QUESTION I. 267 God and under his displeasure, are not such as they came out of the hands of their Creator, who is wise and righteous, holy and good. ` His wisdom, which is all harmony and order, would never suffer him to frame such a vast multitude, suck a whole species of beings under suchwild and innumerable disorders both natural and moral : His holiness would never permit him to create beings with such innate and powerful prin- ciples of iniquity; nor would his infinite goodness allow him to produce a whole rank and order of creatures in such circum- stances of pain, agony, torment and death, if they were to be esteemed his pure, innocent and holy workmanship, just come out of his sacred hands. Can we ever reasonably suppose,that the holy and blessed God would originally design and framea whole world of intelligent and rational creatures in such circumstances, 'as thatevery one of them coming into being, according to the laws of nature, in long successive ages, in different climates, of different tempers and constitutions, under different influences, having greater or lesser advantages for wisdom, virtue, and happiness ; and in ten thousand thousand different stations and conditions of life i I say, can we suppose that they should all break the Iaws of their reason, and defile themselves with sin in greater or less degrees, should all feel their appetites and passions so often contrary to reason, and yet prevailing over It, that they should all so far offend against their Maker, all become guilty in his sight, and be all exposed more or lest to his displeasure, to pain and misery, and mortality, without byte single instance or exception that we know of to the con. trary? "If mankind were such creatures as God at first made them, can we `' suppose that not one man, among so many millions, should make so right and proper an use of his rea- son and conscience as to avoid sin and death? Can we think, that this should be the' universal consequent of their original state and constitution,' as they are framed by the hand of a wise, and holy, and merciful God ? ' This, I say, is such an absurd thing, as no reasonable Min 'can suppose: Surely God made man upright and happy, and all these mischiefs could never come directly from our Creator's hand. Perhaps, here it may be objected again, 'l'hat this universal condemnation of mankind, as it were, by wholesale, and laying them all under such a charge of guilt add wretchedness without exception, is more than our experience or observation will allow.' It is acknowledged that many are now guilty, and many are miserable, though they were born in. nocent, and not degenerate i but still a far greater part of Inca have more moral good than evil in them, and have more plea- sure than they have pain'; and therefore'upon the whole, man- kind must not be pronounced a sinful and a miserable being;
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