Wesley Corpus

Chapter III. All created beings as such are necessarily imperfect; nay, infinitely distant from supreme perfection. Nor can they all be equally perfect; since some must be only parts of others. As to their properties too, some must be perfecter than others; for, suppose any number of the most perfect beings created, infinite goodness would prompt the Creator to add less perfect beings to those, if their existence neither lessened the number nor conveniences of the, more perfect. The existence of matter, for instance, neither lessens the number nor the conveniences of pure spirits. Therefore the addition of material beings to spiritual was not contrary to but resulted from infinite goodness. Chapter IV. As the evils of imperfection necessarily spring from this, that the imperfect things were made out of nothing, so natural evils necessarily spring from their being made out of matter. For matter is totally useless without motion, or even without such a motion as will divide it into parts; but this cannot be done without a contrariety of motions, and from this necessarily flows generation and corruption. The material part of us being thus liable to corruption, pain is necessary to make us watchful against it, and to warn us of what tends toward it; as is the fear of death likewise, which is of use in many cases that pain does not reach. From these all the passions necessarily spring; nor can these be extinguished while those remain. But if pain and the fear of death were extinguished, no animal could long subsist. Since, therefore, these evils are necessarily joined with more than equivalent goods, the permitting these is not repugnant to but flows from infinite goodness. The same observation holds as to hunger, thirst, childhood, age, diseases, wild beasts, and poisons. They are all therefore permitted, because each of them is necessarily connected with such a good as outweighs the evil. Chapter V. Touching moral evils (by which I mean 'inconveniences arising from the choice of the sufferer '), I propose to show: 1. What is the nature of choice or election. 2. That our happiness consists in the elections or choices we make. 3. What elections are improper to be made. 4. How we come to make such elections. And, 5. How our making them is consistent with the divine power and goodness.