Lie in his bosom, like children: he made them for this purpose only,—
Only to love, and be loved again. He breathed forth his Spirit
Into the slumbering dust, and, upright standing, it laid its
Hand on its heart, and felt it was warm with a flame out of heaven.—Tegner.
The attentive reader has perceived before this time, that one of the fundamental ideas, one of the great leading truths, of the present discourse is, that a necessary holiness is a contradiction in terms,—an inherent and utter impossibility. This truth has shown us why a Being of infinite purity does not cause virtue to prevail everywhere, and at all times. If virtue could be necessitated to exist, there seems to be no doubt that such a Being would cause it to shine out in all parts of his dominion, and the blot of sin would not be seen upon the beauty of the world. But although moral goodness cannot be necessitated to exist, yet God has attested his abhorrence of vice and his approbation of virtue, by the dispensation of natural good and evil, of pleasure and pain. Having marked out the path of duty for us, he has made such a distribution of natural good and evil as is adapted to keep us therein. The evident design of this arrangement is, as theologians and philosophers agree, to prevent the commission of evil, and secure the practice of virtue. The Supreme Ruler of the world adopts this method to promote that moral goodness which cannot be produced by the direct omnipotency of his power.
Hence, it must be evident, that although God desires the happiness of his rational and accountable creatures, he does not [pg 234] bestow happiness upon them without regard to their moral character. The great dispensation of his natural providence, as well as the express declaration of his word, forbids the inference that he desires the happiness of those who obstinately persist in their evil courses. If we may rely upon such testimony, he desires first the holiness of his intelligent creatures, and next their happiness. Hence, it is well said by Bishop Butler, that the “divine goodness, with which, if I mistake not, we make very free in our speculations, may not be a bare, single disposition to produce happiness, but a disposition to make the good, the faithful, the honest man happy.”[160]
He desires the holiness of all, that all may have life. This great truth is so clearly and so emphatically set forth in revelation, and it so perfectly harmonizes with the most pleasing conceptions of the divine character, that one is filled with amazement to reflect how many crude undigested notions there are in the minds of professing Christians, which are utterly inconsistent with it. “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live. Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?” This solemn asseveration that God desires not the death of the sinner, but that he should turn from his wickedness and live, one would suppose should satisfy every mind which reposes confidence in the divine origin of revelation. And yet, until the minds of men are purged from the films of a false philosophy and sectarian prejudice, they seem afraid to look at the plain, obvious meaning of this and other similar passages of Scripture. They will have it, that God desires the ultimate holiness and happiness of only a portion of mankind, and the destruction of all the rest; that upon some he bestows his grace, causing them to become holy and happy, and appear forever as the monuments of his mercy; while from some he withholds his saving grace, that they may become the fearful objects of his indignation and wrath. Such a display of the divine character seems to be equally unknown to reason and to revelation.