241 



are good. God ordains sin for mau, aud for those most of all 

 whom He has chosen for great things. For this, also, man 

 should be thankful. He should not wish that he had not 

 sinned. By sin man is humiliated, and by forgiveness he is 

 all the more intimately united to God. Nor should he wish 

 that there might be no temptation to sin, for then the merit 

 of combat and virtue itself would no longer be possible. Re- 

 garded from a higher standpoint, evil is not evil, but only a 

 means for the realisation of the eternal end of the world. God 

 could do no greater harm to the sinner than to permit or pre- 

 destine him to be sinful, and then not send upon him suffering 

 sufficiently great to break his wicked will. God is not angry 

 at sin as though in it He had received an affront, but at the 

 loss of our happiness, i.e., He is angry only at the thwarting 

 of His plan in regard to us.''^ 



12. The lines of thought indicated in these extracts have 

 been more or less followed by subsequent Christian apologists. 

 At the present day, whether rightly or wrongly, we are more 

 disposed to put aside such questions as insoluble. We think we 

 have not sufficient data to form premises for such conclusions. 

 If such inquiries do not transcend our finite capacities, they are 

 at any rate beyond the sphere of human experience, human 

 duty and human responsibility. But it does not follow from 

 this speculative limitation that we are in any doubt as to our 

 practical relation to Evil. The Christian view of life is as 

 reasonable as any, that which regards it as a scene of proba- 

 tion, a stage of training for a higher existence. Evil is around 

 us and within us ; but, when looked at as the instrument of 

 discipline and progress, it loses half its sting. How bene- 

 volent, for instance, is the natural punishment of sin, acting 

 as a call to amendment and a solemn warning of the danger 

 of continuance in wrong-doing ! But, some will object, many 

 innocent and excellent persons are visited with affliction, and 

 pain, and poverty. The vindication of this apparent anomaly 

 lies in the infinite importance of right moral action. A noble 

 deed, an instance of unselfish devotion to duty or to the higher 

 interests of others, the meek suffering of undeserved calamities 

 are the supreme moments in the history of our race which 

 counterbalance its prevailing frivolity and carelessness. But 

 such acts are only possible, as a rule, in the presence of Evil. 

 The common instinct of humanity has recognised the quality 



BuUm 1329, would be 2JHma /aa'e in his favour. But there is no doubt 

 that great devoutness and bhxmelessness of life were, in his case, combined 

 with daring speculation which verged upon Idealistic Pantheism ; indeed, 

 he appears to have anticipated Schelling in claiming for the human intellect 

 the immediate intuition of the Absolute. 



