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Stapleton 9 near Bristol , Sm , March 10 , 1823 . ABOUT twelve months ago , I felt so strongly impressed with the view of the origin of evil , which has been stated in your last number , ( p .
85 , ) by your correspondent " Rusticus t" tkat I reduced my thoughts to writing , with the intention of communicating them to you for insertion in your valuable miscellany ; but from the important results which appeared to follow from my new theory , and
considering that the origin of evil was a subject which had been deeply considered , and elaborately and repeatedly investigated by the mightiest minds and the ablest pens , I was led to doubt either the originality or the truth of my own impressions , and therefore
laid the subject aside for future consideration and inquiry ; and from that time till the present I have occasionally mentioned my impressions to several of my theological friends , both
ministers and others , for their opinions , and had recently made up my mind to transmit my thoughts to you without farther delay , when on perusing your last number , I was both surprised and pleased to observe that nearly the same views had been taken of the
subject by your intelligent correspondent Husticus ; but as my notion of the origin and existence of evil is proposed and supported by a somewhat different train of argument , and may from
its being , if not more logically , more simply and methodically stated than that of Rusticus , tend to confirm and elucidate the subject , I shall subjoin an outline of the arguments as they occurred and were committed to
writing ut the time before alluded to , and which appear to me to reduce the matter to the certainty of demonstration . Though you will sec much repetition in it , I shall not attempt to
alter it lest I should destroy its force . Proposition . —Every bejing not subject to moral and natural evil must necessarily be infinite , and as it will be admitted that there can be but one
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infinite Being , it follows , that all other beings must be thus subject ; in other words , it is not in the possible power of infinity itself to create a being not subject to moral and natural ill . In
proof of this proposition , it will be granted that the one infinite Being cannot make an equal , since any created being would be but a creature ; hence he cannot make a being with unlimited or infinite attributes , but unlimited or infinite attributesbut
, only with limited or finite ones . Limited attributes , therefore , must be the inheritance of every created being , however exalted . Let us then trace the consequent and necessary effects of limited attributes . Infinite
attributes alone can be always infallibly right ; limited attributes , therefore , necessarily , imply the liability and moral certainty of miscalculation , fallibility and error : for unless created beings could look with the eye of absolute omniscience and prescience ;
act with the hand of omnipotence ; and direct with the unerring certainty of infinite Wisdom , it would be utterly impossible for them to secure the intended effects of their own designs
and hence must necessarily arise , miscalculation , failure and error : and this , without going a single step farther , introduces us to what is called moral
evil , if not to natural also , since all moral evil is nothing more than a miscalculation of happiness . And a similar train of reasoning will bring us to what is commonly termed natural evil , which follows from the proof of moral evil , since as it must be admitted that moral evil is only a
miscalculation of happiness , and that that miscalculation produces pain instead of pleasure , it follows necessarily that at least some part of natural evil , i . e . the pain and misery , both mental and bodily , which arise from intemperance or any other source , is
in this point of view only the effect of a miscalculation of happiness . But that all created beings must necessarily be subject to natural evil upon a still larger scale on account of the limited miture of their attributes , will appear
by the following method of demonstration . One infinite Being alone controuls the universe s * nd all its causes ; it is a contradiction to suppose the existence of more than one ; and hence it follows necessarily , that all other
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373 Introduction of Evil
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to devise language that shall more strongly controvert all the positions on which the necessity of the sacrifice of Christ is founded . [ To be concluded in the next Number . ]
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1823, page 378, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1786/page/10/
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