the Deity would be placed in a situation similar to a most glorious, brilliant sun, stationed in empty space, wasting his rays to no useful purpose, in like manner, the innumerable blessings which are treasured up in God, as in an inexhaustible fountain, and which he delights to diffuse, would be entirely useless.

With respect to the second case, if we reason from what we know, which is our only sure guide, we will be most likely to conclude, that if an human being is not born with a perfect knowledge of every thing, both natural and moral, they must be contented to gain it progressively, and that frequently by very slow degrees, and often very imperfectly. How greatly would we be surprized to hear a new-born infant call for warm water to wash it, and a soft napkin to dry it, and tell the attendants what kind of dress it preferred; and after it was clothed, it should begin and expatiate upon its relative duties to God as its Creator, and to his fellow-beings. Supposing this to be a new order of things, and that from that very hour every person should be inspired with the same degrees of every useful knowledge; whenever the surprize occasioned by the novelty of the infant's conduct should subside, all the pleasures of social converse would be forever lost; for ev

ery person possessing the same kind and degree of knowledge, would have nothing to learn, nor any thing new to communicate; so that when a company met, they might sit down as sociably as so many house-clocks, and click the seconds in unison together. But to compensate, in some degree, for this disadvantage, we should gain something in another way. We might make fuel of the contents of all the Bookstores and libraries, as the Turks did with the Alexandrian library, for books would be entirely useless; besides, we should have no occasion for schoolmasters and reverend divines, they also would be useless, because they could not teach us any thing which we did not know.

With respect to the third class, consisting of animated automatons, they would be as happy as apathy and indolence could make them, having neither appetites nor passions of any kind to gratify, nor any occasion to think or reflect, as every thought, word, and action, would be produced by a superior power acting within them; they would not need to puzzle their brains to discover the most eligible mode of regulating their future conduct, as they could not even guess this moment what they might be impelled to do the next.

Having stated three different projects for the exclusion of moral evil, which, for good reasons, the Deity has not adopted, as neither of them would have been the best possible, I shall now proceed to state the plan which he has adopted, and endeavour to prove it to be the best possible.

God has constituted every intelligent being whom he has created, a moral, accountable agent, and placed him in a state of probation, which condition as necessarily implies the possibility that the probationer may transgress the moral law, as it includes a stipulation, that he should be furnished with a degree of knowledge to enable him to distinguish between moral good and evil: a free will, unbiassed by superior influence, to choose or refuse, and powers to act agreeably to his choice. Without including all these conditions, it could not be a fair trial or state of probation. It is certain that the devil, prior to his fall, was a free, moral, accountable agent, placed in a state of probation; but as he was neither infinitely wise, nor perfectly holy, he deviated from the paths of rectitude, and fell; and as he had enjoyed greater means of improvement, and acted in a more exalted sphere than any merely human being has ever done, he became much more criminal,

When the omniscient and infinitely benevo lent Jehovah contemplated the creation of the human species, he positively knew the absolute impossibility of furnishing created beings with innate or intuitive knowledge sufficient to ena ble them to comprehend, and sanctity enough to engage them at all times, and under all cir-cumstances, punctually to obey, and perfectly to fulfil all the duties prescribed by the precepts. of the moral law. He knew that knowledge could only be acquired by created beings by degrees, by careful tuition, attentive observation, accurate reasoning from well established, first principles, aided by long experience. He therefore created Adam and Eve as the progenitors of the human race, in a state of puberty, with a degree of knowledge exceeding that of infancy, but yet so limited for want of observation and experience, that the Deity did not mean to puzzle them with the observance of any of the intri-cate precepts of the moral law, but simply prohibited them from eating the fruit of one particular tree. On this single, simple condition, he constituted Adam the federal head and representative of all his posterity. But as God knew that the precepts of the moral law could not, nor should not be violated with impunity, and also that Adam being totally incapable of distinguish-ing between moral good and evil, would trans

gress, by which moral evil would be introduced into the ethical system, for which Adam could not make any amends, he had previously provided for us another and more complete head and representative, perfectly competent to make ample satisfaction for the violation of the moral law, and fulfil it compleatly in our behalf; which he has done for the whole human race, and has also averted the curse of the law from every individual child of Adam. But this should not, nor does not free us from the observance of the moral law, not as the means of justification or acceptance with God, but as the rule of our conduct in life; for the best among the sons of men are daily violating its sacred precepts, through inattention and ignorance: for, notwithstanding all the opportunities of improving our knowledge, which, for many ages, we have enjoyed by tuition, observation, and experience, we appear to be as ignorant, in many respects, as our -ancestors were two thousand years ago; but more particularly with reference to the designs of the Deity respecting the final condition of the human species; some believing and teaching, that God created the human race with the benevolent design to bring them all, finally, into a permanent state of felicity. Others believe and teach, that he has purposely rendered the whole human race sinful, to shew how much