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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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622 Mr . Wright to Mr . Marsvm , on Future Punishment .
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be put so general in their nature , and in such a form as easily to mislead the unwary and betray them into concessions which , would support the claims of any hypo * thesis / ' What then ? have you sfeew i * the questions I communicated to be of this kind ? What
does your making this observation prove , but , that you do not like the questions , that they are noV « asy $ q answer on your hypothesis , but such as you had rather
nofc ^ m eet ? They are , however , pl ^ in , questions . Why did you not : instead of finding fault with them , look them full in the face , meet them in a direct way , and answer them distinctly ?
You have noticed but one of theibur questions I communicated , and none of my answers to them ; yet , in the close of your letter , yoij call your remarks , observations on my friend ' s questions and
my answers ! Had you not expressed this , I might have supposed , that , after quoting the first , $ ou had forgotten there were three others . You $ ay f u The first question , Did God ever design
the l )( 0 tppiness of all men ? will scarcely admit of a direct answer &m ifrtbe affirmative . ' * Why have you sai 4 scarcely ? " Is it pos-^ jbfe U should receive any direct . answ ^ r but in the affirmative ?
3 ( Was lis / iiQt a consciousness of this , tbat led you to decline giving it a / direct answer ? Instead of which you have made a number of remark ^ som e of which are per * iectly just , but not at aU * to the
impose ; however , they enabled you to avoid a direct answer . 1 shalj notice only what seems to haven bearing on the question * 1 . Rather than admit the ultimate happiness of all men , you
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seem disposed to limit Omnipotence , and admit inefficiency in the moral government of God , You ask , Is moral character , are virtue and vice of God ' s crea .
tion ? " I answer , they are pro . duced under his government , on whom all things are every moment dependant . Moral character is so
far of his creation , as it is formed by the operation of things which are perfectl y known to him , continually under his controul , and the order of which he could at
any moment change if he pleased . I do not say that God creates vice or virtue , in any proper sense of the word create , for both are the work of man . and he becomes the
subject of them by the exercise of his ewn powers z but then man is every moment dependant on God for all his powers and the continued use and exercise of them *
Nothing takes place but what God could present , if he saw it wise and good to do so . You assert , if vice and virtue are not of God s creation , then they are not the objects of power . What ! cannot Omnipotence controul the vicious in their career of vice ? Has the
Almighty nothing to do with the evil passions , follies and crimes of men , to check , suppress ^ or make them subservient to his own wise purposes , by the operation . of means which he hath appointed ? Will you deny to God the power of rooting evil Q * i of the cre&tian , in any other way than By the destruction of his own work ? Will
you assert that Omnipotence , united with infinite wisdom ,, cannot find means to make all men virtuous and good , without destroy , ing their moral qature or infri » ging their rporal agency ? 2 . £ > He thing you entirely over *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1814, page 622, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2445/page/34/
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