JESUS thou my all, My theme, my infpiration, and my crown, My Soul's ambition, pleasure, wealth, my world; A PASTORAL. To the name of JESUS the UNIVERSAL KING. YOUNG. (Written at Hales Owen, Salop, after a walk in Shenstone's Leafowes.} THRO' the Leafowes whenever I ftray, Or fit at my eafe in fome cell, I can cry, if a danger be feen, For I know that my JESUS is nigh. Should the fields be all bare, nothing green, If I'm dumb, when a danger is feen; Where JESUS commands, let me go; Never let me fay, Why is it fo? For he knows very well what is best. CORRESPONDENCE. THORNHILL. WE hope our friend, P. W. who has written fo well on Election, will not abridge his future letters. The fubject deferves to be handled at large, and he appears capable of doing it justice. We advise our Correfpondent, who is difpleafed with the character of Joshua, to reafon, instead of declaiming. His Letter cannot be inferted, because of its want of argu ment. We hope for the continuance of the favours of the Moralift. We inform our friends at large, that the fubftance of Mr. Winchester's Sermons, which we have in manufcript, will continue to be given monthly. They will be printed feparately, fo as to form a Volume with his life; the next Sermon will be on Ifaiah xxi. 11-12. Watchman what of the night? &c. The Life of Mr. Winchester is unavoidably obliged to be postponed for this month, owing to a prefs of temporary matter, but a double quantity will be given in our next. THE Univerfalist's Miscellany For FEBRUARY, 1798. CONSOLATION TO A FATHER UNDER THE LOSS OF HIS CHILDREN. Nov. 1797. SIR, You OUR kind letter of the 17th I duly received. It is, indeed, some time fince you faw me, but be affured I have not forgot you, nor doth my affection towards you and yours abate; but a great undertaking, and ill health, were the real causes of my filence. In my laft I hinted an intention to folicit you for a favour; Iftill ftand in need of fuch affiftance; and very shortly will lay my request before you. I can truly say the magnitude of the request doth not extend even to the pofitive degree of that love which I bear towards you. The hinting at this request before, and now renewing it again, may seem as if it were too big for birth: nay, on the contrary, when it brings forth, perhaps it would be but as a mountain in labour with a moufe. A great part of your laft is expreffive of forrow, on account of your fons. This indeed is a matter of great lamentation; efpecially to one who has imbibed a system, that punishment will last as long as God lives. I would fain allay the forrow of your heart; yet, if you will oppose what Chrift and his apostles have faid, what profpect have I? If I ufe arguments, fuch as man doth with man, then you will be ready to fay, "This is weighing eternal things by witlings of frail and fallen nature!" So that my hope of VOL. II comforting G comforting you seems at a distance: nevertheless, though I labour in vain, and spend my time for nought, yet will I attempt to affert that degree of love, wisdom, and power of God, which you have not yet comprehended. First, as to argument of man with man. If you, who are only the inftrument of bringing your fons into the prefent ftate of existence, have fo much love for them as to have forrow upon forrow, because you imagine they are not fo happy as they might have been: do you think that He who made them, and laid down his life to purchase this better state for them, and who is declared to be Love in the abstract, doth not care as much for them as you do? The love you have towards them, compared with His, cannot be called even the pofitive degree of love: it is fcarcely as a drop to the ocean; and bears fo little comparifon, that it is loft in comparing and his wifdom and power are fuch, that what he loves, and hath purchased, He will not suffer an ufurper to hold. Would to God you held the following calvinistical principle! that "whom God once loved, He always loves; being an unchangeable God." : Secondly, as to fcripture; if your fons' names are not in' the book of life at Chrift's fecond coming; it is poffible, that the contamination of evil with which you fuppofe they are defiled, may not be fo bad but that their names may be in another book by the close of the millenium: (fee Winchester's xxvth lecture) now, if you believe what you wrote, that "God is not confined to time nor place :" then the invifible world, and the period during the millenium, gives time and place for Him to operate on them: and I feel no accufation of conscience, if I fay, Lord remember them in that day! Take the fairest European and the blackest African, ́and place them at such a distance as to admit the numberless different fhades from the deepest black to the fairest white, standing in contraft; and then tell me where white begins, or where black ends? Thus mankind differ in degrees of virtue and vice but your fyftem (not God's, as revealed in the Bible) damns all but the fair European, to roll in fire and brimstone as long as God lives: yea, and another God after him, if the former doth not live for ever. Now, I read that the fair European will have an abun dant entrance administered to him: he that is swarthy will be scarcely saved, and he that is tawny saved, but so as by fire: fire: while the mulatto will be afflicted with few, and the black African with many stripes. But your faith hath not foared fo high: you have not drank of reason's stream, you have not dug deep for that treasure hid in the field, called, "GOD is LOVE." But left, in foaring to heights which are not congenial to your fyftem, or diving to depths you have not founded, I feed you with too ftrong meat: I will revert to the rock, Truth, where there is milk for babes as well as meat for, &c. and O! that you, as a new-born babe, might receive the fincere milk of the word, and be thereby comforted with that comfort which has its fource in the love, power, and wisdom of God. Has not your Jefus said, ⚫ And if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me?' and who art thou? that fhall fay, As thou haft failed to draw a great part of mankind to thee, in the present state of existence, thou shalt not act upon them in any other state,' though the apostle has told you, He lived, died, and rose again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living,' and has the keys of hell and death. if You speak of infinite mercy: I know of no fuch thing, you allude to its duration. I have no objection to the phrafe, if alluding to its extent; otherwise pardon n:e if I fay, it is an improper phrafe. How can you commend your fons to infinite mercy, when you believe mercy ceased to exist, as to them, when they ceased to exift here? You know your creed faith, As the tree falls, fo it lies: As death leaves us, fo judgment finds us: 'There is no repentance in the grave.' Mercy is not an innate perfection of the Deity, comparable with his love, wisdom, and power. These always existed, and always will; but mercy did not, nor will not. When all the morning ftars fang together, and the fons of God fhouted for joy, there were no objects in misery, confequently mercy did not exift: but when man fell, then the overflowing of love towards objects in mifery went forth, in mercy! Mercy, if I may be allowed the expreffion, is a contingent act in the Deity; and when every creature in heaven and on the earth, and under the earth, and fuch as are in the fea, and all that in them is, fhall fing" bleffing and honour," &c. then there will be no objects in mifery, confequently mercy will have ceased to exist. The wages of fin is death: first, the death of the body; and next punishment in fire and brimftone, which is the fe cond cond death: yet there fhall come a time, when there will be no more death, neither forrow nor crying; neither fhall there be any more pain, for the former things (fin with all its concomitants) are paffed away. Behold, all will be made new. Perhaps you will fay, Ha! this is a promise which belongs to the state of believers: but let me tell you believers do not want your promises: they are, and have been, at the period here alluded to, and long before, basking in all the riches God could in that difpenfation beftow. I think your fentiments and mine may be illuftrated by the bee. The bee gathers honey from every weed: I gather honey from the weed, punishment: it is a mean to bring about a grand defign. You can collect no honey from it; it has no object in view but fury, endless fury. I gather superior drafts of honey from the tree of life: viz. as above, there will be no more death: ' you transfer this as a promise to `an object not in need of it, and not only fo, but reject its fweets, which is little lefs than fucking poifon from the tree of life. Finally, I do confider, although I am not able fo fully to fet forth the ways of God, as to affert in a direct manner how, yet I trust that the prayers you have offered up will not, in all refpects be ineffectual in their behalf; and I should pray on ftill: but whether you do or not, this one thing I know, that Chrift will fubdue all things unto himself, and in fubduing all things, he will not lay more punishment upon the rebellious than will be proportionable to the contamination rebellion has fpread: and when that spirit is fubdued, then will he fay to the prifoner, come forth,' and by the blood of the covenant he will deliver the prifoners out of the pit, in which there is no water. For what purpose do you think the wicked are punished in fight of the Lamb and holy angels, but that the Lamb (like a fkilful, founder who watches when the metal is fit for pouring out) in like manner, may watch the effects of punishment on his dear-bought purchase. Therefore, if your fons have loft their fhare in the first refurrection: if they are not drawn to Jefus in the intermediate state, fo as to escape the fecond death: yet they shall be restored and reconciled; and you, and I, and they, be the subjects of that grand fcene, the grandeft of all scenes that ever took place. The whole creation, angels, who kept not their firft eftate, man, who tranfgreffed, all, yea all |