On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    liability to raiscwcfctct , and the evils resulting from it wer § inevitable , the inference will be , th $ t . the majority of mankind were created , ( as every Supralapsarian Qalvin ^ st really believes , ) with the full purpose of thejor becoming- interminably wretched ; for no other motive could operate to call

    them into existence . There are , however , perspus of more enlightened understandings , and less gloorny temperaments , who consider the natural and moral evils by which we are now ; surrounded , to be all capable of effectual remedy , and

    who believe that every order of rational intelligences will bp ultimately and completely happy . They admit , indeed , that the evils of imperfection are the necessary results of creation itself , and particularly in a system which consists of a subordination of

    ranks ; but since they perceive that in the human species , though all cremated with the same liability , many individuals are exempt from those dreadful maladies of body and mind to

    which others are subject , they naturally conclude that these calamities might have been originally avoided , and that , consequently , they are ordained for some wise and benevolent

    purpose , and which , in truth , can be no other than because they will contribute to render the aggregate sum of felicity greater than it would have been on any other conceivable plan . Why pain should be made essentially instrumental in the production of

    enjoyment , is a mysterious question , which it is not within the circumscribed powers of man to solve ; but that moral and physical evils are , iu fact , subservient to great and useful purposes , cannot be doubted by those who hare paid any attention to the subject of these remarks .

    Among the various hjpotheses which have been framed to account for the admission of moral evil into the world , there are four only that in the eye of the modern philosopher can be deemed worthy of regard . While some spe ~

    culatists are of opinion , as we have just seen , that its admission could not have been prevented , even by Omnipotence , as long as imperfect beings are brdught into existence , others maintain , ( and tfci& 3 & the njost prevalent belief , ) . that it must be attributed to the abuae of

    Untitled Article

    that freedom of the will ^ witK which man is endowed as an accountable creature , A third scheme has heen proposed by an acute but a fanciful writer , who is better known to the world by his remarks on the internal

    evidences of Christianity . He contends , that since natural evil was unavoidable , it was necessary , in order to prevent its being inflicted on the innocent , that some persons should be brought iuto existence , who , by their misconduct , would contract moral

    depravity , and who would , on that account , merit the misery which it was impossible to exclude altogether from the creation . The last , and , in my opinion , the most satisfactory explanation of the difficulty before us , represents both moral as well as natural

    evil , as appointed by the Supreme Being , with the sole view of producing a greater sum of good than could otherwise take place , and teaches us to believe , that by the ultimate restoration of the whole human race to

    virtue and happiness , evil , in all its numberless and terrific forms , will finally and eternally vanish . A most formidable objection to the three first of these-hypotheses is , that since the ultimate prevalence of

    unmixed happiness cannot be deduced from them , it follows that with regard to a large proportion of mankind , it would have befen better for them that they should not have been born . But if the last can be

    established , there is no human being to whom the communication of existence will not in the end have been an inestimable blessing-, and the divine attributes will be at once vindicated from those degrading conceptions which it is impossible on any other scheme not to entertain ,

    It is not improbable that your correspondent Mr . H . may hold the doctrine of universal restoration , but it is difficult to say how he can reconcile it with the belief that it is beyond the efficacy of Omnipotence not

    itself to exempt inferior beings only from liability ta . miscafc illation , fallibility and error , : but from the moral certainty of feeling their effects . . Cleric us Canta ^ higiensis .

    Untitled Article

    - %%$ Ofl the possible Exclusion of Moral' arid Natural Evil .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1823, page 528, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1788/page/32/