withstanding the conceit in the florid scheme of Dr. WARBURTON's divine legation.

a

Since therefore man is made for truth, and the principle of life has been revealed and known to him from the beginning, it will not allow us to fay, or think, that immortal life is procured for us by Jefus Chrift, and by him alone. This cannot be the doctrine of the Gospel. For the will of God made known to men under any dispensation, and dutifully attended unto, has equally been the principle of life in him. We know it from the inftruction given to CAIN, if thou doeft well shalt thou not be accepted? - and from what is faid of Enoch, that, he walked with God, and be not; for God took him. And of Noah, who was perfect before God, in his generation. And of Abraham, who is called, the friend of God.—And God is faid, to be his fhield and exceeding great reward! it would be too tedious to enumerate all the instances in proof of mens acquiring, in every age, this qualification for immortal life. And needless to report the numerous teftimonies of impenitent finners, wanting the capacity. N 3 The

a Peckard's obfervations, p. 3.

The fcriptures do abound in these testimo nies.

If therefore it be allowed, that good and bad men have exifted from the beginning; it will follow, that immortal life is not procured for man by Jesus Christ, and by him alone; because men have been qualified for it; and capable of it in every age; even long before any thing had been done by him, as either the minifter, revealer, or difpenfer of God's truth and mercy.

Sect. 2. It is yet faid; Jefus Chrift came into the world on purpose to redeem men from death, and to give them life and immortality; hence it is very certain, that he could not redeem them from that fate in which they were not; nor give them that life and immortality, of which they were already poffeffed.

We may not then be indulged with the opinion of an intermediate state of existence, any more than with a feparate one. For we are ferved with a writ of ejectment from the poffeffion of an active consciousness. And it feems, upon this hypothefis, all men who have died from the beginning of the world, and all that shall die until the end of it, are

in

a Ibid. p. 19.

in the fame incogitant, unconscious, fleeping, dead ftate, whether they have been good or bad. Man must return to a fiate of utter infenfibility; and continue in that state, until the courfe of this world shall be finished, and all mankind are awakened together in a second state of consciousness, through the merits of Jefus Chrift, and through him alone." - And again, our immortal life will not be found to depend upon any natural principle of immortality, but to have been obtained entirely by the mediation of Jefus Chrift, and to be a fecond creation effected by his power. On these principles, and on thefe alone, doth our holy inflitution stand fupreme in dignity; because there is no immortality worth wishing for, but that which bath been purchased by the merits of our bleffed Saviour Jefus Chrift

Dr. LAW has alfo faid, eternal life is not in any respect a property of our own nature, as derived from Adam; but an aditional privilege conferred by God, as the purchase of our Saviour and Redeemer Chrift. The price of our redemption from death, the purchafe of a refurrection to another life, and a

a P. 40.

N 4

e Ibid.

iP. 41.

new

Confiderations on the state of the world, &c. p. 206.

a new state of trial; as reaching beyond the curfe entailed on us by the first Adam, and raising us to a condition above that from which be fell.

May not we, without being cenfured, fay of these things, what Dr. Law has faid of the writings of the fathers? viz. that we fhould have underflood the fcriptures much bet ter, if we had not had fuch comments and interpretations? they raise controverfies, they teach men to quarrel and dispute about the Jenfe of texts, otherwife plain and obvious.

In the very nature of a purchase, or procurement made, an idea of merit is annexed by these writers, which would imply obligation laid on God to do that, which his effential goodness could not confiftently do without it. And it has the idea of a fatisfaction, or compenfation made to his equity and juftice, that is incompatible with the free and unmerited operations of his benignity and goodness. For if a debt be paid, no matter by whom, there is no forgiveness. Infinitely more plain and divinely intelligible, is the Gospel doctrine of repentance and remiffion.

As

Ibid. p. 297. Note.

Ibid. p. 185. Note.

As to eternal life, confidered as a property of our nature derived from Adam; I know of none, that so speak of it. But this I know, that eternal life cannot be conferred on any, but the morally meet fubjects. Nor is it any where spoken of, in the New Teftament, as the purchase of Chrift. Though we are his purchase, as by his manifestations of the truth and grace of God, we are redeem・ed from iniquity, and purified from worldliness. And fully perfuaded I am, that no man can point out a ground of confidence for the penitent, equal to that of the effential, immutable, and eternal goodness of his Maker. The great, the capital design of the Gospel-revelation, is, to make this manifeft to mankind.

If you should pretend to offer any thing in favour of a future continued consciousness, you are thus reprimanded, What! Shall then the Son of God diveft himself of his dipinity, and subject himself to all the miseries of buman life, in order that we, after death, may again be? What! loaded with an unneceffary incumbrance.

How very different, how irreconcileable with the opinion, that religion has been the

P. 30. Peckard's obfervations.

fame