having drunk deeply of the goodness of God,
and rejoiced in his smile, were not satisfied with their condition, and,
striving to better it, plucked down ruin on their heads. So, man in
paradise, not content with his happy lot, but vainly striving to raise
himself to a god, forsook his allegiance to his Maker, and yielded himself
a willing servant to the powers of darkness. But an apostle, though born
in sin, having tasted the bitter fruits of evil, and the sweet mercies of
redeeming love, felt such confidence in God, that in whatsoever state he
was, he could therewith be content. Not only in heaven--not only in
paradise--but in a dungeon, loaded with irons, and beaten with stripes, he
could rejoice and give glory to God. This firm and unshaken allegiance in
a weak and erring mortal to the throne of the Most High God, presents a
spectacle of moral grandeur and sublimity to which the annals of eternity,
but for the existence of sin, had presented no parallel.

It is by the scheme of Christianity alone that the confidence of the
creature in his God has been rendered too strong for the gates of hell to
prevail against him. But for this scheme, the moral government of God
might have presented scenes of mutability and change, infinitely more
appalling than the partial evil which we behold in our present state. Or
if God had chosen to prevent this, to render it absolutely impossible, by
the creation of no beings who he foreknew would rebel against him, this
might have contracted his moral empire into the most insignificant limits.
Thus, by the creation of the world, God has prepared the way to extend the
boundaries of his empire, and to secure its foundations. Christ is the
corner-stone of the spiritual universe, by which all things in heaven and
earth are kept from falling away from God, its great centre of light and
life. No wonder, then, that when this crowning event in the moral
government of the universe was about to be accomplished, the heavenly host
should have shouted, "Glory to God in the highest!"

This view of the subject of moral evil, derived from revelation,
harmonizes all the phenomena of the moral world with the perfections of
God, as well as warms and expands the noblest feelings of the human heart.
St. Paul ascribes the stability of all things in heaven to the
manifestation of the divine character in the redemption of our fallen
race. If this be the case, then those who so confidently assert that God
might ha