DIVINE JUSTICE CONSIDERED.

Extract of a Letter to the Author of "Letters on the Religion
Essential to Man."

ALL

LL men are in their own minds convinced, or if you will, persuaded of this truth; viz. that unjust men cannot finally escape unpunished. -to this they confine the idea they have of justice, which they know more by its effects, than by itself.

It would however greatly concern us to know justice in its origin; we should perhaps find there the solution of a difficulty, which arises here very naturally.

It is said, that truth, goodness, and even justice, require that God should distribute the rewards he has promised; and that he cannot dispense with doing it. But it is asked, whether he could not forbear to punish? whether it is not in his power to shew mercy and pardon the guilty?

To this it is answered, that God is obliged by his justice to execute his threatenings, as well as to fulfil his promises. But is it not evident, that this answer is not satisfactory, and that it is begging the question? for it is allowed to be just, that crimes should be punished. But if God cannot dispense with inflicting punishments, we ask the reason of this necessity?

I believe, Sir, you will agree with ine, that no satisfactory answer has yet been made to this question.

ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING QUERY.

I THINK your remark is very just. Nothing is better known than justice in its most glaring effects, and nothing is less undertood than justice, considered in itself.

It may be said, that it is not necessary for man to know the nature' thereof, and that it is sufficient for him not to mistake its effects. This would certainly be sufficient, was it not probable, that his being ignorant of the cause, may at last occasion his mistaking the effects of it: this appears from the difficulty you propose which I need not repeat.

Justice may be considered in various respects. We have elsewhere observed, that justice is no more than perfect equity, and that equity signifies equality or proportion. This way of considering it is the easiest, and the nearest: at the same time, it is founded upon truth; and if men always considered it in this light, they would not conceive a false notion of it.

Let us endeavour to trace the thing a little higher, and consider what justice is essentially, or what can be the cause of it. Let us first observe, that it is an essential property of a wise being to do nothing in vain From thence we may conclude, that the Author of nature must have designed the different faculties with which he has endowed man for different uses, which concur in perfecting the whole: we may likewise

conclude, that when the faculties are applied to other uses, order is thereby overturned, and still more so, when they are the noblest faculties of the mind which are misapplied.

A comparison will not be improper here. The human body is so framed, that all the parts of it have their several uses; their order and the subserviency of them to each other, bears a relation to these uses: This order is essential, not only to the beauty, but likewise to the well being of the body; and as soon as this order suffers any change, that well heing ceases; there arises a painful sentiment, which is a certain sign that some of the parts are disordered.

From hence it is easy to conclude, that pain is only a consequence of disorder. Methinks it might likewise be concluded, that disorder cannot be introduced into the faculties of the mind, without raising in it a painful sentiment.

Upon taking a nearer view of this matter, we shall find that if it was otherwise all nature would be destroyed.

Let us suppose that well being is not the consequence of order, and that pain does not proceed from disorder; how should we know when the disorder begins, or be induced to employ the means of preventing the progress of it?

Nay, further, without the connection that subsists between pain and disorder, men could not discern the difference between order and disorder; nothing would induce him to prefer one to the other.

It is objected, that the beauty of one, and the deformity of the other, 'would be sufficient to determine his choice; I answer that the first, the invincible desire which appears in man is after well being; that without the relish he has for what is good, he could have none for what is beautiful.

In effect, the first perception which man has of what is beautiful, and what is deformed is only the agreeable or disagreeable impression which things make upon him; and the preference he gives to what is beautiful, is only the effect of that impression.

From hence I conclude, that man does not perceive the cessation of order, but in proportion as he feels the cessation of well being.

Let us return to the idea of justice; and remove the idea of rigour which is annexed to it. If we suppose that order only prevails among the creatures this rigour would not take place.

In this case justice would be essentially nothing but order itself, and that exact proportion which constitutes the harmony of order, as it does the perfection and happiness of intelligent creatures. Or if you would consider the matter otherwise, justice in God will be the approbation he gives to that order, and the delight he takes in the happiness and perfection of the beings whom he has created.

Let us now suppose, that disorder prevails among the creatures, what will follow from that which we have laid down concerning the nature of justice? Order and harmony ceasing, pain and confusion will be the consequences, the natural and inevitable consequences of it.

And if we go back still farther, and consider what justice may be in God, we shall find that it is invariably the same, as we have supposed This principle is the good wil

which God hears to the creatures, the approbation he gives to order, which constitutes their, perfection and happiness. This approbation, and this good will always subsist; from whence it follows, that God cannot approve of disorder, which renders the same creatures miserable. In that case, justice in God will be a constant will to bring back his creatures to happiness, and that by restoring them to order, which is inseparable from it.

This is essentially rigorous justice, or what appears to us as such by its effects, though in its principle, it is only goodness, directed by wisdom. Here we behold the unity of the divine attributes, all which seem to centre in goodness. From whence we may conclude, that the supreme Being is invariably the same; that the principle, by which he consents to the pains his creatures endure, is in no respect different from that by which he renders them happy.

A question offers itself very naturally in this place, viz. what must be the immediate cause of pain? whether it is inflicted by the Deity himself, or is merely the natural effect of disorder?

I answer, that disorder is essentially the cause of pain, and would alone suffice to render men compleatly miserable. However it is possible, that the means which divine wisdom employs to redress the disorder that is introduced among men, may occasion a more violent degree of pain.

This may be illustrated by a comparison. Every disorder that disturbs the economy of the human body, is accompanied with pain; and is alone sufficient to make a man suffer; but the means employed for removing this disorder, are generally a great addition to his sufferings, The distemper is only cured by things of a contrary nature, which attack the cause of it. The combat becomes more and more violent, in proportion as the cause is more inveterate. It would be superfiuous to carry the comparison further, and still more so, to make the application of it to this subject: the thing speaks of itself.

If we now come to view the difficulty in question, we shall find it intirely removed. It is asked whether God could not dispense with inflicting punishment? We have shewn that pain is an unavoidable consequence of disorder, and is not a punishment inflicted. But grant that these are likewise inflicted punishments, we have shewn that these punishments tend only to restore man to happiness, by reinstating him in order.

If this is not satisfactory, I ask in my turn, whether God can desist from the constant will he has to bring back men to their first end, and to restore all his works to their original state when he saw that they were good!

In this case I would say, that God may desist from being good, since he can disown the wisdom of his works; or rather, I would say, that God can contradict himself; for if he saw, that the works of his wisdom were very good in their original state, he would disown the approbation he had given to them if he did not restore them to it.

Here we see all those ideas of justice, which men have formed to themselves, vanish alway: ideas which they have built upon false premises or groundless suppositions.

They have represented the Deity as a prince, who being personally offended by a great number of his subjects, has a right to punish them all with great rigour. This prince, though justly provoked, may, if he pleases, depart from his rights: he may be led by his clemency to have mercy on the guilty, or to shew favour to whom he pleases, whilst the rest, who are treated according to justice, cannot complain of this distinction.

This comparison which they have made between a weak limited man and the self-sufficient Being, has occasioned their mistake. The former may be hurt, and personally offended by men like himself: the offence concerns him; and in that respect he may be guided by clemency and dispense with punishing them. But if it is once owned, that the self-sufficient Being cannot be offended, to speak accurately, by the injustice of men; if it is true that the injustice only hurts themselves; that pain, which they call punishment, is an unavoidable consequence of it; the comparison and the conclusions which have been drawn from it, fall both to the ground. Such a low and narrow idea of the supreme Being, could only lead to false consequences: and these have greater influence than is imagined upon the sentiments and practice of men: such an idea of justice leads them to conclude tacitly, that they may dispense with being just. For if justice is an arbitrary thing; if God can depart from it by shewing favour to whom he pleases, every one may flatter himself that he will be of that number. And if for this purpose God needs only consult his clemency, a clemency which is unlimited, to what men could he refuse that which depends only on his will! From hence it clearly appears, that our being ignorant of the cause, leads us into mistakes about the effect of it.

IT

BISHOP WATSON'S THOUGHTS OF THE EFFECTS OF LEARNING UPON CHRISTIANITY.

T would be a miracle greater than any we are instructed (in the Scriptures) to believe, if there remained no difficulties (in revelation); if a being with but five scanty inlets to knowledge, separated but yesterday from his mother earth, and to day sinking again into her bosom, could fathom the depths of the wisdom and knowledge of Him which is, which was, and which is to come-the Lord God Almighty, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. We live in a dissolute but enlightened age; the restraints of our religion are but ill suited to the profligacy of our manners; and men are soon induced to believe that system to be false which they wish to find so; that knowledge moreover which spurns with contempt the illusions of fanaticism, and the tyranny of superstition is ofren unhappily misemployed in magnifying every little difficulty attending the proof of the truth of Christianity into an irrefragable argument. of its falsehood, The Christian religion has nothing to apprehend from the strictest investigation of the most learned of its adversaries; it suffers only from the misconceptions of

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sciolists and silly pretenders to superior wisdom: a little learning is far more dangerous to the faith of those who possess it, than ignorance itself. Some I know affect to believe that as the restoration of letters was ruinous to the Romish religion, so the further cultivation of them will be subversive of Christianity itself: of this there is no danger. It may be subversive of the reliques of the church of Rome, by which other churches are still polluted; of persecutions, of anathemas, of ecclesiastical dominion over God's heritage, of all the silly out-works which the pride, the superstition, and the knavery of mankind have erected around the citadel of our faith; but the citadel of itself is founded on a rock, the gates of hell cannot prevail against it; its master builder is God; its beauty will be found ineffable, and its strength impregnable-when it shall be freed from the frippery of human ornaments, and cleared from the rubbish of human bulwarks."

SIR,

ON OATHS.-TO MR. WRIGHT.

See vol. II. p. 337 and 380. and vol. III. p. 353.

WHEN I read your letter, it was with that care and solicitude, connected with that diffidence of my own judgment, which a man ought to have who has often been wrong and frequently mistaken, and imbibed error instead of truth. Being resolved, at the same time, that if I found your arguments so sufficiently conclusive as to convince me that your view of the subject was in strict conformity to the mind and will of God, to make such concessions and acknowledgments, as divine ́truth justly claims of every opposer of the sacred injunctions of Jehovah; attending at the same time to the advice given by the poet, though with some little variation from his words,

"Pause where I must, be candid where I can,
But vindicate the words of God to man."

Your first remarks, which drew my attention, were as follows--" To affirm that when Christ said "Swear not at all," he meant Swear not at all in your Christian assemblies, or one among another as Christians; but you may still continue to swear when called upon by the men of the world, is certainly (as I think) a departure from the most plain and literal sense of the words: consequently, you ought to shew that in the discourse from which the words are taken, Christ is giving his disciples Taws merely for the regulation of their conduct towards each other; not laws for the regulation of their conduct in their intercourse with the men of the world. But how will you be able to prove this, with respect to several precepts contained in the same discourse?"

Here, Sir, I wish you had given the whole of (1 will not say of mine, but of) our Lord's words, as they stand, in connection with his prohibition; particularly the reasons he has given for exclusivelý cautioning his disciples from requiring oaths of each other, viz" for whatsoever is more than these (i. e. yes or no) cometh of evil," or from the evil one.