66 vol. , page 240, speaking of souls departed, says, "They rejoice in the prospect, the assuring and refreshing prospect of receiving all the fulness of their everlasting felicity. I said fulness; for though the felicity of the soul is great, yet it will not be complete till the body is re-united into it."-If Mr. Hervey's words are true, it certainly must be allowed they are placed in a middle state, beyond this mortal world, but not arrived to fulness of bliss. Now what I would desire is this, that those Christians that have so great an aversion to the word purgatory would only change it to purification, and admit it possible that a soul in that middle state may, for ought we know, have a growth in the spiritual life, as well there as in this world, if not more so, if they are better acquainted with the certainty of rewards and punishments than in this life. It is certain, the doctrine of purgatory as held by the Romish Church ought justly to be exploded, especially that part of it by which they reap a temporal profit from the gifts they receive for praying souls out of it. But on the other hand it is also certain, that praying for the dead was the constant practice of the Church for many ages, it was allowed and practiced by our first reformers, and has been approved of by many sincere Protestants. As to those that assert, "That this world is the only place of probation," they assert more than they know, and if they are really sincere and pious Christians, more than they ought; for, as every real Christian allows the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and as some Christians have said, that they from that Spirit assert the Restoration, those that oppose it so strenuously, might do well to consider, whether or not it is not possible for another person's spiritual knowledge to exceed their's; and, if so, whether the assertion may not be a truth, although not apparent to them? God is said in Scripture to be "no respecter of persons," and with regard to his Almightiness need be no respecter of places and if Adam could be tempted in Paradise, which as they tell us, was a place of bliss and excellency, why should the state of souls be fixed in futurity, any more than it was in Paradise or on this earth? We find, in Luke xviii. 27, when the people said to JESUS CHRIST, "Who then can be saved?" Christ answered, “The things that are impossible with men are possible with God." If we believe Christ really spoke those words, why should any man so violently oppose this doctrine; more especially, as the Scriptures so often tell us, and all men naturally agree to it, that "GoD is love;" that "fury is not in him;" that "his tender mercies are over all his works;" that "he keepeth not his anger forever?" Yet, in direct opposition to these gracious characters of the Almighty, the doctrine of eternal damnation asserts the contrary. I would ask, can that power be merciful, that dooms a creature to eternal misery? Can it be said, "He keepeth not his anger forever," whilst any souls are continually to feel it? Can his "tender mercies," be felt by those that are condemned to feel for ever and ever the utmost pain and torment? No certainly it cannot. There are many thou sands would gladly embrace the doctrine of the Restoration, did they not read in Scripture that of everlasting punishment; although it is allowed by all the learned in the languages, that the word translated everlasting, is not so, but only ages. How long or short a time those ages last, is known to Gon only. And here I cannot but think the words of Mr. POPE, in his Universal Prayer, worthy the most cordial reception: "Let not this weak and erring hand "If I am right, thy grace impart am wrong, O teach my heart Would men but reflect a little on the above excellent lines, they would not be so hasty in their judgments. The Rev. Mr. RICHARD CLARKE, in a book of his,published in 1763,entitled, “A voice of glad tidings to Jews and Gentiles," page 134,says,"Whatever those spurious saints may think, who write their own names in the book of life, with a creed in their mouths after babbling forth its blasphemies and lies against God and his Christ, they indeed make it one of the highest joys in heaven, to view the miseries, and to hear the deep groans and dreadful shrieks of the damned in the never-ending torments of hell-fire. It is of no moment whether they are their parents or children in this horrible situation, which would reserve heaven itself to any but themselves. They write upon this ground with that abundance out of which the heart speaketh, so rejoiced do they seem in the distant idea of being spectators of eternal wrath and vengeance, that it would darken their joys to be told, that the first in salvation are to be kind ministers and instruments of saving others who are lost; under the Lord, the eldest of the elders, who according to the royal law appointed for princes, (and they are also kings in the heavenly worlds) must be servants to the later born, though those are punished for a while, and are under a very just rod and chastisement for their wilful obstinacy and stiff neck in sin and disobedience." I hope the candid reader will not be offended at the passages here quoted from these authors. I could easily have enlarged the number of them, but I think these are sufficient to show, that eternal damnation is not an article of faith with all men. And indeed if those that oppose the doctrine of Restoration will allow, that God can save all mankind, if he will, I am at a loss to know how they can make damnation an article of faith at all, unless they attribute the same or worse passions to God than man. I know many say, "The glory of God requires it" but I am led to think, that God can neither be glorified nor debased by all the actions of men. Man may receive from God, but cannot give to him: again as Mr. Рors well expresses, say if they can, they really think those peo it ; "What blessings thy free bounty gives Let me not cast away; For God is paid when man receives:- I beg the reader's pardon for detaining him so long; but knowing many people are unacquainted, that this doctrine of the Restoration is believed in and espoused by such a variety of authors, and at so many different periods of time, was the reason, why I added another preface to this edition. I know I shall be condemned by those that oppose the Restoration, and censured by many others that do believe in it. The first will call it "a damnable doctrine;" the others will say, that "publishing of it, opens a door to all manner of licentiousness; for if they are sure they shall go to heaven, it is no matter how they live!"-Of the first I would only desire, whenever they go about to condemn me, that they would only bear in mind the words of Christ, I JUDGE NO MAN:-if they regard this, I am sure they will not proceed to condemnation. As for the last, I would beg of them to look around, and see if the doctrine of eternal damnation has that effect, to make mankind act as if they believed it true; let them only consider the general actions of men, from the prince to the peasant,-how pride, avarice, and cruelty, is the spring of almost all their actions; and then let them ple acting in that manner do believe even a future state! Sorry I am to say it, but I have observed in general, amongst those that make little or no profession of religion, more affability, generosity, and humanity than in the others. If this is really the case, what harm can proceed from adopting the belie' of a general restoration, when all those that do believe it unanimously agree, that in proportion to the wickedness of their lives will be their punishment both as to pain and dura tion? For myself I can only say, that as I do believe God has the power to restore all mankind from their fallen state to a state of happiness, I cannot avoid believing he has the will (if I dare to say will, when I mention Gon) to do it; and that in Gon is neither anger, resentment, or any of those passions attributed by man to him. I allow, man, by his evil ways may bring on himself those racks and pains that he calls anger from God, but surely it is no more so in itself as to the creature, than the surgeon's instrument is to the body in particular cases. I could rather believe, there were no God at allthan to say he cannot perfect his work, or that he could designedly bring into existence millions of beings to be in pains and agonies to all eternity: I must say, I detest the thought.-I hope the readers will pardon this digression, and am their sincere well-wisher. J. D. PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION.* 66 WHEN Cromwell was elevated to the Protectorship, popular zeal ran highest against the Catholic religion, and that of the Church of England, then generally termed prelacy. It would be a most difficult task to give a true picture of the Protector's character. Nearly all historians have agreed in representing him to have been a cauting hypocrite; and no one, perhaps, has done this more effectually than Mr. Hume. Bishop Burnet remarks, that he was for liberty, and the utmost latitude to all parties, so far as consisted with the peace and safety of his person and government; and therefore he was never jealous of any cause or sect, on the account of heresy or falsehood, but on his wiser accounts of political peace and quiet: and even the prejudice he had for the Episcopal party, was more for their being royalists, than for being of the good old church." The historian of the Puritans gives him a similar character. "The Protector was a Protestant, but affected to go under no denomination or This preface, which is as appropriate here as though prepared expressly for this publication, is copied entire from an excellent work by Rev. Thomas Whittemore, published in Boston in 1830, and entitled, "The Modern History of Universalism, from the era of the Reformation to the present time." party: he had Chaplains of all persuasions; and though he was by principle an independent, he esteemed all reformed Churches as part of the Catholic Church: and without aiming to establish any tenets by force or violence, he witnessed, on all occasions, an extreme zeal for liberty of conscience." The cruel laws of the Parliament if they had at first a little force, were soon abrogated both by the spirit of the times, and an express statute. The army, which at this time was not to be slighted in any of its requests, petitioned "that all penal statutes and ordinances whereby many conscientious people were molested, and the propagation of the gospel hindered, might be removed;" but from this liberty Papists, and the members of the Church of England were excluded. This petition not long after was passed into a law and thereby all the former laws against erro neous opinions were repealed. The same toleration was provided for in the Instrument of Government, which was drawn up at the time Cromwell was declared Protector. By this toleration, the inculcation of Universalism was permitted without restraint, while For the articles of this instrument, as well as similar articles of another provision made in 1657, the reader is referred to the work from which this preface is taken, pp. 73, 74. to deny the doctrine of the Trinity was prohibited. Political motives probably had so great an influence in the framing of these articles, that we are not permitted to award to their authors that high praise to which they would otherwise have been entitled. For if this indulgence to the various sects, sprang from a true love of religious liberty, why was so dishonourable an exception made to Catholics and Episcopalians? Cromwell lived but a few years, to exercise regal power, in the character of a Protector; and being vested with the privilege of appointing his successor, he nominated, in his last moments, his son Richard to that high office. Richard, however, possessed not his father's talents; he was humane, honest and unassuming; and on the breaking out of dissentions after his father's death, he preferred rather to retire into private life, than to bear the storm of opposition and war in maintaining his dignity. The nation remained for a short time without any fixed government whatever; and finally, by the assistance of General Monk, who commanded an army in Scotland at the Protector's death, Charles II. took the throne, and restored the ancient order of things. As all the acts of Parliament without the consent of the king are null in themselves, so power alone was needed to make Episcopacy the national form of church government, and the xxxix Articles the established doctrine. The Act of Uniformity, whereby all those who refused to conform to the Established Church and worship, were rejected from her communion and emoluments, drove from their livings the clergy to the number of two thousand, and exalted to ease and affluence those who, in the administration of Cromwell, had been coupled with Papists, and made the subjects of a particular proscription. From this time until the present, the government and faith of the Church of England have remained unchanged. Among the clergy who were excluded by the Act of Uniformity, we may reckon Jeremy White, who had been chaplain to Cromwell, and preacher to the Council of State. He is said to have been a person of great facetiousness in his conversation; and his company, on that account, was much valued by persons of high rank. On one occasion, however, the Protector showed himself a match for his Chaplain in quickness of thought. White had paid a particular attention to one of Cromwell's daughters; and being once detected by the father on his knees before the young lady, he averted his indignation by saying that he was entreating her influence with her maid, to whom he had long paid his addresses without success. The father, knowing the artifice, upbraided the maid for her supposed neglect, and immediately ordered the marriage between her and the outwitted Chaplain to lake place. It is probable his treatise on Universal Salvation was written before old age came on; for we are informed that he at first wrote voluminously, but towards the latter part of his life, contracted the work, and prepared it for the press. Subsequently to the Restoration he preached occasionally, without undertaking any particular charge. With great pains and care he made a collection of the sufferings of the dissenters by the penal laws which were enacted in the reign of Charles II. wherein he gave an account of the ruin of several thousand families in different parts of the kingdom; but thinking it might subserve the cause of Popery, he rejected the importunity of some of King James' agents, and also large pecuniary rewards which were offered him to publish it. He died in the year 1707, aged 78. "The Restoration of all things, or a vindication of the goodness and grace of God, to be manifested at last in the recovery of his whole creation out of their fall," was a posthumous work, and first printed five years after the author's death. As its title imports, its sole object is to set up and defend the doctrine of Universal Salvation, which is done entirely upon the ground of the Scriptures, according to the views he entertained of them. He had imbibed an aversion to the Arminian principles, which, previously to the Protectorship, had been the doctrine of many of the English prelates; hence he contends strenuously for predestination, election and reprobation; and he prized the views of the final happiness of all mankind, the more highly, because they enabled him to reconcile the decrees of God with his infinite benevolence. In the unchangeable plan of infinite wisdom, those who are elected and those who are reprobated will mutually benefit each other; the sanctification and salvation of the former are the pledge of the sanctification and salvation of the latter. He was a trinitarian, and held the doctrine of future punishment. The plan of his work is as follows: in each chapter he produces the evidence on which he relies, and then anticipates and answers objections. His principal arguments are these: God will have all men to be saved. This is a will of authority, of supreme sovereignty; it is a fixed, determinate, irrevocable, purpose of him who ordains the means as well as the end. Jesus Christ gave himself a ransom for all men without any exception; and God is the Saviour of all men, finally, in the world to come. Jesus preached to the spirits in prison, men that were gone off the stage of this world; and he was not unsuc cessful like Noah, but reclaimed the disobe. dient, who lived afterward according to God in the spirit. Mercy is promised to the most rebellious of our race, and the gospel accord. ing to the divine command, is to be preached to every creature. That all things are to be restored, is evident from Paul's testimony both to the Ephesians, and Collossians: we have the assurance of this truth in the character of God, who is love, whose perfections are all love, and to which his very anger is subservient: and lastly, the Scriptures assure us of the complete abounding of grace over all sin and all death. THE RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS INTRODUCTION. THE great Apostle who lay in the bosom of kind of co-equality and co-eternity with his his Lord, and partook of his intimate favours, love. His original justice is indeed co-eternal as the disciple of Love, and consequently with himself, as the law of his divine nature, most nearly admitted into the secrets of God; and the harmonious movements of it; and and the revelation of his nature and good- the glass or pattern of perfect righteousness will towards men; and yet further grace and and excellence exhibited for imitation and glories to be manifested in his Church, tells reflection of God in and from his creatures; us, as in singular expression of the divine but his strange work and movement in jusnature, that it is LOVE. 1 John, iv. 8. "He tice, i. e. in indignation against sin and sinthat loveth not, knoweth not GOD: for God ners, as it was in accommodation to a moveis love." And again, ver. 16. “And we have ment of the creature, i. e. within the limits of known and believed the love that God hath to time and accident; so as time and accident, us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in and whatsoever implies a defect cannot be love dwelleth in God, and God in him." And eternal, neither can this strange and accidenthis is indeed the greatest of all the re- tal movement in God be so; but as his jusvelations given through this great apostle. tice is subservient and acts to the end of his God in the expression of his nature is not love which is supreme, the kindled fire in the said to be justice, to be wisdom, to be power, severity of the Divine justice upon the hay but to be just, wise, powerful, &c. Though and stubble, or the defect of sin, so hateful in yet in a more metaphysical sense it may be the eye of God, must burn it up at last, and said, God is justice itself, wisdom itself, and render the creature by such due chastisement power itself, i. e. in the abstract; but yet so and preparation capable of the grace and faas these and all his other attributes and per-vour of God again; and the outflowing anger fections concur together, and harmonize in unity, to make up the nature of God. And thus love is all: and "God is love." And love is a unity, the most perfect unity, which is all in one. And it is a variety, all variety displayed in that unity, in most perfect excellence and beauty. Yea, love is a Trinity in unity; this is involved in the very idea and nature of love, as we must here necessarily take it in its utmost perfection, and its eternally triumphant act. In God or Love, as the unity, there must be the eternal loving or Lover; the eternally loved, or beloved; and the eternal product, or fruit, of that love, or love in its manifestation, which as it is brought forth within the bosom of its Parent, i. e. love derivative in the bosom of Love original, which is infinite, cannot be excluded, or exist in a separate essence, but must abide forever in the womb of its conception, and consequently re-act eternally in love upon its original. And as this necessary truth of the glorious Trinity in unity in the perfect nature of God, has been perverted and denied by many, through the extravagant sallies and presumption of human reason in things above its line and capacity; so the general nature of God also as Love, has been by most of the schemes of later orthodoxy almost as much injured and misrepresented to the world; and a sort of confusion of the divine attributes introduced, derogatory to the unity, predominance and supremacy of love; which is the divine nature; in giving his justice as emanating or outflowing in its strange work, or anger, a of God in strict vindictive justice, vindictive of the honour of the lese Majesty of God, and of his right to rule over and in all his creatures according to his own eternal will and nature, i. e. in his love having done its work must be resumed itself at last into its primeval, eternal act, viz, of original justice, as moving in the unity of the eternal nature or love of God; and here according to its parti cular nature and office, maintaining and keeping all the works of God, viz. of the original and restored creation, in that eternal order and harmonious movement, in and for which he at first designed them, and in order to which his anger, or zeal of justice run out after them as rebels, to subdue and reduce them back again to their obedience to the Kingdom of Love. I shall endeavour to make good this Hypothesis in the following work; and that from the ground of Holy Scripture, which is pregnant of evidence to this great truth. And this design I shall pursue with all plainness imaginable, because all mankind is concerned in it, and therefore it is both reasonable and necessary my style should descend as low, and reach as far as my design, and be as universal in respect of the capacities of men, as it is for their interest. The apostle saith in 1 Cor. xiii. 9, “We know but in part, and prophecy but in part." They that assume more than this, exalt themselves above that great apostle. I will, at present take it for granted, that God hath given forth what Scripture he intends, that the canon is perfect and sealed, but as God was long and leisurely in giving it out, as the Greek speaks, Heb. i. 1. "So the mind of God therein is not understood but by portions, as He is pleased to give it forth." St. Peter tells us, the prophets themselves understood not the accents and imports of their own prophecies: God proportioning his discoveries with a kind of equality among his children and favourites, reserving some things for the last and youngest, that they who went before without us should not be made perfect. Heb. xi. 40. That which occurs to me in my observation, as the Desiderandum, to loosen the hard knots and difficulties in the case, is the acknowledgment of a common, or rather universal grace and salvation, and the reconciling thereof, with special and peculiar grace and favour: which varieth not much from that which the apostle suggests to be wanting, as that, that would (when added) supply and perfect both our discovery, and our living in that forementioned love, 1 Cor. xiii.; which is ever spoken of with peculiar honour, as of a perfective nature, (1 John iv. 18.) and is called the bond of perfectness, Col. iii. 14. And, in John iv. 9. the apostle tells us, "We love God, because he first loved us." Until God's love in the heights and depths, and other the dimensions of it be known, the spring, the seed, the producing cause of our love to God, and our brother is wanting. But this will appear plainly to our experience, in the instance of the controversy between the Orthodox, as they are vulgarly called, and the Arminians, in which so many learned and pious pens on both sides have sweat and tired themselves and their readers, but not satisfied them; for all that hath been hitherto suggested by the first, doth by no means salve those harsh phenomenas of an appearing harshness in God, in the exercise of that sovereign prerogative of his, which they most rightly allow to him, and which is necessarily vested in him as Supreme; but thus exercised with the irreparable damage of the creature, justly seems so disagreeable to his goodness, that from hence the latter, viz. Arminians, have with (it may be) a pure intention of mind, run into another most absurd extreme, and have taken occasion thereby to ascribe a power unto man, and a freedom of will absolute and independent as to those acts relating to a future state, setting him up in a capacity of a right conduct of himself, and by common grace, to the making void and needless the covenant of grace, and the blood of Christ himself in the high and glorious ends of it. And all this market for Satan hath been made, by not rightly discerning and stating the sovereign prerogative of God, and the qualified and righteous exercise thereof; wherein, although he fully displays the glory of his wisdom, holiness, justice, and severity in the suffering of man to make a full discovery of himself, his own defectibility, vertibility, mutability, vanity, and pride, and also punishes him for the same according to his works. Yet this not finally and irremediably so as to abandon and forget his grace and goodness forever: nay, he gives scope to those glories, those other glories of his, to manifest themselves so fully, in order to that sweetest, fullest, and most triumphant glorious close he will make at last, when all shall meet and end in grace and love, as in a stately pyramid or top stone, they being all but steps to this throne, and guarders of it. And thus also, all the sin, vanity, and instability of the creature (which is the matter and occasion about which those subordinate glories are employed and exercised) shall at last issue and break up into the wonderful and glorious manifestation of the wisdom and goodness of God, into an admirable foil and set-off to his immutability and eternity. And if sin and punishment be but instrumental in God's design, and subordinate to an higher and more ultimate project and end, then it must be bounded and circumscribed within a certain space and limit of time, how great soever that be, be it for the whole course of time, which may be therefore termed for ever and everlasting, comprehending this world, and the world next to come, which are both of them but a double parenthesis in eternity; yet as it had a beginning, so it must have an end, and must lie down and yield up itself in that abyss of boundless and endless love and grace which was before it, and let it come forth for its own glory, and must shine forth in the perfect conquest and subduing of it to the harmony of the first all-comprehending design, as the sun without a cloud forever. And here I do, in the fear of God, most humbly prostrate myself before his Divine Majesty, and in the deepest sense of my own darkness and distance from him, do with all my might beg of that infinite goodness I am endeavouring to represent to others, that if something like to this platform and prospect of things, be not agreeable to that revealed and natural light he hath given to us, that my undertaking may be interrupted, my design fall, and that the Lord would pardon my attempt: and I know he will do so, for he hath given me to have no further concern for this matter, than as I apprehend it to be a most glorious truth, witnessed to both by the Scriptures of truth, and by the most essential principles of our own reason, and which will be found so at the last opening of the everlasting Gospel, to recover in that opening a degenerate world. But if this be a true draught and representation of the glorious designment of the ever blessed goodness of the great God, who is goodness itself, and if the Holy Scriptures and right reason do bear witness unto it, how clear, how fair, how open lies the way before us to justify the sovereign power, and disposal of God, which he exercises by election and reprobation too, with all the methods he useth in his holy and glorious wisdom and prudence, in giving way to the entrance of sin, and then enflaming the anguish of it by the law, that he may thereby have occasion to glorify his justice and wrath against it, and so make his way to the more glorious illustration of his grace and love in the close. And how apposite, effec tual, and justifiable a course of proceeding will the way of God now appear in humbling poor, proud man, in bringing him to his foot, making him to know himself, how frail and |