with other cares and other concerns, vainly conceited of their innocence or presumptuously confident in their own ability, they are apt to neglect or spurn at the mercy proffered them, and cast off the friendly hand stretched out to save them from sinking into the abyss of destruction. Even the Christian Revelation offers no salvation made sure to us without our own co-operation. It provides a remedy against the ill consequences of former sin; it affords the most powerful motives for better conduct in future; and in our endeavours to conform ourselves to the perfect pattern proposed for our imitation, assures us of assistance, increasing according to the improvement which we make of that which we receive. These provisions for our safety prevent all desponding fears; and give a spring to our exertions in striving to realize the hope set before us, by allowing us to

Have confidence towards God, if our hearts condemn us not1." Of this confidence we fail, only because our conscience does not bear witness to our sincerity; and we lose the chearful assurance, to which we might otherwise with all humility attain, because it is unable to prove by our temper and conduct, that we are really influenced by the heavenly principles, which we profess.

DISSERTATION V.

PASSAGES OF

SCRIPTURE, WHICH SEEM ΤΟ

REPRESENT THE ALMIGHTY AS APPROVING

EVIL.

CHAP. I.-Preparatory Observations.

ENOUGH having been said concerning those passages of Scripture, which might be thought to represent the Supreme Being as directly causing moral evil; the next to be considered are those, which may be supposed by implication to represent him as approving it. These are chiefly such as relate to the conduct of men, who in different characters were employed as instruments of Providence in bringing about his wise purposes. Some of these are spoken of with general expressions of approbation, though they sometimes did wrong; the faulty conduct of others is reported without any expressions of disapprobation; while many are charged with having violated the rules of right, by the very means which they are described as using to accomplish the intended purpose. In entering

upon this part of Scripture history, both the friends and the foes of religion seem to be under a kind of delusion, as if they were treading upon enchanted ground, where human powers and human agency lay entranced and nothing was transacted according to the usual course of nature. We are indeed admitted into a splendid theatre, in which the operations of Providence are laid open for our inspection, and his interference in the government of this world is displayed: the human passions however were not annihilated, nor the inclinations of the human heart, either to good or evil, prevented from their sway; but all controlled by that Almighty hand, which here, as in all his works, brings good out of evil, and that by means in which he

"Our actions uses, not controuls our will."

On this topic therefore, before any particular instance is examined, it will be proper to premise a few general remarks applicable to all.

First, That the Divine approbation or disapprobation must be inferred from his laws, and not from the actions of those who are themselves subject to those laws and responsible for their disobedience to them. Every human being, in whatever situation he is placed, is in a state of probation; the prophet and priest no less than the king and subject. The same law is laid down for every one without exception or dispensation; for their transgression of which in their

several capacities, according to the light vouchsafed them, must they all render an account. In so concise a history as the Scriptures contain, it does not by any means follow that an action is not reprobated by God, because a formal censure is not especially past in instances, in which every rational mind is capable of drawing the right conclusion; unless you will compare the Divine government with the craft of such despotic rulers as have secretly connived at the transgression of those laws by their agents, which they have themselves established, and by which they profess to govern. Nothing short of an express approbation from the mouth of the Most High can justify us in supposing he winks at any wicked action of his servants however distinguished: that the Scriptures will in vain be ransacked to find.

Secondly, Inexecuting the commission to which any one was directly appointed, or for which he was especially qualified, that very commission. was as much a matter of probation* to the person to whom it was entrusted, as any of the ordinary powers of nature. Accordingly from Abraham1 the friend of God, to the vainglorious Corinthians, you will find these various commissions executed with great variety of manner, according to the moral and religious dispositions of the parties to whom they were entrusted.

Sce Note 19.

Isaiah xli. 8.

+ See Note 20.

Some executed them faithfully, boldly, and completely; others at first refused to undertake the charge or fled from the execution, after having received the order; some so overawed as to be compelled unwillingly to deliver their message, endeavoured to undermine the good effect of it by the crafty advice which they gave; while some again" obeying from perverse or evil motives, or having executed the chief point, shrunk from the circumstantial completion of the rest, or3 yielding to unreasonable fears defeated the end of their mission by their fallacious representations; while their companions retained a sounder mind. From this variety it appears that there was no constraint upon their wills as to the moral tendency of them, and therefore their faults in this or other respects cannot be referred to him, whose instruments they were; though without having their natures altered or their responsibility annihilated.

Thirdly, Men are often very tenacious of right principles in some respects, and very serviceable in maintaining religion and good order, as well as in procuring other blessings

5 Balaam, Numb. xxii. 19. and xxxi. 8. 16.

6 Jehu, 2 Kings ix. and x. 29.

'Prophet slain by a lion. 1 Kings. xiii. Saul, 1 Sam. xv.

3-24.

8

The ten spies, Caleb and Josh. Numbers xiii. and xiv. 6.