and Pelagianism
should so often have sprung up. If we write libels on the divine
government, we must expect rebellions and insurrections. This is the
natural consequence of the great fundamental heresy which places reason
and revelation in opposition to each other. Orthodoxy, as she proudly
styles herself, may denounce such rebellions; but she herself is partly
responsible for the fatal consequences of them. Reason and revelation can
never be dissevered, can never be placed in violent conflict, without a
frightful injury to both, and to the best interests of mankind. Reason
must find its own internal power and life in revelation, and revelation
must find its own external form and beauty in reason. The perfection and
glory of each consists in the living union and consentaneous development
of both.

If we teach absurdity, it is worse than idle to enforce submission by
arrogant and lordly denunciations of human pride, or of "carnal reason."
And we shall always find, indeed, that when a theologian or a philosopher
begins by abusing and vilifying human reason, he either has some absurdity
which he wishes us to swallow, or he wishes to be excused from believing
anything in particular. Thus, the dogmatism of the one and the scepticism
of the other unite in trampling human reason under foot; the one, to erect
an empire of absurdity, and the other, to erect an empire of darkness upon
its ruins. It should be the great object of all our labours to effect a
reunion and harmony between revelation and reason, whose "inauspicious
repudiations and divorces" have so long "disturbed everything in the great
family of mankind."(194)

Chapter III.

The Sufferings Of Christ Reconciled With The Goodness Of God.

O blessed Well of Love! O Flower of Grace!
O glorious Morning Starre! O Lampe of Light!
Most lively Image of thy Father's face,
Eternal King of Glorie, Lord of Might,
Meeke Lambe of God, before all worlds behight,
How can we thee requite for all this good?
Or who can prize that thy most precious blood?--SPENSER.

In the preceding chapter we have endeavoured to show that natural evil or
suffering is not inconsistent with the goodness of God. We were there led
to see that God, although he never chooses moral evil, often imposes
natural evil, or suffering, in order to secure the well-being of the
world. Of this general principle, the sufferings and death of Chr