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CHAP. IV.

ON THE EXISTENCE OF MORAL AND PHYSICAL

EVIL.

THE question attributed at the termination of the preceding chapter to an objector, though apparently restricted to the conduct of the Deity towards a particular class of beings, comprises in the principle on which it rests the far more comprehensive inquiry; If God, the Creator of all things, Omnipotent, Omniscient, perfect in Wisdom, be also a God of love: how can evil, physical or moral, find admission into any part of the Universe?

There are believers in Christianity to whom the existence of evil has been the source of harassing perplexity. Among opponents of the truth of the Christian Revelation, and specially among that class of its philosophical adversaries whose arguments are built on oppositions of science falsely so called1, on imaginary difficulties suggested by a philosophy which does

1 Αντιθεσεις της ψευδωνυμου γνωσεως. 1 Tim. vi. 20.

not deserve the name, the objection now to be considered is continually heard. It is brought forward not as a speculation suggesting doubts, not as a topic demanding research; but as a plain matter of fact, triumphantly disproving Scriptural statements concerning the perfection of the Divine Attributes, and in particular as decisively subverting the proposition that God is love.

To show that the existence of moral evil is not inconsistent with the Scriptural statements concerning the Divine Attributes, nor with the proposition that God is love, will be the object pursued in the present chapter. It will be my decided endeavour so to conduct the investigation as to avoid sundry metaphysical disquisitions, in which similar inquiries have frequently been enveloped.

To bring forward proofs of the Divine Attributes of Omnipotence, Omniscience, Wisdom, Justice, Holiness, all in perfection, or of any other Attribute, Love excepted, forms no part of my plan. It is not merely that they have been amply demonstrated by other writers; but that objectors who deny that God is Love, will at once allow the advocate of that propo

sition to assume the truth to a certain extent of the other Divine Attributes. The objectors consider, and not without reason, the main strength of their case as resting on the alleged reality of those attributes; and rejoice that an opponent should load himself with a burden which they trust will be insupportable, and should entangle himself among insuperable difficulties by affirming the reality and the perfection of those Attributes, and yet at the same time maintaining in the face of physical and moral evil that God is Love. Affirming the reality and the perfection of each and of all of those Attributes, let us proceed to the ulterior discussion.

What then are the points, which he who avers that God is Love, and is met by the undisputed existence of evil, can reasonably be required by the objector to prove?

He may reasonably be required to prove that which is indispensable to the establishment of his proposition: but he cannot reasonably be required to prove any point not indispensable.

May he then reasonably be required to show, that the admission of evil into the Creation is

an arrangement which in itself furnishes a proof that God is Love?

No. He cannot reasonably be required to do more than to show, that the arrangement does not furnish a proof that God is not Love; that the arrangement may be consistent with His being Love.

1

Reflect on the infinite distance in the scale of being between Man and God, between human intellect and the Divinity. Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; What canst thou do? Deeper than Hell; What canst thou know? Can it be possible for any man so to fathom the profundity of the Divine counsels, so to penetrate into the mysteries of the Divine administration, that he should pronounce at once that it is demonstrable from some single proceeding on the part of the Creator examined simply by itself that God is not Love? Can it be reasonable that a man, an atom, and fixed to a globe which is but as an atom in the illimitable Universe, should be required to develope the effects which some one arrangement bearing upon himself in the Divine

government, may or may not be intended and instrumental to produce on some other class, nay, on numberless other classes, of sentient and intelligent existences dwelling, or hereafter to be created to dwell, in other provinces of the immeasurable empire of his God?

Man is an atom, and the globe on which he dwells is but an atom in Creation. He comes not now into perceptible contact with the inhabitants of any region beyond the earth; nor does his abode, traversing in its annual circuit between five and six hundred millions of miles, bring him into communication or contiguity with any other planet. He is practically insulated from all beings which partake of life, the fellow-tenants of his globe excepted. Yet are there the clearest proofs that his existence is in close connection with the existence of other beings; and also that he is the object of contemplation and of constant and deep interest to intelligences of the highest order, stationed in the residence assigned to them by his and their Father and Lord. To the discovery of the connection, between his existence and that of other beings, he is guided by his own observation and by the light of astr