148 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



too much of it- But this is not possible, if men 

 are to be free. And without this, nothing would 

 be so dangerous, as an incessant, universal, inde- 

 fatigable activity. In the civil world, as well as 

 in the material, it is the vis inertice which keeps 

 things in their places. 



Natural Theology has ever been pressed 

 with this question, — Why, under the regency of 

 a supreme and benevolent Will, should there be 

 in the world so much as there is of the appear- 

 ance o^ chance? 



The question in its whole compass lies beyond 

 our reach : but there are not wanting, as in the 

 origin of evil, answers which seem to have con- 

 siderable weight in particular cases, and also to 

 embrace a considerable number of cases. 



I. There must be chance in the midst of de- 

 sign : by which we mean, that events which are 

 not designed, necessarily arise from the pursuit of 

 events which are designed. One man travelling 

 to York, meets another man travelling to London. 

 Their meeting is by chance, is accidental, and so 

 would be called and reckoned, though the jour- 

 neys which produced the meeting were, both of 

 them, undertaken with design and from delibera- 

 tion. The meeting, though accidental, was never- 

 theless hypothetically necessary, (which is the 

 only sort of necessity that is intelligible :) for if the 

 two journeys were commenced at the time, pur- 

 sued in the direction, and with the speed, in which 



