own ignorance and our infenfibility of it. We boldly and presumptuously affert, that God cannot do one thing, and that he will not do another, becaufe fuch things feem to us to be inconfiftent with thofe attributes which we have thought proper to bestow upon him; but we know fo little of the nature of good and evil, of truth or falfhood, of God or man, or of the relations between a Creator and his creatures, that we are utterly incapable to prefcribe limits to his power, or rules to his will; as well might a worm pretend to decide on the councils of princes, and the policies of empires, as man to pass judgment on the difpenfations of the Almighty. We fay, God cannot be the cause of any evil; but we know not what is evil; he may be, and is, the caufe of many things which appear, and really are, evils to us, however they may be neceffary to the production of univerfal good. We say, he cannot be the cause of any delufion; but why not? truth is by no means the criterion of virtue, as fome fome philofophers would perfuade us; delufion, in itself, is neither good or evil; its merit or criminality depends on the end for which it is intended: it is no crime to deceive men for their entertainment, much less for their benefit; there is no immorality in writing a play, a poem, or romance, because it is fiction, but great merit, if it is calculated to promote virtue, or to difcourage vice. The whole of this life is a fucceffion of delufions, kindly impofed upon us by our Creator, to enable us to fupport the the bufinefs of it. fufferings, and carry on The fallacy of each we difcover in its turn, but never till it has attained its end. It is all mere fcenery, a beautiful illufion, in which every object, being placed at a proper diftance, and seen through a falfe medium, appears as it ought, but never as it is. Wealth, honours, and pleafures, are exhibited in the cleareft light, to incite our industry; but the vanity of their poffeffions is hid for a time under a cloud, that we may not fink into floth and inactivity. Thus we may be faid to believe a lie, that is, what is not true; unexperienced, we believe that the profperity of this world will make us compleatly happy, that the period of life is of long duration, and that the hour of death is ever at a great distance; in every one of which we find ourselves conftantly deceived; on which beneficent deception all our enjoyments, hopes, expectations, and pursuits intirely depend. If God, therefore, by means of thefe kind delufions, difpenfes undeferved bleffings on mankind, why may he not fometimes inflict fuch punishments upon them, as their offences may, have deferved, by the fame means, either by his own power, or the operations of intermediate fpirits? We know that he has given us power to deceive and enfnare, as well as to destroy, inferior animals; a power which we daily exercife without fcruple, without arraigning his juftice or our own. Why then may he not, with equal juftice, grant the fame fame power over us, to beings of fuperior orders? We may further add, that there are many paffages, in both the Old and New Teftament, fimilar to this before us, which are, in fact, nothing more than modes of expreffion ufually made ufe of by the writers of those books, who generally impute every event and action, whether good or evil, just or unjuft, to God himself, without any reference to fecond caufes. Every difpofition of men's hearts, and every act proceeding from them, are afcribed immediately to God; by which nothing more is to be understood, than that fuch were men's hearts, and fuch things were done. This, in a large and extenfive view, is certainly right, because the great Creator and difpofer of all things muft primarily be the cause of all difpofitions, actions, and events; because the First Cause must be the cause of every cause from whence they can proceed: but how this is confiftent with that freewill, |