and perfect, not to be final and vindictive. That the bulk of finners are not utterly incorrigible, even common obfervation fhews, but the History of Affociation makes it ftill more evident; and it feems very repugnant to analogy to fuppofe that any finners, even the very worst that ever lived, fhould be hardened beyond the reach of all fuffering, of all felfishness, hope, fear, goodwill, gratitude, &c. For we are all alike in kind, and do not differ greatly in degree here. have each of us paffions of all forts, and lie open to influences of all forts; fo as that the perfons A. and B. in whatever different proportions their intellectual affections now exift, may, by a fuitable fet of impreffions, become hereafter alike.

We

"Thefe, and many fuch like reafonings, muft occur to attentive perfons upon this fubject, fo as to make it highly unfuitable to the benevolence of the Deity, or to the relation which he bears to us, according to the mere light of nature, that infinite irreversible mifery, to commence at death, fhould be the punishment of the fins of this life.

And by

pursuing

pursuing this method of reafoning, we shall be led firft to exclude mifery upon the balance, and then to hope for the ultimate unlimited happinefs of all mankind.”

CON

CONVERSATION THE LAST.

THE fubjects of the former converfations occupied the attention of the company for fome time at the next meeting, when it was obferved to Marcellinus, that in a former converfation*, when he was pointing to the caufes of the great mifery and wickednefs which are complained of in the world, he had named one with which Revelation alone acquaints us, viz. the baneful influence and interference of an Evil Being, called the Devil or Satan, in the affairs of men; but had fince been wholly filent about it, as if it were a thing deferving no confideration.

It seems to me, obferved here Synefius, that it is not to be thus flightly paffed over For although you, Marcellinus, have fatisfactorily proved, that nature rightly understood holds forth only good; that the pains and fufferings, at which we murmur so

* Page 123.

loudly,

loudly, are kindly intended and in general beneficial to us, and, we should not be fo happy as we are at prefent without them; and even fin and wickedness are by the divine wifdom and mercy converted to good; nevertheless, as revelation is generally understood to teach, and the gofpel in particular by many afferted to be founded upon the reality of fuch an Evil Being, and fuch unqueftionably has the appearance of being a principal agent throughout the New Teftament; how much foever the thing may be made light of by fome as utterly improbable and inconfiftent with every idea we can form of the divine goodness, your vindication of that goodness will be lame and defective, unless you can fhew the infufficiency of these prefumed divine authorities to prove the existence of fuch a foul malignant fiend, which not a few chriftians with great earneftnefs maintain.

As therefore you have done me the favour to take in good part the remarks I prefumed to offer in the difcuffion in which you are engaged, I fhall be happy if the thoughts which I have with fome diligence put toge

ther

ther on the present subject, meet with your approbation.

The company expreffed high fatisfaction, and Synefius continued his addrefs.

It is fomewhat extraordinary that in the hiftory of the tranfgreffion of the first parents of mankind, at the beginning of our facred books, it should be fo very generally current with the learned as well as the unlearned, that by the ferpent, who is reprefented as misleading them to violate the command of their maker, we are to underftand, a wicked fpirit, the fuppofed enemy and opposer of God, and author of all evil; when at the fame time, Moses, who gives us the account of the tranfaction, never intimates that it is fo to be underftood, in this, or in any other part of his writings.

Neither, it is obfervable, do the learned jewish writers, who were contemporary with the apostles of Chrift, and whofe writings happily remain, give into this interpretation ; but generally fuppofed the ferpent to fignify men's depraved appetites and paffions, or what

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