THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 
281 
Natural Theology has ever been pressed with this 
question: Why, under the regency of a supreme and be¬ 
nevolent Will, should there be, in the world, so much as 
there is of the appearance of chanced 
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 considerable weight in partic¬ 
ular cases, and also to embrace a considerable number of 
cases. 
I. There must be chance in the midst of design: by 
which we mean, that events which are not designed, neces¬ 
sarily 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 journeys 
which produced the meeting were, both of them, under¬ 
taken with design and from deliberation. The meeting, 
though accidental, was nevertheless hypothetically necessa¬ 
ry, (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 and 
with which they were in fact begun and performed, the 
meeting could not be avoided. There was not, therefore, 
the less necessity in it for its being by chance. Again, 
the rencounter might be most unfortunate, though the er¬ 
rands, upon which each party set out upon his journey, 
were the most innocent or the most laudable. The by 
effect may be unfavorable, without impeachment of the 
proper purpose, for the sake of which the train, from the 
operation of which these consequences ensued, was put in 
motion. Although no cause acts without a good purpose, 
accidental consequences, like these, may be either good or 
bad. 
II. The appearance of chance will always bear a pro¬ 
portion to the ignorance of the observer. The cast of a 
die as regularly follows the laws of motion, as the going of 
a watch; yet, because we can trace the operation of those 
laws through the works and movements of the watch, and 
cannot trace them in the shaking and throwing of the die, 
(though the laws be the same, and prevail equally in both 
cases,) we call the turning up of the number of the die 
chance, the pointing of the index of the watch machinery, 
order, or by some name which excludes chance. It is the 
same in those events which depend upon the will of a free 
and rational agent. The verdict of a jury, the sentence of 
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