On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    in a hundred thousand , ( nay , probably not one in a million , ) from Adam down to our times , shall be saved . " ( Wood , A . O . 1692 , IL 754 . ) This Du Moulin was a brother of Milton s

    antagonist , the author of JRegii San * guinis Clamor ad Ccelurn * The Moral Reflections produced the same year * ' Mercy Triumphant : the Kingdom of Christ enlarged beyond the narrow bounds which have been put to it , t > y Dr . Lewis Du Moulin , in his most Antichristian Book . By Edward Lane

    M . A ., Cambridge . " ( Ibid . I . 898 . J Of this writer 1 know nothing but what Wood further relates , that lie < c was educated in Pants School , and afterwards in St . John ' s College , Cambridge , " that he " became Vicar

    of North-Strobury , [ perhaps Shoehury ^\ in Essex , by the favour of the Lord-Keeper Coventry , 1630 , and was thence removed by the same hand to the Vicarage of Spersholt , near Rumsey , Hants . " His answer to Du

    Moulin was reprinted in 1681 , " together with several arguments about Transubstantiation , not in any author yet ; " and an Answer to Hickeringilfs " Second Part of Naked Truth ; J . T . RUTT .

    Untitled Article

    Sir , Clapham . AS one of your Correspondents ( p . 295 ) has been pleased to notice some remarks of mine * which you lately inserted on the subject of Final Restitution , ( p . 87 , ) perhaps

    you will allow me to add a few words further in support of what I then advanced- As to the general observations made in the paper alluded * o , they are just , I think , and liberal , and I heartily approve of them . I love free inquiry as well as any one , though I believe there is not much room for it

    on the present subject . What I maintained was this : that the arguments by which the doctrine of Final Restitution is supported , are feeble and unsound in their nature , and can form

    no just grmmd for allowing this doctrine to pass for a part of religious truth . Now I argued that in attempting to deduce this doctrine from the attributes of the Deity , we enter on a field where we have not sufficient

    experience to guide us . In answer , your ** Occasional Reader" observes , that we may indeed be thus in the dark as

    Untitled Article

    484 "On Pinal Restitution .

    Untitled Article

    to particular events , which are neces . sarily involved in complicated circumstances , but that in a question which like this , regards the final result of the Divine government , certain necessary consequences from the Divine attributes may be manifest enough . Now this , as a general remark , appears very just , but I wish to shew that it is not applicable to the present question 5 that is , that we are as unable to deduce the doctrine of the final happiness of all men from what we know of God , as we are to prophesy distant events from what we know of thf

    course of things in this world . Let us consider the sort of argument by wliich this doctrine is maintained . 46 God , " it is said , " is almighty , and just and good : it is highly improbable that such a being should create such a race as mankind * and afterward

    suffer any of that race to perish 5 " that is , as the matter stands , that he should suffer any man to fail of final happiness through obstinate impenitence . Here the question arises , Why is it improbable ? How is it at variance with any known attribute of God ?

    Is it unjust ? It is inconceivable on what ground any one can complain of injustice , if by wilful , persevering misconduct , he forfeit a gift to which , were he innocent , he could have no

    claim , and which , were he penitent , he could not receive but through an act of pardoning mercy . Some , indeed , have most fool-hardily denied that God can justly punish transgression at all , inasmuch as a creature can

    be neither better nor worse than his Creator has made him . The premises here are not unjust : God asserts for himself that he creates evil as well as good : he has not so constituted the world as to prevent sin and evil from entering ; that is a fact , and we do not

    now attempt to explain it by the hypothesis of two creators ; but would it mend the case to suppose that God allows this evil to proceed without check or punishment ? No : sin and punishment must come together * That

    sin should exist may be a mystery , but it is a fact ; but then that punishment should follow sin , is no mystery , but perfectly natural : God-would ' be unjust if it did not . He would be destitute of every moral attribute . But perhaps 1 have dwelt too long on

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1819, page 484, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1775/page/24/