and rudely constituted. The influence of
whatever good instructions he may receive, is counteracted by a
combination of opposite influences almost constantly acting on him. He is
essentially and inevitably unapt to be powerfully acted on by what is
invisible and future. In addition to all which, there is the intervention
and activity of the great tempter and destroyer. In short, his condition
is such that there is no hope of him, but from a direct, special operation
on him, of what we denominate grace. _Is_ it not so? _Are_ we not
convinced? _Is_ it not the plain doctrine of Scripture? _Is_ there not
irresistible evidence, from a view of the actual condition of the human
world, that no man can become _good_ in the Christian sense,--can become
fit for a holy and happy place hereafter,--but by this operation _ab
extra_? But this is arbitrary and discriminative on the part of the
sovereign Agent, and independent of the will of man. And how awfully
evident is it, that this indispensable operation takes place only on a
comparatively small proportion of the collective race!

"Now this creature, thus constituted and circumstanced, passes a few
fleeting years on earth, a short, sinful course, in which he does often
what, notwithstanding his ignorance and ill-disciplined judgment and
conscience, he knows to be wrong, and neglects what he knows to be his
duty; and, consequently, for a greater or less measure of guilt, widely
different in different offenders, deserves punishment. But ENDLESS
PUNISHMENT! HOPELESS MISERY, _through a duration to which the enormous
terms above imagined will be absolutely_ NOTHING! I acknowledge my
_inability_ (I would say it reverently) _to admit this belief, together
with a belief in the divine goodness_,--the belief that 'God is love,' that
his tender mercies are over all his works. Goodness, benevolence, charity,
as ascribed in supreme perfection to him, cannot mean a quality foreign to
all human conceptions of goodness: it must be something analogous in
principle to what himself has defined and required as goodness in his
moral creatures; that, in adoring the divine goodness, we may not be
worshipping an 'unknown God.' But, if so, how would all our ideas be
confounded, while contemplating him bringing, of his own sovereign will, a
race of creatures into existence, in such a condition that they certainly
will and _must_--_must_ by their nature and circumstances--go wrong, and be
miserable, unless p