it, and mankind, by general compact, submitted to the restraint of laws, and resigned the pleasure to escape the pain."

Of charity, it is superfluous to observe, that it could have no place if there were no wants; for of a virtue which could not be practised, the omission could not be culpable. Natural evil is not only the occasional, but the efficient cause of charity; we are incited to the relief of misery by the consciousness that we have the same nature with the sufferer; that we are in danger of the same distress, and may sometimes implore the same assistance.

Godliness is the elevation of the mind towards the Supreme Being an extension of the thoughts to another life. The other life is future, and the Supreme Being is invisible. None would have recourse to an invisible power, if all other subjects did not elude their hopes. None would fix their attention upon the future, but that they are discontented with the present. If the senses were feasted with perpetual pleasure, they would always keep the mind in subjection. Reason has no authority over us, but by its power to warn us against evil.

In childhood, while our minds are unoccupied, religion is impressed upon them; and the first years of almost all who have been well educated, are passed in a regular discharge of the duties of piety. But as we advance forward into the crowds of life, innumerable delights solicit our inclinations, and innumerable cares distract our attention. The time of youth is passed away in noisy frolics; manhood is led on from hope to hope, and from project to project; the dissoluteness of pleasure, the inebriation of success, the ardor of expectation, and the vehemence of competition, chain down the mind alike to the present scene; nor is it remembered how soon this mist of trifles must be scattered, and the bubbles that float upon the rivulets of life be lost forever in the ocean of eternity. To this consideration scarce any man is awakened, but by some pressing and resistless evil; the death of those from whom we derive pleasure, or to whom we destined our possessions; some diseases which show us the vanity of all external acquisitions, or the gloom of age, which intercepts our prospect of long enjoyment, forces us to fix our hopes upon another state; and when we have contended with the tempest of life till our strength fails, we fly, at last, to the shelter of religion.

That misery does not make all virtuous, is evident from experience; but it is also equally evident, that what virtue there is among mankind, misery produces by far the greater part. Physical evil may, therefore, be endured with patience, since it is the cause of moral good; and patience itself is one virtue by which we are prepared for that state in which evil shall be known no more.

The calamities and hardships of our present state, then, are so far from being real evils, for which Providence ought to be censured, that in every point of view in which we consider them, they

afford the surest proof of the wisdom of its administration, and of its goodness to man.

III. But the most serious difficulty lies in accounting for the permission of moral evil or guilt, in a system governed by infinite benevolence and wisdom. Those who, in a consistent manner, hold the doctrine of the absolute necessity of human actions in its full extent, and acknowledge its consequences, find it easy to elude this difficulty. They very fairly deny the existence of moral evil in the abstract, and assert that what we call a crime, is nothing more than an action which we always regard with a painful sensation; that these apparent evils only endure for a time; and all will, at last, terminate in the perfection and happiness of every intelligent being. But this answer is unsatisfactory.

For, in the first place, by including the doctrine of mechanical necessity, it destroys the moral quality of all the actions of intelligent beings. To be entitled to rewards, or liable to punishment, a man must act voluntarily, or, in other words, his actions must proceed from that energy of mind which is termed volition; and we believe it has never been denied that all men have power to do whatever they will, both with respect to the operations of their minds, and the motion of their bodies, uncontrolled by any foreign principle or cause. Every man is at liberty to turn his thoughts to whatever subject he pleases, to consider the reasons for or against any scheme or proposition, and to reflect upon them as long as he shall think proper; as well as to walk wherever he pleases, and to do whatever his hands or his limbs are capable of doing. Without such liberty as this, morality is inconceivable. And this liberty is rejected in the foregoing answer; therefore, we reject the answer, because it destroys the morality of all actions.

Once more: We object to this answer, because it undermines the foundation of all religious worship. When we pray for our daily bread, what do we ask but the blessings of God upon the earth, to yield her fruits in due season? When we ask the blessings of God upon our meals, what do we less than recognize his supreme power, and implore him to make the gifts of his providence the means of our subsistence and refreshment? This disclaims every notion of that mechanical necessity which shuts out God from being the active governor of the world; it supposes his concurrence and cooperation in all the operations of nature. Again, when we pray for the graces and virtues of the spiritual life, what do we ask but the divine aid, to strengthen the good dispositions he has already given us, and to direct and order the course of events, that we may be kept from temptation, or not be overcome when we are tempted. But this supposes the superintendence of God over us; supposes his interposition; supposes his providence continually exerted in administering to the wants of his creatures, according as their wants require. If this account be just, then our worship is a reasonable service. But if these are vain words, then is our worship also vain.

Then every one who goes into his closet to pray, goes only to act foolishly; then all the good and the pious, everywhere upon the face of the whole earth, who are calling upon the most high God, are as uselessly and as absurdly employed, as if they were falling down before a dumb idol, and paying their devotions to images of wood or stone.

Final, this mechanical system, in a great measure, annihilates the moral perfections of the divine nature. It places the Almighty in a state of indolence, which is inconsistent with every idea of perfection; it makes him an idle and unconcerned spectator of his own works, and presents him as beholding virtue and vice, the saint and the sinner, with an equal eye. There are many scenes in human life, at which if we were present, it would be criminal for us not to take a part. Did we see the hands of the violent raised to shed innocent blood, and not rush to prevent the horrid deed; did we know the retreat of the robber and assassin, and not endeavor to bring them to public justice, we should be regarded as guilty, in part, of their crimes, since, by a criminal omission, we should endanger the peace of the public, and the interests of society. If we, being evil, would abhor such a character, shall we impute it, can we impute it, to Him who is infinite in goodness, and who is possessed of absolute perfection? To what purpose is God everywhere present, if it must be forever dormant? Why is he inspired with infinite wisdom, if it is to be never exercised? To what purpose are the divine goodness and justice, if we only hear of their names? Are all the attributes of the Godhead in vain? How false, how absurd, how injurious is that sentiment which would destroy every divine perfection?

Reason and true philosophy never separate the Deity from his works. We must own him in the sky, to hold the planets in their respective orbits; we must own him in the earth, and in the sea, to keep them within their proper bounds; and we must own him through the whole system of nature, to support and maintain that gravitating force which gives consistency and stability to all material things. We must also maintain that, in the government of moral and accountable beings, He exercises his providence so as to preserve inviolable the freedom of the human will. Power and freedom of action are indispensably necessary to constitute the conduct of intelligent beings either virtuous or vicious.

Upon the system of liberty, then, the true answer to the question. seems to be this: That some things are absolutely impossible, not from any weakness in the Deity, but because they imply absurdity and contradiction. Thus, it is impossible for twice two to be anything but four; and thus it is impossible for omnipotence itself, to confer self-approbation upon an intelligent being who has never deserved it; that is to say, it is impossible for a man of sense to be pleased with himself for having done a certain action, while he himself is conscious that he never performed the action. But self-ap

probation constitutes the highest, the most unmingled and permanent felicity, of which our nature is capable of enjoying.. It is not in the power of omnipotence itself, then, to bestow the highest and most permanent felicity of our nature; it must be earned and deserved before it can be obtained. In the same manner good desert, virtue, or merit, cannot be conferred; they must be acquired. To enable us to acquire these, we must be exposed to difficues, and must suffer in a certain degree. If these difficulties had no influence on our conduct and feelings, if they exposed us to no real danger, no fabric of merit and self-approbation could be raised upon them. All that the Supreme Being could do for us was to confer such an original constitution and character, as would enable us to do well if we should exert our utmost powers. The universe is not ruled by favor, but by justice. Complete felicity must be purchased. Guilt is an abuse of our freedom, a doing ill where we could have done well, and is entirely the work of man. Heaven could not avoid permitting its existence, and exposing us to danger; for temptation is necessary to virtue, and virtue is the perfection of our nature, our glory, and our happiness.

The permission of moral evil has been so ably accounted for by Simplicius, a Pagan philosopher, and therefore not biased by any partiality to the Scriptures, that we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of introducing his reasoning on the subject. He asks whether God may be called the author of sin, because he permits the soul to use its liberty? and answers the question thus:

"He who says that God should not permit the exercise of its freedom to the soul, must affirm one of these two things: either that the soul, though by nature capable of indifferently choosing good or evil, should yet be constantly prevented from choosing evil; or else it should have been made of such a nature as to have no power of choosing evil.

The former assertion is irrational and absurd; for what kind of liberty would that be in which there should be no freedom of choice? and what choice could there be, if the mind were constantly restrained to one side of the alternative? With respect to the second assertion, it is to be observed, that no evil is in itself desirable, or can be chosen as evil. But if this power of determining itself either way in any given case must be taken from the soul, it must be either something as not good, or as some great evil. But whoever says so, does not consider how many things there are which, though accounted good and desirable, are yet never put in competition with this freedom of the will; for without it we should. be on a level with the brutes; and there is no person who would rather be a brute than a man. If God, then, shows his goodness in giving to inferior beings such perfections as are far below this, is it incongruous to his divine nature and goodness to give man a selfdetermining power over his actions, and to permit him the free exercise of that power? Had God, to prevent man's sins, taken away

the liberty of his will, he would likewise have destroyed the foundation of all virtue, and the very nature of man, for there could be no virtue were there not a possibility of vice; and man's nature, had it continued rational, would have been divine, because impeccable. Therefore, though we attribute to God, as its author, this self-determining power, which is so necessary in the order of the universe, we have no reason to attribute to him that evil which comes by the abuse of liberty. For God does not cause that aversion from good which is in the soul when it sins; he only gives to the soul such a power as might turn itself to evil, out of which he produces much good, which, without such a power, could not have been produced by Omnipotence itself." So consonant to the doctrine of the Scriptures is the reasoning, of this Pagan philosopher.

IV. The fourth and last objection to the belief of the doctrine of a Divine Providence arises from the apparent confusion of human affairs, that all things alike happen to all, that bad men are prosperous, and that a total want of justice appears to attend the divine administrations. Even the best of men have, at times, been shaken by this consideration. But there are many reasons for rendering this world a mixed scene; it would become unfit for a state of trial and education to virtue, were it otherwise.

It has been already shown, that physical evil is the parent of moral good; and, therefore, it would be absurd to expect that the virtuous should be entirely exempted from evil. For the occasional prosperity of the wicked, many reasons have been assigned, even by those who, in their disquisitions, were not guided by that revelation by which life and immortality were brought to light. "God," says Plutarch, "spares the wicked that he may set to mankind an example of forbearance, and teach them not to revenge their injuries too hastily on each other. He spares some wicked men from early punishment, in order to make them instruments in punishing others. And he spares all for a time, that they may have leisure for repentance; for men look at nothing further in the punishment they inflict, than to satisfy their revenge and malice, and, therefore, they pursue those who have offended them with the utmost rage and eagerness; whereas God, aiming at the cure of those who are not utterly incurable, gives them time to be converted." The reasoning of this ancient sage appears just and conclusive, as far as it goes; but it does not fully meet the objection.

This objection receives the best solution from the doctrine of a righteous retribution in a future state of existence. The life of man here is but an embryo state, preparatory to a future and immortal state of being. This doctrine is uniformly asserted in the Sacred Oracles, and made subservient to sustain and support suffering virtue under all the trials and afflictions of life: Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope, like the anchor of a ship, preserves the soul in safety and security amidst all the storms and billows of life. The good man, having