e Christian
theist.

We have already said, that the only real question is, not why God
permitted evil, but why he created beings capable of sinning. Such
creatures are, beyond all question, the most noble specimens of his
workmanship. St. Augustine has beautifully said, that the horse which has
gone astray is a more noble creature than a stone which has no power to go
astray. In like manner, we may say, a moral agent that is capable of
knowing, and loving, and serving God, though its very nature implies an
ability to do otherwise, is a more glorious creature than any being
destitute of such a capacity. If God had created no such beings, his work
might have represented him "as a house doth the builder," but not "as a
son doth his father." If he had created no such beings, there would have
been no eye in the universe, except his own, to admire and to love his
works. Traces of his wisdom and goodness might have been seen here and
there, scattered over his works, provided any eye had been lighted up with
intelligence to see them; but nowhere would his living and immortal image
have been seen in the magnificent temple of the world. It will be
conceded, then, that there is no difficulty in conceiving why God should
have preferred a universe of creatures, beaming with the glories of his
own image, to one wholly destitute of the beauty of holiness and the light
of intelligence. But having preferred the noblest order of beings, its
inseparable incident, a liability to moral evil, could not have been
excluded.

Hence God is the author of all good, and of good alone; and evil proceeds,
not from him nor from his permission, but from an abuse of those exalted
and unshackled powers, whose nature and whose freedom constitute the glory
of the moral universe.

This, then, is the sublime purpose of God, to give and continue existence
to free moral agents, and to govern them for their good as well as for his
own glory. This is the decree of the Almighty, to call forth from nothing
into actual existence, the universe which now shines around us, and spread
over it the dominion of his perfect moral law. He does not cause sin. He
does not permit sin. He sees that it will raise its hideous head, but he
does not say--_so let it be_. No! sin is the thing which God hates, and
which he is determined, by all the means within the reach of his
omnipotence, utterly to root out and destroy. The word has gone forth,
"Offences must needs come, but woe