And again “How is it consistent with the notion of God’s being universally benevolent, not to have revealed it to all his children, when all had equal need of it? Was it not as easy for him to have communicated it to all nations, as to any one nation or person? Or in all languages, as in one?”[¹]
[¹] Page 196.
Now all this is fully answered, by our author’s own great and fundamental principle.
“For if the relations between things and persons, and the things resulting from thence, be the sole rule of God’s actions,”[¹] as he expressly affirms; then the sole rule or reason of God’s revealing any thing to any men, at any time, must have its fitness resulting from the divine fore-knowledge of the effects of such a revelation, at such a time, and to such persons. If God does not act thus, he does not act according to the relation betwixt a fore-knowing Creator, and his free creatures. But if he does act according to a fitness resulting from this relation, and makes, or does not make revelations, according to his own fore-knowledge of the fitness of times and persons for them; then to ask how a God, always equally good, can make a revelation at any time, and not make the same at all times, is as absurd as to ask, how a God, always equally good, can reveal that at one time, because it is a proper time for it, and not reveal it at every other time, tho’ improper for it.
[¹] Page 28.
* God’s goodness, directed by his own fore-knowledge of the fitness of times, and of the state and actions of free agents, deferred a certain revelation to the time of Tiberius, because he fore-saw it would then be an act of the greatest goodness, and have its best effects upon the world: to ask therefore, what reason can be assigned, why so good a revelation was not sooner, or even from the beginning made to the world, is asking, why God should act, according to his own fore-knowledge of the state and actions of free agents, and order all things, according to a fitness resulting from such a fore-knowledge?
These questions suppose, that if God shewed his goodness to mankind by a revelation at such time, he must be wanting in goodness before that time, because he did not make it sooner; whereas if his deferring it till such a time, was owing to his fore-knowledge of the actions and state of free agents, and because it would then have its best effects, then God is proved to be equally good before he made it, for this very reason, because he did not make it before its proper time: and he had been wanting in goodness, if he had not deferred it till that time.
Now this appealing to God’s fore-knowledge of the state and actions of free agents, as the cause of all that is particular in the time and manner of any revelation, and deducing its fitness from thence, cannot be said to be begging the question, but is resolving it directly according to the rule, which this writer lays down for God to act by: that “the relations between things and persons, and the fitness resulting from thence, must be the sole rule of God’s actions.”
But if this is the sole rule, then God in giving any revelation, must act as the relation betwixt a fore-knowing Creator and his free creatures requires; and his actions must have their fitness resulting from his fore-knowledge of the state and actions of free agents. And if this is God’s sole rule, then to ask why this or that revelation only at such a time, is to ask why God only does that which is fit for him to do? And to ask, why not the same revelation at any other time, is asking why God does not do that, which it is not fit for him to do?
This writer asks, “How it is consistent with the notion of God’s being universally benevolent, not to have revealed it to all his children, who had equal need of it?” But if they had equal need of it, yet if they were not equally fit for it, but prepared only to have their guilt increased by it, and so be exposed to a greater damnation; then God’s goodness to them is manifest, by withholding such information from them, and reserving it for those that would be made happier by it.