QUESTION III. 281 QUEST. III.Flow could a holy, a wise, and a righteous God, who is also a Being of infinite Goodness, establish such a Constitution, that all Mankind should derive their Being from such a natural Parent and, legal Representative, whereby.such universal Sinfulness and Misery should in the Event, be spread through allhuman Nature an all following Ages? Answer. If this constitution was not only in itself a wise and a righteous thing in the universal Creator and Governor of the world, but if it was also the effect of goodness in God, as an universal Father of his intelligent creatures, then surely we shall silence all our censuresof it at once. If it was a more probable way, so far as we can see, to secure the continuance of man and his whole race in the image and favour of his Maker, though it happened to have a contrary event by the negligence and faulty conduct of the first man, yet I say, it was a more proper and probable means to secure man in his happiness, then all must confess that this original constitution doth not impeach the holiness, justiceor goodness of God. Now let us enter into particulars, and enquire whether this constitution be not only just and holy, but also good and kind, and most proper and likely to secure innocent roan : Perhaps this will appear ill the following propositions: I. God created man an intelligent and holy creature, but capable of mistake and sin ; a compound being made up of flesh and spirit, or an animal and a mind, with power also to propa- gate his kind in long successive generations. Now that this could not be unjust, will appear by particulars. !. There is no injustice in God in creating such a being as man, a creature capable of mistaking and capable of sinning. What if man was formed with intellectual powers inferior to those of an angel t' Let him remember that even an angel is capable of mistake and sin also: Nor has man any reason to complain that he was not made an angel ; for by the same reason an angel might complain that he was not an archangel : And this sort of unreasonable complaint might upon the same foot have run through all lower orders of being, and would have laid a restraint upon God the Creator, from making any power ranks of intelligent creatures whatsoever. According to this way of arguing, God would never have manifested the rich variety of his wisdom in the vari- ous ranks and degrees of creatures; for no rank of beings but the uppermost could ever have been formed. Nay, it may be doubted, according to this way of arguing, whether any crea- ture at all could be formed : For perhaps the highest creature considered merely in his own natural powers might be capable of mistake and defect in duty. But if it be not an unfit or improper . thing for an almighty God to make anycreature, it is not unfit
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