is enjoyed by the inferior animals, in an equal or a superior degree. Now this pleasure is not at all necessary to the great design of food, the sustenance of the body; the substances which we use might have been as tasteless as water, without any diminution of their nutritive quality; the taste is superadded by our Maker to render our food pleasant as well as useful, and clearly shews attention to our animal comfort. We may draw the same conclusion from the means which he has provided for gratifying our other senses of sight, smell, and hearing. The earth might have been as fertile as it is, although its surface had not been so delightfully variegated, and its productions had not been moulded into such elegant forms. We might have lived, although there had been no blossoms and flowers painted with the most beautiful colours, and exhaling sweet perfumes. We might have walked in the fields and woods, imbibing health and spirits from the pure atmosphere, although our ears had not been saluted with the music of birds, and other pleasing sounds. Whence this loveliness, this charm diffused over the face of nature? Whence those graces so profusely scattered around us, those agreeable accompaniments of natural objects, which do not render them more useful, but more attractive; which do not sustain life, but impart a higher relish to it? Surely we may say, that "the tender mercies of the Lord are over all his works;" that there are every where indications of a studious attention to the happiness of his creatures; that having designed this world for our habitation, he has furnished it with all conveniences and ornaments, to remind us how good he is, and how well entitled to our grateful homage.

What has been said chiefly relates to the lower animals, but has been mixed up with some observations illustrative of the Divine goodness to man. There are some things, however, which may seem to lead to the opposite conclusion, as the prevalence of disease and death among them, and particularly the fact, that some of them prey upon others. No man, I presume, will plead for the gift of immortality to the inferior creatures, and maintain that God cannot be good in bestowing a happy life, unless he prolong it for ever. Were not their numbers thinned by death, the earth would be overstocked, and leave no room for human inhabitants; and they themselves would perish for want of subsistence, or in the furious conflicts to which the scarcity of food would give rise. If for wise reasons they are doomed to die, disease naturally results from this appointment, as the means of effecting dissolution, and cannot be objected to but on such grounds as might be alleged against their mortality itself. It is part of the system, the unavoidable attendant of a body liable to decay and destruction. It is observable, that health is the rule, and disease is the exception, and that in the whole life of the animal, such is the overbalance of good as to make the evil almost disappear. Some animals prey upon others. But, not to mention that this could have been prevented only by not creating carnivorous animals, and that we are too imperfectly acquainted with the reasons of things, to pronounce that they might have been wanted without any injury to the system; I remark, that if animals were to die, this mode of terminating their life is not more inconsistent with goodness, than death by disease or by old age. The pain is not greater, and in many cases is less; and we mistake if we think that the fear of it disquiets their lives. Even men in countries abounding with ferocious animals, do not pass their time in continual apprehension, but grow familiar with danger; and still feebler is the impression upon irrational creatures, who have no forethought, and seem not to feel fear till danger is apparent. I do not say that these observations are a full solution of the difficulty; but if the facts on which the objection is founded, be considered as forming a small deduction from the sum total of goodness in this part of creation, attention to the other facts which have been mentioned, will leave no doubt in our minds, that this world is the work of a benevolent Being.

I now proceed to bring proofs of the goodness of God, exclusively from his dispensations to man. And here it will be necessary to turn our eyes from the present scene, although it exhibits many tokens of Divine benignity as we have partly seen, and to contemplate, by the light of revelation, the state in which man was originally placed. Although he was last created, yet he was not least. A high rank was assigned to him in the scale of being: "God gave him more understanding than the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air." He not only endowed him with reason, which is so much superior to instinct, but he communicated to him the most excellent wisdom, consisting in the knowledge of himself and his Maker, the relations subsisting between them, the whole extent of his duty, the true nature of happiness, and the hopes which he was authorized to entertain as a being made for immortality. His goodness was manifested in the moral or spiritual powers with which man was furnished, in the innate rectitude of his dispositions, his love of holiness, his desire for the chief good, and his supreme delight in it; in consequence of which he was capable of enjoying felicity, incomparably superior in kind and degree to that of the inferior creatures, and did actually enjoy it under the smile of his Maker. It appeared in the dominion with which he was invested; a dominion which imparted not only pre-eminence, but authority and power, so that the other creatures were subject to him, and might be used for his good according to the will of the Universal Parent. "God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." Thus he was constituted lord of this lower world, and of all its riches; and it might be said, that as man Lvas made for God, so the earth was made for man; every thing in it being placed at his disposal, and being intended to minister to him. Again, the goodness of God appeared in the covenant which he made with man, promising to reward his obedience with everlasting felicity. To such a recompense his obedience could not have entitled him independently of this stipulation. Obedience was a debt which he owed to his Creator, to whose service he was bound to devote the faculties which he had received from his bounty: so that, although he had fulfilled the whole law, he should have done only what it was his duty to do, and should have had no claim to a remuneration. This transaction, therefore, displayed great condescension, and also great benevolence, a regard to the happiness of man, which it would have probably augmented, and certainly could have rendered immutably secure; for when the term of trial was past, the Divine faithfulness and justice would have been pledged for its perpetual duration. It was the love of a father holding out to his son the highest reward which he could confer, for doing what he was previously under the most sacred obligations to perform. Through his folly, man lost the noble prize set before him; but the event does not in any degree obscure the evidence of the benignity from which the offer of it proceeded; and at this distance, we ought to look back with grateful emotions upon the hope which animated our great progenitor in the commencement of his career, and the blessedness which might have descended as an inheritance to his children. The original state of man was a state of happiness. Peace and joy then reigned in his bosom, and a bright interminable prospect rose to his view. External nature was in harmony with his feelings, and shone with the glory of his Maker. In paradise, which the hand of God had prepared for him, all was beauty, and melody, and delight. This was the golden age of which poets have sung, when there was perpetual spring, the gentle breezes fanned the spontaneous flowers, the unploughed earth yielded its delicious fruits, the rivers flowed with milk and nectar, and honey distilled from the oak. But, as poets also tell, a new order of things succeeded, with a change of seasons, frost and burning heat, and

stubborn soil, from which man gained his subsistence by painful exertion.* Yet even in this new state, which we know from Scripture to have been superinduced by sin, there are not wanting many proofs of the goodness of God.

When man transgressed the law of his Creator, a dispensation of unmixed wrath might have commenced. He had forfeited any claim to the blessings of life. Having been expelled from paradise, the abode of innocence and peace, he had no right to expect elsewhere a comfortable habitation, and might have found every region blasted by the curse which had been pronounced upon the earth for his sake. God, who for wise reasons had suspended the infliction of the threatened penalty and permitted him to live, might have doomed him and his posterity to a life of misery. When he condemned him to earn his bread with the sweat of his brow, he might have appointed his labour to be still more oppressive. He might have impressed upon every object the signatures of his displeasure, to call up at every step the remembrance of our guilt, and to keep us constantly in fearful apprehension of the day of vengeance and recompense. The earth might have continued to yield its various productions, but these might have been so changed as to afford no pleasure to our senses. Our situation might have resembled that of a criminal shut up in a gloomy dungeon till the day of execution, counting with sorrow the hours as they pass, and unvisited by a single ray of consolation. There might have been no intervals of ease, no sensations of joy; horror might have surrounded us in terrific forms, and the presence of our fellow-men might have added to our torment. How different is the earth, smiling under the influences of heaven, teeming with abundance, and furnishing from its surface and its bowels the materials of varied enjoyment! The proofs of the Divine goodness formerly adduced, become more striking and impressive, when it is considered, that the place in which they are displayed is a rebellious world; that the objects of this beneficence are sinful creatures, who never suffer a single day to pass without offending their Benefactor, and many of whom seem to have forgotten that he exists, except when they introduce his name to blaspheme it, and make no other use of his bounty but to outrage his laws, and plunge themselves deeper and deeper in depravity. "He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."†

From this view of the present state of men, it is easy to account for some facts which appear to be inconsistent with the goodness of God, and have much perplexed those who are ignorant of revelation, or did not choose to be assisted by its light in their inquiries. From the existence of evil in creation, some have inferred the existence of a malignant being, who is continually employed in counteracting the designs of the principle of good; but this exploded doctrine has been already considered, and need not retard us in our progress. Men are subject to pain, disease and death. Care and toil are necessary to procure a subsistence, and they not unfrequently prove abortive, from causes over which human power has no control. We experience inclement seasons, and dreadful havock is made by tempests, earthquakes, and inundations. Such is the diversity of climate, that in one region intense cold prevails, and in another excessive heat, so that both are rendered unfit for the habitation of man. Some countries are barren, others are possessed by ferocious beasts and venomous reptiles. Here swarms of insects devour the fruits of the field; and there they so sting and torment the inhabitants, that they are compelled to abandon them, or spend their life in a state of continual discomfort.

The proper mode of answering this objection, is not to attempt to shew, that some of these are not evils, that others admit of alleviation, and that upon the whole they are conducive to good. It would not be difficult to prove, that there are evils to which none of these suppositions is applicable. To tell us

that venomous creatures are useful, because they extract poison from the earth in which it is lodged, is to trifle with us, by substituting a childish fancy for fact. To say that pain is useful, because it admonishes us of danger and excites us to take precautions against it, is to state what in many cases is true, but is not a satisfactory answer, because it may be replied, that benevolence might have adopted a different method, and we can have no idea that pain would have been necessary for this purpose in a state of innocence. The amount is, that pain is an evil, but is overbalanced by the good of which it is productive. But we are at present inquiring, why there is any evil at all? To insinuate that it is the effect of general laws, is to throw out a reflection upon the wisdom and the power of the Creator, as if he could not have established a system of laws which would not have thwarted and crossed one another. It is something like the solution of the ancient philosophers, who ascribed the existence of evil to the malignity or the stubbornness of matter. If evil was unavoidable, God is not omnipotent; if it might have been avoided, it is not enough to say that it is subservient to good, because we feel as much difficulty as ever to reconcile the admission of it with the idea of perfect benevolence. Those who attend to the true state of the case, will reason in a different manner. Acknowledging that there are real evils, they will contend that their existence is not inconsistent with the benevolence of the Author of nature, because the world in which they are found is inhabited by sinful beings. Had man continued in his original state, these evils would have been unaccountable; but no person who believes that God is just, can wonder that suffering should be the attendant of guilt. The character of God is moral, that is, he is holy as well as benevolent; and his goodness ought to be considered, not as a disposition to confer happiness indiscriminately, but to confer it upon the proper objects. It is a mixed dispensation under which we are placed, a dispensation of mercy and of judgment. While God exercises much patience and long-suffering towards men, he gives also tokens of his displeasure; and the true ground of surprise is, not that there is a portion of evil in their lot, but that there is so much good, because they deserve the one, but are altogether unworthy of the other.

With all the evils which belong to our condition, there can be no doubt that the balance of physical good greatly preponderates. The amount will be estimated in different ways, according to the temperament of different individuals. The cheerful man gives the colour of his own feelings to the surrounding scene, and all nature smiles to his eye; but to the melancholy man, it appears enveloped as in a dark shade. Judging soberly, and admitting all necessary deductions, we cannot but acknowledge that there is more happiness than misery. In general, the days of health are many, and those of pain and sickness are few. Our sorrows admit of much alleviation, and although keenly felt at the time, grow weaker and weaker, and at last cease to disquiet us. Enjoyment of one kind or other is within the reach of all; and even in conditions which seem the most unfavourable to it, there are sources of satisfaction of which others are not aware, as we see from the contentment, the cheerful looks, and the lively conversation of those who are placed in them. There is a pliability in the human mind, which adapts itself to circumstances, and makes the most of them, so that the poor have their pleasures as well as the rich, the labouring classes as well as those who are living at ease. All esteem existence a blessing, and suicide is committed only when the mind is diseased, or the instinctive love of life is overcome by the extremity of pain, or the dread of approaching intolerable evil. The state even of fallen man bears ample testimony to the goodness of his Maker. It is, upon the whole, a happy world in which we live, although it is a world of sinners. God displays before our eyes the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and long suffering.

Physical evil is the consequence of moral evil. On this ground, God is justified in inflicting it, and its existence is not inconsistent with his goodness. But here a more formidable difficulty presents itself. Whence comes moral evil? How has it found a place among the works of God? and is the admission of it reconcileable to his goodness? Moral evil is the consequence of the abuse of moral liberty: if there had been no creatures endowed with free agenсу, its name would have been unknown. The question then is, whether it was consistent with his goodness to create free agents? and since it must be answered in the affirmative, because he has actually created them, it follows that they alone are responsible for the consequences. If they have used the power which he gave them for evil and not for good, which was the original design of it; if instead of employing this power to secure their own happiness as he commanded them, they have perverted it so as to subject themselves to suffering, no blame is imputable to him. He has done nothing which can impeach the benevolence of his nature. It is not the fault of a man, that the objects of his beneficence do injury to themselves by his gifts, which would have been of advantage to them, if they had applied them to the purpose which he intended. But if moral evil would be productive of disorder and misery, would it not have been suitable to the character of a benevolent Being to have prevented it, as it was undoubtedly foreseen? In answer to this question, I will not say with some, that God could not have prevented it without destroying liberty, and changing the nature of man; for the contrary is manifest from the state of the righteous in the world to come, who will be free, but no longer liable to sin. It has been asked, "whether, upon the narrow view which we have of the works of God, and the whole system of the universe, we can pretend to judge that the present constitution, in this branch of it which relates to free agents, is inconsistent with the wisdom and moral perfections of the Supreme Being? Shall we take upon us to say that the order of the creation, and the ends for which it was made, did not require that there should be such a rank of beings in it, constituted as we are, with understanding, liberty, and moral affections, but capable of sin, tempted to it, and thereby in danger of becoming unhappy through their own fault?" This may be called an appeal to our ignorance; but there is no occasion on which it may be made with greater propriety, than when we are inquiring into a fact in the Divine administration, the effects and consequences of which will last through an eternal duration, and may extend directly or indirectly to other worlds besides our own. In such a case, we may well acknowledge that the reasons of it are unknown to us, and it is better to avoid attempting to explain the permission of moral evil, than to give such an account of it as would represent the Maker of all in the light of an arbitrary Sovereign, who has sacrificed the happiness of a portion of his creatures to his own glory, or to give such an account as would impeach his justice and his goodness. Ignorant then, as we are, of the reason why moral evil was permitted, we cannot reasonably oppose the fact of its entrance into the world to the manifold proofs of the benevolence of the Deity. Let us rest upon what we know and feel, instead of perplexing ourselves with what we do not understand. It will, in the mean time, afford some relief to reflect that his wisdom has over-ruled it for the best and noblest ends, although we must beware of attributing to him what is so severely reprobated in man, the principle of doing evil that good may come. But good has come out of evil, the highest glory to God, and the highest happiness to man; and the brightest display of the Divine benevolence, is given in the plan from which such consequences have resulted.

The remaining part of this lecture will be devoted to some remarks upon the goodness of God in redemption. As manifested in this work, it is expressed by the terms, love, grace, and mercy, which exhibit it under different as