A state of trial supposes a liability to sin; and it cannot be proved that it is inconsistent with justice or benevolence, for God to place his rational creatures in a state of trial. The benevolence of God in this case is to be estimated by a clear and complete comprehension of all the ends which he has in view; and of the nature, fitness, or unfitness, of all the means to those ends. But of such a comprehension we are not possessed; and therefore are certainly unable to discern, that it is inconsistent with perfect benevolence to place us in such a state. If we are to be rewarded, it would seem necessary, as well as proper, that we should be tried; because our own conduct is the only thing for which we can be rewarded. That benevolence may propose such a trial, in order to such a reward, appears to be the natural and universal dictate of

reason.

All that Justice seems to require in this case is, that more and higher motives to obedience, than to disobedience, should be presented to the mind of the probationer. This in the present case is certainly and invariably the fact.

(3) It cannot be proved that the existence of sin will in the end be a detriment to the universe.

Until we know what will be both the progress and the end, we certainly can never prove this proposition, because the means of proof lie beyond our reach. All moral beings are governed by motives only. What motives will upon the whole produce the greatest good, united with the least evil to the intelligent kingdom; and how far the fall and punishment of some moral beings may, in the nature of the case, be indispensably necessary to the persevering obedience of the great body cannot be determined by us. But until this is done, and indeed many other things of great moment to the question, it can never be proved that the existence of moral evil is injurious to the universe, or the permission of it inconsistent with the most perfect good will on the part of God.

At the same time, I acknowledge myself utterly unable, and my complete conviction that all other men are unable, to explain this subject so as to give to an inquirer clear and satisfactory views, by the light of reason, of the propriety of permitting the introduction of moral evil into the intelligent system.

The only object which I have in view, or which is necessary

to my present purpose, is to show, what I persuade myself I have shown, that no proof can be drawn from this source against this attribute in the Creator.

2. The existence of NATURAL EVIL is also objected against the benevolence of God.

On this subject, I observe,

(1) That in considering. this objection, we are bound to separate carefully the evils which are caused by God, from those which are produced by men.

Were this separation accurately made, we should all be astonished to see how small would be the number of evils of which God is the proper Author. Were we to consider attentively the multitude of sufferings brought upon mankind by the evil disposition of themselves and their fellow-men, either mediately or immediately, the mass would rise so much higher than our expectations, as to disappoint every pre-conception which we had formed on this subject. Even in those cases in which we acknowledge the infliction to be derived from our Maker, we should be astonished to see how great a proportion of our sufferings is produced by ourselves, or by our fellow-creatures. We suffer greatly from poverty. How large a part of human poverty is created by sloth, profusion, intemperance, rashness, fraud, falsehood, contention, oppression and war. We suffer greatly from disease. What a vast proportion of the diseases in this world owe their origin to indolence, imprudence, intemperance, passion, and other causes merely human. The same observations are applicable to many other things of the same general nature. In truth, men in almost all cases either originate or increase the evils suffered in the present life.

(2) The evils inflicted by God are always less than the subjects of them merit by their sins.

A strictly just being is a benevolent being. Certainly then he who inflicts less than justice will warrant, or than the criminal deserves, is benevolent. If the general position therefore be true, it is perfectly evident that the very evils which are here alleged as proofs that God is not benevolent, are unanswerable proofs that he is. But no sober man will for a moment pretend that the evils which himself suffers, are greater than he deserves. Every such man will acknowledge readily, that he suffers much less than he merits. Of course, the ag

gregate of human sufferings is less than is merited by the aggregate of human guilt.

It will perhaps be here replied, that these sufferings fall as heavily upon the best men as upon the worst, and that they experience greater evils than they have deserved. If this should indeed be said and believed, it can only spring from gross inattention to the subject, and gross ignorance of the demerit of sin: an inattention and ignorance, it must be acknowledged, most unhappily common among men. The doubt, if it exist, may be easily removed. Go to as many such men as you please, and every one of them will inform you, that his own sufferings are much less than he is conscious of having deserved. In truth, good men never call this fact in question; but find themselves sufficiently employed in lamenting, on the one hand, their own guilt, and in thankfully admiring, on the other, the forbearance of God.

But it will be farther said, that Infants also are subjected to sufferings, and that beyond any desert which can be imputed to them. The situation of infants, and the dispensations of providence towards them, I acknowledge to be in many respects mysterious, to a degree beyond my ability satisfactorily to explain. But I utterly question the ability of any objector to show, that they suffer more than they deserve. We can never know the moral state of a mind which possesses no means of communication with our minds, sufficient to explain that state to us. Yet it is with the highest probability argued from reason, since every infant which advances to the state of childhood proves himself to be a sinful being, that infants, if moral beings at all, are also sinful beings in their infancy. The contrary conclusion no objector can maintain. The objection therefore fails entirely of proof.

Besides, it is reasonably argued that the same God who never afflicts adults, whose case we can understand, beyond their desert, does not afflict infants whose case we cannot understand, beyond their deserts; and that, as there are plain proofs of benevolence in the former case, so it is justly to be presumed in the latter. This analogical argument is the more forcible, because no reason can be imagined, why even a malevolent being should take any peculiar pleasure in afflicting infants.

(3) These evils are necessary parts of a benevolent system of dispensations towards a sinful world.

That in such a world it is absolutely necessary to check iniquity in its progress, and prevent it from accomplishing those miseries which it is its universal tendency to accomplish, if unrestrained, must be granted by all men, if the existence of the world is to be continued. For plainly, this world, without restrains of this nature, would in a little while come to an end. The weak would become a prey to the strong, the simple to the cunning, the quiet to the violent, and all men to the sloth and indulgence, to the passions and mischiefs, of themselves or each other. So far then as the natural evils of this world are necessary to restrain the wickedness of man, they are proofs of benevolence on the part of God. But the proof that there are no more such evils, than are necessary for this purpose, is complete; because the wickedness is not more than sufficiently restrained. On the contrary, how often is each man conscious of believing, that still greater restraints are necessary to keep evil men within due bounds; and of wishing and praying that God would make bare his arm for the farther hindrance of evil designs, and the more extensive protection of the distressed from the injustice of their oppressors.

The afflictions of this world are also plainly benevolent in their intentional and actual influence on those who suffer. No means have, probably, a more frequent or efficacious influence in reforming wicked men, than afflictions. Prosperity, which one would expect to see draw them to obedience, as a cord of love, not only fails of this effect, but appears usually to harden their hearts in sin and security, and to terminate in a total alienation of their minds from all virtuous regard to God, or to mankind. 4 Fulness of bread' was one of the great sources of corruption to Sodom and Gomorrah. When Jeshurun waxed fat, he forgot the God that made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.' Thus both nations and individuals have commonly acted in circumstances of high prosperity. The pride and insolence of wealth, office, power, and conquest is, as you well know, proverbial phraseology; an unanswerable proof, that pride and insolence are the standing effects of prosperity. The more we possess of worldly enjoyments, although

our happiness is often diminished, the stronger do our attachments to the world become, and the weaker our disposition to think of our duty. Afflictions only seem to break down this attachment, and to awaken the attention of the soul to virtue and to God. Even the security of life itself, as has been proved in the case of the Antediluvians (the length of whose lives is attested by both scriptural and profane history,) can become of course a most powerful mean of emboldening men to sin, and involving them in misery: and death, at the comparatively untimely period of seventy years, has been a most important blessing to mankind. Were men again to live a thousand years, the same violence, corruption, and wretchedness, which preceded the deluge, would again overwhelm the globe.

Nor do good men stand in a less absolute need of afflictions. The same tendencies to negligence of God and their duty, although weakened, exist still in their minds also. Before I was afflicted,' says the Psalmist, I went astray; but now have I kept thy word.' The mind of every good man will echo this declaration. Riches, honours and pleasures, are all eminently seductive, and allure the heart insensibly after them. Afflictions teach us how vain they are, how deceitful, and how dangerous; pluck us by the arm in our downward course, and conduct us back to safety and peace. In both of these views also, afflictions are plainly eminent blessings; and in this manner it is satisfactorily evinced, that God doth not willingly afflict, nor grieve the children of men.'

All the observations which I have hitherto made under this head, have been intended to respect only those evils, of which in the proper sense God is the author. They are however to an extensive degree applicable to those produced by men. These, intended by men for evil, are very often by God converted into means of good; who thus glorifies himself by bringing good out of the evil, designed by his creatures.

It ought here to be added, that every human account agrees with the Scriptures in asserting, that the world, as it came from the hands of God, was only beautiful and delightful; and that man was created upon it in a state of perfect holiness and felicity; that man apostatized from this state of perfection, and became sinful and odious to his Maker; that