of Grace and Salvation, extended for their Recovery,
after they might have transgressed, would have been equally worthy
of God; and we need not recur to such Fictions and Chimeras. One
would think it incumbent on all Legislators, to consider well the
Consequences of every Law they enact; for the preferring a Law,
whose Consequences can at best be of no Service, and will probably
in the main Event of Things be more evil and pernicious than
otherwise, would be preferring Evil to Good; in as great Proportion
as the Evil might exceed the Good: and how such a Constitution could
be better for Mankind, I do not understand. I am sorry any body,
especially the Author of _The Ruin and Recovery_, should imbibe and
defend such erroneous Opinions, and this too, in Opposition to other
and nobler Sentiments of his own, elsewhere delivered.

But, thus it is to be enslaved to the mere Letter of the _Bible_,
under a Notion of doing it _just Honour_, when, on the contrary,
'tis the ready way to _dishonour_ and _lessen_ its Authority.

The Pains which Infants suffer, and the many Miseries to which they
are exposed, are, by this Gentleman, consider'd as so many Arguments
of the Guilt of _Original Sin_. He thinks that, without such a
Supposition, the _Justice_ of God cannot be vindicated. [I wish he
would stick true to that Argument.] We must, he thinks, suppose one
of these two Things: either, _That God punishes them without all
Cause or Reason_, or, _That they are under the Curse and
Condemnation of_ Adam'_s Sin:_ and the latter is, in his Opinion,
the best Sentiment. But I am of a contrary Opinion, and think that
in either Case, the _Injustice_ is the same. He _allows_ it in the
_one Case;_ and I hope it is _proved_ in the other: and really the
Picture which this Gentleman has drawn of our young Innocents, is
very dreadful and terrifying. If all the _Evils_ that befall them in
this Life, and _Eternal Damnation_ afterwards, be no more than a
_just_ Punishment for their _Sins_, our _Saviour_ must surely have
been _greatly out_, in the Encomiums he bestows on their
_Innocence_, as I observed before; or, the Kingdom of Heaven,
instead of being design'd for _upright holy Souls_, may be a
Receptacle for the worst of human Race.

The Brute Creation undergo Pain and Affliction; is _Adam's_ Sin,
therefore, imputed to them? If not, and they sometimes suffer by
Pain and Abuse, why may not Infants do the same? The Miseries of the
human Race, reck