Would that father be
called good, reasonable, just and kind, who put a sharp-edged and
dangerous knife into the hand of a playful, and imprudent child, whom
he before knew to be imprudent, and punished him during the remainder
of his life for cutting himself with it? Would that prince be called
just and merciful, who, not regarding any proportion between the
offence and the punishment, should perpetually exercise his power of
vengeance, over one of his subjects who, being drunk, had rashly
offended against his vanity, without causing any real harm to him,
especially, when the prince had taken pains to make him drunk? Should
we consider as almighty a monarch, whose dominions were in such
confusion and disorder, that, except a small number obedient servants,
all his subjects were every instant despising his laws, defeating his
will and insulting his person? Let ecclesiastics then acknowledge, that
their God is an assemblage of incompatible qualities, as
incomprehensible to their understanding as to mine. No: they say, in
reply to these difficulties, that wisdom and justice in God, are
qualities so much above or so unlike those qualities in us, that they
bear no relation or affinity towards human wisdom and justice. But,
pray how am I to form to myself an idea of the divine perfection,
unless it has some resemblance to those virtues which I observe in my
fellow creatures and feel in myself? If the justice of God is not the
same with human justice, why lastly do any men pretend to announce it,
comprehend and explain it to others?"
POSTSCRIPT.
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