ws that they are
actually distributed for this purpose. 3. The unavoidable evils of this
life, which are not brought upon us by our faults, are intended to serve
as a foil to set off the blessedness of eternity. Our present light
afflictions are intended, not merely to work out for us an exceeding and
eternal weight of glory, but also to heighten our sense and enjoyment of
it by a recollection of the miseries experienced in this life. They are
intended to form but a short and discordant prelude to an everlasting
harmony. If they should not prove so in fact, the fault will be our own,
without the least impeachment of the beneficent design of the great Author
and Ruler of the universe.

On these grounds, especially on the first two, we must justify all the
natural evil in the world. In regard to the second, Bishop Butler says:
"Allurements to what is wrong; difficulties in the discharge of our
duties; our not being able to act a uniform right part without some
thought and care; and the opportunities we have, or imagine we have, of
avoiding what we dislike, or obtaining what we desire, by unlawful means,
when we either cannot do it at all, or at least not so easily, by lawful
ones; these things, that is, _the snares and temptations of vice, are what
render the present world peculiarly fit to be a state of discipline to
those who will preserve their integrity_; because they render being upon
our guard, resolution, and the denial of our passions, necessary to that
end." Thus, the temptations by which we are surrounded, the allurements of
those passions by which vice is rendered so bewitching, are the appointed
means of moral discipline and improvement in virtue.

The habit of virtue thus formed, he truly observes, will be firm and fixed
in proportion to the amount of temptation we have gradually overcome in
its formation. "Though actions materially virtuous," says he, "which have
no sort of difficulty, but are perfectly agreeable to our particular
inclinations, may possibly be done only from those particular
inclinations, and so may not be any exercise of the principle of virtue,
i. e., not be virtuous actions at all; yet, on the contrary, they may be
an exercise of that principle, and, when they are, they have a tendency to
form and fix the habit of virtue. But when the exercise of the virtuous
principle is more continued, oftener repeated, and more intense, as it
must be in circumstances of danger, temptation, and difficul