transfer to another all right to his accepted and purchased heritage and poffeffion? Far be it from us to impute fuch conduct to him. "Chrift is all in all."

Though, even in the reign of Solomon, the remote boundaries of the land promifed to the fathers were not poffeffed by the feed of Abraham; yet shall it not be fo with Meffiah! No Cannanite fhall be allowed to poffefs his inheritance for ever; nor will he leave fo much as a hoof in the poffeffion of Pharaoh, before he have done with the outpouring of the vials of his wrath; to which every Chrif tian fhould fay, Amen-Let men fay what they will, there must be fomething egregiously wrong in a doctrine that obliges us to afcribe fuch inconfiftencies to the Son of God, whofe every work is perfect, and who ftands engaged by folemn promife to make every thing committed to him new. There is nothing included in the restoration of all things but what is worthy of him as Creator, Preferver, and Redeemer, what is alfo within the reach of his power to accomplish, and admirably calculated to advance his glory. Why fhould it then feem incredible? Some, in their wifdom, make the eternity of hell torments neceffary to the existence, if not to the unceafing duration of heavenly blifs. Hence the following expreffions of a certain famed preacher: "The damnation of the wicked conftitutes an effential part of the happiness of the righteoufs! Hell fhall eternally fend up a fweetnefs to heaven, and heaven fhall eternally fend down a darkness to hell!" Great fwelling words of vanity, though by some admired as the very marrow of the gospel. What a reflection on the divine wifdom, as if God could not make one part of his creation happy, without fubjecting the other to endless and unremitted mifery! No wonder those who think fo fhould be alarmed at the doctrine of the refloration, as fearing a diminution of their own happiness. This antichriftian notion is very unlike what our Lord fays of the fenfations of the bleffed at the converfion of a finner: " Joy fhall be in heaven over one finner that repenteth.-There is joy in the prefence of the angels of God over one finner that repenteth," Luke xv. 7, 10. If the prefervation of a finner from extreme mifery occafion fuch joy in heaven, what will the recovery of millions produce? The joy of the reftoration therefore may well be compared to the joy of harveft, inftead of leffening the felicity of the bleffed, as fome would make it.

How fhall we account for the obvious meaning of many paffages of fcripture, if we exclude the reftitution of all things, or fo explain it away as to amount to an exclufion? Is our Lord the head of every man? 1 Cor. xi. 3, yea, given to be the head over all things to the church, which imports their relation to him, Eph i. 22. and did he afcend up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things, befides his church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all? Eph. iv. 1c-i. 23. and is all this confiftent with Satan's poffeffing every man, and all things as long as God exifts, elect angela and men excepted? If God purpofed in himfelf, that this fhould really be the cafe, why ufe fech language frequently in his word as clearly conveys a very different view of his adminiftration? Chrift's univerfal temple appears from, fcripture to comprehend many more than elect angels and men; and we may reft affured he will not fuffer it to remain always a den of thieves, into which the priefs have converted and profti. tuted it.--The Lord hallen the purging of the temple already in exiftence,

If God would not permit the patrimony, or inheritance of aff Ifraelite, to be forfeited beyond the year of jubilee, when it was reftored to the proper owner of his family, or leave it in the power of any of Abraham's feed to alienate it beyond recovery, let any man fay, if it be reasonable to fuppofe, that his wife and merciful plan of redemption has left it in the power of his frail erring offspring, to ruin their fouls beyond recovery, and place themselves beyond all poffibility of attaining holiness, or the leaft measure of happiness to all eternity? The lofs fuftained may be great and irremediable, like Efau's lofs when he defpifed the birthright, and loft the bleffing; but our heavenly Father has more than one bleffing to beftow, a bleffing for the feed of the bond woman, though of an inferior nature, as well as for the feed of the free. Could twelve or thirteen acres of land, the quantity that fell to the share of each man upon the divifion of Canaan, be more precious in God's account, or better guarded by what we may call an agrarian law, than millions of his nobleft creatures are, by his plan of mercy in Christ Jefus, one of whom, he himself being judge, is of more value than the whole material world? In the words of Paul, Does God care for oxen? Does he care for a few acres of earth? Hath he not taught us by that care how precious his own inheritance is in his fight, and how he has deviled means by which his banished may be restored? It would be very unlike the provident care of a wife and beneficent parent, to put it in the power of a foolish and prodigal fon to fquander away his whole patrimony. When one adverts to these things, they will be found to merit fome attention in this controversy, which rests not however on fuch arguments, though it derives illuftration and fome degree of proof from them.

We may view God as addreffing men in the words of Solomon, "Hear, ye children, the inftruction of a father, and attend to understanding-Hear, O my fon, and receive my fayings; and the years of thy life fhall be many," thy happiness fhall be of immortal duration :-" My fon, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my fayings," Prov. chap. iv. Are the fayings of our hea venly Father, which he addreffes to his children, dark and equivocal fayings, as many reprefent them?

Does not the existence of every man depend on a fovereign act of God's will?" He hath made us, and not we ourselves," Pfal. c. 3. Can we suppose that he calls any man, or any being into exiftence, without having fome purpofe respecting him? What can that purpose be? Can it be that the creature, which owes its being to him, fhould be eternally happy or miferable? To fuppofe the laft, would be to tax God with the want of wisdom. To fappose that he formed any creature to be eternally miferable, would be to arraign his infinite goodnef. And to admit that he made intelligent creatures for happines, but that fin marred his defign, and that the far greater part of them fhall never be brought to answer the end of their creation, would deny hima prefcience, or reprefent him as difappointed in his object, or unable to bring it to pass. To maintain that his love to the bulk of men fulfils all its intended effects in giving them food and raiment on earth, is fach a horrid reflection on the all-bountiful Creator, that I know not if that it falls fhort of blafphemy.. Let any one read.

II

what the Pfalmift fays, "But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compaffion, and gracious; long-fuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth," Pfal. Ixxxvi. 15. and say if it accords with fuch an impious notion. If he did not provide better things for them than those which perish in the ufing, and secure to them the enjoyment, we have reafon to believe, he would be ashamed to be called their Lord, the head of every man, and to reprefent himself by his Spirit as filling all things as his temple. As they owe their being to him, fo in him they live, move, and have that being, which fhews it is to answer nobler ends than many will admit. Let none attempt to rob him of the due glory of his works.

In fcripture the Jews feem to be chiefly, if not folely, intended by Meffiah's people, he becoming, in the first instance, their brother, as the promised feed of Abraham. "His name fhall be called Jesus; for he shall fave his people from their fins." "He came unto his own, and his own received him not," John i. 11. But the time will come when they shall say, refpecting him, "Hofannah— Bleffed is the King of Ifrael that cometh in the name of the Lord,” John xii. 13. Mat. xxiii. 39. Paul tells us how Meffiah fhall fave his people from their fins: "All Ifrael shall be saved; as it is written, There fhall come ut of sion the Deliverer, and fhall turn away ungodlinefs from Jacob. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all," Rom. xi. 26, 32. The margin reads it, "God hath fhut them all up together," &c. Jefus. shall fave all Ifrael as his people from their fins, of which falvation his very name is a pledge and fecurity. The common glofs given to this predictive promise, is, that all the elect shall be saved, who are viewed as the Ifrael intended, or that Meffiah fhall turn away ungodliness from the feed.of Jacob, who fhall be found on earth at the millennium. But the leaft attention to the apostle's chain of reasoning may correct this mistake. He evidently fpeaks of the unbelieving part of that people, that part to which ungodlinefs, ftill cleaves, and who have had no intereft in the falvation by Chrift, till he fhall come out of Zion as a deliverer, which fhall take place at the times of the reftitution of all things. The verb to fave, fignifies not only to preferve from that mifery to which guilt exposes, or the wrath to come, in which fenfe it is peculiar to those who be lieve in this life, but also to recover or reftore from a ftate of actual mifery, whether greater or lefs in duration and degree. Thus it is applied often in the original to the cure or healing of the body, which confifts in a reftoring of it to a former found ftate. And thus, too, men are faved in the prefent life, when delivered from the guilt and dominion of fin. Though comparatively few of the feed of Jacob have been faved in this laft fenfe, yet all Ifrael, that have perished through unbelief, are capable of being faved in the other. Paul tells us, that they are all beloved for the father Abraham's fake, and that God's gifts and callings to them in that patriarch, or root of their nation, are without repentance; whence he, as the root, being holy, the apostle tells us, the branches fhall be holy alfo. Shall God's electing love, in confequence of which, the whole race, even in every age, are ftill beloved, never be productive of any faving henefit to the whole. Even in Hades Dives was taught, by Abraham himself, to claim the relation, "Nay, Father Abraham," &c. Luke xvi. 30. Shall a fon of Abraham be for ever loft, while the relation is owned on both fides?

When our Lord fays, "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them alfo mult I bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there fhall be one fold and one Shepherd,” John x. 16. it is more than probable he has something in his view far beyond the fenfe commonly attached to that paffage. We have no authority to restrict the other sheep to the elect among the Gentiles, as is commonly done. It was not the Jewith, but the Chriftian church our Lord intended by the fold, or rather, the true church of the firft-born, made up of believing Jews and Gentiles. All thefe, even in their c llective capacity, make up one household, even the household of faith, and confequendly but one fold. What hinders then, that we fhould view the real meaning to be, that the reft of mankind are the other heep of Chrift, given to him by his Father, and that they fhall, in the time or period appointed, be brought to hear his voice, fo as that the whole buman race, however diverfified their rank, degree of glory, and place of habitation, fhall make one fold, in the great univerfai temple, under one Shepherd ? In the 15th verfe, he fays, "I laid down my life for the fheep ;" and the fcriptures authorife us to fay, That he gave his life a ransom for all, and tafted death for every man, and that the Father has given all things into his hands, for purposes clearly enough ascertained in his word, and than all that is given to him fhall fo come to him, one time or other, as not to be caft out.

In the 2d Pfalm Meffiah is defired of his Father to ask of him, and he would give him the heathen for his inheritance, and, or even, the uttermost parts of the earth for his poffeffion. The requeft was made, and the grant confirmed. The term heathen in the original here, and often elsewhere, is nations, called the Gen-, tiles, as diftinguished from the Jews, and both including the whole human race. Is the grant then complete, if we confine its accomplishment to a very few from among the nations, or its full completion to any one detached period of time? Are not the men of all generations equally the offspring of the Deity, and equally included in the general terms Jews and Gentiles? Who gave us a right then to cut off the far greater part of them, to all eternity, from any interest in his paternal regard, when his promise and his oath include them all? Too many even profeffed Chriftians give away their own children to the devil, by the education they give them, and the example they fet before them, and that upon their own profeffed belief, to all eternity; but let them not prefume to think that God is a Father like themselves.

Though Meffiah fhall, in the firft inftance, break the rebellious and idolatrous nations with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel, yet all this will be only in order to make them up anew into veffels of honour, fitted for his own ufe. He fhall inherit all nations, even all the nations that shall ever exist, Pfal. Ixxxii, 8. and they all fhall be bleffed in him, and call him bleffed, in fo full a fenfe as to include every family that ever exifted among them, even all the nations, kindreds, and families of the earth. That all the nations that forget God fhall be turned into hell, is too plainly afferted to admit of a moment's doubt, Pfal. ix. 17. If that is to be their eternal abode, how fhall we reconcile the plainelt texts of fcripture to fuch an iffùe of the divine adminiftration respecting them?-But can we be juftified in disbelieving their plain and obvious meaning;

though the promife and the very oath of God be interpofed, thefe two immutable things, in which it is impoffible he should lie, deceive, or mislead? What is it that makes fuch liberty neceffary, but an undue deference to the creeds and fyftems of men? which, in too many points, if the doctrine of the restoration cannot be overturned, contradict the word of truth, infult common fenfe, fhut up the bowels of God's compaffion on his offspring, and furnish a libel on his character and adminiflration. How glorious and God-like the plan exhibited above, compared to this!

Our Lord's empire is univerfal, over Jews and Gentiles, throughout the whole earth, and equally extends to all generations, though we fee them not, yet equally fubjected to his authority; which will be the glorious work of the age of ages, when he fhall reftore and make all things new. Shall we not then pray, "Our Father who art in heaven, thy kingdom come," to this extent.—But it is time I fhould conclude this epiftle. May we have the honour and happiness to be numbered among the firft-born here, that the second death may have no power

over us!

I am,

Dear Sir,

Cordially yours, &c.

LETTER VI.

The words of the Lord are pure: as filver tried in a furnace of earth, purified Seven times. Be not wife in thine own eyes.—My fon, attend to my words incline thine ear unto my fayings. He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination, Pfal. xii. 6. Prov. iii. 7.— ix. 20-xxviii. 9.

A

DEAR SIR,

CCORDING to Paul, the bafis of true religion confifts in the cordial belief of God's being and remunerative goodness. "He that cometh to God muft believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently feek him," Heb. xi. 6. Difcoveries of God's love, mercy and beneficence, are the cords of love, and the bands of a man, with which he draws to the obedience of faith. Though many make the belief of the eternity of hell torments an effential part of true religion, and wantonly condemn the perfon that denies or doubt it as an beretic of the worst kind, the apoftle does not make the belief of future punishment at all a firft principle in the faith of the gofpel; and he doubtlefs knew as much of his Mafter's will, and was as faithful in declaring it, as any of our modern fages.

Does not the common doctrine contradict the plain import of thefe fcripture figures, which the Holy Spirit employs to reprefent the vaft increase of our Lord's willing fubjects? Are they not compared, in point of number, to the ftars of heaven, and the fand upon the fea-fhore, which cannot be numbered for multitude, Gen. xxii. 17.xxxii. 12. to the fpires of grafs which clothe the