and honorable sense of the term. Denying the fact of moral evil, he was properly a fatalist. But his general integrity is well attested.1 and incomprehensible" the But he inveighs most earthe derivation of eternal evil Of the Calvinist, exalting the He regarded as "inexplicable origin of any evil, more or less. nestly, not to say ably, against from any form of monotheism. divine power, he demands why a Being, freely creating the materials of a universe for His own glory, must allow so much evil. Of the Arminian, extolling the divine goodness, he asks why created free agents must be ever miserable in spite of that goodness. Of the Origenist, who subjected the freely acting creature, and through him the Creator, to an eternal vicissitude of evil, he asks if an alone supreme God must permit even this. "See, then," he says, "how reason is compelled to acknowledge that two opposite causes, the one benign, the other malign, have determined the condition of created beings." "This is the way, the Manichæan would conclude, that we exculpate the Good Principle; He has been crossed by the Evil Principle. Whoever has a companion, has a master." 2 Confessing the intrinsic absurdity of Manichæism, and yet affirming that it was, as a hypothesis, preferable to any existing theology, Bayle found opponents on every side. Of the replies which were made to his argument, seven are here worthy of notice. Le Clerc, like Archelaus in debate with Manes, distinctly abandoned the defence of the eternity of evil, and for argument's sake assumed that all men might finally be saved; 1 "Pierre Bayle appears," says Tennemann, "not to have been so intimately convinced as Glanville, of the possibility of a true philosophy, although he contributed more to open a way to the discovery of it, by his ingenious attacks on the Dogmatic Systems, and by showing that Scepticism can not be the ultimate end of Reason. This great scholar and honorable man possessed not so much a profound spirit of philosophic research, as a quick sagacity and critical judgment. . . He was a firm and sincere friend of Truth, and succeeded in combating the prejudices, the errors, the follies, and especially the superstitions of intolerance, with the arms of reasoning, of erudition, and of a lively wit." Hist. of Phil. § 352. Compare Hase, Church Hist. §§ 307, 411. 2 Réponse aux Questions d'un Provincial, Part I. c. 77. adding in a way not designedly cool: "If such an one can silence the Manichæan, what could not they do who should reason infinitely better than the disciples of Origen?" But why, Bayle retorts, is the Origenist chosen for this argument? How is the orthodox opinion served by opposing one false scheme to another? Why not bring forward one of those who could reason infinitely better? 2 The most famous reply was that of Leibnitz, which has rendered classic the name he gave it—"Theodicy." After the manner of Lactantius, he makes evil a condition of the highest good. "There are some disorders in the parts (of the universe) which marvelously heighten the beauty of the whole; as certain discords, skilfully employed, render the harmony more exquisite." Yet he will not say that evil is either a divine object or a divine method. "Evil has come par concomitance. This is illustrated in our system; for we have shown that the evil which God has permitted was not an object of His will as end or as means, but only as condition, since it must be enveloped in the best system." And of an infinite number of possible systems conceived by the divine mind, Leibnitz regards the world as it is, of which evil is an essential part, to be the best. This view is the optimism with which it is so difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile the notion of guilt. His earnestness Leibnitz's system was perhaps too ingenious. has been doubted by able critics. These doubts, which were enentertained by Des Maizeaux, Le Clerc, and Poiret, are supported by a letter of the chancellor Pfaff, a friend of Leibnitz, of whom he had inquired what he thought of his book. Pfaff suggested that as Le Clerc had endeavored simply to silence the Manichæan by an assumed argument, so Leibnitz had attempted a plausible reply which should offend no party. Leibnitz answered: "You have hit the nail on the head. And I wonder that no one here- tofore has discovered my art. 1 Parrhasiana, I. 303. 2 Réponse aux Questions d'un Provincial, Part II. c. 172. * Abrégé de la Controversie, c. 5. 4 Théodicée, Part III. § 336. "2 their skill in making hypotheses. You, who are a theologian, will act the theologian in refuting errors." And the chancellor expresses his doubts whether Leibnitz did much respect the orthodox theology. Werdermann, discussing the question of Leibnitz's seriousness, claims for him the absence of dogmatism, and the benefit of the mental reservations: "with all respect to what is better," and "if any one understands more correctly." 2 The real opinion of Leibnitz respecting future punishment is not easily determined. The following passage indicates a doctrine of purgatory: "The time of purgation," he says, "is as long as the soul needs, to understand properly the evil of its original sin; wherefore that pain consists in the vision of sin, evil, and the Devil, as the joy of heaven consists in the vision of God and of good." He held a theory of infinite guilt, of which hereafter. He held that the heathen who die not in mortal sin are sent neither to heaven nor hell, but by the grace of Christ are changed from enemies to friends of God. "It is not Pelagian to say that they escape hell by their own powers, but only to say that they gain heaven thus." The remarkable essay of Lessing entitled: "Leibnitz on eternal punishments," gives a view of the subject not unlike that of Swedenborg, which was perhaps Leibnitz's own. Second in fame of the replies to Bayle is that of William King, Archbishop of Dublin. His views of eternal misery appear in the following passage: "The matter is yet in debate whether it were better to be miserable than not to be at all, and 1 Acta Eruditorum, 1728, pp. 126, 127. 2 Théodicée, Theil III. § 39. We should state that Mr. Eymery, in his edition of Leibnitz's Systema Theologicum, Paris 1819, gives a letter of the author to Thomas Burnet explaining the occasion of his Théodicée, with the remark: "As I have meditated on this subject from my youth, I believe that I have discussed it thoroughly;" and also a passage from a letter to Toland, which says: "I examine all the difficulties of M. Bayle, and try to resolve them at the same time that I do justice to his merit." The reader must judge if the letters decide any thing. 3 Leibnitiana, lxxix, lxxxviii; Opp. VI. 310, 311. 4 Occasioned by the discovery of his preface to Soner's "Demonstratio theol. et philos., quod æterna impiorum supplicia non arguunt Dei justitiam, sed injustitiam." there are arguments on both sides. It is manifest that those evils which overbalance the desire and happiness of life put an end to life itself, and that such objects as are hurtful to the sense at length destroy it. The same seems to hold good in thinking substances, viz: these things which affect the mind to a higher degree than it is able to bear, may in like manner put an end to it. For they may be supposed either to drive us to madness, or so far disorder the thinking faculty as to make us think of nothing at all." He goes on to speak of the lost as, perhaps, in a kind of phrensy, being in fact miserable, yet refusing to give up the cause of their woe, "being still wise in their own opinion, and as it were pleasing themselves in their misery.”1 The most elaborate reply was that of Crousaz. He was a statesman as well as a philosopher, and his work shows, along with high moral feeling, more of good sense than most replies, if we except his approval of Le Clerc's method. He insists much upon the utter unreasonableness and wickedness of the sinner, in preferring evil to infinite good. He says nothing of any use or advantage to accrue to the saints, from the woes of the lost." God makes no account of them or of their evils." And their sufferings are not inflicted, but they consist mainly of self-reproach in view of their eternal loss. But he reduces the number of the lost far below the common estimate; censuring as pitiless those doctors who reckon among them "an infinity of persons who would be such more by their misfortune than their fault ;" and, replying to Bayle's argument that Satan had a great victory in the deluge, he deems that the temporal evils and destructions of the antediluvians, and of the Hebrews who perished in the wilderness, are their punishment. They are not of Satan's host. 2 In the Boyle Lecture, allusion is made to Bayle by Dr. John Clarke. He leaves the way clear for those who think there is no immortality in the second death. 1 Origin of Evil, Appendix, § 2. 2 Examen du Pyrrhonisme, 1733. pp. 553, 554, 558, 572, 574. "To this place (Tophet) is that hell which is prepared for those degenerate sinners, who are beyond all means of conviction and reformation, compared. Returning to Bayle's own time, we find Jacquelot, who had been a Calvinist, pressed with the special difficulties of the foreordination of eternal evil, suspected of favoring Arminianism. He confesses that the thought of eternal punishments appals the imagination; and that one is not only embarrassed, but frightened by it. He supposes the lost will be the cause of their own torment, subsisting eternally deprived of the glory of the blessed.1 imper And of all who replied to Bayle, so far as we know, Jurieu, "the Goliath of the Protestants," alone stood firm; and he stood up more than straight. His absolutist views are most boldly stated in his "Judgment of the rigid and the lax methods of explaining Providence and Grace." Ile says: "The idea of sovereign perfection excludes what are called velleities, fect volitions, which are expressed by an: 'I would.' I should put creatures in a sovereign dependence on God. But, it is said, you thus put the creature in a state of great imperfection. I confess it. But the idea of the infinitely perfect Being obliges me to make a sacrifice of all creatures." As shadow depends upon substance, so the creature upon God. "It is Ie who made Absalom lay with his father's concubines. He commanded Shimei to curse David." "Man is only an instrument in His hands." "God is the only being properly so called. God has over His creatures a power without bounds, and unlimited right, to make of them whatever seems to Him good. . . If God had not permitted sin, He would have manifested neither the infinite hatred which He has for sin, nor His justice, nor His mercy. There would have been in the world neither laws, nor penalties, nor rewards, nor Paradise, nor Hell. And it is certain that these things enter into the idea of a perfect world, which should contribute most to the glory of Which, as it agrees in other circumstances, so does it likewise in this, that it will be eternal. Which word we find used in Scripture in various senses, but especially in these two; either to signify the whole duration of the existence of any being or thing, in any particular state; or else to signify the whole state itself, in which that person or thing exists. Each of which may be applied to that punishment which is threatened to the wicked in a future state."-Cause and Origin of Moral Evil, Boyle Lecture Sermons, III. 274 1 Conformité de la Raison avec la Foi, pp. 205, 215, 220. |