DISCOURSE XIV.

IS SUFFERING NECESSARY?

PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERINGS.-Hebrews ii. 10.

SUFFERING! Who has not experienced suffering? Who has not, at some hour, been led in thought to ask the cause of suffering, to venture a speculation as to the good of suffering? We are prone to form theories, and who has not some theory of suffering? The element of suffering enters largely into human experience, though by no means so largely as many, as most persons, will be found to imagine. Enjoyment, or the opposite of suffering, at least the absence of suffering, greatly preponderates in the experience of ninety-nine in a hundred of the human family. But I am not now about to consider the extent of suffering, nor, except incidentally, the uses of suffering, but only the question, "Is suffering necessary?"

In these times, perhaps more especially in these times, and even among the more liberal of religionists, there is a tendency to frame a philosophy of suffering, by which, as it would seem, to vindicate

the Creator. Wherever there is a theory of any kind to be supported, men are prone to become champions of the Deity. One class of Christians, holding one theory of the final destiny of human beings, seems to regard the justice of God as committed especially to its defence. Another class, declaring a different theory of human destiny, claims for itself the special defence of God's boundless mercy. It is possible that in either case the championship of Deity is alike gratuitously assumed, and that the Divine character is not dependent, in any great degree, on the vindication by one of his justice, or by the other of his mercy. There is a great disinclination among men to let that alone which they are not likely to improve. It is a rare thing to find a man willing to take things as they are, and endeavor to make the best of them, without perplexing himself sadly as to the best apology he can make for the Supreme Wisdom, in permitting to exist some things which, it is thought, might be easily dispensed with.

We may hear not a little said of the necessity of suffering in the world. We may be told that it is necessary man should sometimes suffer, that he may know the better to enjoy; that without sickness he might not appreciate health. Now, this is very far from proving a necessity for suffering; it is no elucidation of the problem; it throws no light upon the subject; it is simply assuming, that because suffering is, therefore it is necessary. This is only arguing after the fact, and the argument may as well be reversed, suffering is necessary because there is suffering. Why not contend as well, that cruelty

and dishonesty and hypocrisy are necessary, because without them we might not appreciate kindness, honesty, and piety? This reasoning would, in this case, be quite as logical and forcible as in the other, so far as it is designed to vindicate the Supreme Being. Is it necessary to find an apology for the Deity in permitting the existence of suffering? Then is it any less needful to apologize for his permission of falsehood, fraud, and cruelty. If men, in their wisdom, must defend the Deity by showing a necessity for suffering, they should remember that they are only placing the difficulty a step farther back, without in any way reducing its dimensions. If a defence be at all essential, why not begin the defence at the right place, and, instead of begging the question by alleging or illustrating the necessity of suffering, defend the Almighty for permitting the existence of such a necessity?

Some, in past times, and probably not a few in our own times, have thus apologized for the Deity, till either for themselves or for others they have. apologized the Supreme Being out of existence entirely, leaving the world godless and themselves without God in the world. And then, when they have enthroned that which they chose to designate as nature, what have they gained in knowledge, and how great is the addition to their comfort? Does nature need no champions? In what respect is the relation of things changed by the substitution of nature for God? What flood of light then breaks in upon their minds as to the existence of suffering, or the existence of anything? I would appeal directly to the experience of any mind which may have found

itself a worshipper of nature as the only God. I would ask, were such a one before me, How much farther now have you penetrated into the cause or tendency of things, — into the origin or destiny of man, of yourself, your own being? Tell me, if you know more of what nature is, and how nature operates, than your neighbor knows of what God is, or how God operates? When you have looked upon your own body, and thought upon your own mind, and traced back your own experience, and asked the whence and the why of your own existence, have you not felt the twilight pass suddenly into starless, moonless, rayless night? Have you not felt the darkness round you deepen into a blackness palpable and impenetrable? You who would depose God, and enthrone nature, and worship law, what are you but a weed, or the merest drift floating on the stream of life? You have come into conscious being, you know not how; you are passing along, for you know not what; to go whither, you cannot tell; or to disappear for ever, you know not when. You may any instant become the helpless victim of blind but somehow antagonistic forces, which blot you from being or crush you into dust; and not a trust can you have in anything, not a hope can you have for anything.

Men should be very cautious about constituting themselves keepers of God's attributes. God needs no such gratuitous championship. Does it not always betray an amazing arrogance in man to stand before his fellow-men in the attitude of an attorney who has the Creator for his client, as if he had committed to this puny mortal the guardianship of his interests and the vindication of his honor?

And yet what is more common than for men, sincere, religious men, to tell us of the necessity of certain plans on the part of God, in order to support the honor of his name and the integrity of his government? It is passing strange that man, wise as he may be, yet conscious of the rudimental character of his attainments, has not learned to be satisfied with declaring facts within his positive knowledge, instead of declaring necessities of which he can possibly know nothing. To declare that God was under the necessity of adopting certain plans to accomplish certain results, and that because certain events transpire around us, is only to abolish all distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil; for then everything is right, because it is, every event is necessary, because it occurs. Even on the supposition that he was so, yet if it was necessary, as we hear frequently alleged, that Jesus should be the Almighty God, and that he, as both God and man, should suffer and die, and that necessity be argued from the facts that Jesus did suffer and did die,- what is this, but confounding every conception that we have of either right or wrong, obliterating all distinctions, and paralyzing all exertion? for then, with equal certainty, all suffering is necessary, because of the fact of its existence. Vice and virtue, kindness and crime, falsehood and truth, are alike necessary, because they exist. But then an objector interposes: It is revealed, this necessity is revealed in Scripture; therefore it is to be believed, however it may confound our conceptions or controvert our observation. Here is just the place for difference of sentiment. When, not content with acknowledging the fact of