"What none can prove a forg'ry may be true;

What none but bad men wish exploded, must."

You know what pain of body is, and you are no stranger to a greater or less degree of uneasiness of mind.-Experience, therefore, teaches us, that we are capable of such uncomfortable sensations. The goodness of God is not of that nature to prevent human misery. The present state largely abounds therewith. Now, as pain and misery are permitted here, it is not improbable they will be the same in the future state of existence. When only your head or tooth aches; when the gout, stone, or gravel, seize you; or when a burning fever makes your moisture like the drought in summer; do you then despise pain and anguish? When Mirabeau, was seized(9) with his last illness,

(9) Mirabeau has frequently been stiled an infidel. I dare not however, suppose that he was any other than a Christian though possibly of a peculiar cast. If one may judge from his speech, pronounced in the National Assembly of France, on the 14th of January, 1791, concerning the civil constitution of the clergy, he was certainly a believer in the Saviour of mankind, and a most powerful advocate for regenerated christianity. It is probable, that he would have carried it no further than a sort of pure system of moral philosophy.

The

Speaking of this extraordinary genius brings to my mind a remarkable paper. which was published in the month of October 1764, on the Causes of the Decline of the French Nation. latter part is so extremely applicable to the present state of Europe, that one can scarcely consider it as any other than prophetic: The close runs thus:

"The parliaments of France are obliged to conceal the strong spirit of liberty with which they are inflamed, under the mask of loyalty, and of attachment to the monarchy. They remonstrate with force and elevation against every measure that tends to the prejudice of the provinces they protect. They can go no further; but they await the moment to strike the blow that shall lay the fabric of despotism in ruins. When this blow is struck, the effects of it will be equal to those of magic. The cottage will be put on a level with the palace; the peasant with the prince. Ranks shall be confounded; titles, distinctions, and birth, shall tumble into an undistinguished heap of confusion. A new moral creation shall strike the view of an astonished and admiring universe;

he found himself so distressed, that he desired his physician to dispatch him by poison. His voice hav

and France, like old Rome, in her first flights to empire, shall appear with the sceptre of universal dominion bourgeoning in her hands. Out of universal confusioh, order shall arise: the great of nature's creating will assume their places: and the great by title and accident, will drop despised into the common mass of the people."

The French revolution is a most amazing and tremendous event, and will probably be a mean of new-modelling the face of Europe, if not of the whole world. The efforts that extraordinary people are making in the arts and sciences, are as vigorous as those they are making in war. The Governor of the universe has formed them for great purposes, both of judgment and mercy; of judgment to the present race of men; of mercy to the generations which follow. This, however, we know, in every event of things, it shall be well with them that fear the Lord.

The serious Christian will remember that these are the days of vengeance for the innocent blood that was shed in France under the predecessors of the late unfortunate king. He acquitted himself extremely well in the last trying scenes of his life; but he was a main support of the beast; and died a determined Catholic: not knowing that this was one of the main causes of his destruc. tion. The doctrine of retaliation, though little attended to in ge. neral, is an undoubted law of God's kingdom in the government of the world. A moral governor must be morally just. "He that sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed." The French philosophers have been nearly as cruel to the clergy of France during the revolution, as the clergy, at different periods, were to the Protestants. We are crying out against the wickedness and cruelty of the present governors of that kingdom, but we forge that the kings, bishops, clergy, nobles, and gentry of the land, played the same game, and acted the same tragedy, not very many years ago. It is the Lord's controversy for the blood of his ser

vants.

Burnet was in France at the time of the horrible persecution of the Protestants under Lewis XIV.

"I do not think," says he, "that in any age, there ever was such a violation of all that is sacred, either with relation to God or man; and what I saw and knew there from the first hand, hath so confirmed all the ideas that I had taken from books, of the cruelty of that religion, that I hope the impression that this hath made upon me, shall never end but with my life.-From the circumstances of it, it may be well termed, the act of the whole clergy of France."

ing failed him, he wrote, "Would you think that the sensation of death proves so painful?" His speech having returned, he said, "My pains are insupportable. I have an age of strength, but not a moment of courage.' A convulsion ensued. It was followed by a loud scream-and he expired.

While he was in health he might be as full of courage as you now feel. When the hand of God is upon the stoutest of us, we are soon taught, that all our boasted strength is perfect weakness, and all our vaunted courage perfect cowardice. We may be permitted for a time to carry on the war against God and his Christ; but it will not do. A sick bed, or a dying pillow, will, in all likelihood, bring us to our senses.(40)

(40) A more extraordinary instance of impenitency I have not read, than that of a William Williams, who died in April, 1791. This unhappy man had been extremely wicked in his life. When he drew near his end, being about seventy years of age, he determined to make his will, and leave all he had from his wife and children, alledging that the latter were none of his. But though he bade fifty pounds as a reward, no persons could be found who would sign as witnesses. He desired, when he died, that a pair of clog shoes should be put into his coffin, that he might pound devils and damned souls with them in hell. Being reproved for his swearing and wickedness, he told those that reproved him, that he neither regarded them, nor their new God; he would curse and swear so long as he had breath -He did so. He ordered his body to be drawn in his own cart to be buried.—It was so. He charged that five shillings should be spent at every public house on the road.-Some of it was so. He desired he might be laid at the corner of the church-yard next the public house, that he might have the pleasure of hearing the company there curse and swear. He requested that every one of his companions would drink a health, standing upon his grave after it was filled up.They did so; and continued to drink and make merry over his grave, for near two hours after the interment.

This shews us there are cases to be met with of persons, who are so hardened in their sin, and so totally given up of God, that neither sickness nor death can make any impression upon them. I remember one of this unhappy description whom I both visited during his illness, and interred after he was dead. He was so totally depraved, that when one of his bottle-companions wrote

Or should these be so unfortunate as to fail, a day of judgment will assuredly do the business, which they had left undone.

"To die,-to sleep ;

To sleep! perchance to dream! ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause."

If man is a reasonable creature, there is an hereafter. And if there is an hereafter, it must be a state of retribution. A moral governor must deal with moral agents according to their moral conduct. The perfection of his nature requires it. I swear by the Eternal, therefore, all the denunciations of Scripture shall have their accomplishment upon you, if you prevent it not by a compliance with the gracious and equitable demands of the gospel.

It surely is a very astonishing consideration, that a being such as man, placed on a small globe of earth in a little corner of the universe, cut off from all communication with the other systems, which are dispersed through immensity of space, imprisoned as it were, on the spot where he happens to be born, almost utterly ignorant of the variety of spiritual existences,

to inform him that he was about to die and go to hell, and desired to know what place he should bespeak for him there, he sat down and gave him for reply, that he did not care where it was, if there was only brandy and rum enough. Thus he lived-and, soon after this, died a martyr to spirituous liquors-cursing and blaspheming, notwithstanding all that could be done to bring him to a better mind. Being possessed of two bank bills of the value of ten pounds each, which was all the little property he had left: "Now," said he to a person who stood by, "when I have spent these in brandy and rum, I shall be contented to die and go to hell" He sunk, however, before they were expended, and left just enough to bury him.

These are shocking instances of obduracy, which seem to vie with Pharoah himself, and ought to warn every man how he trifles with the convictions of his own mind, and causes the Spirit of God to withdraw from him.

N

and greatly circumscribed in his knowledge of material things, by their remoteness, magnitude, or minuteness, a stranger to the nature of the very pebbles on which he treads, unacquainted, or but very obscurely informed by his natural faculties of his condition after death; it is wonderful that a being, such as this, should reluctantly receive, or fastidiously reject the instruction of the Eternal God! Or, if this is saying too much, that he should hastily, and negligently, and triumphantly conclude, that the supreme Being never had condescended to instruct the race of man. It might have been expected, that a rational being, so circumstanced, would have sedulously inquired into a subject of such vast importance: that he would not have suffered himself to have been diverted from the investigation, by the pursuits of wealth, or honour, or any temporal concern; much less by notions taken up without attention, or prejudices imbibed in early youth from the profane ridicule, or impious jestings of sensual and immoral men.

It is customary with you who reject the Scriptures, to consider every believer of them as weak and credulous.(1) Suspend your censures, and reconsider the matter before you form a final judgment.-Do you seriously think, that a man who believes in God, that he is the Creator and Governor of the world, and a rewarder of them that diligently seek him:-that a man who embraces the gospel as a dispensation of mercy, and conducts himself according. to the letter and spirit of it, is a weak and despicable character? Can you, in the sober fear of God, esteem all the great men among Christians to have been un

(1) Let the more solid, rational, and inquisitive deist, who is in pursuit of moral and religious truth, and wishes to have his mind satisfied in the great things which concern human happiness, have recourse to Clarke on the Truth and Certainty of the Christian Religion; and then let him say, whether all who believe in the Saviour of the world, are weak and credulous persons.