law. The children of the traiter, net having broken the law, what they suffer may be a misfortune, or a loss, or an infliction; but as to them it is not a punishment. Yet, in some sense, it is a punishment-it is the punishment of the parent, then, who is unconscious of it: therefore punishment may be threatened which shall outlast the consciousness of the offender.

The punishment, in this case, consists in making the offender stand in a different relation to his offspring; as a curse instead of a blessing; and it lasts as long as this difference continues. Then when the punishment consists in exclusion from an eternal good, it affects the state of the criminal as long as the blessing would have lasted, and is therefore an eternal punishment.

No. VI.

HOOKER'S ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. Book I. Page 23. "Under man, no creature in the world is capable of felicity and bliss: first, because their chiefest perfection consisteth in that which is best for them, but not in that which is simply best, as ours doth: secondly, whatsoever external perfection they tend unto, it is not better than themselves, as ours is." Apply this to the unregenerate.

Page 24. Man doth seek a triple perfection: first, a sensual, consisting in those things which very life itself requireth, either as necessary supplements, or as beauties and ornaments thereof; then an intellectual, consisting in those things which none underneath man is capable of or acquainted with; lastly, a SPIRITUAL AND DIVINE, consisting in those things whereunto WE TEND, by supernatural means here, but cannot here attain unto them.

"This last and highest state of perfection whereof we speak, is received of men, in the nature of reward." Can we say, or punishment?

Page 26. "They are, saith St. Augustine, but a few, and they endued with great ripeness of wit and judgment, free from all such affairs as might trouble their meditations, instructed in the sharpest and most subtilest points of learning,

who have, and that very hardly, been able to find out but only the immortality of the soul."

We see, therefore, that our sovereign good is not desired naturally.

Page 28. "For let us not think that as long as the world doth endure, the wit of man shall be able to sound the bottom of that which may be concluded out of the scripture."

Page 29. "Whereupon it followeth, that either all flesh is excluded from possibility of salvation, which to think were most barbarous; or else that God hath, by supernatural means, revealed the way of life so far forth as does suffice.

"The church, being a supernatural society, doth differ from natural societies in this, that the persons unto whom we associate ourselves in the one are men, simply considered as men; but they to whom we be joined in the other are God, angels, and holy men."

Page 33. "The law of reason doth in somewhat direct men how to honour God as their Creator, but how to glorify God in such sort as is required, to the end He may be an everlasting Saviour, this we are taught by divine law, which law both ascertaineth the truth and supplieth unto us the want of that other law. So that in moral actions, divine law helpeth exceedingly the law of reason to guide man's life, but in supernatural, IT ALONE guideth."

No. VII.

SHERLOCK'S SERMON ON THE RESURRECTION. "If, therefore, we value the privilege of being reasonable creatures, the ONLY WAY to preserve it is to make use of it.

"Death is the destruction of the man: sure we are that the lifeless body is no man; and, whatever notions some may have of the soul in its state of separate existence, yet a mere spirit is not a man; for man is made of soul and body; and therefore, to bring the man into judgment to answer for his deeds, the soul and the body must be brought together again."

No. VIII.

GLOUCESTER RIDLEY'S SERMON ON THE HOLY

SPIRIT.

"Thus man was created in incorruption; and his righteousness, had he continued in it, would have made him immortal. The knowledge of spiritual good, without which the will could not have been free, or have power to chuse it, was not essential, but supernaturally vouchsafed by immediate revelations from God and communications with Him. Immortality was not necessary to his nature, but the additional gift and REWARD of his Creator, to be acquired by the use of means."

No. IX.

The following chapter so pointedly illustrates that which I suppose to be God's dealing with the wicked, that I insert it here, thinking no one can refute my position, until they can answer God's question: "If when it was whole it was meet for no work, how much less when the fire hath devoured it, and it is burned?"

Ezekiel, xv. 1. "And the word of the Lord came unto me saying; 2. Son of man, what is the vine tree more than any tree, or than a branch that is among the trees of the forest? 3. Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon? 4. Behold it is cast into the fire for fuel; the fire devoureth both the ends of it, and the midst of it is burnt. Is it meet for any work? 5. Behold, when it was whole it was meet for no work: how much less shall it be meet yet for any work, when the fire hath devoured it, and it is burned? 6. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, As the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 7. And I will set my face against them; they shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them, and ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I set my face against them. 8. And I will make the land desolate, because they have committed a trespass, saith the Lord God."

No. X.

Note with reference to Page 228. .

"The probability is then, &c."—It having suggested itself to the writer, that some may object that to speak of the only begotten Son of God as produced, excludes the proper divinity of Christ; he anticipates the objection, and professes that he believes in the divinity of Christ with his whole heart, soul, mind, and understanding. He remarks that the objection seems to him founded on a metaphysical, not a scriptural, distinction; and that it would include this absurdity, it would be a charge of denying the equality of Christ with the Father, because the Father hath made Him His equal. With respect to Christ's eternity as to time past, the writer holds, that his existence is anterior to all other beings, and cotemporary (if he may so speak) with the being of God.