380 RUN AND RECOVERY, &C. comparison of those who shall be found sinners against the clear and express publication of the gospel, at the great judgment day; Mat. xi. 20-24. The testimony of St. Paul ; Acts xvii. 30. seems also to support the same opinion, where he tells us, that God winked at those times, at this ignorance, wherein the heathen and idolatrous nations lived before the manifestation of the gospel. The word vorrfilrur doth not mean that he let them go without punishment, for, Rom. ii. 9, 12. Tribulation and anguish will fall upon every soul that doth evil, whether Jew or Gentile. Those who have sinned without law, shall perish without law: But God took but little notice of them with an eye of punishing justice, in comparison of those who shall hear of those solemn calls to re- pentance which are now given to men by the gospel of Christ, and the preaching of the judgment of the world byhim. Thus every sinner's punishment in the other world, shall stand in an exact proportion to the aggravation of the sins they have com- mitted, considered together with the different degrees of light and knowledge they have received. Divine justice will mea- sure out to every one their righteous proportions, with perfect exactess. -o_ Quest. XVI.--What will be the State and Condition of that large Part of Mankind who die in Infancy, under any of he Dispensations of the Covenant of Grace? Answer. It is a very large part of mankind, indeed, that dies in the infant state, before they arrive at any capacity to know God or their duty, virtue or vice, and therefore they can- not be charged with actual sin, or rewarded for actual obedi- ence. 1f we may judge by the yearly bills of mortality*, we find more than a third part of the race of inan dying before they arrive at two years old, and about half before five: A dreadful devastation of nature ! A wide spectacle of ruin, diffused over all nations and ages, by the sin of their common father ! It is true, we cannot tell at what age of life, or at what de- grees of growing reason, the great God will appoint children to standupon their own foot, and will deal with them as rational it Perhaps it will be said, that the bills of mortality in or near London, are no sufficient rule to judge of the deaths of mankind in general, because multi- tudes of young creatures die there for want of air and conveniences of life. at let it be remembered also, that in the savage nations of Asia, Africa and America, there are more of those young creatures die for want of due care, and for want also of the methods of human skill to relieve the diseases of children, and by this means someof the savage countries are almost depopulated, and the nations destroyed, as travellers inform us. So that take all mankind together, and I am ready to think the bills of mortality, in and near London, may pretty nearly yield us a just calculation as to this matter,.
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