at the fame Time the Party appeafing and fatisfying itself, in a frict, literal Senfe: But the first Perfon of the Deity is to be confidered as appointing, and the Second Perfon as executing, a fatisfactory Scheme of making his Hatred of Sin confiftent with the Forgiveness of the Sinner; and confulting the Summa Rerum, at the fame Time that he fhewed his particular Regard to this Speck of the Creation.

We know not how far our State might affect the State of other rational Beings in other Parts of the Creation, how far it might`countenance a Rebellion, and give Intellectual Beings of a higher Rank disadvantageous Notions of their fovereign Legislator, if a Set of infignificant Creatures fhould, after oft-repeated Breaches

Breaches of his Laws, be admitted to a State of eternal Happiness without any Punishment, perfonal or vicarious. A Law without a Sanction is no binding Law; that is, it is no Law at all. Sanctions without One to put them in Execution are no Sanctions. If then God has made Laws, has enforced them with Sanctions, he must put those Sanctions in Force; at least, they must not be such pitiful and flender Fences, that any one may over-leap them as often as he pleases, and yet escape, upon his Repentance, with Impunity.

We view the Deity then in a wrong Point of Light, when we reflect upon Him as the Party fatisfying himself. We perhaps should rather regard him as the great Legislator of the whole, himself laying

and executing a ftupendous Plan to fecure the Honour of his Laws, and the Authority of his Government : a Plan so extraordinary and amazing, that no Set of Spiritual Beings fhould, upon any Temptation to a Revolt, have any Reason to expect the like Favour; and fo fufficient as to leave no Room for Cavil; at leaft to those enlightened Beings, who see farther than the mere Shell and Surface of it.

If, because we do not fee the whole Compages of Divine Providence, but only fome Parts of it detached from the rest, we are unable to judge of the ordinary Steps of the Divine Conduct, we must be far more incompetent Judges of the extraordinary Measures which he takes. Buť I need not dwell upon this.

You

You will readily own, that we no more are able to know what God fhould do with Regard to the whole Creation, than we are able to know the whole Creation. I fhall only obferve farther, that fome Men have dealt with Providence, as others do with the Scriptures; who pick out fome loose, disjointed Sentences, which, by themselves and independently of the reft, look unpromifing and unaccountable; but yet are very proper and beautiful when we confider the whole Thread, Contexture and Dependence of one Thing upon another. But this is foreign to the Question.

I proceed to your next Objection, viz. "that if the Godhead did not "fuffer, then Chrift is dead in vain." I have not put down your Dilem

ma; because I have already granted the firft Part of it. And as to the fecond Part of it, I dare not determine, till I have had more Leisure to examine, whether our Saviour's Sacrifice was infinitely meritorious. It is enough at present to say, that it was fo far meritorious, as to answer the Ends of God's All-wife Government; and to fulfil the Terms which the Almighty's manifold Wisdom, unalterable Juftice, and effential Holinefs required. That our Saviour could not merit fo far, by an inimitable Original of difinterested Lovè and unconceivable Goodnefs, in asfuming human Nature; in letting that Nature, thus endeared to him by a most intimate Conjunction, bé exposed to Variety of Infults and Outrages; in dignifying that Nature

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