CONFERENCE t 123 think, that some of my infidel acquaintance talk with too much assurance and triumph upon these subjects, because they never entered far enough into enquiries about them, to learn the diffi- culties with which their opinions are surrounded. We are too ready to think the great God a mere weak good-natured thing, such as some magistrates have been in wicked nations, and that heutterly neglects to lay due restraints upon the vices ,of his sub- jects, that he disregardsthe demands of justice, and the rights of government. If I mistake not, your Ilebrew poet introduces God himself making this reflection upon some of the loose and profligate fellows of that age, who were not willing to have vice too' severely punished ; Thou thoughtest I was altogether such a one as thyself; but ,i will reprove thee, and set thy sins in order before thine eyes; Ps. I.21. PITH. Dear Sir, since you have done David the honour to cite him in our debates, I beg leave to repeat the awful address he makes to those vicious creatures in the very next words: Consider this, ,ye that forget God, lest he tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. Punishment belongs to guilt, and God the Governor of the world, has a right to inflict it if he please. I grant, these persons of whom the Psal- mist here speaks, were impenitent sinners : But there are many passages in scripture that concur with our natural reason, and inform us, that God may, and sometimes doth punish in some degree those favourites whom he finally pardons. In Ps. xcix. 8, David says, Thouvast a God that forgavest them, though thou toòkest vengeance of their inventions. Nor can all the light of reason assure us; that God will entirely forgive a penitent in this world or in the other, without some pisnishment. Loo. I would readily yield, Pithander, as far as your argument carries evidence with it. ,But though we cannot be fully assured, that repentingcriminals shall be completely par- doned, yet you have granted, there is very probable ground for a penitent to hope, that God will forgive him at last : and if reason can lead him but to a probability of this final forgiveness, it gives sufficient ground for the practice of repentance and future obe- dience, though there may be some sore punishments in his way to final happiness. PITH. Please `to consider, dear Sir, that though J have. allowed that the force of reason, under happy advantages and" improvements, and in its best exercises, may reach thus far, yet when the reason or conscience of a poor untaught African savage has been by any providence so far awakened, as to think himself a criminal before God, and lias this soul made deeply sensible of sin, I hardly see how he can, upon just and solid grounds, get through all the difficulties which I have mentioned. Will his own rude and uninstructed reason tell him, that God will pro-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=