THE LIGHT OF NATURE PURSUED. THEOLOGY. CHAP: XVI. GOODNESS. Or all the divine attributes there is none concerns us more nearly, or the just notion whereof is more desirable than this of Goodness; and yet none perhaps wherein we find more difficulty to form a satisfactory idea, not liable to objections and inconsistencies. Infinite power and wisdom avail us nothing of themselves, but are rather objects of amazement and terror than of comfort and confidence and it were better for us to live under a kind beneficent governor, though a little defective in knowledge and ability, than one unlimited in either, but regardless of our weal or wo: for the former would procure us more good than harm, but what befel us from the latter would be mere chance and accident. The contemplation of omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, without goodness, has most of anything driven men into atheism for they looked upon such a Being as a universal spectre hovering continually over them, prying into all their affairs, able and skilful to affect them in what manner he pleased; and as we are apt to expect the worst from uncouth appearances, they chose rather to put themselves under the guidance of chance or necessity, therefore used all their wits to persuade mankind that a notion of a God was only a phantom, raised in their imagination by crafty persons who found an interest in affrighting them. Thus we find the idea of goodness inseparable from that of God in the minds of all men; for those who could discern no marks of it in the works of nature, concluded from thence that there was no God, admitting that if there were, he must be good and all who have acknowledged a God, have ascribed goodness to him as an essential attribute. Even the Magi, when they asserted another co-eternal principle, they did it to assign a cause for some things they thought could not proceed from that unlimited bounty and goodness which they believed residing in God. 2. But the attributes of God must all be infinite, for there is nothing external, nothing prior to limit him in his powers or his operations here then arises the difficulty, for if the goodness of God be infinite, whence comes there any evil in the world? Yet that there are innumerable evils the phenomena of nature sufficiently assure us storms and tempests, earthquakes and inundations, lay fields and cities desolate with all their produce and inhabitants, blighting winds and pestilential vapors wither up and destroy, ravenous beasts devour, villains assassinate, thieves break through and steal, tyrants oppress, diseases torment, cross accidents vex, old age debilitates, our necessary employments fatigue, our wants interfere, our very pleasures cloy, and man is born to sorrow as the sparks fly upwards. We are necessitated to destroy vermin that would overrun us, to slay our fellow-creatures for our sustenance, to weary them out with toil and labor for our uses, to press one another into wars and sea services for our preservation. Nay, evil is so interwoven into our nature, that the business of mankind would stagnate without it, most of our cares being employed in delivering ourselves from troubles we lie under, or warding off those that threaten. If a man were placed in such a situation as that no pain or mischief, no satiety or uneasiness, no loss or diminution of enjoyment could befal him, he would have no inducement ever to stir a finger: but it is the perishable nature of our satisfactions that urges us to a continual exertion of our activity to renew them. Now it has been asked, that if these unfavorable circumstances attending human nature could not be prevented, where was the almighty power of God? if he knew not how to prevent them, where was his wisdom? if he could, and might have prevented them, but would not, where was his goodness? Nor will it suffice to answer that many of the evils before mentioned tend to produce greater good, and it is probable the rest of them do the like I am so far from denying this probability, that I may offer some reasons by-and-by for confirming it; but admitting that good springs out of every evil, this must be owing to the necessary connection between both in the present constitution of nature; but when we consider that nature is not only directed and governed, but was originally constituted by the hand of God, the diffi : |