"ed to belong to him; in particular, you "think it repugnant to his moral justice, "that he should doom to deftruction the « crying or the smiling infants of the Ca"naanites. Why do you not maintain it "to be repugnant to his moral juftice, that "he fhould fuffer crying or smiling in"fants to be swallowed up by an earth

quake, drowned by an inundation, con"fumed by a fire, starved by a famine, or "destroyed by a peftilence? The word of "God is in perfect harmony with his "work; crying or fmiling infants are fub"jected to death in both. We believe "that the earth, at the exprefs command " of God, opened her mouth and swallow"ed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, "with their wives, their fons, and their << little ones. efteem fo repug"nant to God's moral juftice, that you

This you

fpurn, as fpurious, the book in which "the circumftance is related. When Ca << tania, Lima, and Lifbon, were feverally

destroyed by earthquakes, men with "their wives, their fons, and their little "ones, were swallowed up alive:—why "do you not spurn, as fpurious, the book "of nature, in which this fact is certainly "written, and from the perufal of which "you infer the moral justice of God? "You will, probably, reply, that the evils, "which the Canaanites fuffered from the "exprefs command of God, were different " from thofe which are brought on man"kind by the operation of the laws of na"ture.-Different! in what?-Not in "the magnitude of the evil-not in the

fubjects of fufferance-not in the author "of it-for my philofophy, at least, in"structs me to believe that God not only primarily formed, but that he hath

through all ages executed the laws of "nature; and that he will through all eter"nity adminifter them, for the general "happiness of his creatures, whether we can, on every occafion, difcern that end " or not.

"I am far from being guilty of the impiety of queftioning the existence of the "moral juftice of God, as proved either

do

by natural or revealed religion; what I " contend for is fhortly this-that you "have no right, in fairness of reasoning, "to urge any apparent deviation from "moral juftice as an argument against re“vealed religion, because you not urge "an equally apparent deviation from it as "an argument against natural religion: you reject the former and admit the latter, without adverting that they must ftand, or fall together *."

Forbearing to make any comment on the ftyle of the paragraphs I have quoted, I take the liberty to obferve, that when his Lordship would prove there is no difference between the deftruction refulting from a natural event and the destruction executed by the hands of the Ifraelites at the

* See Letters to T. Paine, pages 14, 15, 16,

17, 18.

C 4

command

command of God, and when he, for that end, enumerates several circumstances in which thefe two things agree, he omits one, and that an important one, in which they will be found to differ effentially. Admitting

God to be the author of both, no man can truly affirm the intention to have been the fame in both cafes, till he fhall be intitled to affirm that Calamity and Punishment are fynonymous. But all men confent to dif tinguish between these things. That there are natural punishments I will not deny. When the confcience of our third royal Richard found him out, and the horrible fpectres, of those who had fallen victims to his cruel tyranny, prefented themselves to his imagination*, he may be faid to have endured, not merely a calamity, but a natural punishment. When the plague deftroyed the good Howard, the philanthropist, at Cherfon, it was not a punish

* Whether this be literally the historical truth is of no importance to my argument.

ment,

ment, but a fad calamity. And it is worthy of our confideration, that it is recorded, when a notorious calamity befel fome Galileans, and another fimilar matter happened to certain perfons at Jerusalem, Chrift put the question-Think ye that thefe men were finners above other men? and answered it himself thus, "I tell you, nay." In which determination two opinions feem to be fignified: first, that calamity is not punishment; and, fecondly, that all juft punishment implies fin or crime in the fubject of it. Indeed, I am perfuaded that. both are perfectly agreeable to the general apprehenfions of mankind: for no one, till his ideas of right and wrong were confounded, and till he had " put evil for good, and good for evil,” ever thought that the righteous, or the innocent, were the proper fubje&t of punishment.

Now what is the conduct afcribed to God in the fcripture history, and defended