Nor does he find the wickedness of men improper wheels for carrying on his most important designs among them: the turbulence of the Gracchi, ambition of the Cæsars, the exorbitancy of the Romans swallowing up their neighboring nations one after another, the discords and factions among those nations rendering them an easy prey, all contributed to establish that peace and continued intercourse throughout a great part of the then known world, which was necessary for forwarding the promulgation of the Gospel. The treachery of Judas, and inveteracy of the Jews crying Crucify him, crucify him, were made the principal instruments in working out our Redemption: trials and persecutions were sent to perfect the first disciples: superstition and priestcraft have occasioned the calling in reason to discover their artifices, and purify Religion from their corruptions: enthusiasm on the one hand, and free-thinking on the other, still continue to keep us in the golden mean, and rub off the foulness of all kinds that is apt to gather about us. Temperance, patience, humility, fortitude, and most of our other virtues, consist in resisting our appetites, and walking uprightly amidst the violent, the deceitful, the voluptuous, and the selfish: so that reason and inordinate desire seem to be the two antagonist muscles which give motion to the business of life; if either of them lose its tone, the other becomes enfeebled or convulsed, and a paralytic disorder ensues.

Nor does there want room to imagine that good may spring out of evil in other soils than those of this sublunary globe; we read that the wicked were created for the day of the Lord, and this may be understood not only as their punishment serves for a warning to keep the just in their duty, by strengthening their aversion to the causes of the miseries exhibited, but as the righteous may find something in the characters of the wicked capable of being turned to their own advantage: for we have seen above, that vice does sometimes produce outward actions in this world, which if proceeding from virtue, would be the highest exercises of it: why then should we judge it impossible, that the like may happen in the next? That unmoveable determination upon a particular purpose, that impetuosity of resolution and insensibility to impending mischiefs observed in the reprobate, may instruct the righteous how to imitate them upon better occasions. And if, as supposed in the Vision, they have the entire command of their passions to stir them up for particular services as wanted, they may find examples of more vigorous passion in vicious characters, and take stronger impressions by means of their sentient language, than perhaps reason could ever work up. Then for

the purely spiritual host, although we cannot certainly tell how the evils among inferior creatures operate to their benefit, y etthat they do so operate, I have already given reasons to evince.

Since then we find evil, as well moral as physical, productive of many salutary fruits, why should we deem it unworthy a place in the plan of Providence, or the permission of it repugnant to our ideas of Goodness and Holiness? for it is the ultimate end had in prospect, not the means necessary to attain it, that denominate the quality of an action. Therefore it ought not to be made a rock of offence, nor thought an impeachment of the divine Goodness, that evil is permitted: our opinion of that Attribute need only persuade us that God never terminates his view upon evil, not even of the particular creature whereon it falls. He suffers frailties in the good for their trial, their warning, their instruction, their correction, and amendment: he suffers vicious characters for advantage of the community; he suffers wickedness, dissolution, and destruction in communities, for promoting his gracious designs in the advancement of human nature: he suffers imperfection, reprobation, and misery in the species, for some unknown benefit redounding therefrom to the spiritual host, in which host every perceptive individual in the creation has its principal interest. And nothing hinders but we may believe that our gracious Governor has reduced the quantity of evil in the whole universe to as small a compass as was possible in the nature and constitution of things.

39. That Nature and things were originally so constituted as to make any quantity necessary, is matter of Creation, which we have no faculties nor light from experience to understand: for the first Creation must have been a pure act, but we never saw a Creation, nor have any conception of a pure act proceeding without motives occurring from observation of pre-existent objects; and it has been shown elsewhere, that there must have been other Attributes, whereof we have no imagination, concerned in the business of Creation. But like Moses we are admitted only to see the back parts of God, or rather the image of them reflected in his works, for no man can see his face and live, or while he lives it is no wonder then we do not discern the full beauty and symmetry of the Attributes, some whereof are to us unseen and utterly unknown. And yet if there appear any imperfection in the reflected image, it is owing to the deficiency of our optics: for could we behold distant good in as striking colors as present pleasure, and had we a just sense of the vast disproportion evil bears to good throughout the Universe, and in the portion of every individual member, we should despise it for its smallness, nor

think it any abatement in our idea of goodness. We have seen in former chapters, there is no reason to estimate it higher than in proportion to the length of our journey through matter, compared with that of the abode in spiritual substance; or the number of creatures in a state of imperfection, to those partaking of the purely spiritual nature, that is, one to many millions of millions. But let us take it only at one million, and compute how many years a million of minutes will amount to, which we shall find above two and twenty: if then a man were to live to the age of Methuselah in perfect happiness and full enjoyment of everything he could desire, excepting only that he were to be in pain for one minute in every two and twenty years, he would find no cause to complain or murmur at the hardness of his lot. But our minutes of trouble sometimes come so thick together that they make a length further than we can discern objects with an affecting clearness so that the millions of joyful minutes beyond the line have no weight in our estimation, not for want of real substance, but because our concern being engaged by things in proportion to their nearness, we can raise none for those lying very remote; and thus our scruples arise from the imperfection of our judgment, setting a value solely upon things near at hand, and unable to discern a goodness the effects whereof we do not immediately feel.

Yet there are many persons whom a little sober consideration can satisfy, that it is no impeachment of Goodness to bring on a few physical evils, which work out a much greater good: but the grand stumbling-block lies in moral evil, for which they cannot conceive that provision should be made by a righteous and holy Being. But Righteousness and Holiness cannot vary from Goodness, therefore whatever is ultimately productive of good, must be right and holy for the very essence of moral evil depends upon natural; sin were no sin, nor would God or reason forbid it, if the works of it never brought hurt or damage upon any creature whatever. Therefore physical evil being once accounted for, there is no difficulty in accounting for the moral; for if the mischiefs it produces be necessary in the universe, they must fall somewhere, and as I have already argued in the Chapter upon Holiness, it is more gracious and merciful that they should be incurred by wilful transgression, than commanded as a duty, or imposed as an inevitable burden upon the righteous. Nor need we fear that, vent being given to wickedness, it should overflow beyond bounds to make havoc in the creation: for God, who has all hearts in his hand, and can raise up children unto Abraham of

the stones, can mark out the exact limits to iniquity, that it surpass not what is just necessary for his gracious purposes, and rescue the most obdurate from the dominion of it whenever that necessity

comes.

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CHAP. XX.

IMITATION OF GOD.

We are exhorted in the Gospel to be holy as God is holy, perfect as our Father which is in heaven is perfect, and reason directs, that although we must never expect to hit the mark of perfection, yet we ought always to take our aim directly towards it, and endeavor to shape our proceedings by the completest model. Now what completer model can we have, than the Fountain of wisdom and blessings, who is gracious in all his dealings, good and righteous in all his ways, with whom is no envy nor malice, nor passion, nor error, nor selfishness, nor variableness, nor shadow of change. Nevertheless, as there is no rule so salutary that may not be perverted to mischievous purposes, men may take occasion to justify their wicked practices under a notion of imitating the divine example and I should be very sorry to have given a handle for such plea by having in several parts of this work ascribed all events to the provisions of Heaven, made in certain knowledge and purpose of their being produced thereby; and particularly in the last Chapter represented both moral and physical evil as comprised within the plan of Providence, and employed to work out its gracious designs; which some perhaps may interpret, making God the Author of sin, the encourager and approver of all that is committed.

Now I do not fear to be suspected of such an intention by any candid disputant, for it is always esteemed unfair to charge an antagonist with consequences following from his doctrines, which he does not see and does not avow. But this consequence I utterly disclaim; yet shall not rest contented with such defence, being not so solicitious to save my own credit, as to prevent mischief ensuing to anybody from the things I advance: therefore although I have already handled this point in the Chapter on Holiness, shall give it a re-examination here, esteeming repetition and superfluity more pardonable than deficiency upon a matter of this importance,

because one may have the luck to cast a light upon things in a second attempt, rendering them apparent to persons with whom one had failed in the first.

I shall observe then, that we do not always imitate another by doing the same actions that he does, where the stations and powers are different, but by conducting ourselves within our province with the same temper, dispositions, and views. The private man, who should take state upon him because done by the king, or punish a criminal because having seen the like procedure in a magistrate, could never justify himself upon their example, because they would not have done the like in his circumstances; for the same deed may proceed from opposite principles in different agents. But we must remember, that God is in heaven, and we upon earth, that his knowledge is infinite, his command over all things, and there is nothing external to interfere with his work, or obstruct his operations in the universe: therefore he discerns the exact consequences of evil, and is able to restrain it within certain bounds, that it produce none but such as are salutary; neither is there hazard of any accident to hinder the success of his measures. To us he has given a portion of understanding and power, and a narrow sphere to act in, wherein it is our business to conduct ourselves by the same spirit as observable in his providence, that of ordering all things for the best, according to our little skill to discern it. But our prospects being short, we can never see the remotest consequences of our actions, therefore must take moral good for our guide, directing us to such as are profitable: if it sometimes seems leading into inconveniences, yet we know not what unthought-of mischiefs may ensue upon other occasions by weakening its authority with ourselves or others: for if we lose sight of our polar star, we shall quickly wander into inextricable difficulties, nor can justify ourselves upon the example of him, whose Wisdom sets him above the need of any guidance.

2. But our faculties being scanty, we cannot carry in our imagination everything that our reason convinces us must be truth, without great damage to ourselves; for which reason, although we must confess that all events proceed with the knowledge and acquiescence of Providence, nevertheless, there is a necessary distinction to be made between things providential, and others that are not, as I have endeavored to explain in the Chapter bearing that title: nor ought we ever to ascribe things trivial or wicked to God, for fear of giving us a fondness for the one, or lessening our abhorrence of the other. For there is a different set of ideas, a different turn of conception and language for contemplation, and for common use: therefore it is remarkable,