heart, a bright and heavenly light irradiates the understanding. Let man but receive, not into his head only, but into his heart, the perception that his God and Heavenly Father is a Being of infinite love and goodness, as is declared throughout the Holy Scriptures—and he will find little difficulty in explaining and reconciling such passages as speak of God as angry, and as the Creator of evil, and the like: he will easily perceive the modified sense in which such expressions are to be understood. He will find little difficulty in explaining them, so as to reconcile them with the other portraitures of the Divine nature. Here, for instance, in the same passage it is said, that God "creates darkness." But in what sense does he create darkness? Darkness is not a positive thing,—it is the mere absence of light. The meaning simply is, then,—not that any darkness flows from God, or from the Sun, but that the Creator has so constituted the material universe, that when the earth turns herself away from the sun, the part so averted, cannot have the light of the sun, and consequently is in that temporary state of absence of light, which we call darkness. In an analogous sense, the Creator has so formed man, that by averting his thoughts and affections from God, he brings himself into a state of mental darkness, disorder, and unhappiness. And in this sense, the Creator may be said to be the Author of evil—having so constituted man that evil was possible to him. Yet, in a true sense, God is not the author of evil, because He gave man all power to refrain from evil if he would,—and expressly taught and commanded him, not thus to turn himself away from his Maker, warning him of the consequences if he did. But man disobeyed, and so brought evil on him-
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