FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81  
82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   >>   >|  
, for our sake, to rectify his plan, which does not accord with our interest. The Optimist, or he who maintains that _all is well_, and who incessantly cries that we live in _the best world possible_, to be consistent, should never pray; neither ought he to expect another world, where man will be happier. Can there be a better world than _the best world possible_? Some theologians have treated the Optimists as impious, for having intimated that God could not produce a better world, than that in which we live. According to these doctors, it is to limit the power of God, and to offer him insult. But do not these divines see, that it shews much less indignity to God, to assert that he has done his best in producing this world, than to say, that, being able to produce a better, he has had malice enough to produce a very bad one? If the Optimist, by his system, detracts from the divine power, the theologian, who treats him as a blasphemer, is himself a blasphemer, who offends the goodness of God in espousing the cause of his omnipotence. 88. When we complain of the evils, of which our world is the theatre, we are referred to the other world, where it is said, God will make reparation for all the iniquity and misery, which, for a time, he permits here below. But if God, suffering his eternal justice to remain at rest for a long time, could consent to evil during the whole continuance of our present world, what assurance have we, that, during the continuance of another world, divine justice will not, in like manner, sleep over the misery of its inhabitants? The divines console us for our sufferings by saying, that God is patient, and that his justice, though often slow, is not the less sure. But do they not see, that patience is incompatible with a just, immutable, and omnipotent being? Can God then permit injustice, even for an instant? To temporize with a known evil, announces either weakness, uncertainty, or collusion. To tolerate evil, when one has power to prevent it, is to consent to the commission of evil. 89. Divines every where exclaim, that God is infinitely just; but that _his justice is not the justice of man_. Of what kind or nature then is this divine justice? What idea can I form of a justice, which so often resembles injustice? Is it not to confound all ideas of just and unjust, to say, that what is equitable in God is iniquitous in his creatures? How can we receive for our model a bein
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81  
82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
justice
 

divine

 

produce

 
divines
 
continuance
 
injustice
 

consent

 

misery

 

blasphemer

 

Optimist


accord
 
temporize
 

immutable

 

incompatible

 

patience

 

rectify

 

omnipotent

 

permit

 

instant

 

inhabitants


assurance
 

manner

 

console

 
patient
 

sufferings

 
present
 
interest
 

uncertainty

 

resembles

 

confound


unjust

 

receive

 
creatures
 
equitable
 

iniquitous

 
nature
 

tolerate

 

prevent

 

collusion

 

weakness


commission

 

infinitely

 
exclaim
 

Divines

 
announces
 
producing
 

malice

 

system

 
detracts
 

expect