on, and, in order to qualify him for it, he has adjusted to the particular constitution of his nature every circumstance of his being, from the first instant of his existence, to that which terminates his earthly career. If what is termed his natural disposition be such as would seem to render him incapable of performing it, the situation in which he is placed is adapted to it, and is such as to excite, to repress, or to modify it, till it becomes exactly what is necessary to fit him for his work; so that every individual is strictly an instruinent, raised up and qualified by God, to carry on the wise and benevolent purposes of his government. hibits so strongly to the view of men the hor rors of the dungeon, as to force them to sus pend for a while their business and their pleasures, to feel for the sufferings of others, and to learn the great lessons, that the guilty are still their brethren-that it is better to reclaim than to destroy-that the punishment which is excessive is immoral-that that which does not aim to reform is unjust, and that which does not actually do so, unwise: he gives to a suffering world the angel-spirit of a HOWARD. The bodily frame and the natural temper of an individual may seem, as has already been observed, ill-adapted to execute the work which the Deity has determined to perform by him; yet no force is employed to induce him to do it. He is not compelled to act against his volition, but the circumstances in which he is placed are so adapted to his corporeal, his mental, and his moral constitution, as to excite the requisite volition. Suppose his bodily frame is weak, his temper irritable, his mind bold, impetuous, and rash; the part assigned him in the great drama of life requires uncommon bodily exertion. He must face the storm; he must endure the extremes of heat and cold; often he must lie unpillowed and unsheltered-his fatigue excessive-the supply even of the common necessaries of exist ence scanty and irregular. How can all this be without his perishing? He is led to adopt that regimen and exercise, together, perhaps, with that course of medicine, which strengthen his debilitated frame; gradually he is inured to fatigue and toil, and gradually he becomes capable of sustaining an astonishing degree of both. In order to ensure his success, the utmost patience, gentleness, caution, and foresight, are necessary. But his temper is irritable, and his mind bold, impetuous, and rash. Experience teaches him the folly of indulging this morbid sensibility; it occasions him bitter mortification; his impetuosity hurries him into errors which bring with them a long train of calamities; his boldness disappoints his cherished hopes; his rashness snatches from him some favourite object, at the very moment when success is placing it in his hand. The school of life teaches him to act better the part of life; present failure prepares him for future success; he learns, that, if he would escape perpetual vexation and lasting misery, he must check the first risings of passion, reflect before he acts, and act with caution. Suppose it is his will to lead men to the discovery of the most interesting truths, respecting the phenomena of nature, and the laws by which the universe is governed; he endows an individual with a clear and capacious mind; he places him in circumstances favorable to the developement of his intellectual faculties; he leads him to observe, to reflect, to investigate; he forms him to those habits of patient and profound inquiry, which are necessary to elicit the truths to be disclosed, and sufficient to secure him from every temptation to carelessness and dissipation; he raises up a NEWTON. Suppose, after having for wise, though perhaps inscrutable reasons, permitted the most low and degrading notions to prevail, respecting his own character, government, and worship, he determines to lead back the minds of men to purer and nobler sentiments, and to overthrow those corrupt systems of religion which have prevailed for ages, and in the support of which the passions and the interests of men are now engaged: he raises up an individual, whose mind he enlightens, whose soul he fills with an ardent zeal for the purity of religion and the simplicity of its rites, whose spirit danger does but excite, and suffering cannot subdue-who, though cities and empires arm against him, and one general cry of execration and menace follow him from land to land, goes on with undaunted courage to expose abuses, and to call in a louder and louder voice for reformation it is the voice of LUTHER, which makes Corruption rage and Superstition tremble. Suppose it is his will to save a people in love with liberty, and worthy because capable of enjoying it, from oppression, and to exhibit to the world an example of what the weak who are virtuous and united may effect against the strong who are corrupt and tyrannical: in the Suppose the disposition of another is so very season when he is needed he forms, and mild as almost to degenerate into weakness; in the very station where his presence is ne- his caution is in danger of inducing irresolu cessary he places, a WASHINGTON. And sup- tion, and he is in the habit of considering and pose it is his will to pour the balm of con- re-considering every circumstance so minutely solation into the wounded heart, to visit the and so often, that he nearly loses the season captive with solace, to extend mercy to the of action. He is wealthy, attached to wealth, poor prisoner, to admit into his noisome cell and full of the timidity which is so often the the cheering beams of his sun, and his refresh- companion of riches. Yet this is the man ing breezes: he breathes the genuine spirit of who is to take a leading part in some great philanthropy into some chosen bosom; he su- event, which requires promptitude, decision, peradds an energy which neither the frown of uncommon effort, unconquerable perseverance, power, nor the menace of interest, nor the the certain sacrifice of a great portion of wealth scorn of indifference, can abate-which ex--perhaps the loss of all. He is not forced by us? It differs from that of our wisest and best friend, only in being as much wiser and better, as wisdom and goodness in absolute perfection are different from the faint and transient indications of these attributes which are found in mortals. along an unwilling agent; he is not surprised out of the caution of his character; he does not give up his wealth with reluctance and murmuring. He is led to view the event in which he is destined to take so great a share as so important, that even he ceases to doubt of the propriety and necessity of endeavouring to effect it, and as so valuable, that he deems it worth the sacrifice he is called upon to make. The path marked out for him is so vividly dis-countability, and to destroy the distinction played before his eyes, that he can not but see it. He thinks it is the path of duty; he knows it is that of honour; he believes it will be that of happiness. His agency in this event, therefore, is now so far from being against his volition, that restraint would be placed upon that volition, were he not the agent in it that he is. This, then, is the way in which the Deity influences his creatures. In order to secure his purposes, he does not cause them to act against their volition, but he so impresses their understandings and their hearts, as to make them feel that their happiness depends on the performance of the work he assigns them. Nor is it any objection to this view of the manner in which the divine administration is carried on, that it implies a constant influence of the Deity over the human mind. There is no reasonable being who does not exercise some influence of this kind over the minds of others. What a powerful influence does the parent exert over the child, the master over the servant, brother over brother, and friend over friend! How can I measure the degree, how can I estimate the value of the influence which that revered instructor exercised over my mind, who first imbued it with the principles of wisdom and rectitude! What do I not owe to that dear companion of my youth, on whose early intercourse with me, memory still delights to dwell-who was my superior, in age, in attainment, in wisdom, in virtuewho taught me so much while seeming to learn, and governed me so entirely without meaning to control! How many of the sensations which cheer my heart at this hour are the result of an influence which commenced at that distant period! How much of my present character is wholly dependent on that influence! It was he who corrected that disposition, the seed of which had long lain dormant in my heart, which then was springing up rapidly, and which, had it been suffered to fix its root deeply there, would have made me a totally different being. It was he who first led me into that train of thought which directed the future pursuits of my mind, placed me in the station of life I occupy, formed the connexions which bind me by the strongest and the sweetest ties to my fellow-beings, made me what I am, and determined what I am to be. It was my friend who influenced me. It was a higher Being, a wiser and better Friend, the unerring and unchanging Friend of both, who influenced him. May not these considerations suffice to give us a clear and just conception of the kind of influence which the Deity exercises over us, and by which he works his purposes in us and The only objection of importance, which can be urged against this view of the divine government, is, that it seems to lesson acbetween virtue and vice. Let us not be deceived by the sound of words. When we say that man is accountable, what do we mean? We can only mean that he will be punished for doing what he knows is wrong, and rewarded for performing what he is conscious is right. It is that rectitude of will which leads him to discharge his duty, which constitutes him virtuous; it is that perversion of mind which induces him to violate it, which renders him vicious. When his volition is good, and he obeys it, we say that he is an object of approbation, and worthy of reward; when his volition is evil, and he yields to it, we say that he is an object of disapprobation. and worthy of punishment. It is the nature of his volition which determines our notion respecting his worth or his demerit. We neither do nor ought to regard the cause of his volition. It is the evil of his will of which we disapprove, and to which it is necessary to apply the discipline of correction. You demand why, since my volition is independent of myself, and excited by circumstances over which I have no control, am I accountable for its nature, or liable to punishment if it be evil. The reply is obvious. This objection is founded on the implied presumption, that volition is induced at the pleasure of the mind, and that it is the exertion of this power, in exciting an evil volition, which constitutes guilt. For, when it is asked, why am I to be punished for my volition, since it is independent of myself, the inquirer must pre-suppose that he is to be punished for his volition, because it is dependent upon himself, which is assuming as true the very point in dispute, and raising an objection on that assumption. If, however, there be any truth in the account which has been given of the origin of volition, that assumption is totally fallacious. I am not to be punished for my volition, you say, because it is independent of myself, and excited by circumstances over which I have no control. I reply, if your volition be evil, and you obey it, it is that very circumstance which renders you worthy of punishment, and that the dependence or independence of the volition on yourself does not at all affect the question. Your volition is evil; you deserve punishment. Why? In order that that evil volition may be corrected. Punishment is not retrospective, but prospective. You are to be punished, not because you have yielded to an evil volition, but in order that you may yield to an evil volition no more. To inflict pain for the past, any further than the past has reference to the future, is revenge, not punishment. Were it perfectly certain, B 161 3 that an evil volition which is past would be plexes the mind; and the answer to the ques- ing it as a production more imperfect than any work of human art, to maintain that it cannot subsist of itself, or that it requires the hand of its Maker to be always at it, to continue its The train of circumstances in which an in-pairing the beauty of the world, and representdividual has been placed has given rise to a disposition, the indulgence of which is incompatible with his own happiness, and with that of his fellow-beings. This disposition it is necessary to correct. This correction is ac-motions and order. complished by causing him to pass through another train of circumstances, which makes him feel the evil of his conduct; and this discipline, being attended with suffering, is expressed by the term punishment. this first objection is so far from being of any force, that it leads to the very conclusion which it is brought to overthrow. "The full answer to this objection is, that, to every machine or perpetual movement, for answering any particular purpose, there always belong some first mover, some weight or spring, or other power, which is continually Such, then, being the foundation of praise acting upon it, and from which all its motions and blame, of reward and punishment, it is are derived; nor, without such power, is it obvious that a person is an object of moral possible to conceive of any such machine. approbation, and is worthy of reward when The machine of the universe, then, like all his volition is good, and when he obeys that besides analogous to it, of which we have any volition that he is an object of moral disap-idea, must have a first mover. Now it has probation, and is worthy of punishment when been demonstrated, that this first mover cannot his volition is evil, and when, notwithstand-be matter itself. It follows, therefore, that ing the voice which speaks within him, and which warns him of its nature, he yields to its impulse. The gold which incites the midnight plunderer to rob is not blamable, though it is the immediate cause of the volition which induces the evil deed. It is the volition itself which is evil, and which requires to be rectified, and punishment is the process, the moral discipline, by which its correction is effected. Thus, then, we seem to have a clear and just conception of the manner in which the whole train of circumstances, which forms the character and induces the conduct of moral agents, may be entirely the appointment of the Deity, while the agents themselves are at the same time the subjects of praise and blame, of reward and punishment. Were there no evil in the world, there could be no possible objection to this view of the subject.* Were every one virtuous and happy, every heart would rejoice to trace to the Deity its excellences and its pleasures. But how can he who is perfect in benignity be the author of evil? It is this which per Neither would there be the same objection to it in the minds of many persons, did it not only attribute to the Deity the production of natural evil. But the misery occasioned by an earthquake, or by disease, is often as great as that produced by the bad passions of mankind; and it is altogether as difficult to account for the existence of natural as of moral evil. Indeed, the same account must be given of both. 162 "The excellence of a machine by no means depends on its going properly of itself-for this is impossible-but on the skill with which its various parts are adjusted to one another, and all its different effects are derived from the constant action of some power. What would indeed make a machine appear imperfect and deformed, is assigning a separate power to every distinct part, without allowing any place for mechanism; and, in like manner, what would really make the frame of nature appear imperfect and deformed, is resolving phenomena too soon to the divine agency, or supposing it the immediate cause of every par ticular effect. But I have not been pleading for this, but only, that, however far mechanism may be carried, and the chain of causes extend in the material universe, to the divine power exerted continually in all places, every law, and every effect and motion in it, must be at the modern improvements in natural philosolast resolved. This is a conclusion which phy have abundantly confirmed, and which some of the first and best philosophers have received; nor can that philosophy be otherwise than little and contemptible, which hides the Deity from our views, which excludes him from the world, or does not terminate in the acknowledgment and adoration of him, as the Maker, Preserver, and Ruler of all things." SECTION III. in the doctrine of final restoration can have no other wish, than that it should be considered as just or fallacious, as this position is esta Of the Design of the Divine Government. SINCE, then, there is a perfect superinten-blished or refuted. Without doubt, this is the dence of all events, they must be directed to some end. The Deity must have some wise and benevolent object to accomplish, as the result of his administration, and that object can be nothing but the final and perfect happiness of his intelligent creatures. With this view every thing must be planned, and to this end both the natural and the moral disorders which prevail must necessarily conduce. No one can believe that the Deity has chosen evil for its own sake. Were this the case, he would not be good. Were he to cause the least degree of suffering, merely for the sake of producing pain, it would be utterly incompatible with benevolence. Evil in his hands, therefore, can only be the instrument of good. Nothing can have induced him to permit its existence, but the perception, that under his administration it will terminate in the production of greater good than could have been enjoyed without it. When he created the world, and first set in motion that train of events which has induced the actual state of things, he foresaw that the partial evil which would arise would terminate in the production of a larger sum of happiness than could have been occasioned by its prevention. This being the case, it is the prevention, not the permission, of this evil, which would have militated against the perfection of his benevolence. That infinite wisdom and almighty power may secure this result from the partial prevalence of evil, is at least possible, and it is probable, because the supposition is perfectly reasonable in itself, and accounts for and reconciles every appearance. It has been distinctly admitted, that these reasonings are conclusive, and that the doctrine founded upon them must be allowed to be established, if the principle be granted, that evil, under the superintendence of infinite wisdom and benignity, is the means of producing ultimate good. It is impossible to desire any other concession than this. point on which the controversy chiefly depends. The following considerations, which may, perhaps tend to determine this previous question, are submitted to the calm and serious attention of the reader. In the first place, the constitution of the physical and moral world is utterly inconsist ent with benevolence, unless evil under the divine administration be the means of producing ultimate good. If good be the issue of the temporary prevalence of evil, there is no appearance in nature, and no event, and no series of events, in human life, which may not be consistent with perfect benevolence. If evil be essentially and ultimately evil, the Author and Governor of the world is malevolent. The constitution of the physical world all admit is such as its Creator appointed; to the Creator, therefore, every one is obliged to refer all those appearances in it which are desig nated evil." The constitution of the moral world is equally the appointment of the same wise and good Being; for he gave to every man the nature he possesses; he placed every man in the station he occupies; immediately or mediately he is the cause of all the im pressions which, from the cradle to the grave, have been made on every human being. But men's characters are formed entirely, and can be formed only by the impressions which have been made on that nature which they have received from the hands of the Creator. If, then, God be the former of man's nature, and the Author of all the impressions which have induced his dispositions, and volitions, and actions, and if moral evil arise in this constitution, that moral evil must be referred to God's appointment. This is the clear deduction of reason; it is confirmed by the express declarations of scripture.* It is common, among a certain class of theologians, to make a distinction between God's appointment and his permission. They That no formal proof of this principle was allow that he perinitted, but deny that he ap attempted in the preceding editions of this pointed, moral evil. Let us examine to what work, arose from the author's impression, that, this distinction amounts. God, it is said, perin assuming it as true, he only took for grant-mitted moral evil. It will be granted that he ed, that which all Christians not only believe, but glory in believing. That a theist-that a Christian, writing in the nineteenth century, in a country in which the doctrines of theology are so freely discussed, and the scriptures so generally read, should not only expressly deny the beneficial tendency of evil in the divine administration, but positively affirm that it is essentially and ultimately evil, and even that there is no proposition more indispensable to the existence of true religion, as a habit of the mind, could scarcely have been expected. However, the position, that evil is not itself an end, but the means to some further end, and that that end is good, is not, it must be confessed, self-evident, and therefore it may be proper to state the proof of it. The believer must also have foreseen it-that he must have foreseen it as the consequence of those circumstances in which he placed mankind, operating on the nature which he gave them. From the beginning he knew certainly, that such and such circumstances, operating on such a creature as man, would certainly give origin to moral evil. Be man's freedom of choice perfect as can be conceived, he who gave to him his propensities, bounding his knowledge by an appointed limit, granting him only a certain measure of experience, and make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all *I form the light and create darkness. I these things, ISAIAH xlv. 6.-Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it ?'-— Amos iii. 6. 163 bringing him under the influence of motives of a certain degree of strength, knew what, under these circumstances, that choice would certainly be knew that unless his propensities were altered, or his knowledge increased, or his experience extended, or the strength of his motives weakened, his choice would certainly be such as to involve the existence of moral evil. Knowing this, he altered nothing. He appointed, then, the propensities; he appointed the degree of knowledge; he appointed the measure of experience; he appointed the strength of motive; in a word, he appointed all the impressions of which he foresaw that the certain result would be the production of moral evil. The conclusion is inevitable, that he appointed the moral evil. from rectitude must be attended with suffering; sooner or later, in a greater or less degree, it must necessarily be so; but that suffering is never without a beneficial tendency, never without a tendency to induce penitence for the offence, and a more steady and undeviating adherence in future to the path of virtue. This tendency, it is true, does not always accomplish at present its designed end; but in many cases it accomplishes it perfectly, and therefore there is the best reason to believe, that ultimately it will accomplish it in all. In the mean time, no example can be adduced, in all the records of human experience, in which the certain and final consequence of any species of moral evil is pure, unmixed misery. While, then, it is thus impossible to prove that moral evil ever terminates in positive evil, it can be demonstrated, that it often terminates in positive good. Now, if we know not a single case in which moral evil terminates in positive evil, it is most fallacious to argue, that it may nevertheless have this termination, because there are some instances of moral evil, the beneficial tendency of which we cannot at present perceive; but, if we do know many cases in which moral evil terminates in positive good, it is reasonable and just to argue, that it may be thus productive of ultimate good, even in those very cases, the beneficial tendency of which we cannot at present trace. If, then, the existence of moral evil must be referred ultimately to the Deity, one of two things necessarily follows, either that he appointed it as a final end, or that he appointed it for some farther end. If he appointed it as a final end, he has rested in the production of misery as an ultimate object, a purpose which is not only not consistent with benevolence, but which could have been devised only by being purely malignant. If, on the contrary, moral evil be appointed for some further end, and that further end be not the infliction of pain, it must be the production of happiness; for no other can be conceived. Either, therefore, the Deity is malevolent, or evil in his That à state in which there is a mixture of hands is the means of producing ultimate good. physical and moral evil, in which man is exFurther: the evidence, that physical evil is posed to danger and temptation, in which he an instrument by which the most benevolent has much to fear and much to hope, in which intentions are accomplished, is so clear and he may render himself extremely miserable or full, as to place the question, as far as physi- extremely happy, according to the rectitude or cal evil is concerned, beyond all controversy. disorder of his conduct-in a word, that a The sensation of hunger, for example, being state of discipline, such as all believe the prepainful, is in itself evil; but, to say nothing sent to be, is admirably adapted to develope of the pleasure connected with the gratification and to strengthen his faculties, and to form of the appetite, hunger is the means by which and improve his virtues, is universally admitan animal is induced to take food, which, by ted. But all the developement and strength the constitution of its nature, is necessary to of his faculties, all the formation and improveits existence. Here, then, is a case in whichment of his virtues, consequent to such a physical evil indubitably terminates in the production of good. The proof of the beneficial operation of moral evil is equally decisive. The errors and crimes of which men are guilty teach them the most important lessons, awaken in their minds a sense of the excellence of virtue, a love of it, and a desire to possess it, of which they were wholly unconscious, and which are of the highest advantage to them in every future period of their being. A single instance of this kind decides the question; it affords an irrefragable proof, that evil is the means of producing incalculable good. state, wholly depend on the prevalence of physical and moral evil. The constantly returning wants to which his nature is incident, the inadequacy and precariousness of the provision which is made to supply them, the absolute necessity he is under, from the danger of perishing by cold and hunger, to exert himself to render that provision more abundant and certain, afford the stimulus by which he is incited to cultivate the earth, and gradually to improve his condition, till, from that of a naked and houseless savage, he has surrounded himself with all the conveniences and comforts of civilized life. But, if we examine a little deeper, we shall Thus it is obvious, that physical evil is not find, in the very constitution of man's moral only conducive to the improvement of the nanature, irresistible evidence of the beneficial tural condition of man, but that it is in reality operation of moral evil. Moral evil is evil the very source to which he is indebted for the only because it produces misery; were it with-creation of all those conveniences and comforts out this consequence, it would cease to be an object of aversion and avoidance. What, then, is the tendency of the misery of which moral evil is productive? Invariably the correction of moral disorder. Every deviation which so eminently promote his happiness, and for the inestimable advantages which have resulted from the exercise of his faculties, in the cultivation of the various arts on which the fabrication of those conveniences and com |