in one and the same breath.

Now, in this contest of arms, it is our humble opinion that each party
gets the better of the other. Each overthrows the other; but neither
perceives that he is himself overthrown. Hence, though each demolishes the
other, neither is convinced, and the controversy still rages. Nor can
there ever be an end of this wrangling and jangling while the arguments of
the opposite parties have their roots in a common error. Let the work of
Mr. Symington, or any other which advocates a limited atonement, be taken
up, its argument dissected, and let the false principle, that God could
easily make all men holy if he would, be eliminated from them, and we
venture to predict that they will lose all appearance of solidity, and
resolve themselves into thin air.(166)

Chapter II.

Natural Evil, Or Suffering, And Especially The Suffering Of Infants
Reconciled With The Goodness Of God.

Sweet Eden was the arbour of delight;
Yet in his lovely flowers our poison blew:
Sad Gethsemane, the bower of baleful night,
Where Christ a health of poison for us drew;
Yet all our honey in that poison grew:
So we from sweetest flowers could suck our bane,
And Christ, from bitter venom, could again
Extract life out of death, and pleasure out of pain.--GILES
FLETCHER.

If, as we have endeavoured to show, a necessary holiness is a
contradiction in terms, then the existence of natural evil may be easily
reconciled with the divine goodness, in so far as it may be necessary to
punish and prevent moral evil. Indeed, the divine goodness itself demands
the punishment of moral evil, in order to restrain its prevalence, and
shut out the disorders it tends to introduce into the moral universe. Nor
is it any impeachment of the infinite wisdom and goodness of God, if the
evils inflicted upon the commission of sin be sufficiently great to answer
the purpose for which they are intended--that is, to stay the frightful
progress and ravages of moral evil. Hence it was that the sin of one man
brought "death into the world, and all our woe." Thus the good providence
of God, no less than his word, speaks this tremendous lesson to his
intelligent creatures: "Behold the awful spectacle of a world lying in
ruins, and tremble at the very thought of sin! A thousand deaths are not
so terrible as one sin!"

Section I.