in our cities; difcafes and pains in our own perfons, or thofe of our nearest friends and relations, and death on our right hand and on our left; what are all thefe but awful and yet kind warnings from the tender and compaffionate Father of mankind, who fhews himself willing to give his poor unthinking, fhort-fighted creatures all poffible advantages for virtue and happiness, that might be at all confiftent with their nature as free agents, with their condition as beings in a ftate of dif cipline, and with the grand and univerfal fcheme, which must be equitable, unchangeable, and uniform.

And, as if all this, and a thoufand times more not mentioned, had not been enough, we are taught, that angels have a charge over us, to affift us in our trials, and to prevent our falling too fhamefully; that the Divine Providence watches over us, and fuits our circumftances to our ftrength and ingenuity of disposition. And to crown all, the Ambaffador of heaven, the image of Paternal Deity, and brightness of Divine Glory has defcended to our world, and in our own nature fhewn us, both by his example and his divine laws, what it is to live as we ought, and how we may infallibly attain the end of our being. If this is not doing enough for us,what would be enough?

Thus it appears plain, that the prefent was intended for a fate of difcipline, and is very well adapted to that purpofe. Nor does the actual failure and hideous ruin of numbers of moral agents, who will undoubtedly be found hereafter to have perverted this ftate of difcipline for virtue, into an education in vice, prove, that the flate was not intended for training them up to vir tue, or that it is not properly adapted to that purpose, any more than the amazing number of abortions, which happen in the natural world, proves, that the general defign of feeds was not to fructify, and produce plants and animals. Naturalifts fhew us, that in fome cafes millions of ftamina perifh for one that comes to maturity. And, as we conclude every feed of a plant, or animal egg, was formed capable of fructification, fo we may, that every moral agent was formed capable of attaining happiness. The great difference is, that in the natural

natural world, the numerous abortions we have been fpeaking of, are the confequence of the common course of nature; but in the moral, of the fatal perverseness of unhappy beings, who wilfully rufh upon their own deftruction.

Some have made a difficulty of conceiving how the wifeft and beft of beings, who must have forefeen, that great numbers of his unhappy fhort-fighted creatures, in fpite of all that fhould be done for them, would obftinately throw themfelves into deftruction, and defeat the end of their creation; fome have puzzled themfelves, I fay, how to reconcile with the divine perfections of wisdom and goodnefs, the creating of fuch beings.

But what ftate of difcipline for free agents can be conceived, without fuppofing a poffibility of their behaving illinit? Nothing but an abfolute restraint upon the liberty of the creature, which is wholly inconfiftent with the ature of free agency, and of a ftate of difcipline, could have prevented their acting in many inftances amifs. But the all-bounteous Creator has effectually put it out of the power of the most prefumptuoufly infolent of his creatures to arraign his juftice. For, if he has given to every accountable being a fair opportunity of working out his own happiness; if he has put into the hands of every individual the means; placed him in the direct way toward it, and is ready to affift him in his endeavours after it; if he has, in fhort, put happinets in the power of every accountable being, which he undoubtedly has, as fhewn above; he has, to all intents and purposes, done the fame as if he had given it to every individual. For he, who points me out the way to get an estate, or any of the good things of life, and who affifts and fupports me in my endeavours to procure it, he it is to whom I am obliged for whatever I acquire in confequence of his advice, and by means of his protection and affiftance? Now, if the beneficent Author of being has thus given to every individual fuch means of happinefs, as it must be wholly through his own perverfeness if he miffes it; what fhadow of pretence is there for cavilling, or what difficulty in under

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ftanding

ftanding and vindicating the wisdom and goodness of the adorable Author of exiftence? If we lay the whole blame, and with the utmoft juftice, on him, who, having an opportunity and means for gaining any fecular advantage put in his hands, neglects them; if we fhould as much condemn the man, who, through obftinacy or indolence, has let flip an opportunity of making his fortune, as another, who through extravagance has diffipated one already in his poffeffion; if we fhould as juftly look upon that perfon as our benefactor, by whofe means we acquire the conveniences of life, as on the immediate giver of a gift, what remains but that we juftify and adore the boundless goodness of the univerfal Parent of Nature, who, by calling innumerable creatures into existence, by endowing them with reason, by placing them in a ftate of difcipline, and giving them all poffible advantages for the improvement neceffary for happinefs, has, in effect, put in the hands of every accountable being a felicity fit for a God to bestow? And if every individual, that fhall hereafter be condemned, fhall be obliged to confefs his fentence juft, and to own that he might have acted a better part than he did, the Divine juftice and goodness ftand fully vindicated in the fight of the whole rational creation.

For, what!-Muft the infinite Author of existence (with reverence be it fpoken) muft He deny himself the exertion of his boundless goodness in producing an univerfe of conscious beings, of whom numbers will in the event come to happineis, merely to prevent the selffought deftruction of a fet of wicked degenerate beings? Either there must have been no creatures brought into being above the rank of brutes, confequently no happinefs above the animal enjoyed by any created being, or freedom of agency muft have been given. And what freedom is conceivable without a poffibility of error and irregularity, and confequently of mifery? But is not the happiness of one virtuous mind of more confequence than the voluntary ruin of a thousand degenerate beings? And is not a ftate, in which we have the oppor tunity of attaining an inconceivable felicity, if we be

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not inexcufably wanting to ourselves, is not this a ftate to be wished for by mankind, if they had their choice either to come into it or not? As for those unhappy beings of our fpecies, who, proceeding from one degree of vice and folly to another, fhall at laft come to be hardened against all good, what is the value of thousands of fuch beings in the estimation of infinite wisdom and rectitude, that their deftruction fhould be thought a hardship? For what elfe are fuch degenerate beings fit? Befides, we know that Divine Wisdom has fo planned out his univerfal economy, that an inferior good fhall, in the end, proceed from what was by wicked beings intended for ruin and mifchief. The whole human fpecies were originally formed capable of happiness, and every individual has happinefs in his power. as the Divine Wisdom, which perfectly knew the future characters of all his creatures, with all the circumstances they thould be effected by, forefaw that numbers would come to deviate from the eternal rule of rectitude, it was proper that a fecondary fcheme fhould be provided, by means of which those free agents, who fhould not voluntarily yield the due obedience and concurrence with the general defign, fhould, by fuperior direction, be forced to contribute to the greater perfection and beauty of the whole. Of this fecondary part of the divine economy, we can trace out fome very confiderable parts, as the following, viz. We know that wicked and cruel men, in endeavouring to root out truth, and fweep virtue from the earth, have ever been made, in spite of themfelves, the inftruments of their more general establishment. The whole race of perfecutors of Chriftianity, from Herod down to Lewis XIV. have fo egregiously over hot themselves, as to be the very causes of the greater prevalency of true religion, which has given occafion to the well-known faying, That the blood of the martyrs has been the feed of the church. In more private life, it is notorious, that a very confiderable part of the trials of the virtue of good men arifes from the wicked part of the fpecies. And every trial, where the good man comes off with honour, ferves naturally to establish his virtue, and to increase his reward hereafter.

The

The mere contraft between the character of the pious, the temperate and benevolent man, and that of the blafphemer, the voluptuary, and the hard-hearted, fets off the former to the utmost advantage, and prefents it to the general obfervation in the fairest point of view; by which votaries to virtue are gained, and a horror at vice is raised in every confiderate mind. And in the future ftate, what powerful effects may be produced by the fearful and exemplary punishments inflicted on thofe of our fpecies, or others, who have degenerated from the dignity of their nature, and, as much as they could, defeated the end of their creation, may be imagined by thofe who confider what extenfive connections between the various orders of being may hereafter come to be opened to our view, and that, as all moral and free agents of all orders are now allied, they may hereafter come to be united, and make one immenfe and univerfal fociety; and whatever has been originally intended for ufefulness to one order of moral agents, may at laft come to be useful to all. Something analogous to this we have in the cafe of the fallen angels, whofe ruin is mentioned in Scripture as a warning

to us.

It has been faid, Since the Supreme Being forefaw, without a poffibility of error, what would be the exact character of every one of his creatures, was it not to have been expected, that fuch of them as he knew would turn out wicked, and come to ruin, fhould never have been brought into exiftence, or cut off in the beginning of life? Our Saviour fays of Judas, for example, that it had been better for him never to have been born. How then, fay they, came he to be born? Or why was he not removed out of life, before he came to the age of perpetrating the most atrocious crime that ever was or can be committed?

Though I would not be the propofer of fuch prefumptuous queftions, I think it innocent enough to endeavour to answer them. And first, if we confider, that to infinite purity and rectitude wickedness is fo odious as to render the guilty perfon altogether contemptible in his fight, we thall not wonder that he does

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