g them
to perish without remedy, and taking a horrid pleasure in their
everlasting destruction. O thou pitiful anti compassionate Lord God,
what a picture of vindictive cruelty does this sad doctrine exhibit
of thy tenderness and pity to poor sinners!

And what plea is there for the goodness of God, upon the same gloomy
doctrine? I can see none. Now goodness does not seem to be so much
any one attribute, as a blessed assemblage of them all put together.
It seems a collection of all the glorious and blessed qualities in
the adorable Deity, shining out in countless rays on every side; an
image of which is the sun which shines on the evil and good, and the
innumerable drops of rain which fall on the just and the unjust.

Some have asked me, "Do you not think that God might have justly
passed you by, and left you without his grace or help at all?" I
answered, No; I think he could not have done any such thing. That I
was shapen in iniquity, and in sin conceived, I allow; its woeful
effects I feel to this day. But then that was not my fault. I could
not help it; and certain I am, that God never demands the taking up
of that which he never laid down, or reaping where he has not sown.
That I have, times without number, rejected that grace which brings
salvation to all, and abused it again and again, I do with shame and
confusion acknowledge; and that he might have taken away the abused
talents, and, from my so frequently turning a deaf ear to his loving
voice, have sworn I should not enter into his rest, is a truth which
I feelingly confess. But that he could or would leave me a slave to
everlasting misery on account of my original depravity, I utterly
deny.

Where shall we find the mercy of God, according to this merciless
doctrine? It is said that "mercy is his darling attribute, and that
judgment is his strange work." But according to this scheme, we must
reverse this sentence, and say that "_judgment_, or rather
everlasting destruction, is his darling attribute; and that mercy is
his strange work." It is said, that "his tender mercies are over all
his works." This must mean over such as have sinned; for such as
have not sinned, do not stand in need of mercy. But this narrow
limited doctrine does not make his mercy extend to a tenth part of
his works. If I see a multitude of poor wretches hanging over a
dreadful fiery furnace, and can extend my help to them all as easily
as to one, but will not, this speaks but little fo