"Theologians tell us, that the disorder and evil, which is seen in the world, is not absolute and real, but relatively and apparently such, and does not disprove the divine wisdom and goodness. But may not one reply, that the goodness and wonderful order which they so much extol, and on which they found their notions of those qualities in God, are in a similar way only relative and apparent. If it be only our co-existence with the causes which surround us, and our manner of perceiving them, that constitute the order of nature for us, and authorise us to attribute wisdom and goodness to the maker of what surround us, should not also our mode of existence and perception authorise us to call what is hurtful to us disorder, and to attribute impotence, ignorance, or malice, to that Being which we would suppose to actuate nature. Some pretend that the supremely wise God can derive goodness and happiness to us from the midst of those ills which he permits us to undergo in this world. Are these men privy counsellors of the Divinity, or on what do they found their romantic hopes? They will doubtless say, that they judge of God's conduct by analogy, and that from the present appearance of his wisdom and goodness, they have a right to infer his future wisdom and goodness. But do not the present appearances of his want of wisdom or goodness justify us in concluding, that he will always want them? If they are so often manifestly deficient in this world, what can assure us that they will abound more in the next? This kind of language therefore rests upon no other basis than a prejudiced imagination, and signifies, that some men, having without examination, adopted an opinion that God is good, cannot admit that he will consent to let his creatures remain constantly unhappy. Yet this grand hypothesis, of the unalterable felicity of mankind hereafter, is insufficient to justify the Divinity in permitting the present sleeting and transitory marks of injustice and disorder. If God can have been unjust for a moment, he has derogated, during that moment at least, from his divine perfection, and is not unchangeably good; his justice then is liable to temporary alteration, and, if this be the case, who can give security for his justice and goodness continuing unalterable in a future life, the notion of which is set up only to exculpate his deviation from those qualities in this?