Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/325

Rh The mentioning of the name of Chrit, after uch vile impotors, may dipleae ome of my readers—I repect their warmth; but let them not forget that the followers of thee deluions bear his name, and profes to be the diciples of him, who aid, by their works we hould know who were the children of God or the ervants of in. I allow that it is eaier to touch the body of a aint, or to be magnetied, than to retrain our appetites or govern our paions; but health of body or mind can only be recovered by thee means, or we make the Supreme Judge partial and revengeful.

Is he a man that he hould change, or punih out of reentment? He—the common father, wounds but to heal, ays reaon, and our irregularities producing certain conequences, we are forcibly hewn the nature of vice; that thus learning to know good from evil, by experience, we may hate one and love the other, in proportion to the widom which we attain. The poion contains the antidote; and we either reform our evil habits and ceae to in againt our own bodies, to ue the forcible language of cripture, or a premature death, the punihment of in, naps the thread of life.

Here an awful top is put to our enquiries.—But, why hould I conceal my entiments? Conidering the attributes of God, I believe that whatever punihment may follow, will tend, like the anguih of dieae, to hew the malignity of vice, for the purpoe of reformation. Poitive punihment appears o contrary to the nature of God, dicoverable in all his works, and in our own&ensp;