still said, does not so much concern the degree as the existence, of moral evil-an evil which has hitherto kept the world in a state of perpetual disturbance, which deforms universally, though unequally, the human mind and character in every individual, and overwhelms a large proportion in unrepented sin; which exposes them to present misery and detestation, and, as we are expressly told by Revelation, to the severest punishment in a life to come.* This question is not completely answered by alleging that free will is man's most valuable quality; that his abuse of this power has introduced the disorders of the moral world; and that man, therefore, himself the delinquent, cannot reasonably arraign the divine goodness for his

The Scripture history of the fall of our first parents, and its consequences, however satisfactorily it accounts to Christians for the present state of man, cannot be expected to silence sceptics; because the argument of the objector goes farther back, and inquires why they were permitted, or created liable to fall. This is the objection of Bolingbroke, when he complains of the severity with which God punished our first parents for a fault which he foreknew they would commit, when he abandoned their free will to the temptation of committing it.

VOL. II.

Q

own bad use of his distinguishing property. Surely when we reflect upon the past history of the world, when we contemplate its present appearance, and when at the same time we turn our thoughts to that future state of existence which forms the best hope and consolation of the good; our reason must forcibly suggest to us, that, as far as our views can embrace the question, it would appear infinitely better for mankind if they had possessed no opportunity of making a bad election, or had been determined invincibly in favour of a good one, than that they should be exposed to the hazards of a contest where all are endangered, and so many are sure to fall irrecoverably.†

This is the scope of King's argument in his famous Origin of Evil. "If we can show that more evils necessarily arise from withdrawing or restraining the use of free-will, than from permitting the abuse of it, it must be evident that God is obliged to suffer either these or greater evils. And since the least of these necessary evils is chosen, even infinite goodness could not possibly do better." Sect. v. subs. 1.

It is a principal inquiry of Bayle, in his well-known discussion of this subject, why God, foreseeing that a creature would sin, if left to its own free conduct, did not determine it to that which was good, as he does continually

Whoever endeavours to prove that mankind, in being left liable to error, are placed in the most desirable state, lies under the disadvantage of arguing against the general apprehension and conviction which must result from a survey of the world. That general conviction asserts, that the being free and liable, and consequently likely, without constant diligence and painful struggles, to choose evil, is not only the greatest drawback on individual, but on to the universal happiness; that it leads heaviest misfortunes and the most poignant anguish to which life is exposed of which the chief alleviation is the hope of becoming at length victorious in such a difficult trial, of being relieved from intercourse with guilty free agents, and of enjoying the delightful tranquillity of a repose from the disturbing power of passion.*

determine the souls of the blest in paradise. The best answer, probably, which that objection can meet with is given by Law in his notes on King, vol. iv. p. 112, chap. v. sect 5, subs. 2. But it is more calculated to silence, than to satisfy objections.

The passage in Cicero to this purpose is very striking: "O felicem illum diem, cum ad illud divinum animorum

It is a position wholly untenable, that according to our view of the subject, the degree of moral evil must necessarily have been as great as it is, unless an absolute restraint had been laid upon the will of man. Without entering into metaphysical discussions, it may be safely assumed, that the will is determined by the greater apparent good; and that, when it makes a bad election in defiance of reason and judgment, the dismission of some present uneasiness, or the possession of some present gratification, is the greatest apparent good at the time being. Had, then, their real interest, upon a full view of their present and future condition, been placed before all mankind with a clear distinctness which we can certainly conceive, because we have examples of it on record; free-will, though exposed to less chance of error, would not have been annihilated; and yet it would have been as morally impossible for man to choose evil in opposition to good, as we imagine it to be for the glorified inheritors

concilium cœtumque proficiscar, et cum ex hac turba et colluvione discedam!" De Senectute.

of a future state; as it proved to be for Jesus Christ, during his adoption of human nature with its temptations and infirmities; or, to go no farther, as it appears to be for good men when they approach the termination of their course, after a long perseverance in the habit and practice of virtue. If any one denies that this might have been, to our rational apprehensions, a better state, such a one must be led by force of consequence to deny that it would have been happier for mankind, if our first parents, and all their subsequent posterity, had withstood the temptation to which they were exposed, and remained with the liability to err, but without the error. Yet the description which might have suited the state of man, if he had never fallen into moral evil, represents a brighter scene than the face of the world, such as we now live in, can realize. "Then there would have been no desertion on God's part, because no apostasy on man's: no clouds in his mind, no tempest in his breast, no tears, nor cause for any; but a continual calm and serenity of soul, enjoying all the innocent de