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lie at the foundation of fuch a fyftem as this. And it is very unfortunate for Mr. S., fince he hath, with confiderable parade and oftentation, ftepped. forth as a champion for the truth, in this day of general decay of religion, and corruption of opinion, that the foundation principles of his fcheme of truth, should appear fo grofsly and palpably falfe and corrupt.

To undertake a formal refutation of Mr. S.'s o pinions of the greateft poffible happiness, and of the divine benevolence, would be an unpardonable impofition on the intellectual abilities of the lowest class of my readers.

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If I were to afk an American child, of ten years of age, and of half common sense, whether the greateft domeftic happiness confifted, in the happiness of a part of the family, and the fin and misery of the reft; or in the united happiness of the whole family, he would readily, and without the leaft premeditation answer, that the fupreme happiness of a family confifted in the aggregate of the happiness of each individual.

And, if I were ftill to proceed with this child, and to ask him which father were poffeffed of the trueft benevolence, he who loved to contemplate the happiness of a part of his children joined with the fin and mifery of the reft ? or he who cordially loved all his children, dealt kindly by them all, and endeavoured to promote the happiness of all? he would as promptly anfwer, as before, the latter;

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the latter is the truly benevolent father. This is the native voice of the human heart-it is the voice of reafon; it is the voice of common and unlettered fenfe.

I am very loth, in a candid, though critical, examination, to say hard things. Mr. 3. is a gentleman of good natural and acquired abilities. But I cannot think he reafons fo accurately and confe quentially now, as he did twenty years ago. Instead of a formal refutation of the fundamental principles and opinions in Mr. S.'s fyftem, I will beg leave to prefent him, and my fellow-citizens, with fome few confiderations on the fupreme good of intelligent beings, and the divine benevolence.

The period in eternity was, if I may be allowed fuch an expreffion, when there was, a folitary God. No being in the universe but he. No creature exist`ed. What then did the greatest glory and bleffednefs of God confift in? Was He not as glorious and as bleffed then, as He hath ever been fince, or as He ever will be? There was no fin, no misery then. Will Mr. S. fay, God was not fo glorious, nor so happy, then, as he hath been fince the introduction of fin and mifery into the fyftem? I think he must say this, to be confiftent; for he hath affirmed, that fin and misery are the neceffary means of producing the greatest glory and bleffednefs of God. An unfortunate, and unfounded idea!

Did not virtue, holiness, and felf-enjoyment, compofe the glory and bleffedness of God, in the

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days of eternity, and before creatures exifted? Or muft we suppose that God derived a part of his glory and blessedness, even from old eternity, from the profpect which he then entertained of the abounding of moral and natural evil, in a thousand poffible intellectual worlds ?

When no being existed but God, what was divine benevolence? Was it a fupreme affection to holinefs, and to happiness as founded upon it ? or did he look forward to a thousand worlds which he defigned to make, and, beholding his glory and bleffednefs advancing from the fins and miferies of millions, take fupreme delight in the profpe&t? According to the hypothefis Mr. S. hath advanced, both the glory and bleffedness of God were imperfect before the introduction of fin and mifery; and confequently, his benevolence was but a faint refemblance of what it hath been fince. So long ago as the days of Job, it was a current opinion among wife men, that the virtues and vices of mankind neither added any thing to, nor diminished any thing from, the divine Being. Elihu, in Job, fays, "If thou finneft, what doeft thou against him? or if thy tranfgreffions be multiplied, what doest thou unto him? If thou be righteous, what giveft thou him? or what receiveth he of thine hand ?"-It is quite a new discovery, that the vices of mankind, and their mifery confefequent thereon, enhance the glory and bleffedness of God and that a fyftem of intelligent creatures, partly virtuous and happy, and partly vicious and miferable,

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miferable, is a more entertaining profped to the Creator, and a greater object of his benevolence, than a fyftem wholly virtuous and happy.

If fin and mifery are the neceffary means of producing the greateft glory and bleffedness of God, and of his holy intelligent kingdom; I afk, whether the glory and bleffedness of God, and of his holy intelligent kingdom, would not be much greater than they now are, if the whole human race were vicious and miferable ? If vice and mifery neceffarily produce the glory and bleffedness of God, and of his holy intelligent kingdom, the greater the vice and mifery, the more glory and blessedness must be produced; as the greater power in the caufe, efpecially if it be a neceffary caufe, muft certainly produce the greater effe. Again, if fin and mifery be the neceffary cause of the glory and bleffedness of God, and of his holy intelligent kingdom, and the glory and bleffedness of God, and of his holy intelligent kingdom, be the object of the fupreme benevolence of God; I afk, whether fin and mifery are the object, or a part of the object, of divine benevolence? As God loves his own glory and bleffedness, and fin and misery are the neceffary cause of them, I fee not why the inference is not legitimate, that fin and mifery are the object of the divine benevolence.

Thus an attempt to repair an old, crazy, erroneous fyftem, hath involved a great and good man in a labyrinth of crror and abfurdity. As it often happens to him who undertakes to rectify and repair a defective

defective tattering frame, that he is caught under its ruins.

Indeed, the pofition, that God hath any respect, love, or benevolence to the general good of the univerfe, that, in the fmalleft degree, opposes his mot cordial regard to the virtue and happiness of any individual among his intelligent creatures, is abfolutely false; and vain and fruitless will be the attempt of any man to support it. It will forever prove a forlorn hope to every one who fhall try the experiment. That God hath a moft kind and tender regard to the virtue and happiness, the temporal and eternal good, of all the individuals of Adam's race, is a moft facred and folemn truth; which at once reflects the higheft glory on God, and is matter of divine encouragement to man.

That there is, under the divine government, a public, general good, that is oppofed to the real good of any individual, is a great and capital error in Mr. S.ʼs system. This error hath led him aftray, and involved him in many gross abfurdities. The virtue and happiness of his rational creatures form that public, or general good, which God fupremely regards. And, as the the virtue and happiness of one, of a thousand, or of a whole system of intelligent creatures, is not inconfiftent with the virtue and happiness of any other individual, or number of individuals, or of any other fyftem of intelligent creatures; fo the divine benevolence to one, to a thousand, or to a whole system, is, by no means, inconfiftent with the divine benevo

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