children of purity be liable to grow unpure. They must either be thus
natured, or exist of the essence of God, that is, be other persons and
phases of the Deity: such a case was possible certainly; but, as we have
already shown, not probable. And it were possible, that, in consequence
of some redemption such as we have spoken of, creatures might by
ingraftation into God become so entirely part of Him--bone of bone, and
flesh of flesh, and spirit of spirit--that an exhortation to such blest
beings should reasonably run, "Be ye perfect." But this infinite
munificence of the Godhead in redemption was not to be found among His
bounties as Creator. It might indeed arise afterwards, as setting up
again the fallen creature in some safe niche of Deity: and we now know
it has arisen: "we are complete in Him."

But this, though relevant, is a digression. Returning, and to produce
some further argument against all creature perfectness; let us consider
how rational it seems to prësuppose that the mighty Maker in his
boundless love should have willed to form a long chain of classes of
existence more and more subordinated each to the other, each good of its
kind and happy in its way, but yet all needfully more or less removed
from the high standard of uncreate Perfection. These descending links,
these graduations downwards, must involve a nearer or remoter approach
to evil. Now, we must bear in mind that Evil is not a principle, but a
perversion: it amounts merely to a denial, a limitation, a corruption of
good, not to the dignity of its abstract antagonism. Familiarly, but
fallaciously, we talk of the evil principle, the contradictory to good:
we might as well talk of the nosologic principle, the contradictory to
health; or the darkness principle, the contradictory to light. They are
contraries, but not contradictories: they have no positive, but only a
relative existence. Good and evil are verily foes, but originally there
was one cemented friendship: slender beginnings consequent on a