preponderates on any side, it is not with either excessive wealth or extreme poverty, but with the class where honest labour, temperate habits, and frugal management secure a supply of the real wants of Nature. These wants would certainly be universally supplied if all men lived in conformity with the laws of Nature, which are the laws of God; and, therefore, incidental want, and the sufferings arising from it, do not impugn the benevolence of the Creator.

In concluding this part of the argument, it may be observed that it is evident there is a great amount of suffering in our world, but it is equally true that there is a far greater amount of enjoyment; so that mankind in general regard existence as a boon. The amount of suffering might be indefinitely mitigated by man's universally conforming to the laws of Nature, and by the practice of justice and benevolence; and if all sufferings were reduced to the lowest minimum, the residuum would be as nothing compared with what it is at present. On the other hand, the amount of enjoyment might be indefinitely augmented by man's ceasing to do evil, practising virtue, and fully bringing out the resources of Nature. Thus, while the actual state of things proves the benevolence of God, the possible state of things unfolds it in a still higher degree.

SECTION VI.-THE TESTIMONY OF THE SCRIPTURE AS TO THE TRIALS AND SUFFERINGS OF LIFE.

WE are free to admit that our views of Divine providence, and our vindication of Divine goodness, would be imperfect without the light of Revelation. Here, however, the horizon is at once extended and brightened, and the proceedings of the Divine Being are seen not only to harmonize with Divine goodness, but our estimate of that goodness is indefinitely exalted; and it cannot be uninteresting to an inquirer after truth to know what light the Bible sheds on this subject.

While sin is shown to be the parent of innumerable sufferings and woes, we learn that this life is but a probationary

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state-that man is placed under a gracious and restorative economy, in which he is favoured with consolation under his various afflictions and sorrows; an economy, too, in which the Holy Spirit's help is afforded, to enable him to endure sufferings with fortitude and patience; in which all his pains, privations, and sorrows, are sanctified to his present and eternal good-made a means of moral discipline to subdue evil dispositions and promote the growth of holy principles and affections; and which economy holds out a blessed hope not only of final deliverance, but of everlasting reward and felicity in heaven. It contains such declarations and promises as these: "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee." Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness." "All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." "Who shall separate us from the the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?. . . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." "Behold, we count them happy which endure." "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life."*

These, and hundreds of other gracious promises, are the utterances of love. Supported by the consolations they afford, by the comforts and joys of the Holy Spirit, and by the

Psalm lv. 22; Psalm 1. 15; Isaiah xliii. 2; 2 Cor. xii. 9; Rom. viii. 28, 35-39; James v. 11, i. 12.

prospects of eternal happiness, the Christian is enabled to endure the trials of life with patience and fortitude; yea, to rejoice in tribulation, knowing that ere long the sufferings of the present life will terminate in the fruition of uninterrupted and eternal blessedness, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."*

SECTION VII.-DEATH.

THE fact that all visible creatures are doomed to die, has often been adduced as an argument against the benevolent character of God. It is confessedly a fact invested with a sombre aspect, and well fitted to engender grave reflections. Indeed, viewed personally, it is repugnant to our selfish instincts and desires; but that it is repugnant to the Divine benevolence, we are not prepared to admit.

1. The death of the vegetable part of creation.

Plants and all vegetables die. Is this an economy repugnant to Divine goodness? On the contrary, death in the vegetable creation formed the grand platform of all subsequent manifestations of Divine goodness in the existence of animal creation. If the first vegetable races had been deathless, no vegetable mould could have been formed, no fertile soil could have been produced such as we now have, adapted to all forms of vegetable existence. It was the death of the first generation of plants that deposited a mould which, mixed with clays, sands, and various earthy particles, sustained and enriched the second. It was the death of successive generations that provided a soil for the sustenance of higher orders, as the creative fiat brought them forth. It was the existence of higher races of vegetable life that formed the chief sustenance of animal existences, as the eternal God spoke them into being. Thus

* 2 Cor. iv. 17.

the highest forms of organized life, with all the enjoyments of sentient existence, are, in a subordinate sense, owing to the successive ravages of death. Who, then, will deny that the introduction of death, in the vegetable kingdom at least, is an essential part of a benevolent economy?

2. Death, in the animal kingdom, is also a beneficent economy. If there were no death among the animal tribes of creation (we shall speak of man hereafter), there would have been but a limited scope for the exercise of Divine benevolence, compared with the present economy. This will be soon apparent if we contemplate the effects of imparting immortality to the animal creation. The first effect would be to exclude the existence of all creatures that live by prey, and thus both the number and the variety of existence must have been greatly diminished. The second effect would be the impossibility of successive generations, or if generation proceeded for a time, it must soon necessarily have come to an end, as the earth would quickly have been filled. Thus, instead of having life and all its enjoyments diffused amongst an infinite number of creatures, and transmitted through innumerable successions of generations, those blessings must have been confined to one fixed number; and few, indeed, would have been that number compared with the countless millions amongst which these enjoyments are now diffused from age to age. The third effect would have been to divest the aspect of created animal existence of all those interesting varieties of age which now delight the eye. The distinction of playful youth from sober age would have been soon blotted from creation to return no more. The fourth effect would have been the destruction or cessation of all those agreeable instincts, sympathies, and affections which grow out of the propagation of the species and the relations of parent and offspring; for immortality to an existing race would have excluded continued replenishment by generation, and consequently all the instinctive affections, sympathies, and enjoyments growing out of the present economy.

It is easy to see that the general effect would be a vast

abridgment of the creature's happiness, and a limitation of the sphere of Divine benevolence.

If, indeed, there were no economy of generation, then death might be pleaded as a proof of limited, imperfect, short-lived, or fluctuating goodness. But when we see that death produces no abridgment of the total amount of life or happiness, but is simply a mode of transferring life from one creature to another -an essential part of an economy in which a boon is handed from one being to another; in which existence is infinitely diversified and multiplied; in which a class of joyful instincts are brought into activity which otherwise could not exist, or, if they did once exist, must soon have ceased; in which new capacities for enjoyment are brought into being; in which generation succeeds generation, and new existences run the same perpetual round of enjoyment; in which the amount of happiness is swelled and enlarged from a shallow rill to an overflowing ocean - we have certainly in this economy a striking proof that God is good. It is because he is good, and delights to evince and communicate his goodness, that he cannot be satisfied with one generation alone participating in its enjoyment, but he must multiply his creatures to infinity, and cause them to exist in every possible variety, in order that his goodness may have an unbounded scope for its exercise and display.

3. Death by prey.

The organization of existing animals shows that death by prey was an event contemplated by the Divine mind; and the characteristics of geological strata show that it has prevailed through every period in the history of our planet, from the first dawn of animal being until now. It was the characteristic of those geological periods anterior to the introduction of moral evil, as well as since; indeed, the existence of predatory animals is attested in many of the earliest strata of our world. We have already seen that the death of animals affords more ample scope for the exercise of benevolence than the immortality of the species; and death by prey, so far from diminishing, exalts