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ing;-Sin as opposed to Divine Law;-Sin as atoned for by our Lord Jesus Christ; and sin as opposed to duty, demand our attention.

SECTION 1.

On the Origin of Evil.

THE Origin of Evil is a subject which has puzzled the religious philosopher. But if the foregoing strictures on power, common causes, and negative causes, be just; and the foregoing account of preference, and the kinds of inclination, be copies of actual existence; we are led, I trust, to a satisfactory way of accounting for the Origin of Evil.

Let us consider the Origin of Evil, or Reason of Evil, under the inadequacy of means for its prevention, relief, and remedy;-the collition of finite things; the nature of negative causes;-and the non-extinction of chance.

1st. The inadequacy of means for preventing, relieving, and remedying evils. The first and most striking reason of evil, whether natural or moral, obvious to all persons, is the limitation of the operation and influence of mediums which have tendency to prevent, relieve under, and totally cure evil. Moses represents these limitations as the origin of evil, when he informs us, that Divine ruling was limited in operation to prevent moral evil; and that exclusion of our parents from the garden, much limited their relief, and prevention of access to the tree of life, limited their remedies for natural evil. Respecting natural evil, the world now seems full of

diseases and complaints, preventives, reliefs, and remedies. But apposite, aliment, air, exercise, sleep, clothing, and temperance, do not always prevent disorders of our bodies or minds. Shelter, and warmth, the chair, the couch, the bed, and use of cordials, do not always adequately relieve pain, do not always procure ease and rest. And all the skill and operations of the surgeon, or all the most apposite preparatios of the physician, do not always cure and remedy, or restore to health and to former soundness of constitution. Therefore evil exists. If we turn our attention to moral evil, conscience in man is defective and inadequate in operation as a preventive of moral evil. The most attentive education does not prevent the fact, that some, (hyperbolically speaking,) are estranged from the womb, and go astray, as soon as they be born, speaking lies. (Ps. lviii. 3.) The best civil ruling of a community does not entirely prevent crimes. For instance, the wise laws of England, and its well arranged magistracy, do not in some instances, prevent thefts, murders, and profaneness,-not having the fear of God before their eyes, crimes are perpetuated by individuals. To this we may add, that the instruction and examples of religion do not always prevent incorrigible vice, nor are its consolations, pardon of the sins of penitents, hope to be finally delivered from liability to sin, patience and fortitude under affliction, a full relief in the painful calamities suffered by pious persons. To which I add, that the Divine institution of sacrifice, exercised faith, enjoyed justification, and experienced sanctification, do not so remedy moral evil as to make guilt excusable, or render moral evil actual good.

2nd. The next most obvious Origin, or Reason of Evil is, the occasional collision of finite things. Collision, or the meeting of heterogeneous things, or the meeting of even homogeneous things, but in

unfavourable circumstances, is a source, or reason of of evil, both natural and moral. Time and place are requisite to every event under heaven. If opposing active properties meet, for instance, desire of the same place, clashing and strife ensues, injury or destruction succeed, which are evil. If two passive properties meet, for instance, blindness of two friends, the blind leading the blind, they fall into the ditch, which is evil. Collision of hunger, with want of food, produceth evil. Too many hands on board for the quantity of bread remaining, produce evil. Too many artizans of the same trade in a town, is frequently an evil to each other, as neither can get a livelihood. And sometimes a man of large capital, whether his own, or obtained by banking, embarks in a large concern, and by monopoly, raising the market, ruins several lesser dealers. Frequently, (confirmed by late observations,) large farms, and large shops, have swallowed up many smaller ones, and families are reduced to beggary, or to accept parish relief, which, to the honour of Britons, is granted in cases of wretchedness.-Political evil is not excluded the animal creation. A vast variety of conscious beings, created and generated, and having by generation, successional existence, all of which are endowed with a principle of self-love, which proceedeth to self-seeking for self-accommodation, and some of them destroying other species for a living, renders evil to some, an indirectly necessary concommitant, which miracle only could prevent. Probably the circumstances of the animals eaten by mankind, is, on the whole, bettered thereby, yet, that one species of animals feed on another species of animals, seems an evil; thus, some beasts on beasts, and creeping things; some birds on birds and insects, and some fish on fish; but it seems more unaccountable, that some are armed with weapons of destruction, and that the spider is taught to weave a

marvellous net to catch its living food. The conse. quent is, that the meeting or collision of two fighting cocks, or of two enraged dogs, produce evil. If the tiger meet the kid, the wolf the lamb, the fox the goose, the hawk the chick, evil and destruction is the consequent to the weaker species. Savage beasts, and the species of vermin by collision, occar sion evil. But to return to our own species, How often do diseases meet in the same body, and death is the consequent! How often one calamity join another, and accumulated evil exists. "There be just men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked: again, there be wicked men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous." Eccles. viii. 14..

But collision is equally a source of moral evil. Moral evils, like natural evils, are the result of the collision of incongruous properties, or of incongru ous circumstances. The collision of a mistake and a desire, is an origin of moral evil. Collisions of loves produce jealousy, jealousy hatred, and sometimes the worst of evil consequences to rivals. The collision of covetousness, with opportunity to de fraud, is an origin of unjust transactions. Mistaken views of self, and inordinate aspirations towards ho nour, produce pride. In a word, the temptation of unlawful desire, meeting the temptation of opportu nity, may be an origin of all kinds of moral evils. How often do pride, envy, ambition, and covetousness, and consequent malice in one individual, or in one society, meet the same inordinate passions in another person or society, and single combat, or war, abominable war, destructive war, that wholesale evil of evils, is the consequent!

3rd. Negative causes. The philosopher is not satisfied with the foregoing obvious reasons of evil, but enquires deeper; for he will say, "If evil were not for some other reason, liable to exist, there

would be no call for preventives, reliefs, and remedies, and without some other reason of its existence, the injurious collisions would not happen." I therefore proceed to another source, or origin of evil, namely, negative causes, or causes which essentially involve the absence or limitation of power. Negative causes are the indirectly necessary consequents of common positive causes, (as before shown,) consisting in defect or absence of active property, defect or absence of passive property, or defect or absence of suitable circumstances; and consequently defective or no operation and influence, opposed to the existence of evil. Without actual second causes, there could be no good and evil respecting God's work's in his own estimate; for in that case, God immediately doing all that is done, and being in every case the true agent, all must be but execution of his sovereign pleasure. The existence of second causes granted, it will be difficult to find a person who does not know that walking was invented and chosen for dependent agents before a man walked; that flying was invented and chosen before a bird flew; and that swimming was invented and chosen before a fish swam; or that a nest was not contrived before the little bird, without example or precept, built its first nest, and as perfect in kind as any succeeding one. We are now arrived to the margin of evil and negative causes; for, let the bird's wing be clipt, and it cannot fly,-the man's leg be broken, and he cannot walk,-the fishes air-bladder be pricked, and it cannot swim; and if some urchin takes the bird's nest, evil and negative causes exist in all these respects. To view our subject in another attitude. All creatures being originally educed by God out of no thing in respect to the thing created and being finite, all their properties, whether active or passive, retaining greater degrees, or lesser degrees of nothingness in that respect, or limitation

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