in eternity; and every wicked inclination, which they cherished by acquiefcence, would promote their unhappiness, in exact proportion; that every good deed would there meet a fuitable reward, and every bad one an adequate punishment; and that they would experience good or evil, as long as they fhould merit it. Men would then have their own natural fentiments of right and wrong; and the judge in their own breafts would confirm the fentence announced to them: but now the threats of hell fuggeft to many that eternal mifery is too fevere a punishment for the indulgence of a few years, and those intermingled with fo much forrow and vexation. The effects of the Popifh doctrine of purgatory feem to make this conjecture in fome degree probable. If this doctrine were delivered in a pure and rational manner, divefted of fuperftitious notions, and the gainful additions foifted into it by prieftcraft; it would be found to be the fame at bottom; or to teach that a proportional retribution is the mean of purifying us from bad thoughts and actions, and that when we are thus purified we may hope for a releasement from pain. But the great object of fear in the Romish church is not fo much eternal fire, as that purifying flame. Purgatory is the rein that curbs so many unruly defires, and the fpur to fo many, at least outwardly, good works. The certain hope of release does not fo diminish the fear of it, but it occafions many reftitutions accompanied with much felf-denial, many abafing retractions, many humiliating confeffions, and many expiations that coft dear to felf-love; particularly on the bed of death: of all which, alas! our church offers us but few examples. How much greater and more numerous effects of this kind may we prefume would be produced, had not maffes for the dead, legacies in favour of the priesthood, pious foundations, and fimilar fuccedaneums for actual reftitu tions, and reparations of injuries, been invented by felf-intereft, and fwallowed by fuperftition! But fuppofing it could be proved that the fire of hell is a purifying fire, would it be advifable to advance this, and directly to maintain it, in mixed focieties? This queftion, I believe, I have weighty reafons for answering in the negative. Our focie-. ties, at least the greater part of them, may not be fufficiently prepared for the reception, and right application of this doctrine. In my opinion, that preacher takes the fafeft way, who, in his public difcourfes on this fubject, goes no farther than revelation itself, the words of which he undertakes to explain and enforce. It behoveth him not to dispel that wife and falutary darkness, with which fcripture has enveloped the future fate of mankind; as he cannot tell whether the greater part of his hearers be not in the fame circumftances as the Ninevites at the preaching of Jonah; or whether ignorance, or at leaft uncertainty be not neceffary, to awaken them to more serious reflection, and to a more lively and effectual repentance. To this another reafon for caution may be added. Hitherto the torments of hell have ever been reprefented as eternal. Our auditors are fo accustomed to this notion, that they have affociated the idea of eternity with that of helltorments in fuch a manner as to confider it an effential part of them. Many unthinking men, therefore, hearing that it is not impoffible for them to be converted in eternity, and that probably in fome period of it their torments would cease, might imagine that the pains of hell themselves may likewife be annihilated, or at least no longer figure them of fufficient weight to be affected by them: in the fame manner as a man who is accustomed to fee, and to fuffer, fevere punishment, little heeds a milder chastisement, though it would be fenfible and efficacious enough of itself, and in other circum ftances; ftances; or, as a man who has borne a very heavy burden, when a lighter is placed on his fhoulders, is infenfible of the load. But if it be admitted on the other hand, that the scriptures do not clearly affert the impoffibility of a converfion and alteration in eternity; we muft go no farther on that fide than they do, and at leaft avoid making it a point of our public duty to demonftrate it to be impoffible. Would it not be most advisable, to treat this fubject with the fame caution, and to pass it over for the fame reasons, as a prudent and confcientious preacher would treat cautiously, and perhaps totally pafs over the fimilar point, of the poffibility of a death-bed converfion. If a man content himself with faying that fcripture gives us no hope of this kind in exprefs words; would not his preaching be true and effectual, whilft he carefully enforces the clear threats of eternal punishment in the fcriptures, denounced against those who obey not God; and endeavours to inculcate as urgently as poffible, that the longer a man continues in difobedience the more he will enhance his mifery, and the more difficult he will make the alteration of his mind, and that as long as a man defers to make a beginning and waits for a more convenient or favourable opportunity, he has actually reafon to fear an eternal or irreversible mifery ?-Still I prefume not to decide any thing on this point. All I have faid on the fubject is merely hypothetical, and I am prepared to embrace any fyftem that may appear to reft on more folid foundations. INDEX.' INDE X. References to the NOTES of PISTORIUS, which form the THIRD VOLUME, are diftinguished by a P. preceding the Number of the Page. A. ABRAHAM, his hiftory confidered, II. 130. Action the firft property of matter, P. III. 509. Affections defined, I. 3. Their origin, I. 80, 368. Agency not inconfiftent with conditional neceffity, P. III. 463. Agreement of the feveral parts of the fcriptures with each other, argument of their genuineness and truth, II. 122. Algebraic method of treating the unknown quantity; answers to the names given to unknown caufes, qualities, &c. in order to investigate them, I. 347. Alphabetical writing, fome arguments to prove, that it was communicated to Mofes by God at Sinai, I. 308. Ambition, its pleafures and pains confidered, I. 443. Amufements of life, rules concerning them, II. 248. Analogies, very ftrong ones violated fometimes, II. 147. Analogy confidered, I. 291. Moral, favours the fcripture mi racles, II. 145. Anger confidered, I. 478. Animal Spirits, I. 20. Approximation to the roots of equations, an analogous method proper in scientifical inquiries, I. 349. Articles of faith confidered, P. III. 670. Articulate founds, the manner of diftinguishing them, I. 228. Arts, the polite ones, practical rules concerning the purfuit of them. II. 253. Lawfulness of ftudying, P. III. 651. Affent confidered, I. 324. Affociation, fynchronous and fucceffive, I. 65. Simple ideas raised by it, I. 65. Prefuppofes the power of generating VOL. III. 3. D ideas, ideas, and is presupposed by it, I. 70. A certain fact, what- Atonement of Chrift confidered, P. III. 735. Attractions, mutual, of the fmall parts of matter, I. 20, 27, 364. B. Beauty of the works of nature, I. 418. Of the works of art, Benevolence explained from affociation, I. 437. Practical rules Benevolence of God proved, II. 13. Five notions of it, II. 23. Bodies politic, their expectations during the prefent state of the Body, elementary, may be one intermediate between the foul and Brain defined, I. 7. Not a gland, I. 17. Bruifes, pains attending them confidered, I. 126. Brutes, their intellectual faculties confidered. I. 404. Burns, pains attending them confidered, I. 126. C. CARTES, his treatise on man, I. 111. Caufes, fufficient, pofition of, confidered, P. III. 464. Chances, doctrine of, of use in determining the degree of evidence Character, moral, of Chrift, II. 167, P. III. 697. Of the prophets Characters, written ones, may be immediate reprefentatives of Christendom, its prefent ftate, II. 440. Christianity, its future univerfal prevalence, II. 376, P. III. 690. Circumftances of time, place, and perfons, the great number of Colours, phenomena of, confidered, I. 192. Their compofitions Coma vigil, I. 55. Compaffion explained from affociation, I. 474. Confufion of tongues, I. 303, Continuity of the medullary fubftance, I. 16. Convulfive |