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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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Untitled Article
tended with paia ; but this pan * is not evil , because it has an ulterior object . Its design is not to inflict suffering , but to preserve life , by inducing the animal to take food . In proportion , therefore , a % life , is a good to the animal , the pain which excites him to use the means of preserving it is goad .
* ' Now , all pam which has not this ulterior object , being pure and simple pain , pain , and nothing else , is evil . But misery inflicted through endless ages cannot possibly accomplish this ulterior object , since there is no period in which it can effect it ; such misery must be evil , therefore , in the highest possible degree .
" It will avail nothing to say that the object of the infliction of endless misery is not pain , but the satisfaction of immutable justice . This does not in the least affect the argument ; for the position is , that that attribute , whatever it may be called , is evil ,
which inflicts misery upon a being without doing , and without designing to do , any thing else to him . To that being it is pure , positive and absolute evil . Whatever makes a being more miserable than happy , the whole of his existence considered , is to him
positive evil . A good being must cause to every creature an excess of pleasure above pain , for he is good to it , only in proportion as he does so . But , according to the doctrine of
endless punishment , God does not cause to the great majority of his creatures an excess of pleasure above pain ; for he deprives them , through the whole of tlieii * future existence , of every pleasurable sensation , and inflicts upon
them the most unreinitted and intolerable anguish . ' * The words eternal misery , everlasting damnation , are soon pronounced ; they run very glibly from the lips of most preachers , and seem to be used as we used " O Deus
omnipotens , " when at school , to nil up a poetical line , or to terminate a period fully and gracefully . The poor , unthinking mortals who tlius flippantly pronounce the doom of innumerable fellow-creatures , and , for aught that tlwsy know , their own , would in private conversation manifest a hundred
fold more feeling , if they were relating that a friend or relative had to undergo a painful operation on the following day . But when yr-e are arguing seri-
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ously upon the suftj } e < 2 t , it becomes us to envisage tfee horror of the doctrine * If we had to pass over a crazy bridge , which , for aught we , knew , might break down with us , we shoi ^ ld dee m it of importance to ascertain the depth of the stream and the chances of
drowning . Is it possible that a reflecting mind can be content to remain unsatisfied as to the possibility of enduring endless pain ? Surely it would not , if once awakened , remit its researches until this doubt was removed
But , as I said before , we really must look the matter in the face , if we intend to examine into it as parties interested in the result of the inquiry . Suppose a large mountain composed
of the minutest grains of sand , sup * pose one of these grains to be removed once in a million of years , the length of time which would elapse before the removal of the last of these
grains , infinitely surpasses our power of conception . Yet this period , immeasurable as it is , is not endless , and therefore can convey to the mind but a faint idea of the duration of future torment . We must suppose
the globe itself to be composed of grains of sand , nay , all tjie planets of our system , and all the stars which we behold in the heavens ;—we must suppose the particles which compose those immense and innumerable
bodies formed into one vast mass , to he removed by the transposition of a single grain once in a million of years—How inconceivable the period that must elapse before the removal of the
last grain ! The faculties of the human mind are lost in the contemplation of it ! Yet this period is not endless ; and it has been often said , that could the wicked be told that
at the termination of such a period , their sufferings would cease , the tidings would fill them with inconceivable transport . But they are not permitted to indulge even this forlorn
and awful hope . When this dreadful period shall have elapsed , their sufferings will be but beginning ; nay , when millions of such periods shall have passed away , their torment will be no nearer its termination , than at
the instant ot its commencement And these sufferings are represented as most dreadful in their nature . No imagination it is said can conceive of their horror . No sensation of plea-
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4 Friendly Gwre&pon&eHee between an Unitarian and a Calvinist . 279
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1824, page 279, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2524/page/23/
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