514 STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF HUMAN REASON. in ignorance and vice, whose parents had lost the knowledgeof God, and their duty before they were born, and who never came within the reach of the gospel in any of the dispensations of it, either by Noahor Abraham, Moses or Christ ? What if we should suppose these wretches, by the overflowingmercy of God, should be favoured with some other state of trial or probation, before the final sentence of the last day condemns them to perpetual misery ? You know some persons have supposed, that in the in- visible regions where sinful spirits are kept, the souls ofthe rebels who were disobedient in the days of Noah, and were drowned in the flood, enjoyed the preaching of the gospel by Jesus Christ himself, and that after they had lain in prison and punishment some thousands of years Christ went into hell for that purpose ; 1 Pet. iii. 19. and preached to the spirits in prison, who were 'once disobedient. Now what if these guilty and unhappy crea- tures, who never had any opportunity to acquaint themselves with the true God and his worship, and with any dispëñsation of his mercy, shall be raised again in the second resurrection, after the millenium, or the happy state of the church, is expired ? And after they have sustained punishment for their former madness and folly from the time of their death till that day, what if they should be put upon another trial under the dispensation of chris- tianity, that so none of all the race of Adammay be finally con- demned without having the actual knowledge of the gospel, at least in some or other of the ancient or later dispensations of it ? This would not afford the least glimpse of hope to those sinners who have finally rejected the divine revelations which have been made to them under any of the dispensations of the gospel, and especially under the light of christianity : Yet this would solve every difficulty, and remove every pretence against the justice of God, in his present conduct towards heathens. It is true, I can- not say that I can find this in my bible : but a very learned and ingenious divine of the church of England, who wrote about thirty years ago, thinks he bath found it there, and that is Mr. Staynoe, in his first volume of the Salvation of Man by Jesus Christ, to which essay on this subject I refer you: butI venture no further into these depths and unsearchables of the divine counsel. Yet it must be confessed, that if there should be any other state of trial appointed for those unhappy creatures, whom God is said to wink at in the days of their ignorance ; Acts xvii. 30. and perhaps for this reason he is said to wink at them, because he intended, another state of probation for them; I say, if there should be such a state, it is not improbable, that vast multitudes of them might repent and believe, and be saved. PITH. This is a very strange supposition indeed : and I think there might be considerable objections raised against it from several plates of scripture.
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