omething. They will either be disposed by
wisdom, or they will be disposed by chance; that is, they will be disposed
by blind and undesigning causes, if that were possible, and could be
called a disposal. Is it not better that the good and evil which happen in
God's world should be ordered, regulated, bounded, and determined by the
good pleasure of an infinitely wise being, than to leave these things to
fall out by chance, and to be determined by those causes which have no
understanding and aim?... It is in its own nature fit, that wisdom, and
not chance, should order these things."(82)

In our opinion, if there be no other alternative, it is better that sin
should be left to chance, than ascribed to the high and holy One. But why
must sin be ordered and determined by the supreme Ruler of the world, or
else be left to chance? Has the great metaphysician forgotten, that there
may be such things as men and angels in the universe; or does he mean,
with Spinoza, to blot out all created agents, and all subordinate agency,
from existence? If not, then certainly God may refuse to be the author of
sin, without leaving it to blind chance, which is incapable of such a
thing. He may leave it, as we conceive he has done, to the determination
of finite created intelligences. If sin is to come into the world, as come
it evidently does, it is infinitely better, we say, that it should be left
to proceed from the creature, and not be made to emanate from God himself,
the fountain of light, and the great object of all adoration. It is
infinitely better that the high and holy One should do nothing either by
his wisdom or by his decree, by his providence or his power, to help this
hideous thing to raise its head amid the inconceivable splendours of his
dominion.

Such speculations as those of Edwards and Leibnitz, in our opinion, only
reflect dishonour and disgrace upon the cause they are intended to
subserve. It is better, ten thousand times better, simply to plant
ourselves upon the moral nature of man, and the irreversible dictates of
common sense, and annihilate the speculations of the atheist, than to
endeavour to parry them off by such invented quibbles and sophisms. They
give point, and pungency, and power to the shafts of the sceptic. If we
meet him on the common ground of necessity, he will snap all such quibbles
like threads of tow, and overwhelm us with the floods of irony and scorn.
For, in the memorable words of Sir William Ha