create darkness: I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things."

P

These words are addrefled to Cyrus, who was not then born: But was to arife in the eastern world, to conquer the Babylonians, and to release the Jews from their captivity, and order the temple and Jerufalem to be rebuilt. He was born and educated where the God of Ifrael was not known, and where they were taught, that the good being who was the author of all good, was not the only power that reigned; but that there was an evil being or principle, which reigned fo far as to counterac the good principle or being, and introduce all the evil, both moral and natural, which takes place; and of which he is the proper cause or author. The good principle, or being, they reprefented by light, and worshipped him before the fun or fire, confidering it the brightest emblem of him, and in a peculiar manner poffeffed or in habited by him. The evil being, and the evil of which they fuppofed him to be the cause and author, they reprefented by, and called darknefs. There is an evident reference to thefe falfe and hurtful notions, in which Cyrus was educated, in the addrefs to him, part of which has now been cited; in which JEHOVAH declares them to be great and dangerous delufions, and repeatedly afferts, that he is the only Supreme God. "I am the Lord, and there is none elfe; there is no other God befides me. I am the Lord, and there is none befides me." And then he afferts that he is the caufe of all that which they afcribed to the evil being, which they believed in, and feared. ་ "I form light, and create darkness ; I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all thefe

things."+

M 3

Does

Ifaiah, xlv. 5, 6, 7.

+ "The Magians began firft in Perfia, and there, and in India, were the only places where this fect was propagated, and there they re

Does not God, in these words exprefsly take to himfelf this character, and affert that he is the origin and cause of all evil? If fo;' then we have no reason to be afraid to think and speak of him as fuch: but may confider ourselves as promoting true piety, and the honour of the only true God, while we believe and affert, that all evil is the confequence of his determination and will, that it shall exift, and is wholly dependent upon it; as without his will that it fhould take place, it could no No one can more exift, than any thing else whatsoever. devife ftronger terms or language to exprefs this, than How this apthat which is here ufed by God himself.

pears to be confiftent with the infinite wifdom and holiness of the divine character, and most honourable to God, has been repeatedly fhown, in what has been already faid on this fubject: and therefore it need not be again repeated here.

But it has been faid by many, that moral evil is not meant by darkness and evil in this paffage; but only natural evil, or calamity and pain. Of this God may be, and is, the cause, but not of fin. To this the following reply may be made.

1. The main unto this day. Their chief doćtrine was, that there were too principles, one of which was the cause of all good, and the other the caufe of all evil. That the former is represented by light, and the other by darknefs, as their trueft symbols, and that of the composition of these two, all things in the world are made. Therefore when Xerxes prayed for that evil upon his enemies, that it might be put into the minds of all of them to drive their best and bravest men from them, as the Athenians had Themittocles, he addreffed his prayer to the evil god of the Perfians, and not to their good god. The good god they always worshipped before the fire, as being the cause of light, and especially before the fun, as being in their opinion the perfectek fire, and cauling the perfecteft light. Ifaiah xlv. 5,6,7. I am the Lord, and there is none elfe; there is no God befides me; I girded thee, though thou haft not known me, that they may know from the rifing of the fun, and from the west, that there is none befides me. I form light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things. These words being directed to Cyrus king of Persia, must be understood as spoken in reference to the Perfian fect of the Magians, who then held light and darknefs, or good and evil to be the fupreme beings." Dr. Prideaux Connection. ix, Edit. p. 252, 253, 304.

1. The opinion to which this paffage has reference, had respect to moral evil as well as natural; yea, this was chiefly in view, as the former is the origin and occafion of the latter. And the evil being was confidered as having the direction and difpofal of moral evil; fo that it originated from him as the caufe. Therefore if this was defigned to be excluded in the paffage before us, which is spoken to Cyrus, and has reference to that notion in the eaft, refpecting the cause of moral evil, as well as natural, it must have been done by an express exception : For without this, and as it now ftands, Cyrus, and every one elfe, must confider it as included and intended, as well as natural evil. Nor can it be now excluded, without. doing violence to the text; and at the fame time really gaining nothing by it: For if it be allowed that moral evil is intended here, as well as natural, no more is really afferted than is expreffed in many other paffages in the Bible, as every one may be fenfible, who will attend to what has been before produced from the fcriptures, under this head,

2. If it be granted that natural evil only is directly intended here; yet this will neceffarily involve moral evil; for a great part of the former, which takes place among men, is the natural and neceffary refult of the latter. It is effected by the exercife of men's felfishness and lufts. "From whence come wats and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lufts, that war in your members ?"* "But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not confumed one of another." If therefore the divine Being has no direction. and government of the wills and evil conduct of men, he cannot be faid to create or produce, or even to regulate and fuperintend natural evil. If God does not will, direct and order a war, which is wholly carried on by M 4

the

the exercife of men's lufts; how can he be faid to direct, will and order the attendant or confequent natural evil? How does he caufe or produce the one, more than the other? In this view, we may turn to the words of the prophet Amos. "Shall there be evil in the city, and the Lord hath not done it ?" Here evil is mentioned without reftriction, confining it to natural evil: But if it be fuppofed that natural evil is particularly meant here; yet this implies moral evil: as the natural evil, the calamity, fufferings and diftreffes which take place in a city,are chiefly the concomitants or fruits of vice and folly. And if the Moft High has no concern or hand in directing, ordering and producing the latter; how can he be faid to produce or effect the former; or how can it be faid to be done by him, fince it is the neceffary attendant and fruit of the fin of men; and it is really done by them, and they are as really the cause of natural evil, as they are of their own fin, as the former is involved in the latter?

3. It must farther be observed, that if natural evil only, be meant by evil in the above paffages in Ifaiah and Amos; yet there is as great, and the fame difficulty, in accounting for God's creating and doing this, as there is in accounting for his determining and willing the existence of moral evil: Or the fame objections, lie, and may be urged with as much reason, against God's willing, caufing and producing natural evil, which are, or can be, made against his willing that moral evil fhould exift.

If this propofition can be demonftrated, and made plain to every one who will allow himself to think calmly on the fubject; then all the objections which have been made against God's foreordaining whatsoever comes to pass, and all that is neceffarily implied in this, will fall to the ground; and the ways and labour which have been taken to conftrue the fcriptures mentioned above, fo as not to imply that God is, in any fenfe, the origin

and

and cause of moral evil, left they should be understood in a fenfe difhonourable to him, will appear to be needlefs, and unreasonable. Let this matter then, be carefully confidered.

Natural evil is as really contrary to infinite goodness, as moral evil is; infinite goodness cannot be reconciled to it, confidered in and by itself, but is infinitely oppofed to it: And to fuppofe that God wills and caules it to take place, for its own fake, and becaufe he delights in it, in itself confidered, is as difhonourable to him, and does as much impeach and deny his goodnels; as to fuppofe that he wills and causes moral evil, for its own fake, and because he is pleased with it, and delights in it. Yea, to fay that God caufes natural evil to take place, for its own fake, and because he is pleased with it, in itself confidered, is to charge him with moral evil, or that which is infinitely contrary to infinite holiness or goodness, as really as to fay that he causes moral evil because he is pleafed with moral evil, as fuch.

Therefore, if when God fays in the paffage under confideration, "I create darkness and evil, I the Lord, do all thefe things," this is to be understood of natural evil only; it Cannot mean, that God caufes this evil, for its own sake ; for this neceffarily fuppofes him to be an evil being; but he Caules it to take place, he creates it, for fome good end, and for the fake of the good, of which the evil is the ocafion or means; and without which evil, the good could not poffibly take place; fo that on the whole, there is much more good or happinefs, than could have been, had there been no natural evil. If natural evil could anfwer no good end; and were not neceffary, in order to this, it could not be created or made to take place, or be permitted to take place, by an infinitely good Being who as the difpofal of all things: But if it be neceffary to anfwer the beft end, and to promote and produce the

greatest