result, but as a mean for the production of remoter good;-that all things flow into each other;and that, if we could stretch our view over the entire extent of the Divine plans,-all evil would seem to lose its character,-and appear only as an instrument devised with perfect wisdom by the Supreme Mind, for the evolution of those progressive plans which he is carrying forward.

Indeed, no opinion can be better founded, or is supported by clearer evidence, than that which supposes the pervading influence of good and benevolent design throughout all the works and ways of God;-and we never can attain to satisfactory conceptions of either the ways or the character of God, -nor be pleased with our own situation in existence,

-nor feel ourselves in possession of principles which throw light and beauty over all perplexities,-till we have accustomed our imaginations to those pure and free views which represent all present evils as but means of future good,—or which teach us to believe, -that as the plans of Providence are more perfectly evolved, all things will be seen to have been working together for good."

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At the same time, many minds have a secret sus

picion which they cannot overcome, whenever such

= opinions respecting the pure goodness of the Divine purposes are expressed;-and it is but fair to acknowledge, that these opinions are commonly expounded in so unguarded and absolute a manner,and are couched in language so marked by vague and doubtful meaning, that there is reason for the suspicion with which their statement is regarded,and that, in fact, they may be so conceived as to lead to very erroneous views of the actual arrangements, and even of the final purposes of the Divine government. The term good is itself of a very indefinite meaning,-and is often so viewed as to suggest rather pleasurable sensations,―than the prevalence of that perfect state of the arrangements of Nature, which it is more properly the purpose of Providence to establish ;-and when we speak of pure and unmingled good, we are apt so to express ourselves as if there were no exhibition of plans in the universe which lead to their purpose only by the endurance of sufferings.

But the facts already noticed respecting the actual miseries that prevail in life,-respecting the dark side which Providence seems often to present to us, and the indiscriminate manner in which these awful calamities not unfrequently fall,-prove in

contestably, that though pure and pervading good be indeed the principle of all the Divine dispensations, and though we have no reason to attribute to God any disposition to inflict suffering simply as a retaliation for offences,-yet this benignant purpose of his government is not inconsistent with the adoption of means which carry to those who are subjected to them an appearance of severity ;-for this is as certain a fact as is the other,-derived from a different aspect of the arrangements of Nature,— namely,—that we are here in a kingdom of grace or of forgiveness, and if these latter appearances suggest most affectingly the paternal and benignant character of God,-the instances of apparent severity as powerfully remind us that the purposes of the Almighty are conducted to their issue by ways the full propriety of which we are not at present able to estimate ;-but which imply the possibility of suffering, and sore suffering, in certain stages of our existence being used as a mean to future improvement.

More especially, the appearances of life suggest that a course of sin is followed, sooner or later, but by a connexion which is never entirely broken, by the endurance of great sufferings;—and it is from all these views that God appears to us in his govern

ment of this world not simply as a good and benignant being, but as a being who makes use of apparent evil for the promotion of future good;—that is, as not only the forgiving father,—but the righteous Governor and Judge of men.

Only, it must always be kept in mind, that God never acts, in his severest dispensations, simply from a vindictive feeling;-and that such expressions as,the wrath,—or indignation, or anger of God, however innocently employed in discourses strictly religious, because, in such discourses, we speak of God simply as he manifests himself in his visible and ordinary dealings with men,—are not, however, just explications of the actual principles of the Divine mind, but only useful adaptations of the language of men to express, on the part of God, purposes similar to those which the feelings denoted by these terms are employed to effectuate in our government of each other.

Upon the whole, then, that portion of the Divine kingdom which we behold on earth is a kingdom of grace, for in it pardon and forgiveness are offered to the frailty of man,-and these offers are signified by every arrangement that characterizes this world,and by all the finest and deepest feelings of the human heart. But, in this portion of his universal

kingdom, God also assumes the character of a righteous ruler and equitable judge;—for dispensations producing great sufferings are made use of in the order of Nature as means of future good,—and, especially, sin is inseparably followed by the endurance of suffering in one form or another.

These are undoubted appearances in the order of Providence as we see it ;-and if they intimate, that all things are pervaded by a principle of benevolence, and are advancing to final good,—that is, to grander displays of the spiritual beauty and perfection of the universe,—they also suggest, that we are not warranted to believe, from what we have already seen, that the purposes of Providence are irreconcileable with the endurance, on the part of his creatures, of severe and long-continued sufferings.

Just ideas on this subject,-namely,-in what way we are entitled to conceive of God as at once the forgiving Father and the righteous Governor of the world,-how both of these aspects of his character are derived from appearances that are peculiar to this world, considered as insulated from the great scheme of things, and what are the new lights thrown on these aspects of the character of God, and on the means which he employs in the govern