LETTER IV,

DIVINES seldom attempt to answer directly the question with which I concluded my last letter: they content themselves with settling the subject in the following compendious manner :-The evils which man at present suffers are the just and necessary consequences of God's displeasure, incurred by Adam for himself and his posterity.

To this statement I cannot assent: it is quite incompatible with all notions of justice, that God should punish any crea ture for a crime committed before its existence, and over which it is consequently impossible it could have had any control: it is incompatible with the goodness of God,

to punish millions for the crime of one. Let, then, divines say what they will, the account which they give of the cause of evil is the greatest libel on the divine attributes that ever the mind of man conceived. To punish the whole human species for the sin of its progenitor, is utterly irreconcilable with any idea the mind can possibly form of goodness, mercy, or justice, and consequently cannot have been a dispensation of Infinite Goodness. And we accordingly have sacred authority for asserting that it is repugnant to the divine

nature.

Deut. xxiv. 16. " The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin."-And Ezekiel xviii. 20. "The soul that sinneth it shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the fa-.

ther, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." These ordinances are so obviously conformable with the first and simplest dictates of natural reason, that it is not easy to conceive why they were the subjects of repeated revelation, unless we make large allowance for the weakness of the infancy of the human mind during which they were first promulgated, and perhaps unless we consider them as prophetic condemnations of those absurd and monstrous doctrines of vicarious guilt and justification, which, in the idolatrous superstitions of antiquity, caused the horrid abomination of human sacrifices, and which, in the modern systems of theology, libel the Divine justice, shock human reason, and corrupt, mysterise, and confound the Christian religion.

But admitting the justice of punishing the whole human race for the sin of Adam, the question remains, How did Adam deserve punishment? By yielding to the temptation of the devil, it is said, to disobey the command of God. This is a solution full of at least as great and endless difficulties as those which it attempts to solve.

We cannot suppose an infinitely wise and good Being to have called his creatures into existence without some purpose, or that purpose to have been other than the enjoyment of all the happiness of which their nature is capable. Was it, then, possible for man to haye continued in that state of happiness which, we are told by divines, he once possessed? Yes, divines will answer, if he had not incurred the displeasure of God.

Now this displeasure having been in

curred by disobedience, had no command been given he could not have been guilty of disobedience, and would consequently have incurred no divine wrath. For what purpose, then, was the first fatal commandment given to Adam? a commandment not necessary to human happiness, as are the commandments of the Decalogue.

Further; if God intended that man should disobey his commands, he cannot be displeased with man for fulfilling his intentions: if he intended that man should obey his commands, how comes it that his weak creature has counteracted the purposes of his infinite wisdom?

This is the perplexing question; and accordingly divines, in answer to it-ob. serving the golden rule in considering the dispensations of Providence, as well as in composing an epic or dramatic poem,

"Nec Deus intersit nisi nodus vindice dignus".