without lines?"-if not, could mankind (in Scripture language) be corrupt without corruption previously existing?

As God is immutable, unchangeable, full of goodness and love for his creatures, "of purer eyes than to behold evil," "to do wickedly," "to commit iniquity," or to be pleased with the effects of moral evil, and moral evil exists,-If He could destroy it, would he not, having those dispositions and attributes, do so? If you say he can do so, where is His goodness, mercy, JUSTICE, love, and beneficence, in allowing any of His creatures to suffer the torments of hell, death, or distraction of mind, for that which He introduced, and could have prevented?

How could God be the author of moral evil? If you say, He is its author, where were His attributes of wisdom, mercy and love for His creatures when producing it ?— And if you say, He is not its author, (arguing upon scriptural testimony,) WHERE WAS HIS ATTRIBUTE OF FOREKNOWLEDGE AT THE CREATION OF THE DEVIL? It is

perfectly clear, that you must either deny Him the power of producing it, or a knowledge of its consequences, in continuing to believe that He is the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth." The only way you can reconcile His attributes of goodness, power, foreknowledge, justice, and abhorrence of evil, with the creation of the devil and man, or the bad passions of our nature, is to consider that the evil arose from the material acted upon, and not from Himself; that he foreknew the corruption of man, and created the beautiful vicissitude we inhabit, not for the purpose of exercising tyranny and caprice, but to extend his light and love throughout all the regions of space, to produce order out of chaos, combine life and happiness in matter, and qualify those Beings, whose reflections led them beyond earth's transitory scene, for the higher and more delightful mansions of heaven.

In admitting, with Archbishop King, in his Essay on the Origin of Moral Evil, that

God could not make a being equal with himself in attributes and perfections, I cannot prostrate my reason to believe with the Archbishop, that God created the universe out of NOTHING, and that existence was the first degree from NOTHING on the scale of approaching towards His perfection, and that evil was the consequence of OPERATING upon this NOTHING. His very pre

mises are illogical and absurd. Can we have any IDEA of a SOMETHING produced from NOTHING, or of a BEING ALL-POWERFUL, FOREKNOWING, and GOOD, to be under any law of NECESSITY, when CALLING worlds and their inhabitants into existence out of NOTHING, (that is, when NOTHING existed but Himself, or could have existence but from Himself,) "to make the heart of man (capable of being) deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,”—a devil to hunt him "like a roaring lion,"* laws, sacrifices, and the torments of hell, necessary, and Christ to suffer on the cross!!

* 1 Peter v. 8.

Such horrible ideas of the Deity could make us neither love nor respect Him; and unless the followers of the Archbishop admit this NOTHING to be a SOMETHING' they must remain in the mist which priestcraft introduced for its profit; and in giving utterance to profound metaphysical NOTHINGS, make reasoning inquirers after TRUTH, consider them, as little above nothing, on the scale of intelligence.

You will perhaps say that I deny the omnipotence of God, by limiting His power to do good, and not moral evil. In reply, I should ask, what passage in scripture mentions that He is its author? You will find many to prove that He is occasionally the author of natural evil, to produce moral good and general happiness; but not one to prove that He is the author of moral evil. If he is not the author of moral evil, He is not Omnipotent: it must have some author, for there can be no effect without a cause, unless you argue upon an atheistical hypothesis, and say, the Universe exists with

out a cause. If there is no cause, there can be no effect, and moral evil is merely a phantasy of the imagination; and if there is no moral evil, the Scriptures are a fable. Those who believe in them, (to be consistent,) must believe that there is moral evil, that God is not its author, and that it must have some author.*

Ha

From the preponderating sum of happiness and enjoyment that exists in animated nature, and from the design that is evident in its formation, we are led, independent of Revelation, to believe that there is a God, and that He is benevolent and good. ving those attributes, would he have intentionally introduced those passions which are not necessary to the existence of the human species, viz., envy, hatred, and malice, if He could have produced us without

* John iii. 31: "He that cometh from above is above all. He that is of the earth is earthly." James iii. 1416: "But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, BUT IS EARTHLY, SENSUAL, DEVILISH."