which is not the work of his own hands? And lest the Great Offender
should urge against his God, why didst thou make me thus?--Is not the
answer obvious, I made thee, but not thus. And on the rejoinder, Why
didst thou not keep me as thou madest me? Is not the reply just, I made
thee reasonable, I led thee to the starting place, I taught thee and set
thee going well in the beginning; thou art intelligent and free, and
hast capacities of Mine own giving: wherefore didst thou throw aside My
grace, and fly in the face of thy Creator?

On the whole; consider that I speak only of probabilities. There is a
depth in this abyss of thought, which no human plummet is long enough to
sound; there is a maze in this labyrinth to be tracked by no mortal
clue. It involves the truth, How unsearchable are his judgments: Thou
hidest thy ways in the sea, and thy paths in the deep waters, and thy
footsteps are not known. The weak point of man's argument lies in the
suggested recollection, that doubtless the Deity could, if He would,
have upheld all the universe from falling by his gracious power; and
that the attribute of love concludes that so He would. However, these
three brief considerations further will go some way to solve the
difficulty, and to strengthen the weak point; first, there are other
attributes besides love to run concurrently with it, as truth, justice,
and unchangeableness:--Secondly, that grace is not grace, if manifested
indiscriminately to all: and thirdly, that to our understanding at least
there was no possible method of illustrating the amiabilities of
Goodness, and the contrivances of Wisdom, but by the infused permission
of some physical and moral evils: Mercy, benevolence, design, would in a
universe of best have nothing to do; that universe itself would grow
stagnant, as incapable of progress; and the principal record of God's
excellences, the book of redemption, would have been unwritten. Is not
then the existence of evil justified in reason's calculation? and was