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those who were never favoured with the light of revelation should indulge themselves in such abstruse speculations, can be no great wonder; but that they who have access to the original fountain of truth, and can draw from that sacred source the most authentic information on this point, should have recourse to the fallible conjectures of human ingenuity, and should hew out to themselves "cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water,” is a most unaccountable error of judgment, and a strange misapplication of talents, and waste of labour and of time. We are told in the very beginning of the Bible, that he who first brought sin or moral evil into the world, was that great adversary

of

and ingenious one, intituled rgi rău brì và Osian Gaudens Tipagsusium, concerning those whom the Deity is slow in punishing. In this, among other just remarks, he observes," that many things which great generik, and legislators, and statesmen do, are to common observers incomprehensible. What wonder is it then, (says he) if we cannot understand why the gods indict punishment on the wicked, sometimes at an earlier, sometimes at a later period !"

Plut. ed. Xyland. v, 2. p. 549. F.

of the human race, the devil, who first tempted the woman, and she the man, to act in direct contradiction to the commands of their Maker.

This act of disobedience destroyed at once that innocence and purity and integrity of mind, with which they came out of the hands of their Creator; gave an immediate and dreadful shock to their whole moral frame, and introduced into it all those corrupt propensities, and disordered passions, which they bequeathed as a fatal legacy to their descendants; of which we all now feel the bitter fruits, and have, I fear, by our own personal and voluntary transgressions, not a little improved the wretched inheritance we received from our ancestors. This is the true origin of moral evil; and it is expressly confirmed by our Saviour in the parable before us; in which, when the servants of the householder express their surprise at finding tares among the wheat, and ask whence they came, his answer is, An enemy hath done this; and that

enemy,

enemy, our Lord informs us, is the devil; that inveterate, implacable enemy (as the very name of Satan imports) of the human race, the original author of all our calamities, and at this moment the prime mover and great master-spring of all the wickedness and all the misery that now overwhelm the world.

To this account great objections have been made, and no small pains taken to confute, to expose, and to ridicule it. But after all the wit and buffoonery which have been lavished upon it, it may safely be affirmed, and might easily be shown, that it stands on firmer ground, and is encumbered with fewer difficulties, than any other hypothesis that has been yet proposed.

But still, as I have already observed, there remains another very important question to be answered. Why is the wickedness of man, from whatever source it springs, suffered to pass unobserved and unpunished by the Judge of all the earth? Why is not the bold offender stopped

stopped short in his career of vice and iniquity? Why is he permitted to go on triumphantly, without any obstacle to his wishes, to insult, oppress, and harass the virtuous and the good, without the least check or controul, and, as it were, to brave the vengeance of the Almighty, and set at nought the great Governor of the world? Why, in short, in the language of the parable, are the tares allowed to grow up unmolested with the wheat, to choke its vigour, and impede its growth? Why are they not plucked up instantly with an indignant hand, and thrown to the dunghill, or committed to the flames?

This has been a most grievous "stumbling stone, a rock of offence," not only to the unthinking crowd, but to men of serious thought and reflection in every age; and scarce any thing has more perplexed and disturbed the minds of the good, or given more encouragement and audacity to the bad, than the little notice that seems to be taken of the most enormous crimes, and the little distinction

that

that is apparently made between "the wheat and the tares, between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not."

The reflections which these mysterious proceedings are apt to excite even in the best and humblest of men, are most inimitably expressed by the royal Psalmist in the 73d Psalm; where you see all the different turns and workings of his mind laid open without disguise, and all the various ideas and sentiments that successively took possession of his soul in the progress of his inquiry, described in the most natural and affecting manner. "Truly, (says he, with that piety which constantly inspires him,) God is loving to Israel; even unto such as are of a clean heart: nevertheless my feet were almost gone; my treadings had well nigh slipped. And why? I was grieved at the wicked; I do also see the ungodly in such prosperity. For they are in no peril of death, but are lusty and strong. They come in

no

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