The attentive reader has perceived before this time, that one of the fundamental ideas, one of the great leading truths, of the present discourse is, that a necessary holiness is a contradiction in terms,—an inherent and utter impossibility. This truth has shown us why a Being of infinite purity does not cause virtue to prevail everywhere, and at all times. If virtue could be necessitated to exist, there seems to be no doubt that such a Being would cause it to shine out in all parts of his dominion, and the blot of sin would not be seen upon the beauty of the world. But although moral goodness cannot be necessitated to exist, yet God has attested his abhorrence of vice and his approbation of virtue, by the dispensation of natural good and evil, of pleasure and pain. Having marked out the path of duty for us, he has made such a distribution of natural good and evil as is adapted to keep us therein. The evident design of this arrangement is, as theologians and philosophers agree, to prevent the commission of evil, and secure the practice of virtue. The Supreme Ruler of the world adopts this method to promote that moral goodness which cannot be produced by the direct omnipotency of his power. Hence, it must be evident, that although God desires the happiness of his rational and accountable creatures, he does not bestow happiness upon them without regard to their moral character. The great dispensation of his natural providence, as well as the express declaration of his word, forbids the inference that he desires the happiness of those who obstinately persist in their evil courses. If we may rely upon such testimony, he desires _first_ the _holiness_ of his intelligent creatures, and _next_ their _happiness_. Hence, it is well said by Bishop Butler, that the “divine goodness, with which, if I mistake not, we make very free in our speculations, _may not be a bare, single disposition to produce happiness_, but a disposition to make the good, the faithful, the honest man happy.”(160)