gtu_32400003389297

Front matter

be wy a -_ ‘tek

ESTORATION OF ALL THINGS:

A VINDICATION

Preface

‘owness, and allay the seve-.

bYyee OC Re) eee eee

~ of God and latitude of his grace. ’Tis from St. Austin, as follows.

Aveustin. De Civ. Dei, lib. xxi. cap. 17. « And now I see I must have to do with our merciful men, and must dispute with them gently and peaceably, who either will not believe everlasting punishment to be inflicted on those whom the just Judge shall condemn to the pains of hell; or at least not on all of them: but that after certain periods of time, longer or shorter, according to the proportion of their crimes, they shall be delivered of that state.”

St. Jrnomwz, at the end of his comment on Isaiah, speaks thus, concerning the opinion that hell torments shall have an end; though he himself was persuaded in and believed the eternity of the torments of devils and Atheists. “Which (matter) we ought to leave to the wisdom of God alone, whose judgments as well as his mercies are in weight and measure, and who well knows whom, or how, or for how long he ought to judge them.”

T shall conclude these testimonies of the fathers with that of Facunnus, Episcop. Hermiensis, lib. iv. cap. 4. pag. 62. Edit. Paris. 1679. “Inthe book which Domrrian, Bishop of Ancyra, wrote to Vigilius, he is found complaining of those that contradicted the doctrines of Origen, which maintained that the souls of men pre-existed in a state of happiness before they came into bodies; and.that all those that were doomed to the eternal punishment, shall, together with the devil and his angels, be restored to their former state of blessedness.” And after this he adds, “They have rashly run out to anathematize the most holy and most glorious doctors, (or teachers of the Church) on occasion of those doctrines that have been advanced concerning the pre-existence, and the restitution of all things.’ And this indeed under pretext of Origen, but thereby anathematizing all the (great) saints which were before him, and which have been after him.” Thus have we the declaration and testimonies of two of the ancient fathers and bishops of the Church in one.

This is a taste of those numerous. testimonies of the ancients to the truth of this doctrine; and those of the moderns are yet more numerous. There have been several books written on this subject in French, in the High Dutch, and the Low Dutch ; and particularly in the High German by the learned Dr. Jo. W. Petersen, sometime Superintendent of Lunenburgh, at large in folio; where he has streauously defended this point, and collected and adopted into his work the writings of several others upon this subject in lesser tracts: ’tis called The Restitution. of all ‘Things. There is also an ingenious piece written in French by a noble eminent lord and minister of the court of the King of Prussia, intitled, Entretiens sur la Restitution: Universelle de la Creation : or, -A Conference upon the Universal Restitution of the Creation, betwixt

Dositheus and Theophilus. ’But to collect ’

testimonies from all these would make a volume instead of a preface: therefore I shall content myself with producing a few testimonies from some of the learned or c ene att

Se oaks A eed s oy ia ws é PREFACE, quirers into this subject, some more, some less, that have been of our own nation.

Geranpv Wrystanter, in his book Of the Mystery of God, §c. p. 9, printed 1649, declares thus: “ Therefore T say the mystery of God is thus: God will bruise this serpent’s head, and cast the murtherer out of heaven, [i. e. of ] the human nature where it dwells in part—And he will dwell in that whole creation in time, and so deliver whole mankind out of their fall.”

There is another treatise called The Church Triumphant : or, A comfortable Treatise of the Amplitude and Largeness of Christ's Kingdom; wherein is proved | by Scripture and reason, that the number of the damned is inferior to that of the elect. By Joseph Alford, M. A. sometime fellow. of Oriel College, Oxford. Printed An. 1644. The title-page of which being so full, I shall omit any further quotation from the book.

There is also a book written by R. Stafford. entitled, Some Thoughts of the Life to.come, &c. Printed Anno 1693, in which this doctrine is notably asserted. We find here, p. 52, &e.— “So that let satan do his worst, as it is proverbially and truly said, God zs above the devil; so his knowledge doth as much exceed the other, (who is a creature and by him made) as the whole ocean a single drop: of water. In the Ist and 2d chapters of Job, and the 2d of Zechariah, and in Rev. xii. 10; we see and understand God’s superlative and over-ruling goodness and equity; how he doth moderate the matter, and affirm it by the way ef favour and mercy on the side of mankind. And this but as talking a little before the day of assize, an emblem and forerunner, how he will determine it eternally on their side, at the last and great day of judgment, notwithstanding all the informations, accusations and aggravations of Satan. And nowif there should be any who. draw up more heavy and false inditement than the true and very nature of the thing doth require and will bear: or if the conscience itself (which is yet more) pressed with sin and guilt, should forecast too grievous things: all this will not do one jot ‘of harm in. the day of the Lord; for He who hath prepared his throne for judgment knows all things :—“ With righteousness will he judge the world, and the people with equity. Psalm lxxxix. 9. Now equity is a mild thing, which doth state, moderate, and adjust amatter. And then after all, God doth reserve mercy, even after judgment and. condemnation: for that is its proper place.”

And afterwards, p. 55.—‘But God only knows what may succeed after all this, when those miserable creatures have Jain under condemnation and punishment, a muchlonger space of-duration than six or seven thousand years, [the ages or evers of this lower creation] now God will look down from the heighth of his Sanctuary: —‘From heaven will the Lord behold the earth, (yea, and who knows whetier he will behold yet lower: ‘If I make my bed in hell, behold, Thon art there!’)—‘to hear the groaning of the prison ed to death sa. cii. 19, 20; [in the margi rae the children of Caley ‘This on

; to that excellent and

* oe

Scripture is of more worth than te1 worlds. If any thing of good or m intended to them, it ‘will come in upo account; that they are the creatures of and his workmanship: The Lord shall rejoice _ in his works, and they shall reciprocally ejoice in the Lord their God. If those very — creatures who seem rejected, can. upon him by the name of Tax Loxp, n¢ hold on him as Esau did when he crie , a great aud exceeding bitter raya: ne, even me, © my father! Hast thou but one blessing, O my father? [still putting in mind of the relation] bless me, even me. (af to father! So it may be conceived of thos condemned forlorn and miserable creaturesthat after they have been long in wailing a gnashing of teeth—if they can but call wv: him by the name of Creator, and rem and lay it beforehim,that they are the w his hands :—Gop hath more than one. Ny essil to saints and angels; he may make devils Ae condemned sinners hewers of wood and drawers of water.—‘ For I will not contend forever (saith the Lord), neither will I be always wroth, for the spirit would fail before “me, and the souls which I have make,’ Isa. lvii. 18.— For God hath concluded all in unbelief, that he might have merey Hh all’ Rom. Sis 38, d

The learned Dr. Husny More, ; vine Dialogues, printed Anno 11 ally that part which relates and pursues _the vision of Bathynous’s silver and golden Keys (the keys of Providence,) speaks very fayourably of this, yea covertly and a involves it; not only in his dire ing the doctrine of pre-ewistence, hand in hand with it; but laying more general principles from flows.

We find, p. 479, Birarmos seat

—“I was not content to think of God in gross only, but began to consider his 1 Bing more distinctly and. accuratel nd to co ofS | did confidently consliniet that in ite p wisdom, and goodness, these ee were chiefest and most comprehensive : Ss the divine nature; and that the these was his goodness, the st flower, as I may so speak, of and that particularly whereby men become divine: whereas communication of the other would not make them divi the mean time being versed philosophy nor metapk a and expecting the laws 0 either visible or invisible sh vely head, which with the mo and affection I entertained i my mind was for a long ti inextricable puzzles and di the phenomena ie the world. opinions of bog any comfort or st to loose them that are appoint-| This for the extricating of Bathynous [or the deep -contemplator] out of his labyrinth, the vision of the two keys of Providence is ingenuously feigned: and the first sentence in the scroll discovered by the golden key, written in letters of gold, is this:

“The measure of Providence is the divine goodness: which has no bounds but itself; which is infinite.” And another of the sentences asserts, the pre-eaxistence of souls. Another, viz. 5, is, “In infinite myriads of free agents which were the framers of their own fortunes, it had been a wonder if they all of them had taken the same path; and therefore sin at the long run shook hands with opacity [or, the abyss of darkness].” And the 6th, is ;—“ As much as the light exceeds the shadows, so much do the regions of happiness exceed those of sin and misery.”

The author of these dialogues would not go to the other six sentences, towards which he prepares the way, but makes Bathynous to be suddenly waked out of his dream by the braying of two asses; wittily hinting the reason why he concealed the other part of what might serve to clear up the providence of God, viz. the rudeness and clamour of narrow and ignorant spirits.

But lastly we find him asserting, p. 515. “You acknowledge then his goodness the leading attribute in the creation of the world, and his wisdom and power, to contrive and execute what his will actuated by his goodness did intend—But this is a marvel of marvels to me, that the goodness of God being infinite, the effects thereof should be So narrow and finite as commonly men conceit; if there be no incapacity in the things themselves that thus straitens them. That one small share of the divine goodness should be active, but that the infinite remainder thereof, as I may so speak, silent and unactive, is a riddle, a miracle that does infinitely amaze me!”

This is indeed larger than what may be applied to the particular occasion, viz. of the time and manner of the creation of the world; but here the braying comes in again, expressed by Sophronius: “O Bathynous, my

_very heart-strings are fretted with fear and anxiety, when you plunge into such profound disquisitions as these!” And so Bathynous keeps still to the first part of the scroll, in which he asserts pre-existence; but lays the ground for its sister tenet or doctrine, viz. the restitution of those spirits which had _their descent into regions of punishment, for their defect and lapse from their pre-existent state; which, if not prevented by the weakness and incapacity of the hearer, had been discovered as the grand point of the second part of the scroll; and without which ward, as I may say, of the golden key, the greatest objections against Providence are yet in force, and the goodness of God, which he un- _dertakes to vindicate, remains unasserted and almost as dark as before. But he here _ thought a word to the wise was sufficient. That great and good man, Dr. Joun Trx-

_ xorsox, late Archbishop of Canterbury, in his i vous of sermons, preached 1694, writes 2 ourably upon the case, as with sus-

“ae pence, and suspicion of the possibility of the truth of it, p. 164: :

“ The case thenin short stands thus : Whenever we break the laws of God, we fall into his hands and lie at his mercy, and he may without injustice inflict what punishment upon’ us he pleaseth: and consequently to secure his law from violation, he may beforehand threaten what penalties he thinks fit and necessary to deter men from the -transgression of it. And this is not esteemed unjust among men, to punish crimes that are commifted in an instant, with the perpetual loss of estate, or liberty, or life. Secondly, this will appear yet’ more reasonable, when we consider, that after all, He that threatens hath still the power of execution in his hands. For there is this remarkable difference between promises and threatenings, that he who promiseth, passeth over a right to another, and thereby stands obliged to him in justice and faithfulness to make good his promise; and if he do not, the party to whom the promise is made is not only disappointed, but injuriously dealt withal. But in threatenings it is quite otherwise. He that threatens keeps the right of punishing in his own hand, and is not obliged to execute what he hath threatened any further than the reasons and ends of government do require: and he may without injury to the party threatened, remit and abate as much as he pleaseth of the punishment that he hath threatened: and because in so doing he is not worse but better than his word, nobody can find fault, or complain of any wrong or injustice thereby done to him.

“Nor is this any impeachment of God’s truth and faithfulness, any more than is esteemed among men a piece of falsehood not to do what they have threatened. God did absolutely threaten the destruction of Nineveh, and his peevish prophet did understand the threatenings to be absolute, and was very angry with God for employing him in a message that was not made good. But God understood his own right, and did what he pleased, notwithstanding the threatening he had denounced; and for all Jonah was so touched in honour that he had rather himself had died than that Nineveh should not have been destroyed, only to have verified his message.”

Also p. 179, he says:—* Origen, I know not for what good reason, is said to be of opinion, that the punishment of the devils and wicked men, after the day of judgment, will continue but for a thousand years; and that after that time they shall all be finally saved. I can hardly persuade myself that so wise and learned a man as Origen was, should be positive in an opinion for which there can be no certain ground in reason, especially for the punctual and precise term of a thousand years. But upon the whole matter, however it be; be it for a thousand years, or be it for a longer and nnknown term, or be it for ever, which is plainly threatened in the gospel; I say, however it be, this is certain, that it is infinitely wiser to take care to avoid it, than to dispute it, and to run the final hazard of it. Put it which way we will, especially ny

ml put it at the worst, as in all prudence we ought to do, itis by all possible means to be provided against. So terrible, so intolerable is the thought, yea, the very least suspicion of being miserable for ever.”

This has been looked upon as so open an intimation of this great man, that on this ac- | count he has been written against, in vindi- | cation of the efernjly of hell-torments.

But the most full and pregnant testimony to this doctrine, we shall collect, and that pretty largely, from that ingenious Letter of resolution concerning the opinions of Origen, printed Anno 1661, known among the learned to have been written by a Bishop of the Church of England, tamous for his excellent tract, Dez Veritaté.. We find him declaring, p. 71,—

“T come now to the Father's fifth opinion, which is this; ‘That after long periods of time the damned shall be delivered from their torments, and try their fortunes again in such regions of the world as their nature and present disposition fits them for.—There are in some men’s minds wonderful high reaches at great and unusual objects. That disposition of soul whence such extraordinary offers proceed, you may not improperly call, the magnificence of the intellect, which often hath something of temerity in it; as the moral virtue of that name not seldom hath some touch of ambition. But as we are very favourable to this, and apt to pardon its smaller extravagancies for the sake of those high designs and eminent works to which they adhere: so by the same reason and justice ought that other to be candidiy sentenced hy us, when it seems to slip, because of those raised and important discoveries it makes, where it lights right and happily ; especially where it seems to have been betrayed by a forward and pious endeavour of doing honour to God. Which is Origen’s case here; of whom his greatest adversaries cannot in reason but confess, that, the error they conceive him fallen into in this opinion, proceed-

-ed from his over great solicitude of rendering the ways of Providence clear, and righteous, and benign. Yet this, as strange as it looks, has its probabilities too as well as the former. For he looked upon God as making all things for their good and benefit ; with this gracious design that they might be happy, according to their place and order in the infinite orb of beings.”

And afterwards, p. 72, we read,—* That eternal mind, therefore, making all things out of a principle of infinite love, and for the good and happiness of the things themselves, and seeing what he had made, and how he had made them, and what was likely to he the lot of some of them, from the necessary unperfectness of ‘their natures, if their future

-ijl-hap was like to be infinitely more sharp and dolorous, than all the good they should enjoy from him, till that calamity befel them,

~ grateful and pleasant; his great compassion certainly would have persuaded him Pana

Lh annihilate them; or rather his wisdom there are such reserves in his most gracious providence,, as will both a just disparagement, and take such course with, and so dispose of all his ‘creatures og they shall never, be but in such a. cond ion, which, all things considered, nh heseiere \eligible than never to have been.” oy

Again, speaking of hell torments, he: “A sad and pityable state, and tortu re insu ferable! But no doubt as just’ ete Just, I say, not only according the estimation of modern theology, (which, from an “excess of compliment to the justice of God, becomes almost as rude and troublesome as the a ass in the fuble, who did not fawn UEP but invade his master ; and which tragicall ly prot ounces that the least peccadillo highly deserves. the greatest punishment conceivable; ) but also in the compute and judgment of that Allrighteous mind, which judges and orde all things by the living law of equity. But what, though it be so great and just; ;—is it therefore so different, from the reason of all other punishments inflicted by God or man, that there is nothing in it of that end for which they are inflicted ? They are curative, for the emendation of the party suffering ; but this, if it be eternal in the scholastic sense of the word, leaves no place for the bettering of the sufferers, who are never to get out of this inexplicable labyrinth of woe and_ misery.— } ;

“ Now to think these misera far amiss, as to be beyond | 1 redress and restitution, is s]

made some of his creatures very ‘unto ardly; and that when he pronounced them. all good, he looked only upon eit state: for, certainly, if he had east |} s to all possible conditions” he ‘ere wards fall into, and. seen g ended doom of intolerable of body and mind, the infinite ee ness of his blessed nature Mi ev have given so cheerful an approbation to works of his hands.—Bu ny > th are not beyond the power of r covery, and that that gre shall undergo in the en contribute thereto, and ~ shall, for all this thei kept ‘in it for ever and a note upon the mercy

righteous Judge of all t same temper in a man je and abominate.”

And that the bing gk and even ina way of be t posed for grace, this learned j to shew from the father, viz the divine life is extinguis reason and consideration |

Pe things, or which is worse, suffer those offers | or preparations which it induces for the, bettering the present condition of so great and so considerable a part of his creation, and for the putting of them into a way of return to| what he at first made them, to come to nought?—So that whithersoever we look, whether to the gracious Providence of God, or the necessity of the nature of things, we find some probable hope, that the punishment of the damned, as it implies the sense of pain, | should not be efernal in the highest sense of the word—Buat whether their release be by | any change wrought in the dispositions of their spirits, but without death; or whether | by an escape, as it were, by dying, to the| body so tortured: there is no doubt to be made, but that both ways they may come into play again, and try their fortunes once more in such regions of the world as Providence judges fit for them.” _ And towards the end of the book, p. 130, we have upon this head, something further, very considerable: viz. “Against the jifth [supposed error of the father] Epiphanius says not a syllable; I think he does not so much as barely name it; and I remember nothing in St. Jerome about it, but such admirations as these—“ That the devils should become angels again! and Judas a saint!”—And since he has been pleased to say no more; I shall | not say much, but only, what difference is | there between a devil made an angel, and an angel made a deyil? I am sure the adyan-| tage lies on the ascending part, rather than on | the descending; for the mercy and compassion of God to all other works of his hands, may reasonably be supposed to help them up, though undeserving; but there is nothing in his most righteous nature, which would cast them down with their high demerit. But if St. Jerome wondered at this restitution, as certain, or easy, or of short despatch, tis his own mistake he wondered at, not Origen’s opinion, at least in the two last particulars, “What Methodius disputes from the-nature and reason of punishment, against Origen’s making the terrestrial body Sezpoy xa: rides, [the bond or confinement of the soul] if it be applied to the final punishment which God will inflict upon all the obdurately wicked in the end of this world, willas much confirm this fifth opinion, as he imagined through mistake of the father’s doctrines, and a pe- -dantic accuracy in the use of a word, it would weaken the third; and so he really gives the father as much with one hand as he hat thinks he takes from him with the other. _Forhe very largely disputes in his Socratical ay, that all punishment is ewrative, and for ts :

the emendation of the suffering party.” “Some there are that think those phrases | of 7p Asconoy, and eiracic diwy:a (i. e. everlasting | “fire, and everlasting punishment) and the like, annot be reconciled with Origen’s opinion. at these objectors seem to take the word @ [rendered everlusting} from scholastic itions, rather than from the true and, masters of language, or the authentic oe any remarkable period of duration, whether it be of life, or dispensation, or polity. Any of which periods, if plainly computable by a known time, they do then define it by a set number of years; but others which are not so known, they simply express by Gnolam, and «ay leaving the Jength of them to be determined according to the subject matter; which, where it is sach as comprehends more than a single determinable av they express it in Hebrew by the phrase of Lagnolam vagned, in Greek by sic tev asamve xaos ers or ete Tos aamvas, and 8 aimvee TaVv waaay, But by none of these do they mean a scholastic eternity ; unless the nature of the thing then expressed require such interminable duration. And hence the period of this world is called iwy ores) when yet there is another to succeed, atwy cxztvey. And as these aie differ, so would also the meaning of a:wviay be different according as it was applied to the one or the other of them. And so in the plural, Christ is said to appear and suffer, #7? cuyrsax Tay tiarey, when yet the longest aly of all was not then come. And he of whom it is said, Thy throne, O God is, ts tty ai@ya va arvev [ for ever and ever] yet to ‘deliver up the kingdom to God the Father, and to be subject himself to him, who did subject all things to him’ So that here is plainly an end to that reign which is said to be for ever and ever. And as 47’ aianay does not in Scripture signify from all eternity, in. the sense of the schools, so by the same reason ought not és alave to signify to all eternily, in the same notion: and is not é#¢ eave, and asoyiov all one? Every lexicographer and expositor will furnish you with authorities enough to confirm what I have said: and I leave you to judge, whether the whole subject matter in this periodical doom, the nature of that fire and its fuel, the power of a spirit incorporate, be not such as will enforce us to make it shorter than some men do; who hav: ing got easy ways of assuring themselves it shall not be their portion, do as little pity those calamitous souls whose lot it may be, as they darkly fancy God himself does. But though we from the reason of things and right use of the words, do make it shorter than they do; yet according to our hypothesis, the whole punishment of pain and death will necessarily be so long, as may justly be called ewyiwv, in a very high sense of the word.

“But if out of filial respect to the authority of our dear mother the Church of England, you are yet something backward to give assent to the probability of Origen’s doctrine, I would have you first to consider, that all those that write and, preach in this nation, are not her sons, no more than they of Geneva, Scotland, or New England are. Secondly, I would fain know why she, who in her xxxix articles does so punctually tollow the articles agreed upon in King Edward’s days, or with little variation, should wholly omit that article which condemns the restorers of this opinion, ral others: as, Sanuenr, in his Olbia; Peter Srenny, author of The Freedom of the will ;

the author of the Enochian walks with GOD, and the Revelation of the everlasting Gospel Messuge, to which ano excellent preface is prefixed, running very deep into the rationale of it; as also by. a Scotch gentleman, author of the Cabalistical epistle, printed in the Theosophical Transactions, No. 5, where he! brings in the testimonies of the Jewish Rabbis | conspiring also to the truth of this great point, with several others. But I must contain myself; and hope what is advanced may be suflicient to show, that this opinion is not so strange and unusual, nor counted so absurd a lenet by the pious and learned, both of elder and later times, as it is by the generality imagined to be.

"And it may be further hoped, that seeing upon examination there appears so good

PREFACE TO. THE THIRD LONDON eek

Tix first edition of this work was printed for Cliffe & Jackson, at the Three Crowns in the Poultry, 1712. Another edition was printed for J. Woodword, in Scalding Alley near Stocks-market, and J. Morphew near Stationer’s Hall, to which no date was prefixed: the present* is printed from that of 1712.—The writer. of the preceding preface (for some particular reason) thought proper, at the publishing the book, to conceal the name of the author.

Neither in Bayle’s nor in the Biographical Dictionary, is there any mention made of Jeremran Warre ;—the principal particulars Ihave read concerning him, are to be found in Dr. Calamy’s account of ejected ministers, printed in 1713. Page 5, he says,

“Mr. Jeremran Warrs, M. A. was fellow | of Trinity College in Cambridge, and after- | wards preacher to the Council of State; and | household chaplain to Oliver Cromwell. He lived privately after the Restoration,preaching occasionally, without ever undertaking any pastoral charge. His conversation was very facetious, and. much valued by some persons of rank and figure: he died anno 1707, AM, 78 —I know not of any thing of his writing being printed in his life- time, besides a faneground in “Scripture, so great. sire reason, and such a cloud of | witnes se truth of this doctrine, the design an vours of the editor of this work ork aay with a more favourable reception, as in time when the broken state of the Chu obliges all to be looking towards the fir foundation of it; and the revival of apostolica truths as well as practice, is so hig ly need And lastly, if there be any thing slipt edition that may be complained of, a p it will be candidly censured, not havin, cae joyed his health for some time, du aaa attendance upon the press; so thati necessarily been subject to various int sree: ; tions, and also changes from- ars to another; and so I shall no longer detain. he reader from the body of the work citself;