must remain a mass of encreasing corruption, unless Provi- 

 dence order the adequate remedy. 



A remedy were easily found, if the counsels of God per- 

 mitted the violation of his prior establishments.- " Let 

 reason subdue the passions" were as easily said as " Let 

 there be light." But the law which ordained the freedom 

 of will, would then fall a sacrifice, that basis ©f virtue aijd 

 vice, of man's moral subjection, and God's moral government. 



It would be more suitable to the operations of Providence 

 to dispense Avith a law less essential to the government of his 

 rational creation, and to select from mankind a virtuous few, 

 if yet such a remnant remained. Through these organs, de- 

 nouncing his vengeance, working on their fears, and appeal- 

 ing to their reason, men might be possibly drawn from their 

 ains and restored to a sense of gratitude anci duty. But if 

 all these eiForts should fail, and humankind sink brutalised 

 in one abyss of depravity. — If amendment were hopeless, 

 and example and habit should spread a contagion, daily en- 

 creasing, and for ever incurable, it were mercy to all future 

 generations of men to cut off the pestilence, even by the 

 terrible remedy of destroying the infected. As individuals, 

 they must naturally perish in a few years, bequeathing their 

 inveterate distempers to their children : as a multitude or a 

 race, their fate is more horrible ; but they do not transmk 

 a perpetual inheritance, to beings created to be pure and 

 happy, of abominable vice and hideous misery. 



