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may be incidental to the contrivance, perhaps inseparable from it; or let it be called a defect in the contrivance, it is not the object of it. And this observation extends to many evils which are beside our subject: it is true of earthquakes, volcanos; they all show the effect of a visible train of contrivances. Now contrivance proves design, and the predominant tendency of the contrivance indicates the disposition of the designer. The disposition of the designer is to be judged of, not from the accidental effects of the contrivance, not from the inseparable consequences of the contrivance, nor from any other defect where it may be supposed liable to any, but from the end, aim, and object of the contrivance, which, in the works of nature, or, in other words, in the works of God, are always beneficial.

What I would add, by way of a concluding remark, is this that if there be other evils, which do not fall within the above observation, if there be the unmerited misery of the good and pious, and the still more unaccountable prosperity of the wicked, is it not more than probable that there will come a time when God will, as he certainly can, rectify the irregularity? Are not the thousand and ten thousand proofs of bounty and benevolence, which we see about us, enough to found a persuasion that the few examples which seem of a contrary cast will hereafter be cleared up, and contemplated so as to reduce the whole to one entire and uniform plan of love, and kindness, and good-will, to the work of his Almighty hand?

XXIX.

THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

(PART II.)

PSALM XXXIII. 5.

The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

HAVING explained the argument by which the goodness of our Almighty Governor is proved from the light of nature; or, in other words, from those specimens of his intentions which we are able to observe, connect, and comprehend, in the world around us; I shall now proceed to state some of the many declarations of Revelation, in which the same divine attributes, though under various forms, names, and modifications, are repeated and described :-and these are material to be known and stated; for whatever intimation and reasonable evidence of God's goodness the order of the universe may furnish to a contemplative mind, it must be acknowledged that pointed proofs of the same kind are to be found in the revealed word of God; and the fidelity and certainty of that word is, in return, also proved by the light of nature; for it is not conceivable, nor contended indeed by any, that a being who, in such remarkable

instances, had testified his love to his rational creatures, and care for their happiness, should go about, by mysterious attempts, to mislead and deceive them in accounts of that which most nearly concerns them, and in which it is impossible for them to detect the deceit.

Now the divine goodness, as it is excited towards the human species, parts itself into six great branchesjustice, bounty, fidelity, patience, placability, mercy; these all spring from the same root, the divine desire and provision for the happiness of his creatures; in other words, the love of God. We will now see what the Scriptures have to tell us of each of them.

The justice of the deity is the foundation of all religion; yet this was a point in which the apprehensions of many in ancient times laboured under some uncertainty; many of the vulgar, and some of the wise men, conceived of the deity as not regulating the treatment of his creatures by any steady rules of justice, but as bestowing his favours capriciously, and actuated entirely by partial affections, such as we feel and conceive towards one another. The Scriptures, however, of the Old Testament strenuously combat this error, and describe him as a God of perfect righteousness, equity, and justice. The song of Moses, as recorded in the 32d chapter of Deuteronomy, and which some men have called the dying words of that illustrious lawgiver, begins with the subject: "I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the rock, his work is perfect;

for all his ways are judgement: a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and righteous is he." The book of Job was written expressly to vindicate the justice of God in those trying circumstances in which the impatience and infirmity of human nature is most apt to question it-in the calamity and affliction with which he is pleased to visit us. Certain expressions of that book are full to our purpose: "Far be it from God that he should do wickedness, and from the Almighty that he should commit iniquity; for the works of a man shall he render unto him, and cause every man to find according to his ways. Yea surely, God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert judgement."

"Justice and judgement," saith David," are the habitation of thy throne." The Jews had been led to suspect what may be called the personal justice of God, in that he visited upon the children the ini quity of the fathers, or as the proverb expresses it "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." The prophet Eze kiel, in the 18th chapter of that book, is authorized in the name of Almighty God so far to repel the charges, as to show that the final destiny, the ultimate happiness or misery, of each individual was to dependTM upon his own conduct and behaviour, and nothing else: Behold, all souls are mine as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Yet, saith the house

of Israel, the ways of the Lord are unequal. Are not my ways equal, are not your ways unequal?"

The New Testament I shall quote for the two fundamental articles of divine justice-the future punishment of vice without respect of persons or station, and the future reward of virtue. "Thou treasurest up wrath," saith Saint Paul, "against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgement of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds to them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life; but unto them that are contentious, and who do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness-indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; but glory, and honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile; for there is no respect of persons with God." Again, in another place, "God is not unrighteous, to forget your work and labour of love which ye have shown." These are satisfactory accounts of the divine justice and it may be observed, that there is no foundation, in these accounts, for the opinion that justice is one thing in God, and another thing in man; and though we understand what justice means between man and man, we can argue nothing from that concerning the divine justice. This may be exceedingly different, though the expression describes the same quality in

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