation to other habitable worlds, as te as to our 
tke n 
r of wicked 
and fome have even queftioned, whether it is proper to ayy 
that the ultimate end of God in creation of man was Ui 
final happinefs of the greater part of the fpecies. oie 
Dr. Hartley (ubi fupra) obferves, that if the eternity > 
future punifhment be a doétrine of the Chritti 
is fo eflential, that it could not 
. 
is intention to denounce abfolutely eternal mifery. | 
ne in sebuanne oe be, 
if it was believed ; or that many: eminent perfons he docs 
centuries were of a contrary opinion. And indeed tl trine 
