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stances of cruelty . It may be objected to this that many exercise cruelty towards objects which they cannot possibly fear . Domitian , for instance , frequently impaled
flies on a bodkin , and boys sometimes pluck live sparrows . As to the first instance , there is no doubt that the act of inflicting pain may like every other action , degenerate into a habit ; my reasoning will not be invalidated if we can trace it to fear in its origin : the
second instance proceeds from ignorance ; boys are unconscious that " Thebeetle which they tread upon , In corporal suffering , feels a pang As great as when a giant dies . ' *
And in the case instanced , the best lecture that can be read them is to pull a few hairs violently from their own heads .
It may be asked , perhaps , since God is both infinitely powerful and infinitely benevolent , why has he permitted pain in his crea - tion ? But those who put this question do not sufficiently
analyse the idea of pleasure , which will be found to be nothing absolute , but the result of a comparison of sensations ; and , of course , without the suffering of pain the enjoyment of pleasure is inconceivable ; so that the leading us , Ms children , the mere creatures of his will , the very instruments of his operations , through a diversity of conditions , in order to procure for us ultimate felicity , instead of being regarded * £ want of power or goodness , Js lo be classed alons with those
numberless instances of design , exhibited in the economy of anim ^ vegetables , and planets , ai * d without which we would have flo argument to urge against the ^ tbeis U That pleasure results
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merely from a comparison of sensations is evident , from the delight which the simple act of turning
or bending a joint occasions , when we have been long obliged to lie on one side , or to keep our limbs extended .
It may be farther asked , why does the Deity allow such a difference among men ? We see one man descending to the grave " like a shock of corn in his season / ' full
of days , of honours , and of conscious" > ectitude , " every ear that hears him blesses him , every eye that sees him gives witness to him : " whilst another is a miserable out *
cast , the victim of disease , the den of every bad passion , the curse of every one who knows him , "hateful and hating . * But this diversity of means , which the Deity makes subservient to
the same end , ought rather to inspire * us with sublime conceptions of his power , than with doubts of his benevolence ; as his making one vegetable to thrive in the frigid , and another in the torrid zone , is justly regarded as a proof of the
former attribute . In concluding , give me leave to adopt and extend the language of Dr . Blair , a writer far above
all praise . By the sadness of the countenance ^ the heart of the sufferer is made better ^* he is trained up to fortitude of mind , improved iniiumanity to men , and formed to t the habits of devotion and resignation to God ; at the same time it is only if need be that he is left for a season in heaviness * If it be certain that alt things work for his # ood , it follows of course , that there is no super-. fluous severity 3 no needless or un : necessary trouble to him in the constitution oi things ; his afilic-
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On the Divine Benevolence * . 419
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1811, page 419, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2418/page/35/
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