to the universal resurrection-to believe that the body which is now the tenement of the spirit, will be transformed into a body impervious to pain, and incapable of dissolution to believe that "this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality;"* and, notwithstanding, to impute the anguish and infirmities of the human frame to something necessary and unavoidable in the works of God.

It cannot be pleaded in vindication of those who have reasoned on the goodness of the Deity in the manner animadverted upon, that they had proposed to demonstrate his benevolence on grounds independent of divine revelation, or on the principles of natural theology: for, as we have before remarked, they take no account of a fundamental principle of natural theology-a principle which, we contend, is an essential element in the inquiry whether the experience of mankind, in any particular instance, be an example of the benevolence of God or otherwise-namely, the presumption of our accountableness to the Creator, or probationary condition before him. Their omission of this principle, and the consequent defect in their reasoning, must be

* 1 Cor. xv. 54

evident, if we simply ask-What is the end proposed in proving and illustrating the benevolence of the Deity? Is it to inspire a confidence in his benignant disposition towards us, irrespective of our own affections and conduct as the recipients of his bounty, and the subjects of his authority? Assuredly not. We do not collect the results of our past experience, and that of others, at the hand of God, and thereby augur his purpose concerning us for the time to come, in the belief that his disposal of our destiny will be eventually the same, whatever be the character of our own minds-whatever be the nature of our own doings-whatever be our own endeavours to attain the happiness which it is His final purpose to bestow, or to secure our immortal being from irreparable damage and utter ruin. We do not trace the path in which the Power which upholds the universe is wont to move, with the same passive and helpless curiosity as that with which we contemplate the course of a body in the heavens, whose collision with our own planet would disturb or absorb it. On that supposition, indeed, a demonstration of the good-will of God were unspeakably grateful, presuming a general proneness or liability to doubt it. But surely the authors

of those elaborate treatises which, from time to time, have been composed to establish the predominance of a benevolent design in the constitution of our nature, would have hardly allowed that they had aimed at no other and higher object than to dispel any apprehension that might have possessed us, that the Creator designed our misery, or was indifferent to our happiness. They were concerned, it is presumed, to illustrate the benevolence of the Supreme Being as an argument for thankfulness towards him, and obedience to his known or discoverable will. It cannot suffice, then, even on the principles of unaided reason, to deduce the goodness of God from the amount of enjoyment distributed amongst us; unless it be the sum of our pleasures which determines the degree of our gratitude for his bounty, and devotion to his service. But this, we repeat, is so far from being a statement of the fact, that we are compelled to acknowledge that the uniform experience of pleasure would be followed by a monotonous indifference to the Author of all good,—that a change in the aspect of external nature is not more necessary to suggest to untutored man the notion of an intelligent Cause, or presiding Power in the

universe, than strong contrasts and grievous vicissitudes in the conditions of human nature, are essential to renew in our degenerate, thoughtless minds the ever-decaying impressions of God s beneficence.

We need not therefore regard as an obscure and mysterious phenomenon the prevalence of natural evil, or account it as an anomaly in a creation of infinite benevolence. Whatever difficulty adheres to this subject is more properly felt in the original constitution of our moral nature; whereby we were rendered susceptible of a defect of love and obedience to the Deity, and liable to become so insensible to the appeals which his goodness is continually making to our gratitude, and so alienated from the service due to him, as to need the rod of adversity to urge our sense of religious obligation to require the chastisement of affliction in this life, as well as the certainty of a future retribution, in order to school us in the duties of intelligent creatures, and to prepare us for our proper destiny. Assuming, however, that such is our character-assuming the incursion of moral evil, it must seem a deduction of our reason, as well as a doctrine of the Gospel, that in exposing us to calamitous reverses in our external

condition, to pains and infirmities of body, and to the urgent, awful apprehension of dying, God has in reality consulted for our most essential wants, our worst exigency, and our largest capacity of happiness.

But especially is the doctrine of Scripture, relative to the end of those troubles which "man is born to as the sparks fly upwards," confirmed and enforced by our particular experience as Christians. The peculiar advantages appertaining to a knowledge of the Gospel exhibit, in the strongest light, the use and necessity of affliction in strengthening and establishing our religious principles. For is it sufficient, we ask, to engage us in the habitual practice of religion, and to determine our preference of a spiritual and eternal good, that we believe the Bible to be in truth a revelation from the Divine Being? Is it sufficient that the precepts which it enjoins are entirely commended to our judgment; that the claims which it enforces on our obedience provoke no question; that the rewards which it holds out to our pursuit overflow our hopes; and that the punishment which it denounces are such as none could bear? Is it sufficient to reclaim us to the service of God, that it even records the humiliation and