ANOPLURORUM BRITANNIA. 23 



account consider them as evils, while they are beneficial to 

 another class. For "God, in all the evil which he permits 

 to take place, whether spiritual, moral, or natural, has the 

 ultimate good of his creatures in view ; the evil that we 

 suffer is often a counter check which restrains us from 

 greater evil, or a spur to stimulate us to good. We should 

 therefore consider every thing, not according to the present 

 sensations of pain, or the present loss or injury that it occa- 

 sions, but according to its more general, remote, and per- 

 manent effects and bearings : whether by it we are not 

 impelled to the practice of many virtues which otherwise 

 might lie dormant in us, whether our moral habits are not 

 improved, whether we are not rendered by it more prudent, 

 cautious, and wary, more watchful to prevent evil, more 

 ingenious and skilful to remedy it, and whether our higher 

 faculties are not brought more into play, and our mental 

 powers more invigorated by the meditation and experi- 

 ments necessary to secure ourselves. Viewed in these 

 lights, what was at first regarded as wholly made up of evil, 

 may be discovered to contain a considerable proportion of 

 good." 



