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    hie views of Unitarianism settled on a solid base . I cannot but wish that Mr . Belsham ' s Optimism were as sound as it is pleasing ; and Dr . Southwood Smith ' s speculations as true as they are amiable . But when great men

    kill themselves , ( in a very vulgar manner too , ) and the former gentleman will moralize from the pulpit on the occasion , and virtually tell us , it is all for the best , just as it should be , and just as Providence designed it to be ; however profound such

    observations , I cannot but suspect there is unsoundness ab ( Out them somewhere ; and though philosophy cannot answer him , I am perverse enough to think such views and sentiments not quite scriptural , and therefore no better

    than they should be . There is , I am aware , no gordian knot in the moral world which Mr . B . cannot , with great ease , untie in the cool speculations of his Necessarian philosophy : and whether a man dies by his own hand , by that of the executioner , or quietly

    in the domestic bed , he does , I suppose , through the glass of that philosophy , look on with the same moral complacency and satisfaction . For my own part , Mr . Editor , ( and many others , I believe , share iny weakness

    here , ) I cannot avoid , in regard to certain moral phenomena in the world , thinking and feeling with the vulgar ; and I tear I shall never be sufficiently enlightened to imagine that , on the subject of moral agency and moral evil , a subtile metaphysical argument

    is to be set against common sense , moral consciousness , general consent of mankind , and plain and powerful assertions of Holy Writ . These four voices seem to be in opposition to a good deal advanced by Dr . IS . Smith in his " Illustrations of the Divine

    Government : " a book of so amiable a spirit and delightful sentiments , that I regret there should seem to lie any objection to its grateful argument and consolatory conclusion . My attention was drawn to his book a second time by the circumstance of meeting with a Review of it in the Tenth Vol .

    ( New Series ) of the Eclectic Review ; and I beg permission , Mr . Editor , to ask Dr . Smith ( by the pages of your Repository ) if he has seen that article ? To my own judgment it is , Sir , a very powerful and impressive piece of writing , containing strong objections to

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    the propositions and reasonings & <} , vanced by Dr . S . $ calculated to make every thinking mind serious , and to induce the ingenuous Unitarian to pause on his creed , and feel diffident of its strength and correctness . I believe the Eclectic has made but an

    indifferent figure in former Numbers of your excellent Miscellany , and has given itself a notorious celebrity for deficiency of candour and liberality towards us : I have still the same confidence in your own superior temper ,

    to admit the observations I s $ nd you on a very important subject ; and it would be a great relief to myself to see a satisfactory reply to them from some one or other of your intelligent readers . Dr . Smith observes : "The

    misery produced by sin is designed to answer the same benevolent purpose in the moral world , which the pain occasioned by hunger accomplishes in the animal . " The Reviewer observes upon this : " The reader will remark the evasion of the subject in this sentence . Let it be granted that

    the misery consequent upon sin is a purely beneficent infliction upon the subject of it ; the question is not what good the misery does him , but what good the sin does him . He is made miserable , it seems , that he may become good ; but , is he made wicked that he may be made miserable , that

    he may become good ? " On the following definition of punishment by Dr . Smith;— " Punishment is the infliction of pain , in consequence of the neglect or violation of duty , with a view to correct the evil - ' / the Reviewer remarks , — " Granting both the justness and the appositeness of this definition , the hypothesis proposed to us as alone worthy of a reasonable credence , is this ( as we have before expressed it ) : Men are made wicked , that they may he punished ^ that they may becojne good . Now , let the reader observe , that that evil which

    terminates m its own ultimate correction or destruction , adds nothing to the well-being of the universe ; but , to the whole extent of it , is simple evil . Nor does it make any difference if we choose to call the form& portion of this evil , cause , and the

    latter , consequence ; the former , sin ; and the latter , punishment . Dr . Sm ith asserts , that Ja « who choqses aiiiip » evil for its own sake , and jrests ifl Jt

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    84 Eclectic Review on Dr . S . Smith ' s " Illustrations . "

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1822, page 84, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2509/page/20/