his Spirit, are not pleasant to God; forasmuch as they are not of faith in Jesus Christ; neither do they make men meet to receive grace; or, (as the school authors say,) deserve grace of congruity: yea, rather, for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin." That this doubt of our pious reformers was leginately founded, has been sufficiently demonstrated in the preceding reasonings.

II. The second scheme of salvation is founded on works of supererogation, voluntary and involuntary sufferings, &c. By supererogation I mean doing more than is required; being more obedient than the law of God demands, and thus forming a stock of extra meritorious acts; so that a man has not only enough for himself, but has a fund of merits, which a certain church professes to have the power to dispense to those who have few

or none.

On the preceding point I have proved that it is impos sible for any created dependant being to do more than its duty; how pure and holy soever that creature may be; and, under the same head, it is proved that no fallen creature, in its lapsed state, can even perform its duty without supernatural and gracious assistance; and, consequently, that the doctrine of works of supererogation is chimerical and absurd. On this part of the scheme, there is, therefore, no necessity to extend the argument. Another testimony from our church, article 14, will set this matter in a strong light: "Voluntary works beside, ever and above God's commandments, which they call works of supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety; for, by them men do declare, That they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do; but that they do more, for His sake, than of bounden duty is required: whereas Christ saith plainly. When ye have done all that are commanded of you,' say, 'We are unprofitable servants."" The arrogancy

and impiety, and we may add the ignorance, manifested by this doctrine, are truly without a parallel.

What remains to be considered, is the merit of sufferings, their capability to atone for sin, and their tendency to purify the soul.

:

I presume it will be taken for granted that there was no suffering in the world previously to the introduction of sin suffering is an imperfection in nature; and a creature, in a state of suffering, is imperfect, because a miserable creature. If an intelligent creature be found in a state of suffering, and of suffering evidently proceeding from the abuse of its powers; it necessarily supposes that such creature has offended God, and that its sufferings are the consequence of its offence, whether springing immediately from the crime itself, or whether inflicted by Divine justice, as a punishment for that crime. As sufferings in the animal being are the consequence of derangement or disease in the bodily organs, they argue a state of mortality; and experience shows that they are the predisposing causes of death and dissolution. Derangement and disease, by which the regular performance of natural functions is prevented, and the destruction of those functions ultimately effected, never could have existed in animal beings, as they proceeded from the hand of an all-perfect and intelligent Creator. They are, therefore, something that has taken place since creation; and are demonstrably contrary to the order, perfection and harmony of that creation; and consequently did not spring from God. As it would be unkind, if not unjust, to bring innumerable multitudes of innocent beings into a state of suffering or wretchedness; hence the sufferings that are in the world, must have arisen from the offences of the sufferers. Now, if sin have produced suffering, is it possible that suffering, can destroy sin? We may answer this question by asking another: Is it possible that the stream produced from a fountain can destrog the fountain from which it springs? Or, is it possible that

any effect can destroy the cause of which it is an effect? Reason has already decided these questions in the negative. Ergo, suffering, which is the effect of sin, cannot possibly destroy that sin of which it is the effect. To suppose the contrary, is to suppose the grossest absurdity that can possibly disgrace the understanding of man.

Whether these sufferings be such as spring necessarily out of the present constitution of nature; and the morbid alterations to which the constitution of the human body is liable from morbidly increased or decreased action: or whether they spring in part, from a voluntary assumption of a greater share of natural evil than ordinarily falls to the lot of the individual, the case is not altered; still they are the offspring and fruit of sin; and, as its effects, they cannot destroy the cause that gave them birth.

It is essential, in the nature of all effects, to depend on their causes; they have neither being nor operation but what they derive from those causes; and, in respect to their causes, they are absolutely passive. The cause may exist without the effect; but the effect cannot subsist without the cause: to act against its cause is impossible, because it has no independent being, nor operation; by it, therefore, the being, or state of the cause, can never be effected. Just so sufferings, whether voluntary or involuntary, cannot affect the being or nature of sin, from which they proceed. And, could we for a moment entertain the absurdity, that they could atone for, correct, or destroy the cause that gave them being, then we must conceive an effect, wholly dependant on its cause for its being, rise up against that cause, destroy it, and yet still continue to be an effect, when its cause is no more! The sun, at a particular angle, by shining against a pyramid, projects a shadow, according to that angle, and the height of the pyramid. The shadow, therefore, is the effect of the interception of the sun's rays, by the mass of the pyramid. Can any man suppose that this shadow would continue well defined, and discernible, though the

pyramid were annihilated, and the sun extinct ?—No. For the effect would necessarily perish with its cause. So, sin and suffering; the latter springs from the former; sin cannot destroy suffering, which is its necessary effect; and suffering cannot destroy sin, which is its producing cause: Ergo, salvation by suffering is absurd, contradictory, and impossible.

III. Penal sufferings, in a future state, are supposed by many to be sufficiently efficacious to purge the soul from the moral stains contracted in this life; and to make an atonement for the offences committed in time. This system is liable to all the objections urged against the preceding, and to several others peculiar to itself; for, if there had not been sin, there had not been punishment. Penal sufferings, inflicted by Divine justice, are the desert of the crimes which require justice to inflict such punishments. If the sufferings inflicted by this Divine justice be supposed to be capable of annihilating the cause for which they are inflicted; if they annihilate the cause, they must be greater than that cause, and consequently unjust; because, in that case, the punishment would be greater than the offence. Such penal inflictions could not proceed from a righteous God.

But the ground of this system is absurd: we have no evidence from Scripture or reason, that there are any emendatory punishments in the eternal world.

The state of probation certainly extends only to the ultimate term of human life. We have no evidence, either from Scripture or reason, that it extends to another state. There is not only a deep silence on this, in the divine records; but there are the most positive declarations against it. In time and life, the great business relative to eternity is to be transacted. On passing the limits of time, we enter into eternity: this is the unchangeable state. In that awful and indescribable infinitude of incomprehensible duration, we read of but two places or states; heaven and hell; glory and misery: endless

suffering and endless enjoyment. In these two places, or states, we read of but two descriptions of human beings: the saved and the lost; between whom there is that immeasurable gulf, over which neither can pass. In the one state, we read of no sin, no imperfection, no curse: there, "all tears are for ever wiped away from off all faces; and the righteous shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." In the other, we read of nothing but weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth;"-of "the worm that dieth not;" and of "the fire which is not quenched." Here, the effects and consequences of sin appear in all their colourings, and in all their consequences. Here, no dispensation of grace is published; no offers of mercy made; the unholy are unholy still; nor can the circumstances of their case afford any means by which their state can be meliorated; and we have already seen, that it is impossible that sufferings, whether penal or incidental, can destroy that cause (sin) by which they were produced.

Besides, could it be even supposed that moral purgation could be effected by penal sufferings, which is already proved to be absurd; we have no evidence of any such place as purgatory, in which this purgation can be effected: it is a mere fable, either collected from spurious and apocryphal writings, canonized by superstition and ignorance; or it is the offspring of the deliriums of pious visionaries, early converts from heathenism, from which they imported this part of their creed; there is not one text of Scripture, legitimately interpreted, that gives the least countenance to a doctrine, as dangerous to the souls of men, as it has been gainful to its inventors: so that, if such purgation were possible, the place where it is to be effected cannot be proved to exist. Before, therefore, any dependance can be placed on the doctrine raised on this supposition, the existence of the place must be proved; and the possibility of purgation in that place demonstrated. The opinion of our own church on this, and its kindred