Archbishop Tillotson is thought to have been unfavourable to the doctrine of Eternal Torment, although, among his Sermons, is one attempting its defence; and not without reason might he wish to be rid of that subject which had deeply wounded his character as a divine; for, finding it difficult to reconcile the doctrine to the justice of God, he in an evil hour wrote that it concerned not God's justice, but His prudencethe prudence of the omniscient-the omnipotent God.

The very excellent Dr. Isaac Watts exerts his whole strength to maintain a doctrine he thought contained in the Holy Scriptures, and is betrayed into a palpable over-statement by his zeal. He declares," that the Apostles kindle the flames of hell in their epistles-they thunder through the hearts and consciences of men with the voice of damnation and Eternal Misery, to make stupid sinners feel, &c. ;" but in supporting this statement by quotations, familiar as he was with the writ ings of the Apostles, he produces only one text from the epistles, and that one in the very teeth of his assertion, since it threatens not Eternal Misery, but "everlasting destruction from the presence of God, and from the glory of His power."

Dr. Leland imposes on himself by overlooking duration as a measure of punishment; which happening to be the very thing in question, he can then, without difficulty, arrive at his conclusion" that all will be just."

With these few remarks I refer the reader to the extracts subjoined,thinking they will justify the view I have taken...

BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR.

Whatever may be thought of the instances here employed to illustrate the nature of Eternal Misery, it is undeniable that the description must fall short of reality, because the least misery, continued for ever, must be worse than any thing we can conceive. Then if we feel horror and disgust at that which is less, what would the greater excite in us could we conceive it?

The most horrible cruelties of men, and worse, are here ascribed to the Divine Being, and unquestionably fall short of the reality; for if the doctrine of Eternal Misery be true, the

worst tyrants that ever disgraced humanity were the most zealous imitators of God, because, be it remembered, that they imitate Him in vastly the largest sphere of His dealing with His creatures; for few only are saved of the countless millions who have been cursed with the human form; since there is no name given under Heaven whereby men can be saved than Jesus of Nazareth; and "as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive;" those to the resurrection of damnation, and these to the resurrection of life eternal.

Jeremy Taylor's Contemplations on the State of Man. Page 39. "In vain doth man trouble himself; he troubles himself, and before he attains rest, is overwhelmed; he mounts on high like a tempest, and like dust is scattered and disappears; he is kindled like a flame, and vanishes like smoke; he spreads himself as a cloud, and is contracted as a drop." Page 53. "Death consists in the soul's leaving of the body."

Page 65. "Life is the passing of a shadow, short, troublesome, and dangerous."

Page 67. "O vain man! this short life is bestowed upon thee for gaining the goods of Heaven, which are to last eternally, and you spend it in seeking those of the earth, which are to perish instantly."

Page 78. "If an ignorant peasant, who had never drawn a bow, should be commanded to shoot at a mark far distant, upon condition that if he hit it he should be highly rewarded with many rich gifts, but if he missed it, and that at the first shoot, he should be burnt alive.-This is our case."

Page 96. "How shall we remain amazed when we shall see a number of our actions to be sins which we never thought to be such! And what is more, we shall find that to be a fault which we thought to be a laudable work."

Page 100. Consider what thou wert before He gave thee being-nothing."

Page 101. "How many, for one only fault committed, hath He withdrawn His preservation from, and suffered them to die in that sin for which they are now in hell!”

!

Page 104." Thus did God; taking upon Him the form of a servant, and dying upon the cross, to free condemned man from eternal death."

Page 118. "Inundations of the sea, the fury of whirlwinds, and lightning from heaven, shall fall into the universal fire; that deluge of flames which shall consume all, and make an end of men and their memories."

Page 121. "For only charity, holiness, and christian virtues, shall not end when the world ends."

Page 124. "The sound, Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment,' shall pierce unto the infernal region, from whence the souls of the damned shall issue forth, and re-enter their bodies, which shall from thenceforward suffer the terrible torments of hell.

"The souls of the blessed, filling their bodies, shall join those who remain alive in the air in their passible bodies, which being yet mortal, shall then die, and then be purified," &c..

Page 126. "The Saviour of the World shall sit upon a throne of great majesty, his countenance shall be most mild and peaceable towards the good, and (though the same) most terrible to the bad."

Page 129. "Depart from me.' Alas! dread Sovereign, whither shall they go to avoid thy displeasure? Art thou not in heaven, in hell, and every where? Dost thou not fill heaven and earth? Dost thou not hold the universe in thy hands, and doth not thy power comprehend all things? To whom shall they betake themselves? Art thou not He who hast the words of eternal life, who art even thyself life everlasting? Whither wilt thou have these miserable creatures retire themselves? Do what they can, they cannot go out of thee, since in thee all things have motion, life, and being.”

Page 158. "If to the most tormented soul in hell were. added all the torments of the rest of the damned, both men and devils, and that God should vouchsafe him but one glimpse of his knowledge, that only clear vision, though in the lowest degree, were sufficient to free him from all those evils both of sin and pain."

Page 180. The bodies of the saints are impassible."

Page 181." And are free, not only from the grief and pain of this life, but if they should enter into hell, it would ́not burn one hair of them."

Page 185. "The evils of hell are truly evils, and so purely such that they have no mixture of good."

Page 186. "God is the greatest good, and it is therefore the greatest evil to be deprived of Him, because evil is the privation of good; and that is to be esteemed the greatest evil which is a privation of the greatest good, which is God.”

Page 188. "The damned would take it for a great regale to have a dunghill for their bed, instead of the burning coals of that eternal fire."

Page 189.

"They shall be deprived, for their enormous offences, of eternal glory.

"If one should place a thousand hells before me, nothing could be so horrible to me as to be excluded from the honour of glory, to be hated of Christ, and to hear from Him those words, I know you not.""

Page 193. "It was a great tyranny in Alexander, after

he had cut off the nose, ears, and lips of Calisthenes, to cast so worthy a person into a dungeon, accompanied only with a dog; but the damned would take it for a favour." (Alexander was more merciful than God then.)

Page 193. The tyrants of Japonia hung those who confessed Christ with their heads downwards, half their bodies in a hole in the earth, filled with snakes, lizards, and other poisonous vermin; but even those were better companions than the infernal dragons."

Page 194. How grievous is the banishment into that place where none wishes well unto another, where fathers hate their sons, and sons abhor their fathers!" (Then sin reigns in hell.)

Page 196. "Besides, the bodies of the damned, after the final judgment past, shall be so crowded together in that infernal dungeon, that the holy scripture compares them to grapes in the wine-press, which press one another till they burst."

Page 197,"Actiolinus, the tyrant, (as Paulos Jovius

writes,) had many prisons full of torments, miseries, and ill smells, wherein they came to a slow but most cruel death. But what were those prisons to that of hell, in respect of which they may be esteemed as paradise, full of jessamine and lilies?

"That misery vanished at the hour of death; but this prison of the damned is void of all comfort, the torments thereof are intolerable, because they are eternal.

"Death cannot enter in there."

(Search the scriptures.)

Page 202. "There shall not be any joint, or the least part of the body, which shall not cause him an intolerable pain."

Page 203. "Egesippus writes, that Alexander, the son of Hircanus, resolving to punish certain persons with exemplary rigour, caused 800 to be crucified, and, whilst they were yet alive, caused their wives and children to be murdered before their eyes; this rigour shall not be wanting in hell." Page 205. "Horrible was that torment used by Mezentius, to tie a living body to a dead, and leave them till the dead had killed the living; but what is this, in respect of hell, when each body of the damned is more loathsome and unsavoury than a million of dead dogs, and all those pressed together in so strait a compass?"

Page 208. "We are amazed to think of the inhumanity of Phalaris, who roasted men alive in his brazen bull; this was a joy in respect of that fire of hell which penetrates the very entrails of the body without consuming them."

Page 209. "Who would not esteem it a hideous torment if he were to be burnt alive 100 times, and his torment to last every time for an hour? with what compassionate eyes would all the world look upon such a miserable wretch! nevertheless, without all doubt, any of the damned in hell would receive this as a great happiness to end his torments; for what comparison is there between 100 hours and 100 years, between 100 years and as long as God is God?”

Page 210. "Continual blasphemies against God, and the