Natural Powers: For to preferve their Natures, and to actuate their Natural Powers, is no more a Caufe of their Sin, than to make fuch Natures, and fuch Natural Powers.

To represent this as plainly as I can, Let us fuppofe that God had created Man with a Natural Power to act, without needing fuch a perpetual Concourfe and Co-operation to enable him to act; would this charge God with the Sins of Men, because they Act, even when they Sin, by a Power derived from him in their firft Creation? If this makes God the Author of Sin, then God can't make a Creature, who is capable of finning by the abuse of its natural Powers, without being the Author of Sin; which is too abfurd for any thinking Man to fay: And yet if it does not, how does God's perpetual con; courfe and co-operation with Creatures to enable them to act, and to exert their Natural Powers, make God the Author of Sin? For this is no more than a natural Power to act, and it makes no difference, whether this natural Power be given once for all, as an inherent Power in Creatures, or be fupplied every Minute; for both ways the Power is the fame, and equally derived from God: And if the natural Power of acting, charges God with Mens Sins, the Charge lies equally against a creating and co-operating Power; if it does not, God is no more chargeable with Sin for co-operating with: Mens natural Powers in every Action, than he would be for creating fuch natural Powers as could act of themfelves.

God's Government of the World must be fitted to the Natures of the Creatures which he has made, without denying them the natural Powers of Action; and therefore while he co

operates

operates with Creatures only to ac according to the liberty of their own Natures, this is no fault in his Government, nor contributes any thing more to the Sins of Creatures, than preferving their Natures, which as much becomes God, as it did to make them.

Thus fome think it a great blemish to Providence, that Adulterous Mixtures prove fruitful, when increafe and multiply is an established Decree from the firft Creation, and the fettled Courfe and Order of Nature muft not be reverfed by the Sins of Men: They may as well object against Providence, That a Man who fteals his Neighbour's Grain, and Sows it in his own Land, fhould have a plentiful Crop the next Year from his ftolen Seed. And whatever Opinion Men have concerning the origination of the Soul, Whether it be propagated ex traduce, or did præ-exift, or be immediately created by God, and infused into prepared Matter, it makes no difference in the cafe; for when the Order of Nature is fettled, and the Bleffing pronounced and established by the Divine Decree, it does not unbecome God to preferve the Powers of Nature to produce their natural Effects; I am fure, there want not wife Reasons in God's Government of the World, why it fhould be fo, to reftrain some Mens Lufts, and to fhame and punish others.

Nay, I believe, whoever confiders this Matter well, will acknowledge, that it goes a great way in answering the greatest Difficulty of all, viz. The Eternal Punishments of Wicked Men in the next World.

The Objection is not againft God's punishing wicked Men in the next World; for no body pretends, that this is unjuft for God to pu

hith the Wicked, whether in this World, or in the next.

Nor is the Objection against the Nature of thefe Punishments; for indeed we do not diftinctly know what they are, no more than we know what the Happiness of Heaven is. Those Descriptions our Saviour gives of them, of lakes of fire and brimstone, blackness of Darkness, the worm that never dieth, and the fire that never goeth out, prove that they are very great, because these Descriptions are intended to prefent to us very frightful and terrible Images of the Miseries of the Damned: But this is not the Complaint neither; for it is confeffed, that wicked Men deserve to be very Miferable.

But the Objection is against that vaft difpro portion between Time and Eternity; How it is reconcileable with the Divine Juftice to pu nish Temporal Sins with Eternal Miseries; that when Men can Sin but for a very few Years; they must fuffer for it for ever?

Now the difficulty of this feems in part to be owing to a mif-ftating the Cafe. There is no Proportion indeed between Time and Eternity; and it is therefore difficult to conceive, that every momentary Sin fhould in its own Nature dé ferve Eternal Punishments; but there is no difficulty to conceive, that an immortal Sinner may, by fome fhort and momentary Sins, fink himfelf into an irrecoverable State of Mifery, and then he must be miferable as long as he contihues to be; and if he can never die, he must be always miferable, and may be fo, without any Injustice in God. We do not here confider the proportion between the continuance of the Sin and the Punishment; between a thort tranfient Act, and Eternal Punishments; for it is not che D

J

Sin, but the Sinner, that is punished for his Sin; and therefore we must not ask, How long Pu- \ nishment a fhort Sin deferves? but, How long the Sinner deferves to be punished? And the Answer to that is easy, As long as he is a Sinner: And therefore an immortal Sinner, who can never die, and will never ceafe to be wicked, (which is the hopeless and irrecoverable state of Devils and damned Spirits) must always be miferable; and it is juft it fhould be fo, if it be juft to punish Sinners; and there is nothing to quarrel with God for, as to the Eternity of Punishments, unless it be, that he does not annihilate Immortal Spirits, when they are become incurably wicked and miferable. The Justice of God is only concerned to punish Sinners; that their Punishments are Eternal, is a neceffary Confequence of their Immortality; and this can't be charged on God, unless it be a fault to make immortal Creatures, and to preserve and uphold immortal Creatures in Being; or to punish Sinners while they deserve Punishment, that is, while they are Sinners.

It may give fome Light to this Matter, to remove the Scene into this World: We see the Punishment of Sin in this World bears no proportion to the Time of committing it, but to the lasting Effects of the Sin. One fhort fingle act of Luft may not only leave a lafting Reproach on Mens Names, but deftroy the Health and Eafe of their Bodies, and the Pleasure of their Lives, for their ever in this World; and had Man continued immortal after the Fall, thefe miferable Effects muft have continued for ever, and then there had been a visible eternal Punishment for a very fhort tranfient Sin, and yet no Man would have blamed the Juftice of

God

God for it; which fhews, That a Sin, which is quickly committed, may be eternally punished, and that very juftly too, when the Effects of it are incurable, and the Perfon immortal : And thus it is in a great many other cafes in this World, where the Effects of Sin laft as long as the Men laft; and if this be the cafe of the other World, and of the Miseries and Punishments of the Damned, as we certainly know in a great measure it is, that their Punishments are the natural Effects and Confequents of their Sins, there can be no objection against the Eternity of their Punishments, but that God does not annihilate them: And how hard foever any Man may think it to be, that a Sinner fhould be eternally miferable, I believe no Man will venture to say, that God ought in Juftice to annihilate Creatures whom he has made Immortal, when by their own fault they must be eternally miferable, if they live for ever. preferve and uphold Creatures in being, is, in it felf confidered, what becomes the Wife Maker of all things; and I am fure there can be no Reafon given to prove, that God ought to annihilate Sinners, to prevent their being miserable for ever, but what will much more prove, that God ought to have withdrawn his natural concourfe from his Creatures, or to have annihilated them, to prevent their finning; or, which is the laft refult of all, as I have already obferved, and the only fault, if there be one, That he ought not to have made an Immortal Creature, who could Sin, and be Miferable for ever.

Το

I fhall conclude this whole Argumens wich fome few Inferences.