, 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