If the reason he gave us to start with makes it unnecessary that
he should come to tell us in an audible voice that he desires our
happiness, it must also surely suffice to tell us which are lawful and
which unlawful of all the thoughts continually rising in our hearts.
That any one should question so evident and universally accepted a
truth, the foundation of all religion, seems very surprising to me. If
it had consisted with his plan to make these delicate mortal bodies
capable of every agreeable sensation in the highest degree, yet not
liable to accident, and not subject to misery and pain, he would surely
have done this for all of us. But reason and nature show us that such an
end did not consist with his plan; therefore to ask him to suspend the
operations of nature for the benefit of any individual sufferer, however
poignant and unmerited the sufferings may be, is to shut our eyes to the
only light he has given us. All our highest and sweetest feelings unite
with reason to tell us with one voice that he loves us; and our
knowledge of nature shows us plainly enough that he also loves all the
creatures inferior to man.
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