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word which fignifies their punishment; is not conclufive; it is faulty reasoning. And yet Mr. S. hath affirmed that, "whatever duration of bleffedness the righteous have, the fame duration of mifery is declared concerning the wicked." Mr. S. certainly knows how aioon and aioonios are used in the New Teftament; how the inconclufiveness of his reafoning escaped his notice, I cannot say. I hope it was an innocent escape, The fact is we can neither prove the perpetuity of the happiness of the righteous, nor of the mifery of the wicked, merely from the use of the Greek word, rendered everlasting, or eternal. And, if we must recur to the things, their qualities, properties, and other circumftances, to determine the duration both of future happiness and mifery; why is so much time lavished upon the grammatical and critical ufe of thofe little words? Can it be, that men wish to show one another, and the world, that they know how to read and conftrue Greek?

Dr. Edwards, in his forecited book, p. 251, speak. ing of the meaning of the difputed words, fays, "In fixty-five inftances, including fix inftances in which it is applied to future punishment, it plainly fignifies endless duration." The word does not of itself fignify an endless duration. For as the Dr, had just obferved, the fame word, in thirty-two places, means a limited duration. Can the fame word, of itself. mean both a limited, and an unlimited, duration. Nothing can be plainer, than that the nature of the fubject,

fubject, to which the word aioon is applied, must ever determine its meaning. So that Dr. Edwards had no right to determine the meaning of the word in those fix places to which he refers to, before he had put the matter of the duration of future mifery out of all dispute, by the most direct and pofitive proof of its never ending duration. But as I intend a critical examination of Dr. Edwards's book, as foon as I fhall have finifhed the prefent examination; I will fay no more of it now.

I wish Mr. S. had been a little more methodical : and, if he really had, as he seems to have, two objects in view; one, to prove the eternity of future mifery; the other, to prove that there would be future mifery; that he had kept these two objects diftinct. I have no concern with any proof of the being of future mifery. The fcriptures Mr. S. produces to prove the perpetuity of future misery, are all that I have any concern with. Mr. S. often infers the perpetuity from the existence of future mifery; which obliges me to take notice of fome of his texts, which I fhould, otherwise, have no concern with. As, from the parable of Dives and Lazarus, he makes the following obfervation, p. 23. "And if that gulph could not be paffed, their mifery muft be without end." If there be a gulph now, between heaven and hell, the power and grace of God are fufficient to remove it. Mr. S. ought to have proved that the gulph that will interpose itself between heaven and hell, at the clofe of the general judg

ment,

ment, will never be removed. The plentiful poftive proof of the final falvation of all men, is not, in the leaft, affected by any fuch paffages of feripture, as these Mr. S. produces. If there be any texts which declare, in unequivocal language, that the future mifery of the wicked will abfolutely be endlefs, why are they not brought forward? One of Mr. S.'s texts I will recite, merely to fhow the reader what a facility he has acquired, of introducing ideas into his inferences, which are not to be found in his premifes. It is John viii. 21-24. I go my

way, and

and ye fhall feek me, and shall die in your fins; whither I go ye cannot come. Then said the Jews, will he kill himself? because he faith, whither. I go,

ye

cannot come. And he said unto them, ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I faid therefore unto you, that ye fhall die in your fins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye fhall die in your fins.” Mr. S.'s inference follows; p. 33. "He prays the Father that all thofe who were given to him might be with him, where he is; and he here fays, there are fome who never can be with him; the confequence is plain." Does the reader perceive that, in the paffage of fcripture above cited, Chrift any where fays, there are fome who can never be witk bim? Chrift prayed for the world, as we have feen; that the world might believe and know that the Father had fent him; which knowledge and faith

he

What will

he himself declares to be eternal life.
prevent the world's finally going where he is?

The next fcriptures Mr. S. produces, are those which speak of blasphemy against the holy Ghost. He cites Matt. xii. 31, 32.-Mark iii. 29.-And Luke xii. 10. "All manner of fin and blafphemy fhall be forgiven unto men: but the blafphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whofoever fpeaketh a word against the Son of man, it fhall be forgiven him; but whofoever fpeaketh against the holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world: neither in the world to come." "He that fhall blafpheme against the holy Ghoft, hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation. Unto him that blafphemeth against the holy Ghoft, it shall not be forgiven."

The interpretation of these passages given by the great and learned Grotius is, at least, very plausible, and agreeable to the analogy of the fcriptures. Grotius supposes the words of our Saviour to have been spoken according to a manner of speaking which was very frequent and familiar with the Jews, by which they represented the extreme difficulty of fome things, in comparison of others.

His reasoning on the fubject, as Dr. Chauncy has it, is as follows, falvation of all men, p. 333, 334. "It could not be the defign of our Saviour, in the former part of these sentences, where he speaks of other fins and blafphemies, to affirm abfolutely concerning them, that they shall be forgiven; because

this is not true in fact, as there are multitudes of thefe fins that are not forgiven: and therefore," fays he," we ought, in all reason, to look upon these fentences as Hebrew forms of fpeech, like that in the 5th chap. of Matthew, where our Saviour declares, that heaven and earth fhall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. The meaning of which is explained by Luke, in the fixteenth chapter of his gofpel, where the words are, not that heaven and earth shall pass away, but that it is easier for them to pass away, than that Chrift's words fhould fail."-It is a common way of speaking among the Jews, this thing ball be, and that shall not be, when it was not their intention to affirm any thing absolutely of either, but only to express the greater difficulty of effecting the latter than the former."—Upon which he concludes that the only meaning of our Saviour, in the words is, that it is easier to obtain the pardon of any fins, and therefore of the greatest blafphemies, than the blafphemy against the holy Ghoft. As if it was his design to be understood comparatively, fignifying the greater beinoufness of the blafphemy against the boly Ghost, and that the pardon of it would be more difficultly obtained; not that it is frictly and abfolutely unpardonable. He refers us, as the final confirmation of this fenfe of the words, to Sam. ii. 25. where he supposes there is a like comparative mode of speech with this of our Saviour, if one man fin against another, the judge fhall judge him but if a man fin against the Lord,who fhall intreat for him ?"—

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