right, a restoration to happiness." Suffering is no equivalent; God does not desire it, or take pleasure in it: therefore a prolongation of suffering, even to all eternity, will not have in it any shadow of merit, or any atoning efficacy. Yet we have shown thut future punishments are just and right in another view. Whoever, therefore, having sinned, will be saved from eternal suffering, must humble himself with sincere penitence, and abandon every plea of merit in himself, and submit himself unreservedly and unconditionally to God, and gratefully receive forgiveness and salvation as God's free and unmerited gift, and ascribe all merit to him who alone is worthy; for so long as he refuses this, he is proud, ignorant, rebellious; and to remit the punishment were only to confirm the sin.

PROPOSITION V. The punishment of the sinner can in no case be remitted, unless some means be devised, so to preserve, at the same time, the tremendous sanctions of the Divine law, as to manifest to the creatures, in an awful and striking manner, God's eternal and unchangeable hatred of all sin, the impossibility of his tolerating or overlooking it, and the holy and unbending nature of his law, -as well as his affectionate regard to his creatures, and his willingness to forgive and to restore them. For without some provision of this kind, the law would be continually open to renewed violations, and sin and imperfection would

be perpetuated, by the hope of the Divine indulgence. Here then is need for the wisdom of God.

PROPOSITION VI. Vicarious suffering would be most unjust, if justice were allied to revenge; for it is plainly most unjust to take revenge on the innocent, instead of the guilty: nor, indeed, can the suffering of an innocent person be any true gratification to vengeance. But the Divine retributive justice being at the farthest remove from revenge, and existing for such ends as we have shown, Vicarious suffering becomes a right and proper means of accomplishing the wise and good purposes of God. For by it is manifested in a most striking manner the odious and abominable nature of sin. If we behold a guilty man suffering for his guilt, we think of it less; but if we behold the ruin and misery in which he has involved the innocent, then is sin seen in its true colours, and hated as it ought to be. Farther, by some specially appointed instance of vicarious suffering, the inviolability of God's law, and his eternal hatred of sin, may be exhibited in a most striking and impressive manner. For if the penal inflictions be laid even on an innocent and excellent person, dearly beloved of God, that the awful sanctions of the law may be upheld, how holy, how inviolable, how uncompromising must they be! And again, herein may the compassionate love of God towards his fallen creatures be strongly shown. For how

great must that love be, which triumphs over such obstacles, devises such means of deliverance, and even afflicts, with aggravated and accumulated evils, a pure and spotless being whom he tenderly loves, all in order to deliver sinners from the curse of the law! Now it is impossible to prove, by abstract reasoning, the fact, that God has adopted this course, but we have aimed at showing, that such a course is conformable to wisdom, and to benevolence, and to the sanctity of an unchanging law.

PROPOSITION VII. The truth contained in the preceding propositions is such as men feel strongly averse to; because it is humbling to natural pride to be denuded of every claim of merit, and to be cast on the unconditional goodness of God, and to receive nothing but of his free grace. But, as this has been demonstrated to be conformable to eternal truth, we farther conclude from men's evident aversion to it, That the natural heart is enmity to God, and that man is fallen, having denied and disavowed the true relation in which he stands to his beneficent Creator. So great a breach of this first and great relation, may be expected to produce failure in all the duties which are consequent upon it, and we shall find, both in theory and in fact, that the evil has extended to every branch of human conduct.

CHAPTER XXII.

OF RIGHT AND WRONG.

THE Word RIGHT, derived from the Latin rectum, signifies that which is straight, or direct, or kept in its natural course, in opposition to that which is crooked, tortuous, or perverted. WRONG, as Horne Tooke justly observes, is the past participle of the verb to wring, and signifies that which is wrung or twisted out of its right and natural course. If the direct line or order of things be once departed from, and a different one adopted, a man may continue straight or right forward in that unnatural course; but he is still wrong; because that word, being a past participle, is retrospective, and the straightness with which he pursues the second line of conduct, does not make it right, but rather renders the reverse more certain, -the course has been once distorted from the right, and continues so. The word "right," therefore, in morals, must be interpreted as excluding all wrong.

Y

It is agreeable to the direct and natural course of things, that a man should have his own labour, and the produce of his own labour; and when we say that he has a right to them, we mean that he has a direct and natural claim to them. They are, therefore, his property. But he may give his labour to another man for an equivalent, and then the produce of his labour belongs of right to the man with whom he made the exchange. Such agreements are quite according to natural order. But if any man shall take from him the produce of his labour without his 'consent, and without any previous agreement, then the natural order is infringed, and the action is, therefore, wrong.

It is according to the natural order, that a parent should have authority over his child, and that a child should obey his parents: this, therefore, is right. If, however, any parent shall command his child to take away his neighbour's property, the child in obeying will do wrong, and in refusing to obey will do right, provided he refuses from regard to principle. But if a parent command any thing which is indifferent, then disobedience in the child is wrong.

Every man has a direct natural claim to his own life, because he has received it from God. Whoever, therefore, takes it away, does wrong; and the amount of the wrong is measured by the importance of the right infringed. But if any man