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'fit couW derive any instruction or Jtfipfor t from the following illustration rf this argument : a \ Fb <» can impute to the Author of the admirabl e fabric and constitution of nature , tbat perversion which . is most repugnant to fcUwifti but which his wisdom and goodness
5 Hjtfested to him not to prevent ? When asbip bas been wrecked by the ignorance of the master , can we blame the ship builder who fitted it for all the purposes of navigation , and displayed admirable skill in its construction , because he did not render it incapable of perishing ? Can we blame an architect who has planned a most
convenient and elegant house , or the mason trbo has built it , when it has been destroyed by fire , because neither of them secured it against this calamity ? Nor can we with more reason lay it to the charge of the great Author of human nature , that the noble faculties with which he has
endowed it , and whose tendencies are to rniprovenient and happiness , have been most nonaturally perverted and depraved . *'Pp . 320 , 321 . Dr * Brown asks , whether it were inconsistent with the infinite wisdom
and goodness of God to create such an order of beings as men . We answer decidedly , on his scheme , it was . If there be one proposition clear and undeniable , it is that a Being of infinite wisdom and goodness must impart to every creature which he calls into existence a greater sum of happiness thnn misery , the whole of its existence being
considered : if this be not the case he is not good , nor is it possible for any ingenuity or sophistry to prove him to beso . Nay Dr . Brown himself affirms that the goodness of the Deity must be " aconstant and immutable disposition to communicate and extend the highest
measure of happiness to all his creatures , and that this necessarily implies the communication of all possible happiness to the whole and to every part of' his sensitive creation" P . 223 . How then wthis consistent with his appointment from al ] eternity of the great majority ° f mankind to unutterable and
unend-» S torment ? Why thus : ' It has been already shown that the P ^ niis ^ ipn of moral evil is inseparable from ** agency . The natural and necessary 2 j *^ W of corruption , proceeding " ^ ^ W abuse of freedom , must also be P ^ nuitt ^ d . Every species , every degree and vTS ?** * ° depravation however small jjjp * * 8 irtctonsis ^ e nt with the Divine p ^ toiu * and lawtf , and whatever those * & ** must , in th « order of things , in
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fallibly take place . If free * agency , the chief source of happiness to man , and the foundation of all virtue and religion , required , the permission of vice and its continuance during- a state of trial , ita misery to whatever extext ok duration , when it has become habitual to the soul , follows as a necessary consequence
Vol . II . p . 203 . " And uo person cau complain of the Severity of the Divine threatenhigs , if he is fully warned of his danger , is furnished with every necessary aid for avoiding" it , and as long" as life continues has still space left for repentance . " P . 207 . " The only effectual encouragement to virtue , the only effectual
restraint to vice , is the enactment of rewards sufficiently animating' and of punishments sufficiently formidable . The greater those are in prospect the more powerful is the check and the more invigorating the encouragement . I grant indeed that the infliction of cruel , huaiaii punishments in this Jife , while the course of probation is still unfinished , has rather a
tendency to corrupt than to correct a people by inuring them to savage and barbarous spectacles . But the case is different , when all hopes of amendment are gone , and the period of probation ts closed . Then every character is completely formed . . Vice is rivetted on the soul . Its natural consequences are allowed to take place . It-is necessary that its final rebuilt should be tremendous and irreversible . "—P . 210 .
And this is the final result of the * if- / fc t 5 rt /^ moral administration of a ± 5 eing € * t * ' ^ jr j 0 > // infinite power , wisdom and goodnes ^ r ^^^^* C- /^ in regard to the great majority of '" mankind—of that Being " whose
constant and immutable disposition it is to communicate and extend the highest measure of happiness to all his crea * - tures—to communicate all possible happiness to the whole and to every part of his sensitive creation !"
Since endless punishment cannot benefit those who are saved and can of * course be of no advantage to those upon whom it is inflicted , it had always been considered somewhat difficult to
explain the use of it under the wise and benevolent government of the Deity . J 3 ut Dr . jBrown easily solves this difficulty , and intimates that it may be of great service to the people of the Moon or the inhabitants of Saturn
" As we find that among irien , prisons ; public examples and places of punishment are useful for impressing vicious rninfls with terror ; so the eternal sufferings of tHe incorrigibly perverse and wicked of tlie ha ^ wan race ^ as tliey ' 'c « lrtaifily « onve ') r dti aVffll * warning to those of our own species who
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Review . —^ Browns Prize Essay . 60 t )
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1816, page 609, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2457/page/45/
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