14G NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



and tliis difference Avill be the more grinding 

 when no pretension is allowed to be set up 

 against it. 



So that the evils, if evils they must be called, 

 which spring either from the necessary subordi- 

 nations of civil life, or from the distinctions which 

 have naturally, though not necessarily, grown up 

 in most societies, so long as they are unaccompa- 

 nied by privileges injurious or oppressive to the 

 rest of the community, are such as may, even by 

 the most depressed ranks, be endured with very 

 little prejudice to their comfort. 



The mischiefs of which mankind are the occa- 

 sion to one another, by their private wickednesses 

 and cruelties ; by tyrannical exercises of power : 

 by rebellions against just authority ; by wars ; by 

 national jealousies and competitions operating to 

 the destruction of third countries ; or by other in- 

 stances of misconduct either in individuals or so- 

 cieties, are all to be resolved into the character 

 of man as a free agent. Free agency, in its very 

 essence, contains liability to abuse. Yet, if you 

 deprive man of his free agency, you subvert his 

 nature. You may have order Irom him and regu- 

 larity, as you may from the tides or the trade- 

 winds, but you put an end to his moral character, 

 to virtue, to merit, to accountablcness, to the use 

 indeed of reason. To which must be added the 

 observation, that even the bad qualities of man- 

 kind have an origin in their good ones. The 

 case is this : Human passions are either necessary 



