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upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth, and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."

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Soon after this we begin to hear of their wick edness again: chap, x»i, 12, 13, " And Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and piched tent toward Sodom. But the men of Sodom wicked. and sinners exceedingly before the Lord." Chap, XVII, 20, 21, 22; "And the Lord said, because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievious. I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me, and if not I will know. And the men turned their faces from thence and went toward Sodom." Chap 'xix, 12, 13," And the men said unto Lot* hast thou any here besides son-in-law," &c. "and whatso ever thou hast in the city bring out of this place, for we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord."

Soon after this, we find that Idolatry, or Paganism, began to prevail, if it had not before, which shews that the nations were ignorant of the true God; for even the very family from which Abra-: ham sprang in Chaldea, no longer after his leaving them, than the third generation, had idol gods, chap, xxxi, 19, "And Rachael had stolen the images that were her father's," verse 25, on to 30, "And Laban overtook Jacob," &c. "And Laban said unto Jacob, what hast thou done," &c. "Wherefore hast thou stolen my gods?"

We see again, what ignorance of God prevailed in Egypt, at the time when Moses went there to lead out the children of Israel, ExOD. v, 1, 2, "And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, let my people go" &c. "And Pharaoh Said, who

the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go."

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The wickedness of the inhabitants of Palestine is described thus: Levit. Xvw, 19 on to 25. After mentioning a large number of great abominations, he saith, "defile not ye yourselves with any of these things, for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you. And the land is defiled, therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants*" My limitarian brother will probably now ask me, whether I do not suppose that those people were really guilty when they were so wicked? I answer, yes: Ilearn from Holy Scripture, that they were guilty enough to suffer death. Rom. v, 12, "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." And further, it is evident that the Antedeluvians, and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were cut off, and had to suffer death in a sudden and extraordinary manner, on account of their extraordinary wickedness; and that, too, according to what each deserved. For it is said of the Antedeluvians," that all flesh had corrupted their way," &c. But it is said of the men of Sodom, "that they were wicked, and sinners exceedingly," &c., the former were drowned, and the latter were burat alive. Evidently shewing that their extraordinary death was the punishment for their extraordinary wickedness; and that their punishment was proportioned to the degree of their crimes as the Holy Scriptures universally declare, that "God will render to every man according to his works." And this idea is directly supported by God's own words, which I before quoted from Levit. Xviii, 24, 25, "For in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you, and the land is defiled, therefore I do visit the in

iquity thereof upon it," which shows plainly that the inhabitants of Palestine, being cut off, and the Israelites being sent at that time to destroy them utterly, was to punish them for their extraordinary wickedness. It is therefore obvious that while death is the common lot of man, according to the judicial sentence of God upon Adam, for the first offence, Gen. II, 19, which condemned all men to dust, as St. Paul also said, Rom. V, 14, "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression." Which means that Adam sinned against the commandment of God, when he knew what it was, but the people from Adam to Moses, many of them at least, knew not what God's commandment was; because God had not given them his law; as St. Paul shows in the 13th verse, "For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law." I say, while death reigns over all men in consequence of the first offence, which introduced sin and death into the world; it is obvious that death has frequently been inflicted in an uncommon manner, as the punishment of uncommon sinners, on individuals, and on cities and nations; instances of which have their places in the history of man from Adam till now.

Although I know some have said that temporal death is never the punishment for sin in any case, they mean, in the sight of God. But such an assertion is from blind bigotry and gross ignorance, being a flat contradiction of numerous testimonies of Sacred History.

But as St. Paul said, Rom. V, 13, "Sin is not imputed when there is no law," and he was speaking of the same people of whom I am now writing. I am obliged to conclude that guilt and condemnation upon their hearts, or minds, followed them no further than they knew what God required of them, and they transgressed it. And as it is al

most certain that they never heard of misery in the world to come, nor any thing that they could do to escape such misery; there is not the least ground, that I can see, on which to conclude that they must be eternally miserable. For our Lord hath said, LUKE XII, 47, 48, "And that servant which knew his Lord's will, and prepared hot himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few." Does this look like that cruel doctrine, that every offender who knew ever so little, if he die in his offence, must be beaten with stripes eternally? And it is in vain to reply as some do, that such will not have so great torment as those who knew more, although it will continue eternally. For it is absurd to imagine that Jesus Christ ever spake so incongruous, as to call an eternal suffering under the scalding drops of God's infinite wrath, "beaten with few stripes." No, my reader, there is no degree of such suffering as is commonly represented by those who preach said doctrine, that can with any propriety be called a "few stripes ;" and any man's reason must be confounded, and robbed of its whole empire before he can conclude that stripes. eternally can be a "few stripes," for if there was but one stripe in a thousand years, you must remember that endless eternity will produce more stripes than all the figures of Arithmetic which you can possibly put together will enumerate: Yea, infinitely more after you have enumerated all you can. So you may see that according to what Jesus said, those people will not be eternally miserable. Let us now.consider the condition of the gentile nations from Moses to the coming of Messiah.

Moses, at the commandment of God, led Israel out of Egypt, gave them the law, and God destroyed the wicked gentiles of Palestine, and settled them in their place. From that time, and al

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'ways afterwards, the Lord was called the God of Israel, both by the Hebrews themselves, and also by other nations. And it is evident that the gentiles did not consider him their God, nor did they consider themselves under any obligation to love or obey him. And although in some instances, they were afraid of him, having heard of his mighty works in Egypt, in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness; yet in other instances they considered him like the gods of the gentiles, one who might be overcome in war, and destroyed. All this is clearly evinced by those sketches of their history which you may read in the following passages, which, please to turn to, and read for yourselves. 1. Sam. Iv, 6, 7, 8, chap, v, 10, 11. 1. Kings Xx, 23. 2. Chron. Xxxii, 9, on to 17. From which it is conspicuous that the gentile nations before the coming of Christ, were so ignorant of the true God, many of them at least, that they had no idea of living and having their being in him, and of course did not consider themselves under any moral obligation to him.

St. Paul also shows that God did not see it best to give them any further revelation in those times, and the reason why he did not, we have no right to call in question. Acts Xiv, 16, "Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways," chap, xvi, 30,"And the times of this ignorance God winked at." He also mentions the gentiles as in great ignorance and blindness, in his Epistles to the christians, as in Eph. iv, 17, 18. All of which show that they were as ignorant of God as man can be; for mind ye, while man has toe common powers of reason he cannot be ignorant that there is a great difference between right and wrong, and while he does wrong, he is guilty accor ding to the degree of his knowledge of what is right.

And as Moses shewed, Deut. Xxx, 11, 14, that there was a moral principle in the hearts of the Hebrews in accordance with the law which he

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