INURED to self-deceptions from my youth up, I laughed at the fantastical whims of enthusiastic whigs, the dreams of Anabaptists, and cunning inventions of mer­cenary Priests; or cranumian phantasms of weak and unstable men; for by such names I was pleased to call the glorious doctrines of the everlasting gospel. The doctrine of the trinity in unity I contemned, purely because I could not fully comprehend it.

Reason, saith I, is the touchstone of every truth; the even balance in which revelation must be weighed. The oracle of GOD must be hushed in silence, till reason, adorable reason is free to speak her mind: Even then it is at the peril of revelation to utter, one word that is be­yond the reach of our Godlike reason. Every thing that is divinely mysterious I am wont to treat with derision and contempt. Mysteries in religion! saith I, mere nonsense! There is no­thing mysterious in it, nothing mysterious re­quired to be believed. Reason alone, that noble [Page 4]principle, must give the sanction to every truth divine. If illustrious reason will not condescend to sign a certificate for truth, let her wander as a vagabond upon the face of the earth; no rea­sonable christian, sure will venture to receive her.

Let fanatics and enthusiasts receive and re­ly on what they call holy mysteries, for my own part I am determined that my reason shall act supreme with me, both in matters of faith and practice.

Thus elevated with a high opinion of my rational faculties, and pregnated with the strongest resolutions never to admit of any other rule but the dictates of my own reason, one evening lately I walked abroad into the fields to meditate on the happy estate of man­kind, as being capable of meriting, at the hands of the omnipotent, a right to every divine donation, every eternal blessing.

The road which I took led me into a plea­sant avenue, on the one hand decorated with an uniform row of well grown oaks, extend­ing their spreading arms almost to the opposite side of the verdant path, and clasped with the supple branches of yielding elms, which [...]n an even row decorated the hedge on the left, a grassy turf, barely sheered by the n [...]mble teeth of the bleating sheep, spread the fl [...]or of the evenue ten yards in breadth; every sully­ing excrement was carefully swept up by the yielding broom of the industrious shepherd, [Page 5]who watchfully followed the fleecy innocents.

Thus alone, secluded from the noise of mankind I began to improve what I beheld in this pleasant but lonesome avenue.

How beautifully, thought I, do these stately oaks, with their streight and solid, their smooth and massy trunks, extended arms, and cloathed branches, represent the man, the happy man, that is fixed in rational ideas and guided only by the dictates of his reason. See how the penetrating roots dig deep into the bosom, and with their forked talons clasp the entrails of their mother earth; the grizly stem smiles at the angry rage of stormy gusts which wreak their vengeance against it. It stands unmoved. It mocks the fury of the most violent storm. Just so is the man who makes reason his only rule. Nothing moves him. He smiles at the gusts of enthusiastic zeal. He laughs at the dreams of fanatics, and mocks at the mysteries of Luther and Calvin. His mind lays deep hold of directing reason, and he stands in his paradisaical rectitude.

These dwarfish shrubs (continued I) are the lively types of pedantick bigots, who are blindly carried away with enthusiastic fancies to believe in irrational mysteries, called by them the doctrines of grace, but which really are the subtil inventions of designing men; as the shrub is diminutive when compared with the stately oak, so are those men when compared with these who are the happy disciples of reason.

[Page 6] As I thus continued pleasing myself with this improvement of my evening solitude, and blessing GOD that I was not as other men, even as these fanatics and irrational christians are, but believed and acted according to the dictates of my own reason, I came near to the end of the avenue, and the path be­came extremely dark and narrow. The op­posite trees did so interweave their branches with each other, that no gleam of light could penetrate through the shade.

It would now have appeared wisdom to have turned my face towards home; but by some unseen power I was seized with a perfect suspension of thought, and heedlesly, walked forward, till at last I found I had got out of the avenue, and a dusky light appearing, dis­covered to me a variety of frightful objects. The place into which I was now got bore the grizly aspect of a forest devoured by fire: No blooming flower nor verdant leaf was to be seen in all its vast extent. Only desolation and destruction. All, all was devastation.

I attended occasionally to the fearful noise, that as I thought were, and afterwards proved to be, subterraneous. Sometimes I heard, like the noise of many waters, the tempestuous roaring of foaming billows, in fury dashing themselves against the scornful rocks. Anon, I heard the clinking of chains, the clangor of weapons, and the hideous yellings of persons in exquisite torments. Great was the surprize [Page 7]was now in; my hair stood erect, and the blood in my veins became cold as the northern ice, my flesh shuddered on my bones, an un­usual tremor invaded my once courageous heart, and gastly fear sat trembling on my astonished countenance. My nerves became lax, and in my apprehension, the joints of my limbs were unhinged, and dewy sweat issued forth from every pore of my skin. I had nei­ther courage to stand the shock, nor strength to fly from the awful appearances of immi­nent danger. I would gladly have found the avenue through which I entered this solitary waste; but to no purpose did I look for it, now it was hid from my sight.

In vain I wished that my rambling fancy had been better guarded, and not exposed me to these nocturnal dangers. Long e'er now the radient sun having quenched his fiery beams in the western depths, and left the earth enveloped in darkness, which glooming sat on every beclouded object. Nor did the Heavens above my head bear a more pleasant aspect; every luminous body having hid its re­fulgent face in the bosom of a sable extended cloud. All these circumstances concurring to display the horrors of the place, made me conclude that I was certainly got into the gloomy regions of inexorable Pluto; but whether I was dead or alive I knew not. In the mean while I wished, I earnestly wished myself at home, and resolved that if [Page 8]ever I reached my peaceful habitation, I would henceforth correct my wandrings, and regu­late them by the judicious rules of safety.

As I was turning over these resolves, I heard a terrible subterraneous noise, infinitely mote horrible than that fabulously, ascribed [...]o Vulcan's smiths, in the convulsive bowels of the mounts Aetna and Vesuvius.—Anon, the earth opened her jaws close by the place on which I trembling stood, and belched forth an hedious quantity of curling smoak and stricked fire intermingled with squalid spectres, the firey smoke lifted up its grizly summit, like the towering head of a cloud-piercing pyramid. When the spectres had reached the middle path of the aerial regions they sunk downward, and plunged into the belch­ing throat that had just now disgorged them. Still it continued with hideous roarings to vomit up brimstone, smoke and coals of fire, mingled with the howling ghosts of the accurst to these abysmal flames, Notwithstanding this fearful phaenomena was enough to have spread distraction o'er all my reasonable facul­ties, I found myself, to my own amazement, in the perfect use of my mind, frightened although I was.

Moveless I stood on the dangerous brink of the issuing pit, nor had power to turn me to the right hand or left. One step forward would have plunged me into these devouring [...] which proceeded from the unquencha­ble [Page 9]burnings beneath. Here I stood trembling with fear of the dire event. The eruption begining to abate; I heard, as I thought, hu­man voices more distinctly, all was howling and sorrowful complaint. Dreadful was the yell that filled my ears. All which I looked on as the most perfect indications of inexpres­sible torments. Weepings and wailings which I heard, I concluded were the sure diagnostics of consummate pain.

The eruption being now over, I thought I heard a voice which was familiar to me, and which expressed the most intolerable anguish. Being by this time somewhat inured to this prodigy, I at last ventured to look down to make what discoveries I could. O horrible! here was a discovery that quashed reason itself. Amazement chills my blood even now when I relate it.

I looked down into this frightful cave: But what did I see? No gilded beauties, but the stupendous arches of dread perdition. O! shall the direful idea ever be erased from my mind? A rolling flood of flaming liquid did play in these sable, these frightful vaults. Every revolving billows turned up to the in­flammatory surface an innumerable company of floating spectres, and at the same time with its sinking front immerged a number equal to that it turned up. Dreadful was the howl, in­expressible were their direful yellings! I saw likewise standing on this burning lake a num­berless [Page 10]company of squalid infernals, armed with flaming instruments of death, with which they exercised the most unaccountable cruelty on the unhappy worldings, who had involved themselves into unspeakable torment, inex­tricable ruin.

In the midst of all, I behold one person who stood for some time on the sulphurous billows, surrounded by an enraged company, who with red hot irons kept pushing against him. He stood aghast, and fearfully stared at me. He looked as if he would fain have spoken, but I perceived that his torments pre­vented him. He waved his hand to his tor­mentors, as I took it, begging for respite.

Deep despair and wild distraction lowered on his condemned countenance. He raved! he foamed! he wrestled! and then sunk down in silent despair; sullen and pensive, whilst the direful floods of omnipotent vengeance rolled upon him.

In this place I perceived no intermission of the incessant floods that rolled along in one continued circle, ever running, but never at an end. These discoveries, I trust, will make me ever fearful of landing in this place of torment.

At last he lift himself up from the flaming bed, waved his hand, and called me by my name; and fixing my eye intently upon him, I knew him to be the learned Doctor— with whom I had lived as a pupil, who died some few years ago.

[Page 11] Amazed to see my venerable tutor in such a deplorable condition, I cried out, "O hor­rible! what do I see! my learned, my pious tutor in hell! Am I not asleep, deceived by my deluding fancy? It cannot be he! A man, whose doctrine and conversation was so go­verned by the dictates of reason, cannot be in hell. No, it can never be! Thou tormented ghost, I adjure thee by the greatest of names to undeceive me! Art thou he! Am I in a dream or not? Is that!—but I cannot doubt it.—Tell me, is that the receptacle of the damned?"

To which the ghost replied. "Deceived mortal, I see you are surprized to find a per­son in hell, who in life you esteemed as highly as an apostle. You see I am not, as you vainly fancied, in the heavenly mansions of eternal felicity; but, after all my pretensions to sanctity, am swallowed up unhappily, I am plunged into the unfathomable abyss of divine indignation, from whence, alas! there is no redemption. No, it ceaseth now! It ceaseth for ever. Ten thousand worlds, if I had them now, for one twelve-months respite. But oh! there is no respite; no intermission of these intolerable pains. Oh! piercing, pierc­ing pain! more violent far than fire, than burning coals of juniper. Here the keen ar­rows of incensed justice, the irresistable wrath of a holy God do pierce me through with unspeakable sorrows. Oh! that I had never [Page 12]been born! O that I had never been a de­ceiver! O that I had been a husbandman, a ploughman, or any thing but a preacher. Alas! a preacher, a false preacher, endureth a double hell! Oh! unhappy, wretched preacher, that is rewarded in this fiery gulph!

Ye deluded spirits, who by my fallacious deceit have been blinded, and are hither got before me, forbear, O forbear to throw your flaming darts against me. Why, O why do you thus torment me? Have not I torment enough already? Sure I have affliction enough in sustaining the shocks of omnipotent ven­geance, without your malicious piercing arrows being pointed at me. Woful day! accursed hour! that ever I denied the Lord, the om­nipotent Saviour.

Bear with me thou deceived mortal, for my pains force words from me, words that are unknown on earth. Oh for a few moments respite whilst I speak to a friendly mortal, and make known to him the horrors of this place! Ye my tormentors, allow me time only, so much time, as to recite the journal of one twenty-four hours of my unhappy being; grant me this small favour, it may be the last I shall request of you through the revolving ages of a never ending eternity. An hour's intermission, O my tormentors! it cannot in any wise prejudice you, whereas to me it may be of great advantage.

Hold! do hold, your hands, whilst I declare [Page 13]unto others what hath befallen a Socinian apostle.

Thus you see Mr.—, I cannot, by the most pressing entreaties, obtain so long a respite from my torment as to communicate to you what hath befallen me; but in the midst of unspeakable sorrow am obliged to converse with you, for my tormentors are in­exorable.

I lived as you know to advanced years a­mongst you, and your general opinion was, that I was gathered to my people in a good old age. Oh, the fatal mistake! an old age indeed, but alas! a bad old age it has proved. When the harbinger of my death began to visit me, my anxious pupils ministered un­wearied attendance. My fellow-teachers duly payed their most tender regard, by praying for and conversing with me. Both they and I, were apprehensive that my sickness was un­to death, my dissolution near approaching.

All proper means were used for my relief, but all in vain. No lengthening out of our days beyond the limits of God's decree; no, for he hath numbered our days, and our months are with him; he hath set bounds to our habitation that we cannot pass over it. Physic affording no relief, my pupils were dis­consolate; they thought I was the most a­postolic teacher in the world, and if death should cruelly bereave them of me, they knew not how to repair their loss, nor who was [Page 14]worthy to supply my place, when as they thought, I should be employed in the more immediate presence of the infinite JE­HOVAH.

My friends miserably comforted me with my supposed good works. O sir! say they, how comfortably may you die, when you consider the great deliverances you have wrought for the church. You have relieved her reasonable members from the irrational doctrines of Calvinism, overturned original sin, and the doctrine of imputed righteousness by your valuable books, which no man but your­self could have wrote. Therein you shewed most excellently, how that man is capable to atone for his own sins, and to work out his own salvation from sin and wrath.

As they said, so I foolishly believed, that these antichristian heresies were merito­rious in the sight of God. I depended greatly on the opinions of men, and thought that my humility, self-denial, and charity, would be a prevalent plea before the throne of the Almighty.— I thought on my death-bed that I felt a great deal of joy and comfort on look­ing back and viewing a well spent life, as mine at that time appeared to be. I trusted in my own holiness, and the mercy of God; but alas! I have since learned that I had none of the former, and that the latter doth not flow in the channel I sought for it in.

In my latter hours I enjoyed composure of [Page 15]mind, from an expectation that my pure na­ture would soon be translated to the ethereal climate, where nothing but holiness can dwell. Not in the least mistrusting a false treacherous heart, that has undone me, but vainly fancied I stood in paradisaical rectitude. O the deceit! O the fallacy of my hope, which lulled me asleep in delusive fancies. My soul conceived such elevated notions of the divine reward, which I thought I had merited by my labours, that she longed for the dissolving moment of separation, trusting in the clemency of the gospel lawgiver, who I thought would bend his law and justice to suit the circumstances of his reasonable creatures. O dreadful! how shall I relate it? the hour! the appointed hour, the destined moment of separation drew nigh.—My solicitous soul intreated the pale, the ghastly messenger, to cut short his work, and make a speedy dissolution of the mortal union. Reluctant nature struggled against the fermenting poison of the cankered arrow of nature's destroyer.

Convulsive pangs invaded the nervous fa­bric, and half persuaded the weary heart to forbear to throb. Anon, nature, which just before seemed to be vanquished by the preva­lency of the fever, recruits its strength and mustereth all its powers to resist, as long as might be, the unfrustrable rage of rapacious death. But alas! the time the unhappy moment arrives! Vanquished nature doth at last submit, [Page 16]yieldeth to the superior power of all conquer­ing death.—Here—the dreadful surprize! the unexpected, unhappy turn! My deceived ghost came smiling forth, in full expectation of the righteous reward. But soon alas! too soon was she convinced of her fatal mistake. No sooner arrived she at the pale portal of the lifeless lips, but she beheld—Oh! how shall I name it!—She beheld—O horrible! she beheld a company of devils in the cham­ber waiting to carry her hence.—Precipitately back she turned to seek for sanctuary in the deserted body—but now alas! the gates of mortality were shut, the body refused to re­ceive its former tenant. She looked to the right hand and to the left for a way to escape, but no avenue was open for retreat. She looked up to heaven, but could not stand the shock. Oh dreadful! she beheld the Omni­potent loosing his engines, and beginning to play his direful vengeance upon her. To avoid this horrible calamity she looked down­ward and beheld tempestuous destruction from beneath moved to meet her at her coming.

In the midst of all her hurry and unspeak­able confusion—the sly, seducing fiends, who had attended me incognito, and administred false instructions and comfort to me during life, with inconceivable fury, like so many fe­rocious panthers, leaped upon and seized me with their scorching talons; whose tormenting touch diffuseth hell through the whole being of the unhappy prisoner.

[Page 17] No longer do they act in disguise: having made sure work of my destruction, they threw off every mask, and appeared devils indeed! Now a tremendous scene was unfolded! The merciless furies forcibly dragged me to ap­pear before the dreadful, the flaming throne

Infinite amazement, horrible astonishment seized me, when I beheld the same Saviour whom I had denied on earth, now filling the majestic, the judgment seat, filled with all the fulness of uncreated deity, the whole fulness of the God head dwelling bodily in him. Infinite numbers of glorious spirits were placed around the refulgent throne, casting their crowns at the feet of him who sat on the throne, and singing holy, holy, holy Lord GOD Almighty, &c. every one cloathed with the righteousness of GOD which is by faith in Jesus Christ. The terrible Judge addressed himself to me, and said, Friend, how camest thou hither not having on a wedding garment. Alas! now my boasted reason failed, and horrible guilt surrounded me; dread con­fusion environed me on every hand. Self-con­victed and self condemned I could not answer a word. All my artful evasions of truth, my contempt of the person and righteousness of Christ, perverting the sacred scriptures to establish my accursed heresies, and the des­pite I had done to the grace, doctrines, and servants of GOD, all appeared as dreadful wit­nesses [Page 18]and advocates against me. I lived in hopes of being judged by a mild judge, ac­cording to a yielding law, but alas! I found an inflexible law and an inexorable judge. No allowance was made for mine infirmities, no abatement would the law admit of. No! not in the least, either eternal and perfect obedience, or perfect and eternal suffer­ings.

The imperial Judge, who filled the majes­tic seat, with stern vengeance frowning on his irreconcileable countenance, and dire dis­pleasure lowering on his tremendous brow, pronounced on me the dread, the irrevocable sentence, the unchangeable doom of a wolf in a sheep's cloathing; saying, Thou flock-destroying ravager, thou grace-despising, and God-denying sinner, where is now the God thou trusted in? If reason is thy God why doth she not deliver from under my vengeful hand? Go learn accursed spirit, go learn whether the torments of hell are infinite and of never-end­ing duration or not! Feel, wretched being! feel! endure all the ponderous weight of my falling vengeance. Hence, apostate! to the destined place of thy eternal abode! Here devils, receive your charge— away with the miscreant to utter dark­ness.

This said, the spouts of omnipotent ven­geance were opened, and the issuing indigna­tion of an angry GOD falling and breaking [Page 19]upon my head, (accursed, devoted to destruc­tion) as a stream of flaming brimstone, did pierce me through with infinite sorrows.

The obedient infernals no sooner received, but obeyed the charge, seized, and fettered me, with chains of all others the most dread­ful, chains made of my own doctrines, from the pulpit and press, interdicted by the great law-giving GOD. O! amazing! that all my heretical opinions should be so interlaced, as to become a chain stronger than iron, and, har­der than steel; but so it is, and I shall never, never, be able to break it.

Being fettered and chained, the loathsome spirits, who had attended me during life, and at death dragged me before the awful tribunal to receive the condemning sentence, did now shoulder and bear me away, through the dreary passage, to this dark abode. In the lonesome avenue that leadeth from the gates of heaven to the bottomless gulph of perdi­tion, I was frequently met by detached par­ties of patrolling goblins, who seemed to re­joice to see their companions bringing home to their gloomy abode the learned the holy Doctor as in derision they called me. At last, unhap­py moment! We arrived at the iron gates which opened of their own accord to receive their frightened prey.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, was I seized by the devouring jaws, and swal­lowed into the craving womb, of abysmal [Page 20]hell, where the worm dieth not, and where the fire is not quenched.

No sooner was I within these frightful mansions, but Arius and Socinus were apprised of my coming, by fresh bolts of divine indig­nation being thundred against their apostate heads.

The moment I entered, I was environed by a numerous body of ghastly spectres, who, by my preaching and writing, had been hardened against the truth, and heedlesly drowned in everlasting despair, they railed against my fal­lacy, and cursed my indefatigable diligence in destroying of them, and in fury unspeakable, plunged me into the bosom of a flaming bil­low; still they continued their hellish reproach and dragged my intoxicated ghost through the reeking liquid. And the more fiercely the wrath of the Almighty doth beat upon them­selves, the more intent are they in renewing my torments. Always, incessantly, doth the breath of JEHOVAH, as a stream of brimstone, with ardour intense, continue to burn within me? Myriads of skilful fiends seem to employ all their wisdom, contriving how to aggravate my pain.

This alas! is the unalterable state of your revered apostle, whom you supposed was ranged in heaven near the choir of the ancient evangelists. Believe me, Mr.—, hell is not a fiction, as mistaking mortals may dream. The wrath of God is something more than [Page 21]a bare separation from his joyful presence The pains of hell are not, as you believe, the dream of fanatics and enthusiasts, but real real, inexpressible pain! insupportable anguish! increasing daily as more souls arrive."

As he had thus spoke, a flaming billow rol­led upon, and overwhelmed him, and it was a considerable time before I saw him again. O! thought I, if it is thus with the tutor, how will it be in the end with the pupils? If the leader hath fallen into the ditch, certainly the followers must, if they walk in his ways and are governed by his directions. If I am not in a dream, or trance, for my own part, if ever I reach home again, I will examine my BIBLE better, that I may know for myself truth from error; for it is a fearful thing thus to fall into the avenging hands of a denied GOD. I cannot, no! I cannot endure devouring flames, nor dwell with unquenchable burn­ings. But I hope it is only a dream. O if it may prove only a dream, I should be exceed­ing glad. But I was awake when I came from home, awake when I entered this horrible place. No, no, it cannot be a dream, it must be even as I see it. Oh amazing! my tutor, so highly esteemed in life, in this condition; it is surely he, I know his voice. Yes, yes, it is he.

As I was thus reasoning concerning what I heard and saw, my tutor was brought up to the surface; and after he recovered himself a little, he stood erect, and said,

[Page 22] "Unhappy soul, to whom, whilst I lived, my mouth was an oracle, and gained your credence and attention sooner than the voice of GOD in the scriptures of truth, as you hold my memory venerable, hearken to what I say unto you. You seem greatly to question the truth of the vision which you now behold, but you may know of a truth that it is even too true, too real indeed! and that it cannot be otherwise, you will plainly see before you depart from hence. Wretched pupil, you, and your Socinian brethren, may know that it is not love to all, or any of you, that prompts me thus to expose to the world what hath befal­len me. No! there is no love, no tenderness and compassion in the smoky regions of the damned.—Rage, hatred, envy, and malice fill every breast, and pensive lower on every beclouded brow. But my reason is this, and none other. When I arrived in these hor­rible mansions, I lift up my eyes, being in exquisite torment, and beheld troops of my disciples posting after me to the same pit of destruction. Right well knowing that their arrival would greatly add to my already insupportable anguish, with the rich libertine in the gospel, I raise my voice from the belly of this bottomless abyss, and speak in the language of horrid despair, if by any means I may prevent the arrival of my brethren in falseshood, and the souls by me deceived in [Page 23]hell, to my unspeakable sorrow. I have al­ready more than I can bear, but bear it I must, and I am fearful of its increase, for I see you and your brethren speeding to this dreadful goal. O why, why will you follow me, ye deluded ones? As for me, my state is unalter­ably fixed, the dye is cast, my loss is irrepara­ble, and my afflictions remediless; for there is neither work nor device in the grave. The irrevocable doom is past, my tree is fallen, and in hell it must lie, burning, but never to be consumed! dying yet never dead! But for you, you are yet in a land of hope, on the act­ing side of death, on the mortal side of Jordan, not out of the reach of mercy, and the light of the gospel of truth shining around you. Cast off then your errors, and cleave to the truths of the Bible, the verbal report of which, as rational creatures, you are capable of receiving: and it will be your condemnation if you do it not. For I can tell you, if ever salvation do reach your unhappy souls, it must come through the same truths that I taught you to deny, but am myself, though too late, alas! convinced of. Oh! that I had owned them in time, but now my owning them is only forced, and by no means acceptable.— But that you may avoid the horrible destruc­tion into which I am involved, hearken to the word of admonition.

Consider your destructive error relating to the Godhead; You talk as I did, when I lived [Page 24]amongst you, of an uncreated, supreme, and eternal God; two who are created and subor­dinate. You say that the first person of the deity created the second, and the second created the third. You say that the deity of Christ is subordinate; but believe me, if ever you are so unhappy as to see him in the terrible man­ner in which I beheld him on the judgment seat, you will have done with talking of sub­ordinacy in the Godhead. His terrors, the awful terrors of omnipotence, will pierce you through with infinite sorrow. His tremendous majesty will frighten you! will make the strongest heart amongst you to wax feeble, and the ruddiest face to gather blackness.

Is not this infinite vengeance that I sustain? Is not this Almighty wrath that rolls incessant floods upon me? yet this is the very wrath and vengeance of the Saviour whom I denied. Nothing less than Omnipotence could thus torment, and along with the torment, convey sustaining strength. Is he a creature? no! verily this is uncreated indignation that falls upon me. Oh besotted! befooled! as I was. Consider how irrational it is to talk of a created God. Nothing can be God but infinity; but the highest creature is only a finite being, therefore not God.—Was yonder being who pronounced my decisive doom only a creature? Why then did the terrors of Godhead strike me, before the tremendous throne. Could creature terrors thus pierce me through with [Page 25]infinite torment! racking sorrow! Is he only a creature, under whose vengeful hand all the infernal myriads do sprawl in the utmost hor­ror and agony?

Deep infatuation! false reason, that denies the supremacy of the Son. Your reason, were it not grosly perverted, would readily see in the sacred volume that the Father is supreme, the Son supreme, and the Holy Ghost supreme, and that these three are so inseparably united, as to be only ONE everliving and supreme GOD. Blinded creatures! O my disciples! will you believe nothing but what your reason can comprehend? Is your reason finite or in­finite? If it is but finite, as you know it is, how can you think thereby to grasp infinity? But the light of your reason is only darkness, therefore it conceiveth irrational ideas of the deep things of GOD.

Be you assured, that when you land in these intolerable mansions, you will then, if not be­fore, repent that you gave the testimony of rea­son the preference to that of the divine oracles. O! what will you do, wretched men, when your reason bears testimony against you? It is a dreadful thing for a man to be witnessed a­gainst by his own reasonable faculties. Yet so it must be when you die, if you hearken not to the voice of truth, whose invariable dic­tates instruct the most enlightned reason to sub­mit itself to revelation.

For my own part, I confess to you that I [Page 26]am condemned as a wilful idolater: and it will fare no better with you, if you recant not in time, for you are all wilful idolaters. You knowingly worship a being whom you believe only to be a dignified creature: now know, that the worship of any being who is not essen­tially GOD, how great soever that being is, is only rank idolatry. You know likewise that our Arian and Socinian sect doth, contrary to the law of GOD and right reason itself, in­troduce more Gods than one: What is this but paganism? The truth is, we, who were of the Socinian tribe whilst on earth, now we are in hell, are sunk lower in the bottomless abyss, and endure far higher degrees of tor­ment than the infidels who worshipped the sun, moon, and stars, and all the host of hea­ven. O blind and perverted reason, that by trusting to thy false dictates I have despised the truth and unhappily destroyed myself. O cruelty never to be forgot! Treachery, ne­ver to be forgiven! Thro' self-deception, cruel in its nature, I have lost, ruined myself!

Unhappy men, when you come to view your tenets in the light of eternity, as your teacher and fellow-heresiarch now unhappily does, you will see that the profest atheists and we do stand on a level. They deny the be­ing of GOD in terms that are obvious and di­rect, we deny the same being in a subtile indi­rect manner: For in denying the divinity of the Son, the whole deity is denied; for the [Page 27]God head of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit, is one and the self same Godhead, differing only in the manner of subsistence; there­fore in denying one of the divine subsistence, strictly speaking, you deny all the three. But as for my disciples, you deny two of these di­vine subsistences, and ascribe unto them some kind of unscriptural super-angelic qualities. Pray what do you call this? Is it not real atheism? Cease from following me, I desire you. Burn, O burn my books against the truth, and forget my irrational heresies. Cease, I say! cease from following after me, before you are swallowed, to my unspeakable distrac­tion, in the same perdition with me. Believe what the scriptures say of him whom you de­ny. If any man believe not that JESUS is the ETERNAL I AM, he shall die in his sins.

A second sentiment of yours which I adver­tise you of, and warn you to recant, is, the good opinion you have of your supposed in­herent purity, in opposition to the voice of religion and the dictates of common sense. O that I had never maligned the truth by assert­ing that the doctrine of original sin is a fallacy? Alas! though my repentance is sincere, it is now too late! is not that predominant pride which is peculiar to the tribes of the Deists, Socinians, and Arians, a strong demonstration of our original depravity. Is it not pride that swelleth our haughty reason to that degree, that it not only vyes with, but even supercedes everlation. We are wont to say that we will [Page 28]believe nothing but what our reason can com­prehend. The native meining of this decla­ration is, that the word of GOD may err, but reason is infallible. What is this better than Popish pride, Infidel blindness, and Turkish arrogance. Believe me, my followers, if you choose to be governed by the dictates of car­nal reason, rather than divine revelation, you will find that yours will do by you as mine hath done by me; It will plunge you into hell in the end. Consider, my deluded followers, that if we by our reason had been capable of knowing the whole mind of GOD, there had been no need of revelation, no need of the Holy Ghost being sent down from heaven to lead his people into all truth; to reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

Doth not your inconsistency in preaching, sometimes contradicting one day what you ad­vanced the other, plainly prove the insufficiency of reason to grasp infinite mysteries. Ah! my disciples! how can you think to escape the damnation of hell? seeing, though you pro­fess to hearken to the voice of reason, you only listen partially to her.

Reason tells you that it is irrational to preach and unpreach, to contradict in one ser­mon what you preached in another. But how can you do otherwise, if you adhere not to the voice of revelation, which is perfectly uniform, as reason also doth allow. But you and I are wont to charge the scriptures with contradic­tion; [Page 29]I am now convinced indeed. that they are one chain of uniform truth. But alas! you remain unconvinced; and lo! I see you posting after me to the paths of perdition. Woe is me, for they will not stop till they be in hell, notwithstanding all my admoni­tions.

Unhappy disciples! are you not guilty of self-contradictions every day? Do not you de­clare that you will believe nothing but what your reason can comprehend? And notwith­standing this declaration, you believe that you are possest of rational immortal spirits, and you cannot comprehend how, or in what manner, these spirits dwell in you. Your reason tells you, that no creature is, or ought to be an ob­ject of religious adoration; but, contrary to the dictates of common sense, you worship Jesus Christ, whom you are taught to call a creature. Your reason tells you that GOD must be an infinite, uncreated, supreme being: but, contrary to all reason, you and I are wont to talk of a finite, created, and subordinate GOD. Witness heaven and earth, if these and many other glaring contradictions are not so many plain symptoms of natural depravity and dark­ness!

As long as you believe yourselves exempt from natural defilement, and in no danger by sin; as long as you cry up your own inherent power and worth, so long are you in a state of condemnation, from which nothing can [Page 30]save you but the attoning blood of Christ, which sacrifice I taught you to despise. Blind­ness as to your own wants and danger being a certain testimony of your depravity, and of the hardness of your hearts against GOD.

Remember, that as long as you continue in that good opinion you have of yourselves, so long you are enemies to the cross of Christ, blasphemous contradictors of GOD's holy word, that hath judiciously concluded all men under sin, and declared them dead in trespasses and sins, children of wrath, &c. O that I had preached thus while I lived! then had not my hell been so hot as alas! I find it. If you are so unhappy as to follow me to this place of torment, you will soon be convinced, that your boasted natural light is only darkness, that your virtue so much talked of is only painted vice, your strength imbecillity; and that your pretended humility is none other but pride in disguise. Oh! the Socinians hell is hot, seven times hotter than that of the profest Pagans.

A third evil of a damning nature which attendeth your heretical tribes is, denying the imputation of Christ's righteousness for justi­fication, for pardon and acceptance; a doctrine of GOD's word which none ever died in the denial of, and escaped the damnation of hell. Consider, my unhappy followers, that I, hav­ing seen the mysteries of eternity, must be al­lowed capable of teaching you lessons that you, in a state of mortality are utter strangers unto: [Page 31]and if you submitted yourselves to my instruc­tion when I lived on earth, with far more reason you ought to attend to me now, when my knowledge is refined by the flames of hell.

In denying the imputation of Christ's righteousness for the sinner's pardon and ac­ceptance, you in effect deny the justice and truth of Jehovah. Justice hath said the soul that sinneth shall die, truth is engaged to see the decree executed. Now, either the sinner must die in himself, or in some other person who stands in the relation of surety for him: If the sinner die in himself, then is there sal­vation for none, for all have sinned; but if he die in his surety, or if his surety die for him, then what his surety did for him must be imputed to him for his acceptance. But as I taught you, so you say, that he died not in his surety, neither needs he to die in him self—as a just consequence of this, the mercy and truth of God do both fall to the ground. Now, if both the justice and truth of God be denied, God himself is denied, and you commence ATHEISTS on the spot.

Let not you and your brethren strive to evade my arguments, and think yourselves somewhat better than ATHEISTS; for I can assure you, that the profest ATHEISTS and we, do compose only one canton in these in­fernal regions. Is the imputation of Christ's [Page 32]righteousness contrary to reason? surely no! Do not you sir, remember that affair between your two neighbours, Messrs. Austerity and Falshort, that happened about seven years ago, a little before I died.

Mr. Falshort stood charged in Mr. Austerity's Books with the sum of a thousand pounds. Austerity called on him once and again for his money, but meeting with nothing but good words and fair promises instead of satisfactory payment, he resolved to have Mr. Falshort's circumstances tried; and upon trial found that he was not worth a thousand pence. Austerity enraged at the disappointment, immediately arrested Falshort and laid him in goal, where he lay in a helpless and hopeless condition, often solliciting Mr. Austerity for a release. But Austerity obstinately persisted in his de­mands, either payment of the whole sum, or imprisonment during life.

Mr. Goodwill, a neighbouring gentleman, and relation to Mr. Falshort, moved with pity and compassion towards his unfortunate friend, and being a man of substance and honour, went to Mr. Austerity unknown to Mr. Falshort, and resolved to deliver his, poor, insolvent friend out of prison, but scorning to have it said that Austerity should be a loser by his friend Falshort, he paid down chearfully the whole sum, to the satisfaction of the creditor and deliverance of the insolvent: on which payment he obtained a discharge in full of all demands on the account of Mr. Falshort. [Page 33]Now the quere is, did Austerity impute unto Falshort the payment of Mr. Goodwill, and account it the same as if Falshort himself had payed the debt. You know he did. Ah! my disciples, your abused, yet boasted reason, if you recant not, will be a terrible devil to torment you when you arrive in these intoler­able mansions, as my reason, alas! is the greatest of all my tormentors.

But you say you have no need of the righte­ousness of another, because you have power of yourselves to do that which is well pleasing in the sight of GOD, and sufficiently work out your own salvation. Now if you could do so, you would at once stop my mouth. Ah! poor deluded mortals, you little know what it is to keep the law of God! The command­ment is exceeding broad!

Does there never a vain thought pass through your mind? Does there never an idle word issue from your mouth? Do you in all things do unto others as you would that they should do unto you? Unless you can answer the two first queries in the negative, and the latter in the affirmative, never boast of strength, but be mortified for want of will to keep ei­ther all or any precept of the moral law perfectly. Remember what the apostle Paul said of himself, to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. Can the damned to these dark regions extri­cate themselves out of the inconceivable an­guish [Page 34]into which they are involved? Just as much power have you to work out your own salvation. You can as soon deliver yourselves from the torments of hell if once you are swallowed up in it, as to deliver yourselves from the slavish bands of your pride and ig­norance. Bewitched Socinians, let right reason have its course, and it will teach you to submit to revelation. O! how it pains me to find that your blood is required at my hands! and to see you and your fellows seeking death in the grossest of heresies. Oh! my disciples, this is our condemnation, that light is come into the world, and we have loved darkness rather than light because our deeds are, and have been evil"

As the Doctor had thus spoke, he was surrounded by a number of merciless furies, seized, and plunged into the flaming abyss, so that for some time I lost sight of him, and the smoke of his torment ascended up to hea­ven, darkening the air in its passage.

After the space of about half an hour, I perceived him cast up at the farther side of a rolling billow, and after some violent strug­glings he stood erect, and in horrid distraction said.—"Damnation! ah me! is this the Damnation I was so often threatened with by the Calvinists, and as often laughed at it as a fanatic's dream? Is this the hell I so often heard of, and so fallaciously concluded to con­sist barely in a separation from the blissful pre­sence [Page 35]of GOD! Alas! alas! these floods of vengeance that incessantly keep pouring in upon me, are something more than a bare separation. Blinded teacher who had, and blinded disciples who have, such diminutive notions of the torments of the damned.

Wretched creatures, as I lift up my tor­mented eyes, I behold them posting onward toward the dreadful goal. If they arrive, my torment, though already inexpressible, will be greatly aggravated.—Let me once more try what effect the eloquence of despair may have upon them. Who knows but it may retard their march!

Still! still do you pursue your course! O my deluded followers? Still will ye remain tenacious of your errors, notwithstanding I plainly tell you to what dismal distraction they have reduced me! into what unalterable anguish they have plunged me! You perse­vere in your errors, therefore I must per­severe in admonishing you. Hearken sir! hearken Mr.—while I speak to you, and I charge you to tell your brethren what I say.

Your denying the efficacy of divine grace in regeneration and sanctification is justly ranked among your damnable errors, and is one of the greatest heresies that ever I taught you.—Had I experimentally known the influences of efficacious grace, I had never come to this place of torment, but had been [Page 36]joining yonder assembly, yonder glorious church of the first-born, which I see afar off written in heaven, beautified with all the lus­tre of grace, both imputed and imparted, cloathed with all the radiance of undecaying glory, filled with the inexpressible pleasures that issue from the throne of sovereign love and goodness. Alas, I never saw the need of the operations of unfrustrable grace till I ar­rived in eternity, and now too late I repent my denial thereof.—The flames of hell give a lasting and full conviction of the truth of all the doctrines of the gospel, and at the same time that we, the spirits accursed, have no share in their salutary report and in­fluence.

When I lived on earth amongst you, I taught you to attend to the voice of carnal corrupted reason; now I am in hell, I advise you to hearken to the voice of right reason compared with the word of GOD.

In the word of GOD conversion is ac­counted a quickening or rising from the dead: and reason tells you, that you cannot quicken or bring to life again the dearest, the most be­loved object which death hath bereaved you of; nor can they quicken themselves, or they would never suffer their delicate bodies to be­come nauseously putrified in the devouring womb of the hungry grave. For my own part, I find I cannot quicken my body again, or I would not lie here broiling in these [Page 37]flames.—Some of you have hair of an un­lovely colour of which you are ashamed, why do you not change its colour agreeable to your minds? Others of you my disciples have legs or shoulders not shaped, eyes and temples not set to your liking, why do you not mend the matter and alter the proportion of your parts? Your own reason tells you, you cannot so much as alter the colour of a single hair of your head.

But the quickening of the soul is an infi­nitely greater work. And is it reasonable to pretend to do the greater, when you are convinced you cannot do the less? O my dis­ciples! how have I your blind leader darkened your understanding by my falshoods. Woe is me! for my followers are at the point of falling into this horrible ditch.

Again, the work of conversion is a creation of the soul anew. Now if divine grace is not the efficient in this soul creation, you your­selves must be the efficient therein. Can you do it? You profess you can. First try your creating hand on a lesser job before you pro­ceed to the greater. Can you create riches and honour? You love them well enough; if you have power to create them why do so many of you go destitute of both? Can you create peace in the midst of trouble? Joy in the midst of sorrow? Ease in the midst of pain? Light in the time and place of dark­ness? Beauty instead of deformity? You [Page 38]know you cannot. But to create the soul in Christ Jesus to good works is a task by far more difficult. If you cannot, as your con­sciences confess, do the least, is it not then a great degree of madness to pretend to do the greatest, even a work that requires Omnipo­tence to perform.

Hearken ye blinded mortals, hearken to the voice of him who hath condemned me! It is not effected by works of righteousness which we have done, but by the walling of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost.

Again, inconsistent creature that you are, (saith he to me) if you can create yourself a­new, why do you not do it? Why are you so long e'er you begin the work? If you must perform the work with your own single hand, you will be long in finishing it: Most likely you may spend all your life time before you are half gone through with you work, then all your creating labour will be lost. Is it not highly unreasonable when a man hears that he must be born again, created anew, quicken'd together with Christ, &c. and at the some time believes that the renewing power is in himself, that he should sit down contented in an unrenewed condition, not knowing but death may seize him every moment?"

Here I was cut to the heart, to see that in­stead of being guided wholly by reason, that in many things I both believed and acted contrary to reason. The old Doctor, per­ceiving my confusion, continued:

[Page 39] "Consider that if you deny the operations of the comforter, you deny the author of the bible, who is the very GOD that made you. Here you may see that I taught you Atheism in various forms. Oh! that you repented your receiving my instructions as sincerely as I repent teaching them! then would not my torment be increased by your arrival in hell. I do assure you I recant all these blasphemous errors, though now alas! it is too late. You may recant in time as you are yet on the mortal side of the gulph! Oh! that you might all recant in time! I dread your arrival in this fiery tophet! because it will bring additional torment to me.

Miserable teacher that I was, I taught you to deny the operations of the Holy Ghost, and in doing so to deny the truth of God, which in fact is the same as to deny GOD himself. O! what spirit accursed can stand up under the fury of a denied God! Alas if you do not hearti­ly sign your recantation in time, you must needs stand the shock, the dreadful shock of his fiery indignation to all eternity.

Another destructive error by which you treasure up unto yourselves wrath against the day of wrath, is the trust you have in a mild, yielding law, and flexible justice of God the judge.

You may fancy what you will; but for my part, when I trembling stood before the awful throne, I found no condescension in, no abatements made by, the rigid law, [Page 40]not the least in divine justice! All was stern, all was severe, beyond all possibility of miti­gation. I then found, though never before, that the council of the most high doth stand, and that his word is as invariable as himself. O! if you had seen as much of the immuta­bility of the law as I have! you would have done with talking as you do about abatement of its rigorous demands, or that justice doth make allowances for sins, however supposed venal. This error of yours doth directly wound both the mercy and justice of God: for if God is just, then must his law be ful­filled according to the tenor thereof; if God is merciful, his mercy must be unbounded: but if, as in effect you say, he in part forgives and in part receives, his mercy is limited by the circumstances of the object. One man requires a greater, another requires a less de­gree of mercy. Is not this as great an indig­nity as you can offer to the mercy of God? As for me, I now see in the light of eternity, that where ever salvation comes, it comes wholly, fully and freely, without money and without price, without any works of righte­ousness on the part of man.

Likewise, I now see that God's justice is infinite, which it could not possibly be, if it could in any ways pass by the least sin un­punished. Foolish dreamers that we were! to think that God would drown his justice in the flood of his mercy, would prejudice [Page 41]one attribute of his incomprehensible nature, to the honour of another, and all for the sake of creatures who are less than nothing, in his sight altogether vanity. Folly in perfection indeed! That being who is GOD must be infinitely holy and just as well as infinitely mer­ciful. If he is infinitely holy, than he can make no allowance for sin. If infinitely just, then his mercy can be extended to none, but to the honour of his justice. But if his justice can pass over some sins, why not all sin? and then there would be no need of a Saviour; for verily if salvation could have come by the holiness of the creature, Christ hath died in vain. Have not you an equal right to a pen­ny which one man may owe you, as to a pound which another may? Such is the rigour of the law, (and that soon you will find) that he who offends in one point, though it were but in a single thought, is guilty of the whole,—GOD will by no means clear the guilty,—there is no release from his law's arrest,—no appeal from the tribunal of his justice! O faithless and unbelieving, as I was, will you not open your eyes to see the light of instruction? Will you ever shut your ears against the voice of truth?

I know you say, that when you come to be tried at the divine bar, that your vices must be put in one scale, and your virtues in the other, and if there happen to be an e­quilibrium in the balance, that God will put [Page 42]in so much of his divine clemency, as will make your virtues overweigh your vices. Alas! alas! I can look back to the time that I had such a foolish notion, which greatly facilitated my ruin. But when I came to be weighed, all my deeds were accounted evil; my virtues, which I formerly thought I had store of, were, when weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, lighter than nothing, vanity itself. You will find that unless Christ be put in the balance with you, you will be sound wanting as I was. How should it be otherwise, when without faith it is impossible to please GOD, and whatsoever is not of faith is sin? Why then will faithless mortals pre­tend to do that which is well pleasing in the sight of GOD? When I expected my virtues to appear as my wedding garment, I was struck as with a thunder-bolt, and when I heard the Judge, the holy GOD to say, Let his filthy rags be burned with him, both he and they are an abomination to me, from this time forward I will rejoice over him to do him evil.

Ah my disciples, you will find that the first touch of the flames beneath will at once con­sume all your supposed virtue. The law ad­mitteth not of composition, and the justice of GOD cannot be bribed with imperfect virtues, rather the appearance of virtue. If you must stand in your own righteousness, alas! you must bear the whole weight of JEHOVAH's [Page 43]vengeance, as I do at this day. O that I had been wise, and had understood this in time, then had not my latter end been so terribly dreadful. Ah me! these complaints are now too late!

Another error whereby your hands are strengthened in wickedness, is your vain imaginations concerning the torments of the damned. You say that the torments of hell consists only in a separation from the joys of heaven, the blissful presence of GOD: If that indeed were all—it were no hell to souls whose natural language is,— depart from me, O Lord, I desire not the knowledge of thee. All the heaven unregenerate men desire, is an ut­ter separation from GOD. But I can tell you from woeful experience, that exclusion from the mercy of GOD is inseperable from endur­ing his wrath. Separation from the joy of heaven, in eternity, is immediately connected with the most exquisite pain. Can the elo­quence of angels persuade me that I feel not the most intolerable anguish? Are the flaming billows, that roll incessantly upon me, nothing but bare separation? Are these streams of vengeance, that issue continually from the spouts of omnipotent wrath, nothing but se­paration? Doth this noisome smell, arising from the flaming sulphur, impart no torment to the damned? Doth these dismal howlings of souls in unutterable agonies—these dire­ful [Page 44]yellings of hideous ghosts, cutting their flight through the tremendous arches of the expansive tophet,—yield no degree of tor­ment to the damned ear? Or the sight of millions of frightful ghosts floating upon the surface of the burning lake? All the serpen­tine breed in their most ghastly dimensions, with all the swelling floods of JEHOVAH's vengeance, rolling in continually on us: can these be beheld with a peaceful eye! And all this within view of the overflowing joys of the righteous, whom on earth we accounted fanatics, enthusiasts, &c.—Is all this, and infinitely more than human heart in a state of mortality can form any idea of, no more than a bare separation from GOD? Now I will re­veal a mystery unto you. You say that the damned are separate from GOD: but verily it is a mistake! He is as fully manifested in these dreadful mansions, as he is in heaven. There he is manifested in his love, grace, mercy, truth, and holiness. Here he is manifested in his holiness, truth, justice, and wrath. If this manifestation of GOD doth not create a hell of infinite torment, I know not what possibly can.

But you say that despair constitutes hell. I ask you, did you ever sensibly know what is meant by despair? If you felt the awful tor­ment, caused by that gnawing worm, for the space of one minute, you would dread it as long as you lived. Know of a truth that hell is intolerable! Flatter not yourselves that your [Page 45]punishment will consist in a separation from the person whom you hate. If you are so un­happy as to persist in your heresies till the last, you will find that one hour in this dark abode will convince you of their fallacy.

But to make the best of a bad bargain, you have got a notion, that in some future period there shall be a general release from the tor­ments of hell. This is a flat denial of the oracles of God, an insult on the author, and crafty method of hardening sinners in their sins. When I lived on the earth I was of the same mind with Mr. Bourn; but now I am in hell, and am convinced of its eternity.—Alas! my conviction adds greatly to my torment. Could we who are confined to this gloomy dungeon but once think of a release, it would in a great measure alleviate our distress. But such a thought doth not so much as once enter in­to our minds. No, never will whilst eternity endures. O eternity! eternity! To think of eternity is a galling thought. Any torment is to be chosen, rather than an eternity of tor­ment. Eternal inevitably it must be! Woe is me, I am lost! Eternally lost! beyond all remedy!

Bewitched man, to measure eternity by the divisions of time. Here we have no years, months, weeks, and days! But eternity is eternity, that is all you mortals can know of it. Insufferable insolence! thus to assault the truths of JEHOVAH, and give the lie to the [Page 46]God of eternal veracity. Should you treat the law of an earthly prince with equal contempt, would he calmly and patiently suffer it? Is it possible that such daring impiety can go un­punished! surely no! I charge you Mr.—, that you write down and publish to the world all that you have heard and seen, if by that means any of my deceived followers may be persuaded to believe the truth, and escape this direful misery into which I am plunged. Tell them I heartily recant all the doctrines where­by I have supplanted the truths of the gospel. Tell them I, sleeping, dreamed all the days of my life, and never awoke till vengeance laid hold of me.—Tell them, that if I had liberty to come on earth, and there remain for one twelvemonth's space, I would openly acknow­ledge all mine errors, publicly recant all my heresies.—Speak, speak to them, and do not spare.—Tell them, that if here they arrive, their blood will be as oil in the flames of my torments that now blaze all around me. Regard not my memory. Let it be cut off from the face of the earth!—O that the earth were also cut off from my mind! But alas! I have the lively images of all my past transactions intimately present with me.—The sound of my heresies for ever ring in my tormented ears.—After all, remember what I told you at first. It is not love either to you or them, that makes me thus solicitously concerned for the welfare of you all, but a slavish fear that my already in­tolerable [Page 47]pains will be increased on your arrival in this bottomless abyss. Mercy and love are for ever banished from amongst us.—

As the doctor had thus spoke, I beheld him surrounded by a squadron of black infernals, who cut their way swifter than the wind through the smoky arches of dreadful Tophet. They surrounded, seized, and carried him a­way, as I supposed, to renewed torments, by reason of his hideous shrieks, that reached up unto heaven, and even now fill my afflicted ears as I write the story.—They carried him off, and I saw him no more.—

Amazed I stood on this dangerous precipice, revolving in my mind what I had heard and seen, astonished to find myself so clearly con­victed of infidelity; fearful lest I should share the same end with my unhappy tutor; and partly, wondering that I was not indeed with him already, because I had hitherto so closely followed his doctrines. As I was meditating on these things, I heard a noise equally fright­ful with that which I heard at the beginning: I trembling stood, expecting a second eruption, fearful least thereby I should be overwhelmed with certain destruction. As I thus stood dread­ing the consequence, the noise waxed louder and louder, like many rolling thunders con­centring in one: all the noise seemed to come from the bowels of the earth. Anon the earth began to tremble, at last to shake in an un­common manner; and by and by the pit in [Page 48]which I had seen such wonders closed its lips, and ceased further to belch froth from its fiery entrails either fire, smoke, or hideous spectres. This done the earth regained her stability, and all nature appeared serene.

Not knowing into what place of the world I was got, I judged it safest to abide where I was, and wait for the wished for morn, the welcome harbinger of day already appearing in the East.—When fair Aurora had spread her broidered skirts over all the oriental world, and darted her pleasant smiles towards the West, I found in her light, that I was got to the middle of the common on the south side of the town. Now knowing right well the place on which I stood, I began with the light of day to search for the burned forest I had seen overnight; but could see nothing but what was usual on the common. I gladly would once more have viewed that pleasant, but soli­tary avenue, through which I passed the night before; but no avenue was to be seen; I sought it, but could not find it. This made me conclude, that both the forest and avenue were only visionary.

I dreaded going home, expecting to find my wife and children buried in the ruins made by the earthquakes; but to my joyful surprize, I gladly found them all in perfect health, and my wife told me, that though the slept none in the night, by reason of my absence, yet she had heard no uncommon noise, nor felt the [Page 49]least shock of an earthquake; making further enquiry among my neighbours, they answered in like manner: nor indeed was there to be seen about all the town the least appearance of a past earthquake: All which tended to asto­nish me more and more.

I knew not what to think of the vision—Certainly, thought I, it cannot be a dream! But I feared least my brain was distempered, and in the midst of its distraction painted out such apparitions to me. However, two things I resolved on; 1st, Utterly to cast off all Arian and Socinian errors, and embrace the orthodox faith, which I had despised the day before; but I judged it prudent candidly to examine the doctor's books by the scriptures of truth, before I committed them to the flames.

2dly, I resolved to keep all these things which I had seen and heard a profound secret. The regard I had for the doctor's memory had great influence upon me.

That very day I began to take a scriptural view of the works of my unhappy tutor; and in the conclusion, found them very worthy of the fire, which accordingly in due time they fed.

Still I was resolved to hide the vision in my heart, till one night in my sleep I dreamt that the doctor appeared to me in all the ghastly deformities of a damned spirit, charged me with ingratitude to that God who had in so [Page 50]uncommon a manner delivered me from the dangerous heresies I had imbibed from my tu­tor; and want of love to my fellow creatures, in that, having got the knowledge of the truth myself, I did not study to reclaim others from error. He said I had no true regard either for his person or memory, or I would publish unto mankind what might in part, prevent the increase of his torments. And withal told me, if I would not resolve to pub­lish what I had heard and seen, that he would haunt me every night in my sleep, to my un­speakable mortification.

Self-preservation hath in it a persuasive elo­quence; rather than be troubled every night with the ghost of my unhappy tutor, I have prevailed with myself to obey him; though for my pains, I expect to be called a madman by one, a fanatic by another, an enthusiast by a third, and perhaps by a fourth a malicious person.

But I rest myself content, that the notable day will shew who is the wisest disciple of reason, or the maddest enthusiast; who useth and who abuseth right reason: whether they that despise my vision, or their humble servant, whose name henceforth is