very existence of the objects which are thus concerned, be removed from our view.

The schemes of God

There may be certain purposes of our Creator to be accomplished, there may be certain ends to be answered, of which our destinies form but a small part: and great as we seem in our own estimation, we may be, and probably are, but as so many countless atoms in his mighty combinations. may involve causes that are far out of our view, may embrace moral principles, of whose extent we are by our' nature not only ignorant, but even incapable of understanding. His plans may be such as involve in their operations not only our mortal selves, nor merely the globe which we inhabit; they may have reference to some end that embraces also myriads of beings, inhabitants of the distant planetary world, and even those that revolve round other suns than ours. Yet our destinies, even to each of us individually considered, may be just, and our evils, (as we call them,) in fact, real blessings. Such must be within the power of an Omniscient Being, and within the will of an allbenevolent one.

Can

It is possible, indeed, that the main end of God of which we are speaking, may be a matter of concern at a period as far removed with regard to time as are those infinite calculations, with regard to space, which crowd upon the darkness of our imaginations as we gaze upon the starry atoms of the milky way. Can any mortal being see that this is possible? he regard these infinities of space, and time, and power, even for a moment? and yet seek to balance works of the creative and all-seeing God in our poor human calculations. The pride of man may rebel against these ideas of human insignificance, and often, though we are not perhaps sensible of the source of the feeling, this pride will induce our reason to adopt ideas for which it feels no real ground of support. But there are, and must be, innumerable instances where we are brought as we are here, plainly in contact with the real confines of human knowledge. To say that we cannot understand why this should be so, how God for instance can do this or that and yet be all benevolent and all just, is to say no more than every man who looks on things around him

with a philosophic eye is in the habit of confessing to himself every day, almost every hour. It is no novelty to a man, who has any great depth of information, to perceive the total inefficiency of the human mind for many purposes where he wishes it to be engaged; and a little reflection will inform us how few, how very few points there are in the whole circle of our knowledge, which admit of exact demonstration. Des Cartes tells us, that we cannot prove the existence of matter; Hume tells us we cannot prove the connexion between cause and effect; yet we believe in the existence of matter, and we believe the connexion of cause and effect. If then we cannot prove the entire benevolence and justice of God, there would be no reason why we should not believe in these also, for, like the others, they form merely an abstract question.

An inquiring mind must feel incessantly its utter insufficiency to answer itself as to a thousand things around it, and will, in proportion as its acuteness is greater, and its thirst after knowledge more insatiable, feel the more fully convinced of this truth. There is no one but an ignorant man, or, what is worse,

F

a half-informed literate, who will not confess the utter impossibility of his attaining the perfection of knowledge in cases innumerable. It is these last, indeed, who run the greatest danger at all times of becoming sceptics in religion, because their minds are only partially opened: such as are really well informed, have advanced far enough to see clearly where the door is closed against the pride and ambition of the human intellect, and wise enough to feel their natural deficiency.

It was not a bad remark of James I. that very wise men and very fools do little harm:' it is the mediocrity of wisdom (he observes) that troubleth all the world.'

But every man living has capacity enough to see that there is an infinite distinction between the human powers of understanding and those of almighty knowledge itself. Every man may conceive there may possibly be circumstances in existence, of which we cannot, from our experience in the terrestrial world, form any adequate idea: and this thought should be sufficient to convince him of the folly of grounding disbelief, or even belief itself, merely

on causes that are the offspring of our own imagination.

We may, however, on this occasion venture to say, that although actual demonstration is denied, yet we have grounds of probability, enough at least to content our minds on the subject of good and evil.

If what has been said above is admitted to be true, then evil, in the sense of the word in which it is used by those who attempt to deny the justice of God, cannot be said to exist; to the best of our knowledge, and from the most accurate observations we can make, there is no such thing as pure abstract evil. That which we designate by this name is an item in the schemes of Providence designed to answer certain regular ends: it is as a species of stimulus ordained, (no doubt wisely, if we knew all,) to promote his objects, and of which we may venture to say that the activity which is required by the Creator throughout his several works, is apparently one of the most probable.

All those things which excite opposition and consequent activity in the universe, and to many of which we give the name of evil, can