The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 2 — Section 174

an omnipotent and absolutely good Ruler. The difficulty is greater with regard to moral than physical evil, but it is considerable even with respect to the latter. I. :,HYSIOAL -~-vi:,. "The whole creat_ion groane~h a?d travaileth in pain together until now (Rom. vm. 22). The sum of ammal suffermg 1s so enormous that to dwell on it in thought would make almost any man miserable. Even the sum of human sulferin" 0 is more tha.n we can well bear to think of. Hunger, thirst, sickness accidents blows "l'"<>unds, sores, excessive toil, make the lives of millions a burthen to th;m, anci cause th:m to welcoD?e death. No doubt much of this physical evil is the result of moral evil; but, makmg any reasonable deduction on this score we shall still find in "l'"hat remains-the resultant of the physical conditions of hum~n and animal life-a total that it is agonizing to contemplate. Yet God must, it would seem be rec,arded as the direct Author of this. He has so arranged the world that, with th~ first introduc- tion into_ it of senti~nt life, ~in came in. ;Appet\tes are pains; desires are p~ns; most of the ammal functions are pams ; growth 1s a pain ; decay and decline are pams ; death is mostly an intense pain. Man, as an animal, must have known pain, even had he never known sin-must, as he inc:reased and mul1iplieil, have found the means of sub- sistence grow scanty, and have had to struggle for existence. Can we at all account for this? Much of it, especially the animal suffering, must, we think, remain an inscrut.:i.ble mystery until we are "within the veil." But for the physical evils to which men an, liable we may see sufficient reason. Men are made " perfect through suffer- ings." In overcoming, or in bearing, physical pains, man finds the best training for his moral nature. He learns to be courageous by resisting fear, which is a pain ; to be just by resisting covetousness, which is another pain ; and so on. Great physical evils bring out the greatest moral excellences, as those developed in martyrs and confessors. Altogether, we may pretty clearly see that the moral good produced by the pain which humanity suffers may greatly outweigh the evil of the pain itself in the sight of a moral Being. II. Moll.AL EVIL. Moral evil is certainly not "created" by God, in the same direct way as physical evil. He has not necessitated it by the arrangements of his universe. He has but allowed it to come into existence. .And this he seems to have done in con- sequence of a necessity in the nature of things. Either he must have limited his crea• tion to objects that moved mechanically and were incapable of moral action, or, by creating moral agents, have allowed the possibility of moral evil coming into being. A free agent must be free to do right or to do wrong ; if he is not free to do wrong, he is really not free when he does right. And when millions of free agents were created, each with a power of doing wrong, that some of them would choose to do wrong was to be expected, and was of course foreseen by the Creator. From the fact that, though thus foreseeing the introduction of sin into bis universe, God nevertheless determined to create moral beings, we may gather that it is better in God's sight, and therefore better absolutely, that the two classes of good and bad moral beings should coexist, than that there should be no moral beings at all. Further, moral evil is certainly, lik0 physical evil. a great means of developing higher forms of moral goodness. The virtue that resists contact with vice, the influence of bad example, the seductions of those who make all possible efforts to corrupt it, is of a Ligher form than that untried virtue which has passed through no such ordeal. The religion that leads men to plunge into tl,~ haunts of vice, and give themselves to the reclaiming of the lowest outcasts among tl_w dregs of our populace, is the highest for'? of rclig!o~. If there were no moral ev 1I, moral goodness would fall far short of being wliat rt is-there would be no Howard,, no Frye, no Havelocks, no LivingHtones. Dy the moral furnace through which it passes, "the trial of men's faith, being much more precious than that of gold that perrsheth, though it be tried with fire," is found, and will "be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. i. 7). Vera. 9-11.-Murmuring against God's arrangement, ae once fooluh and wicke~ Man is very apt to consider himself wiser than God, if not al~oget~er, a_t any rate m this or that particular matter. '!'here are f~w who do not at times 1magm_e that, ha_d the arrangement of the universe been committed to them, they could have improved rt in many respects. Some would have had no sin; almost all would have had no suffer- ing. Every one would have made some change or other. Bishop Butler suggests that cu. xLv. 1-25.] THE TIOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. . 179