 the Heavens gather their Clouds and roll their Thunders above, and the Earth begins to quake and open beneath us; when the Air, that seemed so late to be the Breath and Balm of Life, grows pregnant with a Variety of Pests, Plagues and Poisons; when Life itself is found to be no other than the Store-house or Habitation of Death, and that all vegetable and animal Systems include within their Frame, the Principles of inevitable Distemper and Dissolution: When additional to all these natural Mischiefs, I consider the Extent and Empire of moral Evil upon Earth; when I behold the wretched perishable short lived Animal, called Man, for the Value of some Matter of Property as transient as himself, industrious and studious of the Destruction of his Species; when, not content with the Evils that Nature has entailed upon him, Man exerts all his Talents for multiplying and speeding the Means of Perdition to Man; when I see half the World employed in pushing the other Half from the Verge of Existence, and then dropping after in an endless Succession of Malevolence and Misery; I cannot possibly reconcile such Contrasts and Contradictions to the Agency, or even Permission, of the one over ruling Principle of Goodness called GOD.
Could not Omniscience foresee such Consequences, at Creation? Unquestionably, said Mr.
Meekly.
Might he not have ordered Matters so, as to have prevented the Possibility of any Degree of natural or moral Evil in his Universe ?  �  I think he might, my Lord.  �  Why did he not, then, prevent them? to what End could he permit such multiplied Malevolence and Misery among his Creatures ?  �  For Ends, certainly my Lord, infinitely worthy both of his Wisdom and his Goodness.  �  I am desirous it should be so; but cannot conceive, cannot reach the Way or Means of compassing such an Intention.
Can you not suppose, said Mr.
Meekly,
that Evil may be admitted for accomplishing the greater and more abundant Good? May not partial and temporary Malevolence and Misery be finally productive of universal, durable, and unchangeable Beatitude? May not the Universe, even now, be in the Pangs of Travail, of Labour for such a Birth, such a blessed Consummation?
It were, rejoined the Earl, as our
Shakespear
says, it were indeed a Consummation devoutly to be wished. But, might not Omnipotence have brought about a Consummation equally good, without any Intervention of preceding Evil ?  �   Had that been possible, my Lord, it would unquestionably have been effected. But if certain Relations arise between God and his Creatures, and between Man and Man
