SECTION V. of the Universality of the Divine Benevolence. istence to rational beings, in order to rendering. It is then a truth as obvious as it is dethem glorious, by imparting to them his own lightful, that the design of the Creator must glory; and he is said to do this out of a regard have been the communication of happiness, to his own glory, only because it is the com- and that nothing can possibly more effectually munication of his own excellence that ren- display the glory of a Being who is infinitely ders them glorious. They are glorious be wise, powerful, and good, than to contrive and cause they partake of the Creator's glory. effect the happiness of rational creatures. The Creator gave them being for the purpose of communicating to them that glory; that glory consists in a participation of his own excellence, and therefore it is argued, strictly speaking, he gave them existence from a love of his own glory.* Whatever truth there may be in this représentation, it is in fact only another method of saying that he is himself excellence and happiness; that, being so, he diffuses excellence and happiness, and that he diffuses them because he loves them. These views, properly understood, seem to lead to no other than just conceptions of the Supreme Being; but they are too refined to be in general accurately conceived and followed. The language commonly employed to express them is apt to confuse and mislead. As far as they are intellig ble and clear, they coincide entire ly with the more usual opinion, that God's ultimate end in the creation is the happiness of his creatures. This last proposition is universally intelligible and cannot be misunderstood; it is therefore the better mode of speak God seeking himself in the creation of the world, in the manner which has been supposed, is so far from being inconsistent with the good of his creatures, that it is a kind of regard to himself, that inclines him to seek the good of his creatures. It is a regard to himself that disposes him to diffuse and communicate himself. It is such a delight in his own internal fulness* and glory, that disposes him to an abundant effusion and emanation of that glory. The same disposition that inclines him to delight in his glory, causes him to delight in the exhibitions, expressions, and communications of it. In God, the love of himself and the love of the public are not to be distinguished as in man, because God's being, as it were, comprehends all. His existence being infinite, must be equivalent to universal existence. And, for the same reason that public affection in the creature is fit and beautifal, God's regard to himself must be so likewise. In God, the love of what is fit cannot be a distinct thing from the love of himself, because the love of God is that wherein all holiness primarily and chiefly consists, and God's own holiness must primarily consist in the love of himself. Love to virtue itself is no otherwise virtuous, than it is implied in, or arises from, love to the Divine Being. Consequently, God's own love to virtue is implied in love to himself, and is virtuous no otherwise than as it arises from love to himself. Consequently, whensoever he makes virtue his end, he makes himself his end. In fine. God being, as it were, an all-comprehending Being, all his moral perfections, his holiness, justice, grace, and benevolence, are some way or other to be rendered into a supreme and infinite regard to himself; and, if so, it will be easy to suppose that it becomes him to make himself his supreme and last end in his works.'-Edwards' Dissertation Concerning the End for which God created the World, chap. i. sect. iv. In the above phrases, God's fulness, is comprehended all the good which is in God, natural and moral, either excellence or happiness.-Edward's Dissertation, chap. sect. ii. i. FOR the same reason that the Deity designed to make one human being happy, he must have purposed to bestow felicity ultimately upon all. For, if there be a single individual whom he created without this design, since he must still have had some design, it must be different from that which we have already shown to be the only one which he could have had in view. In reality, his purpose with respect to every individual must have been either to make him happy or miserable. If it were not to make him happy, it must have been to make him miserable; but to suppose that he purposed to make any one miserable ultimately and upon the whole, is to suppose that he purposed the production of misery for its own sake, which has already been shown to be impossible. And, if every principle of the human understanding revolt at the conclusion, that he is partial and capricious in his kindness, and has designed to make some individuals happy, and others miserable, it is equally opposed by all the appearances in nature. It is refuted by every object to which we can direct our attention. The sun, in the brightness of his glory, diffuses light and joy through all the nations of the earth. He has no favourite to bless. He He regards not in his course the little distinc- The cloud, bearing in its bosom riches and fertility, pours its blessings upon every field, without regarding the name or rank of its owner. "The Lord visiteth the earth with his goodness; he watereth it with the dew of heaven; he maketh it soft with showers; he blesseth the springing thereof.' No where in nature are there traces of a partial God. Some inequalities indeed appear in the distribution of his bounty, but this must necessarily be the case, if creatures are formed with different capacities, and endowed with different degrees of excellence. There can be no degrees in excellence there can be no variety of orders and ranks among intelligent beings, unless some are made higher and some lower, some better and some worse than others. But how low in capacity, how dark and gro velling in apprehension, how little capable of estimating the benignity of the author of its mercies, must be that mind which dreams that the Deity is partial, because, by diffusing every where a countless variety of capacity, excellence, and happiness, he has adopted the means of producing the greatest sum of enjoyment! The great things which make us what we are, which minister to the primary wants, and which lie at the foundation of the happpiness of all animal and intelligent natures, are always and every where the same. Life itself is the same, wherever that wonderful power, which imparts to a mass of clay the amazing properties of sensation and intelligence, has operated. Wherever a vital fluid circulates, from the lowest animal up to the highest human being, it flows to diffuse enjoyment. To all, indeed, it does not impart an equal sum of happiness, because it could not do so, unless every object in nature were exactly alike; but to all it is the source of pleasure. Simple existence is a blessing; simply to be, is happiness. And this is the case with every race of animals, and with every individual of every The Deity has made no distinction in the nature of the existence which he has given to his creatures. He has not made the act of existing pleasureable in one and painful in another; he has made it the same in all, and in all he has made it happy. No reason can be assigned for this, but that he is good to race. all. Every appearance of partiality vanishes from all his great and substantial gifts. It is only in what is justly termed the adventitous circumstances which attend his bounties, that the least indication of it can be supposed to exist; yet narrow minds confine their attention to these adventitious circumstances, and hence conclude that he is partial in the distribution of his goodness; while all his great and fundamental blessings are so universally and equally diffused, that they demonstrate him to be a Being of perfect benevolence. Now we ought to reason from the great to the little, not from the little to the great. We ought to say, Because, in every thing of primary importance, there is no appearance of partiality, therefore there can be really none, although in lesser things there is some inequality in the distribution of the absolute sum of enjoyment; not because there is some inequality in lesser things, therefore, there must be partiality, although there is no indication of it in any thing of real moment. If to this consideration be added what has already been established, that even the most wretched of the human race enjoy a great preponderance of happiness, it will furnish another decisive proof, that the Deity designed to make all his creatures happy. us more members than to another? Has he superadded to one, in the use of an organ, an exquisite degree of enjoyment, which he has denied to another? Are not all our organs the same, adapted to the same uses, and productive of the same gratifications? Has he not given to all the same number of senses, and made them the source of similar intelligence and pleasure ?* Indeed, no one can imagine, that in the formation and government of the world the Deity has been influenced by partiality, without entertaining the most low and puerile conceptions of his nature and conduct. When of one piece of clay he made an animal without reason, and of another a man, he felt no more partiality towards the clay which formed the man, than towards that of which he constructed the animal without reason. But he determined to impart enjoyment to an infinite variety of organized and sensitive creatures. It was necessary to the perfection of his plan, that there should be an animal without reason; it was necessary that there should be a man. He therefore gave to each the properties it possesses. Now, while we suppose that he was not influenced by partiality, in the distinction which he has made between the different genera of creatures, shall we imagine, that when he proceeded to form the species, and still more the individuals, he on a sudden changed the principle of his conduct, and acted solely with a view to gratify a capricious fondness for one individual, and aversion to another that classes and orders, those great lines of demarkation between different creatures, do not proceed from partiality, but that the slight shades of difference which distinguish inclviduals from individuals do? Can any conception be more puerile? Every blessing diffused over the creation, which is of great or permanent importance, is given, not to individuals, but to the species. This is the invariable law of nature. But, while the universality of the divine benevolence will be readily admitted, with respect to the blessings which have been mentioned, many persons believe that the Deity acts upon a totally different principle, with regard to the distribution of moral and spiritual favour, and that he invariably confines the communication of this description of good to a few chosen individuals. The most popular systems of religion which prevail in the present age are founded upon this opinion. But if it be a fact, that there is no partiality in the primary and essential gift of existence, in life, considered as a whole, in the minor properties and felicities of our nature, in our senses, in our intellectual and moral faculties, and in the *If those who are born blind or deaf, or are deIf we look inward on ourselves, and con- prived of any sense by accident, should be consider all the parts which minister to the per-sidered exceptions to this general rule, it is still fection and happiness of our nature, whether animal or intellectual, we shall find a farther confirmation of this great truth. Did not one God fashion us? Has he given to any one of only the exception of one case in many thousands; and the loss, even where it does take place, is very generally compensated, in no inconsiderable degree, by the acuteness which the remaining senses acquire. gratification of which they are respectively the Source-if all these great blessings agree in this important circumstance, that they are instruments of enjoyment to all, and that the happiness they actually do impart is universal -it must follow, that there is no partiality in the distribution of moral and spiritual good. For why is this spiritual good imparted to any? Why is it superadded to the merely animal and intellectual nature of a single in dividual? It must be to perfect its possessor, and to make him susceptible of a greater sum of enjoyment. Now the difference which is here supposed between two beings of the same species is never found to exist. There is nothing similar to it in the whole range of that part of the creation with which we are acquainted. Differences between individuals of the same species are observable, but there is nothing approaching the immensity of this inconceivable distinction. Whatever differences prevail are those of degree, not of kind. Every individual of the same species has every essential property the same as his fellows; but here a poperty infinitely more important in its consequences than the addition of a new sense would be, is given to one and denied to another. This looks not like the work of the Deity. It is a vast and sudden chasm in a plan of wondrous order, for which no preparation is made, to which we are led by no preparatory steps, for which nothing can account, and which nothing can reconcile. It bears upon it traces of the imperfect and short-sighted contrivance of man; it is contradicted by all which we feel and know of the works of God, and it ought to be driven from the mind of every rational being, that the fair creation of the Deity may no longer be falsified by the deceptive medium through which it is viewed, and that our Maker may not be charged with injustice because our eye is evil! We perceive, that, in addition to mere animal existence, man is endowed with organs which constitute him the most perfect of the creatures which inhabit the earth. Why were these organs given him? Without doubt that he might enjoy a higher degree of happiness than the creatures beneath him. To the organs which constitute him a mere (though a very perfect) animal, there are then superadded others which impart to him a rational and moral nature, with a view that he may enjoy a more perfect happiness; but besides all these, other properties are added, which exalt him still higher in the scale of creation-properties, for the reception of which, the former only qualify him-properties which make him capable of loving his Maker, and of enjoying him for ever. Why is he endowed with these? Certainly that he may enjoy a more perfect happiness than he could attain without them. Must not this reason then induce the Author of these invaluable blessings to bestow them Of the Impossibility of Frustrating the Design upon the race as well as upon a few individuals? Let the mind dwell for a moment upon what it is it really supposes, when it imagines that these properties are given to some and denied to others. The difference between the man who is capable of perceiving the excellence of the great and perfect Being who made him, of loving him, and of conforming to his character, and the man who not only is not endow ed with this capacity, but is impelled by the principles of his nature to hate the Deity, is infinitely greater than the difference between a worm and the most exalted of the human race. For, if before the religious faculty begins to be developed, there appear no remarkable distinction between them, let them be observed after this principle has been called into action, and has operated for some time. It will then be seen, that in their conceptions, their occupations, and their enjoyments, they totally differ from each other-that they have hardly any thing in common-that there is as great a distinction between them, as between the insect which grovels in the dust, and the man who first measured the distances of the stars, and taught us the laws by which the universe is governed. Let the mind look forward to eternity, and suppose, (as always is supposed,) that both will progressively advance, each in his career, through the ages of an endless duration; how immeasurable does the distance between them then become! SECTION VI. of the Deity. If the Deity created all men with a design to make them happy, their ultimate felicity is certain; for, if a being propose to himself the accomplishment of a design, he will perform it, unless some motive arise from within to induce him to change it, or some circumstance arise from without to oblige him to change it. Nothing can explain the failure of his purpose, unless it be supposed, either that he has voluntarily changed it, or has been forced by some superior power to abandon it. If the Deity voluntarily change his plan, it must be for the better or for the worse. If for the better, the original plan must have been imperfect; if for the worse, since he knows all things perfectly, and must therefore foresee the consequence, it follows, that what he perceives to be a good plan is relinquished for one which he knows to be bad; but the supposition, that a wise and good Being can thus act, is impossible. If, on the contrary, he has been forced to change his plan, that which obliged him to do so must be stronger than he; for no being will permit his design to be frustrated by a power which is weaker than himself. Whatever, therefore, it be, which frustrates the design of the Deity, must be stronger than omnipotence, which is a contradiction. In a word, God is a Being of perfect goodness. He created man with a design to make him happy. There is nothing in the universe attribute, to decide whether or not it can becapable of frustrating his design. However, long to the Deity. If an attribute be evil, it therefore, that design be opposed-through certainly cannot belong to God. Now the atwhatever long or painful discipline man may tribute, whatever it be, which inflicts endless be conducted to happiness, he must finally misery on any being, is evil. It is not affirmattain it.. ed merely that the atribute is evil which inflicts endless misery on the great majority of men, but that attribute is so which inflicts it even upon one single individual; and the proof is obvious. It does not seem possible to avoid this conclusion, but by saying that the Deity possesses other attributes, which are of a nature contrary to that upon which the whole of this reasoning is founded; and in fact this is affirmed. To Misery, considered in itself, is evil. Misery all the arguments in favour of the final happi- is only another word which is used to express ness of mankind, deduced from the goodness pain of some kind or other. Pain, considered of God, it is replied, that God is a Sovereign, simply in itself, is universally admitted to be and can do what he pleases; that he is just, evil. Whatever produces pain, without doing and must maintain the rights of his law; that any thing else, is evil. he is holy, and must punish sin. All these positions are strictly true; but it is difficult to conceive how they can oppose the conclusions which are deduced from his goodness. They cannot possibly do so, unless the attributes of sovereignty, justice, and holiness, are contrary to goodness, and this is what is really affirmed. These perfections are conceived to be tremendous attributes, which are different from and opposite to goodness. It would seem like trifling, to confute this opinion, and to show that they can be only modifications of benevolence; yet it is necessary to prove it, and this is attempted in another part of this work. At present it may be sufficient to show, in general, that a Being of perfect goodness can possess no attribute which is inconsistent with that perfection, SECTION VII. Of the Harmony of the Divine Perfections. A Being of perfect goodness can possess no attribute which is inconsistent with that perfection; for whatever is inconsistent with goodness is evil, and to affirm that a Being may be perfectly good, while he possesses a single attribute which is contrary to goodness, is to say that he may be perfectly good at the same time that he is evil. Since whatever is inconsistent with goodness is evil-since it has been proved, that all evil has its origin in want or weakness-since it is universally acknowledged, that God is almighty, and therefore can have no want nor weakness, it follows, that he can possess no attribute which is inconsistent with benevolence. We have only to determine the nature of an Is all pain, then, evil? No. Why? Because some pain has an ulterior object, which is the production of good. Hunger, for example, is attended with pain, but this pain is not evil, because it has an ulterior object. Its design is not to inflict suffering, but to preserve life by inducing the animal to take food. In proportion, therefore, as life is a good to the animal, the pain which excites him to use the means of preserving it is a good. Now all pain which has not this ulterior object, being pure and simple pain, pain and nothing else, is evil. But misery inflicted through endless ages cannot possibly accomplish this ulterior object, since there is no period in which it can effect it; such misery must be evil, therefore, in the highest possible degree. It will avail nothing, to say that the object of the infliction of endless misery is not pain, but the satisfaction of immutable justice. This does not in the least affect the argument; for the position is, that that attribute, whatever it may be called, is evil, which inflicts misery upon a being, without doing and without designing to do any thing else to him. To that being it is pure, positive, absolute evil. Whatever makes a being more miserable than happy, the whole of his existence considered, is to him positive evil. A good being must cause to every creature an excess of pleasure above pain, for he is good to it only in proportion as he does so. But, according to the doctrine of endless punishment, God does not cause to the great majority of his creatures an excess of pleasure above pain; for he deprives them, through the whole of their future existence, of every pleasurable sensation, and inflicts upon them the most unremitted and intolerable an guish. It is usual to represent the future punishment of the wicked in the following manner: It is nothing to say that the happiness intended suppose a large mountain, composed of the to be bestowed upon his creatures by the Deity is minutest grains of sand; suppose one of these conditional. There can be no doubt that it is so far conditional, that no being can be happy until grains to be removed once in a million of years he becomes virtuous. But the circumstances in the length of time which would elapse be which men are placed, and the ultimate effect of those circumstances upon their character, were clearly foreseen by the Deity; and if he perceived that any individual, under any particular combination of circumstances, would never become virtuous, he would either have altered his circumstances, or not have called him into existence. One or other of these measures benevolence required. fore the removal of the last of these grains infinitely surpasses our power of conception. Yet this period, immeasurable as it is, is not endless, and therefore can convey to the mind but a faint idea of the duration of the torments of the wicked. We must suppose the globe itself to be composed of grains of sand-nay, all the planets of our system, and all the stars which we behold in the heavens; we must suppose the particles which compose these immense and innumerable bodies formed into one vast mass, to be removed by the transposition of a single grain once in a million of years-how inconceivable the period that must elapse before the removal of the last grain! The faculties of the human mind are lost in the contemplation of it. Yet this period is not endless, and it has been often said, that could the wicked be told, that at the termination of such a period their sufferings would cease, the tidings would fill them with inconceivable transport. But they are not permitted to indulge even this forlorn and awful hope. When this dreadful period shall have elapsed, their sufferings will be but beginning; nay, when millions of such periods shall have passed away, their torment will be no nearer its termination, than at the instant of its commencement. And these sufferings are represented as most dreadful in their nature. No imagination, it is said, can conceive of their horror. No sensation of pleasure can ever again be felt by the soul, but through endless ages it must continue inconceivably miserable, without the intermission of a single instant, and without any hope of it. And this misery is inflicted for the crimes of eighty, twenty, ten years-inflicted upon the great majority of mankind-inflicted by a Being whose nature is supremely benevolent, and whose tender mercies are at all times over all his works!* Such is the doctrine of endless misery. Can any one seriously believe it? Can any human being consider what God is, and what endless misery implies, and affirm that he really thinks the infliction of the one consistent with the perfections of the other? your dolorous groans and lamentations, without rest day or night, or one minute's ease, yet you shall have no hope of being delivered-when, after you shall have worn out a thousand more such ages, yet you shall have no hope, but shall know that you are no one whit nearer to the end of your torments that still there are the same groans, the to be made by you, and that the smoke of your same shrieks, the same doleful cries incessantly torment shall still ascend for ever and ever, and that your souls, which shall have been agitated with the wrath of God all this while, yet will still exist to bear more wrath-your bodies, which shall have been burning all this while in these glowing flames, yet shall not have been consumed, but will remain through an eternity yet, which shall not have been at all shortened by what shall have been past!" In the next page he adds, "Besides, their capacity (that of the wicked) will probably be enlarged, in a future state; and God can give them as great their understandings will be quicker and stronger a sense, and as strong an impression of eternity as he pleases, to increase their grief and torment." What a tremendous, what a savage thought! What a thing is system! To think that a man, possessing a heart of flesh, and an understanding contemplate such a scene as this, and imagine it enlightened by the Christian religion, can steadily is a just exhibition of the conduct of the Author of this beautiful and happy world! Such conduct is worthy of the mind that plotted the inquisition, and of the heart that first leaped in exultation at the device of consuming the body in the flaming faggot for the the good of the soul; but to impute it to the pure, and lovely, and benignant Spirit that presides over the universe-language cannot speak the horror that is in it. *I profess myself utterly unable, by any language at my command, to convey an adequate conception of the ideas which are in the minds of the advocates of this doctrine. Let one of the most respected of these advocates perform the task himself: "Be entreated," says Edwards, in his 'Discourse on the Eternity of Hell Torments,' p. 28, &c., to consider attentively how great and awful a thing ETERNITY is! Although you cannot comprehend it the more by considering, yet you may be made more sensible that it is not a thing to be disregarded. Do but consider what it is to suffer extreme pain for ever and ever-to suffer it day and night, from one day to another, from one year to another, from one age to another, from one thousand ages to another, and so adding age to age, and thousands to thousands, in pain, in wailing and lamenting, groaning and shrieking, and gnashing your teeth-with your souls full of dreadful grief and amazement, with your bodies, and every member of them, full of racking torturewithout any possibility of getting ease-without any possibility of moving God to pity your cries without any possibility of hiding yourself from him -without any possibility of diverting your thoughts from your pain-without any possibility of obtain ing any manner of mitigation, or help, or change for the better!-How dismal will it be, when you are under these racking torments, to know assuredly that you never, never shall be delivered from them! to have no hope-when you shall wish that you might be turned into nothing, but shall have no hope of it-when you shall wish that you might be turned into a toad, or a serpent, but shall have no hope of it-when you would rejoice if you might but have any relief, after you shall have endured these torments millions of ages, but shall have no hope of it-when, after you have worn out the age of the sun, moon, and stare, in I be of no service. While feeling as I do, the utter inability of language to express the deep reprobation with which such representations ought to be regarded by all Christians, I should think myself deficient both in candor and justice, were I to omit to state a truth of which there is abundant evidence, and of which I rejoice to perceive that the evidence is increasing, namely, that in the present age many persons who believe in the doctrine of endless misery shrink with unfeigned horror from such exhibitions of it. Many excellent and pious persons, some of whom I have the pleasure of knowing, though they cannot satisfy themselves that the terms in which the scriptures speak of the endless suffering of the wicked import less than an end. less duration, and though they profess themselves unable to see any injustice in the infliction of an endless punishment, yet believe that the degree of suffering actually imposed will not exceed that which is perfectly consistent with infinite benevolence. What that degree is, they do not presume to determine. On this awful subject, they are content to take the language of scripture as they find it, and wish uniformly to adhere to that language, satisfied that, whatever be the degree and the duration of the misery really threatened, the Judge of all the earth must do right. While, therefore, their wishes incline them to milder views of the divine inflictions, they highly disapprove of such representations of them as those that have been cited, which they think, if considered and believed, must fill the mind with too much terror, to exert, a reasonable and steady influence over it, and, if not considered and believed, can 199 |