not have permitted any agent to have herein perverted them? The objection has in it a variety, that ought to be considered in several parts, if we would fully and truly answer it.

CHAP. X.

The objection last stated, considered and refuted.

THE objection above stated, will, I think, require us to consider,

I. Whether it can be reasonable that our first parents should be permitted to be tempted, by any being of a superior intelligence above themselves, in any manner whatsoever: but if we determine this in the negative, how greatly may we err, not seeing sufficiently into the creation of God.

He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe;
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets, and what other suns,
What varied being peoples ev'ry star,

May tell why heav'n made all things as they are.
But of this frame, the bearings and the ties,
The strong connexions, nice dependancies;-

POPE.

The knowledge of them may not lie within our reach; and we may therefore determine very wrong concerning

much of what we can only partially consider in forming our judgment.

The circle of our own agency, wonderfully operating

over and by the powers of the creatures beneath us, though, in all they do, they have an intention of their own, distinct from us, may reasonably argue to us, that,

When the proud steed shall know why man restrains
His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains;
*Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend
His action's, passion's, being's, use and end:
Why doing, suff'ring, check'd, impell'd—

POPE.

powers

of

An analogy to one another runs through the
all intelligences in creation. The universe is but one
whole in the hand of God;. we are not independent
principals, unconnected with others. Rather, the vari
ous spheres of action of all the innumerable orders of
intelligent spirits, that exist among the works of the su
preme God, are to have, under his direction and con-
troul, their line, their weight and measure, to affect
and be affected by one another. And the event result-
ing from all, is to afford a true judgment of all; when
all the evil, which may hence have come in, shall have
had its course, and be cast out; and the sum of all be
found the greatest possible good, upon the whole, to
the Creator's glory.

In human works, tho' labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;

In God's, one single can its end produce,
Yet serves to second too some other use:
So man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps, acts second to some sphere unknown;
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal,
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

Pope.

We in no wise see the scene of the demerit of apostate spirits; nor how far it may be requisite they should be permitted to fill up their own measure, within just and wise limitations, (and in such we find the tempter of Eve greatly restrained,) to answer the great ends of the infinite and eternal Providence. Sin, indeed, and death, have thereby come into our present state; and death must reign upon all, until the state we are in be accom plished; but let us

Wait the great teacher, Death,

POPE.

and we shall, in time, be able

To look thro' nature up to nature's God;
Pursue the chain, which links th' immense design,
Joins heav'n and earth, and mortal and divine.

POPE.

We shall then see, beyond what we are now able to conceive, that, whatever hath befallen us, all will display a most amazing height, and depth, and length, and breadth of the wisdom, and power, and goodness, and glory of Him, who will hence bring those, who shall be meet to be partakers of it, through the one man, whom he hath ordained, Jesus Christ, to the kingdom prepared

for man from the foundation of the world; and the wicked, whether they have been men or angels, shall go to their own place.

II. But it may be said; "What if it were fit, and might answer a great end, that an intelligent evil spirit, higher than they, should be permitted to tempt our first parents? Is there not a natural impropriety in supposing that the particular access of such a spirit to them hath been as Moses describes, and that the temptation hath been of that sort which he records? To sup pose that an intellectual spirit, not visible to our first parents, should speak to them, not in a voice that might have been thought his own, but by the tongue of a serpent seen by them; and this to persuade them to do a thing in itself neither good nor evil, to eat of the fruit of a tree, only because God had forbidden them to eat of it; is there any thing, that appears natural in this procedure? Has it the colour of a rational endeavour to bring moral evil into the world? If our adversary, the devil, had been permitted, as he is a spirit, to have had a spiritual access to the minds of our first parents, to suggest to them evil thoughts and evil desires, to fill them by degrees with all uncleanness, to bring them to destruction, both of body and soul-; this would have seemed a reasonable procedure for such a spirit of darkness: he has for ages thus worked, and even still worketh thus, in the children of disobedience. But, to suppose that the Almighty had set, as it were, a spell over our first parents, to require them not to eat of a

Acts xvii. 31. Matth. xxv. 34.

с

Eph. ii. 2.

particular tree; had determined, that whilst they kept within this injunction, no evil spirit should get within them to hurt them; but, if they would be seduced to break through it, that neither they nor their posterity should ever after be able to be proof against the evil one---; does this look like the way of supreme understanding, according to the reason and nature of things, and therefore to be the way of God with man ?"---I have, I think, given this objection all the strength of which it is capable; at least I am sure that I have endeavoured so to do. If I could find words which would express it more advantageously, I would use them; for I take this, in reality, to be the whole hinge upon which all that is to be said against the religion of the Bible can turn. Let us now attentively consider how far we can answer it.

Here the material point to be considered is, whether the particular manner of the temptation objected to, was not, in reality, exactly suited to the œconomy, or manner and measure in which the Creator had made man? God, the divine workmaster, must have so or dered his dispensations, as to be suitable to the measure and nature of his works, for which they were designed. Such as he made man, to such he dispensed, that he

Qualis ab incepto procederet,

HOR.

might have the progress and procedure of his being exactly suited to what were his original native powers and endowments. Had God made man such a being, that a true and right intelligence of the nature of things would, at all times, instantly have occurred to his mind