unlimited by the attributes of any other known being or thing, and in a degree which challenges our wonder and adoration. This has been already done, and religious faith, properly so called, is sufficiently vindicated. It is proved that God exists, and that he governs the world in righteousness and with mercy, at once upholding the law which he has revealed through the conscience, and showing by manifold provisions his care for the happiness of his creatures.

Our idea of infinity necessarily inadequate. It is observable, in the next place, that there are difficulties in the very conception of infinite goodness united with infinite power, which ought to warn us that the imperfection, after all, is more apt to be in our limited modes of thought, than in the constituted nature of things. I borrow on this point the very clear and precise statement of Abraham Tucker.

"God," he observes, " is completely happy in himself, nor can his happiness receive increase or diminution from any thing befalling his creatures; wherefore his goodness is pure, disinterested bounty, without any return of joy or satisfaction to himself. Therefore it is no wonder we have imperfect notions of a quality whereof we have no experience in our own nature; for we know of no other love than inclination, which prompts us to gratify it in the same manner as our other inclinations. In the next place, let us examine our idea of infinite goodness taken in the abstract, before we inquire whether God be good or no,- and we shall find it incompatible with that of infinite power; for infinite goodness, according to our apprehension, requires that it should exhaust omnipotence, that it should give capacities of enjoyment, and confer blessings, until there were no more to be conferred; ut our idea of omnipotence requires that it should be inexhaustible, that nothing should limit its operations so that it could do no more than it has done. Therefore it is much easier to conceive of an imperfect creature completely good, than of a perfect being; for if he pursues invariably all opportunities of doing good to the utmost of his power and knowledge, he deserves that character; and if there are any injuries sustained which he cannot redress, any distress unre

lieved which he knows not of, his weakness and ignorance are a full excuse for his omission. But where there is almighty power, unlimited knowledge, and perfect wisdom, we can neither conceive that infinite goodness should extend to the utmost bounds of that which has no bounds, nor yet that it should stop until it can proceed no further. Since, then, we find our understanding incapable of comprehending infinite goodness joined with infinite power, we need not be surprised at finding our thoughts perplexed concerning them; for no other can be expected in matters above our reach; and we may presume the obscurity rises from something wrong in our ideas, not from any inconsistencies in the subjects themselves." In short, here as elsewhere, whenever we apply a purely metaphysical idea to matters-of-fact, we end in a contradiction or an absurdity.

The proof of the Divine benevolence is complete in itself. — You will not understand me, by these remarks, as holding forth the opinion, that the problem respecting the origin of evil is insoluble, or as evading the difficulty of solving it. On the contrary, I believe, and I shall attempt to show, that all events are ordered for the best, and that the supposed evils which we suffer are parts of a great system conducted by almighty power, under the direction of unlimited wisdom and goodness. I adopt the opinion, maintained in all ages by the best and wisest philosophers, that the creation of beings endowed with freewill, and consequently liable to moral delinquency, and the government of the world by general laws, from which occasional supposed evils must result, furnish no solid objection to the perfection of the universe. This, I admit, is a system of optimism; but it is not the optimism of Leibnitz, grounded upon a denial of man's free agency, and as such justly ridiculed by Voltaire. And the general doctrine of the benevolence of God, is in nowise accountable for, or dependent upon, the sufficiency of the argument in defence of this metaphysical system. That doctrine rests upon its own proofs, which are abundant, undisputed, and irrefragable. This question respecting the presence of any evil in the world, is a collateral affair, which must be considered, indeed, before we can complete a scheme of theology, and about

which theologians and metaphysicians may differ. But the religious man has no concern with it, and his faith, whether derived from the teachings of nature, or from express revelation, is not burdened with its doubts and intricacies. It is enough for him, that he can trace everywhere the footprints of a wise, just, and benevolent Ruler of the universe.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

Summary of the last chapter. The argument in the last chapter for the benevolence of God, was not founded upon metaphysical reasoning, or upon any consideration a priori of the Divine nature, but upon observation and the results of experience. It is because human life, on the whole, is a happy one, because its pleasures far exceed its pains, and because these pleasures were evidently designed, while the pains are only incidental or secondary to some great object, that we are enabled to pronounce with confidence, that the Deity wishes the happiness of his creatures. The sufferings which are the immediate consequence and punishment of vice, it was remarked, are properly left out of the account, since these evince the goodness of God no less than the happiness resulting from virtue, the object in both cases being to advance man's highest interests by the improvement of his moral character; just so the affectionate parent rewards the obedience and punishes the faults of his child, love equally constraining him to adopt either course. Now, these sufferings constitute so large a portion of the misery that is in the world, that, when they are deducted, the balance inclines altogether on the side of happiness. Our enjoyments, also, proceed from steady and permanent causes;

eye of Infinite Wisdom, it is not a minimum. Nay, after the proofs already advanced of the Divine benevolence, the presumption is inevitable, that it is a minimum.

Exaggerated statements of the amount of evil in the world.I place stress upon this point, because, both by the friends and the opponents of religion, the problem respecting the origin of evil has been unnecessarily darkened and rendered formidable by declamatory and exaggerated statements of the amount of sin and woe which sadden the annals of mankind. Thus, Bayle, the most acute and sarcastic of modern infidels, after quoting Cicero's pathetic account of his voyage home from Asia, at one point in which he beheld around him the deserted ruins of so many cities, once renowned for their power and splendor, goes on to say, "History is, properly speaking, only a record of the crimes and the misfortunes of the human race. . . . . If man is the creation of a single being, who is supremely good, supremely holy, and supremely powerful, how can he be exposed to disease, to cold, to heat, to hunger, to thirst, to pain, to sorrow? How can he have so many wicked inclinations? How can he commit so many crimes? Can infinite holiness create a wicked being? Can infinite goodness create an unhappy being? Will not sovereign power, joined with infinite benevolence, overwhelm its creature with benefits, and remove far from him all that can offend or sadden?"

The following picture, by Abraham Tucker, though well intended, is quite as exaggerated and unnecessary. "That there are innumerable evils," he says, "the phenomena of nature sufficiently assures us: storms and tempests, earthquakes and inundations, lay fields and cities desolate with all their produce and inhabitants; blighting winds and pestilential vapors wither up and destroy, ravenous beasts devour, villains assassinate, thieves break through and steal, tyrants oppress, diseases torment, cross accidents vex, old age debilitates, our necessary employments fatigue, our wants interfere, our very pleasures cloy, and man is born to sorrow as the sparks fly upward. We are necessitated to destroy vermin that would overrun us, to slay our fellow-creatures for our sustenance, to weary them out with

toil and labor for our uses, to press one another into wars and sea-services for our preservation. Nay, evil is so interwoven into our nature, that the business of mankind would stagnate without it; most of our cares being employed in delivering ourselves from troubles we lie under, or warding off those that threaten."

The fallacy of these sweeping statements exposed. It is hardly necessary to say, that such statements as these are one-sided and exaggerated, and that the general impression which they leave on the mind is wholly unfounded. The great but covert fallacy in this general impression, is, that the whole human race is regarded but as one individual, whose existence extends through all ages and over all parts of the earth, so that his single experience comprises all the woes and crimes which are actually distributed among countless millions of beings. Now it is the veriest truism to say, that happiness or misery is experienced only by individuals; that there is no such thing as the suffering of the race in general; that any one man would be considered as marked out for sorrow, as a special object of compassion, who should be afflicted by any one of the great evils above mentioned; that it is impossible, in the nature of things, for any one to suffer from all of them; and that the occurrence even of one would occupy but a small portion of the experience of an individual, all the rest of which might be almost unmingled enjoyment. How many of those who read this page have been plagued by famines, inundations, earthquakes, the assassination of friends, robbery, ravenous beasts, tyranny, the necessity of slaying a fellow-creature for sustenance, or the like? And if, which is very improbable, there be an individual who has experienced one of these calamities, how small a portion of his whole existence has been immediately saddened by the event, and how many compensating hours has he had of amusement, indifference, or positive happiness? How idle is it, then, to make out a catalogue of all the calamities and crimes of which there is any mention in history, and to speak of human life as vexed by them, thus conveying the impression, though it is not a logical inference, that it is the life of an individual which is