294 THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 



atory — can any rule, adapted to that inequality, be more 

 acrreoable even to our apprehensions of distributive justice, 

 than this is ? 



We have said, that the appearance o^ casualty, which 

 attends the occurrences and events of life, not only does 

 not interfere with its uses, as a state of probation, but that 

 it promotes these uses. 



Passive virtues, of all others the severest and the most 

 sublime ; of all others, perhaps, the most acceptable to the 

 Deity ; would, it is evident, be excluded from a constitution, 

 in which happiness and misery regularly followed virtue 

 and vice. Patience and composure under distress, afflic- 

 tion and pain ; a steadfast keeping up of our confidence in 

 God, and of our reliance upon his final goodness, at the 

 time v.hen everything present is adverse and discouraging ; 

 and, (what is no less difficult to retain) a cordial desire for 

 the happiness of others, even when we are deprived of our 

 own : these dispositions, which constitute, perhaps, the 

 perfection of our moral nature, would not have found their 

 proper office and object in a state of avowed retribution ; 

 and in which, consequently, endurance of evil would be 

 only submission to punishment. 



Again ; one man's sufferings may be another man's tri- 

 al. The family of a sick parent is a school of filial piety. 

 The charities of domestic life, and not only these, but all 

 the social virtues, are called out by distress. But then, 

 misery, to be the proper object of mitigation, or of that be- 

 nevolence which endeavours to relieve, must be really or 

 apparently casual. It is upon such sufferings alone that 

 benevolence can operate. For were there no evils in the 

 world, but what were punishments, properly and intelligibly 

 such, benevolence would only stand in the way of justice. 

 Such evils, consistently with the administration of moral 

 government, could not be prevented or alleviated; that is to 

 say, could not be remitted in whole or in part, except by 

 the authority which inflicted them, or by an appellate or 

 superior authority. This consideration, which is founded 

 in our most acknowledged apprehensions of the nature of 

 penal justice, may possess its weight in the Divine councils. 

 Virtue perhaps is the greatest of all ends. In human be- 

 ings, relative virtues form a large part of the whole. Now 

 relative virtue presupposes, not only the existence of evil, 

 without which it could have no object, no material to work 

 upon, but that evils be, apparently at least, misfortunes ; 



