existence, the very nature of his duration; these, and every parti cular, which regards fo divine a Being, are myfterious to men. Finite, weak, and blind creatures, we ought to humble ourselves in his auguft prefence, and, confcious of our frailties, adore in filence his infinite perfections, which eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. They are covered in a deep cloud from human curiofity: it is profaneness to attempt penetrating through thefe facred obfcurities; and next to the impiety of denying his existence, is the temerity of prying into his nature and effence, decrees and attributes.-

The ancient Platonists were the most religious and devout of all the Pagan philofophers: yet many of them, particularly Plotinus, expressly declare, that intellect or understanding is not to be ascribed to the Deity, and that our most perfect worship of him confists, not in acts of veneration, reverence, gratitude, or love; but in a certain myfterious felf-annihilation, or total extinction of all our faculties, These ideas are, perhaps, too far ftretched; but ftill it must be acknowledged, that, by reprefenting the Deity as comprehenfible, and fimilar to a human mind, we are guilty of the groffest and most narrow partiality, and make ourselves the model of the whole uni verfe

It is my opinion, that each man feels, in a manner, the truth of religion within his own breaft; and from a consciousness of his imbecility and mifery, rather than from any reasoning, is led to feek protection from that Being, on whom he and all nature is dependent, So anxious, or fo tedious, are even the best scenes of life, that futurity is ftill the object of all our hopes and fears. We inceffantly look forward, and endeavour, by prayers, adoration, and facrifice, to appease those unknown powers, whom we find, by experience, so able to afflict and opprefs us. Wretched creatures that we are! what refource for us amidit the innumerable ills of life, did not religion fuggeft fome methods of atonement, and appeafe thofe terrors, with which we are inceffantly agitated and tormented --The miferies of life, the unhappiness of man, the general corruptions of Our nature, the unfatisfactory enjoyment of pleasures, riches, honours; these phrafes have become almoft proverbial in all languages. And who can doubt of what all men declare from their own Immediate feeling and experience?--Look round this library of Cleanthes. I fall venture to affirm, that, except Authors of particular fciences, fuch as chymiftry or botany, who have no occafion to treat of human life, there is fearce one of thofe innumerable writers, from whom the fenfe of human mifery has not, in fome paffage or other, extorted a complaint and confeffion of it. At leaft, the chance is entirely on that fide; and no one Author has ever, fo far as I can recollect, been fo extravagant as to deny it.--The whole earth, believe me, Philo, is curfed and polluted. A perpetual war is kindled among all living creatures. Neceflity, hunger, want, ftimulate the ftrong and courageous; fear, anxiety, terror, agitate the weak and infirm. The first entrance into life gives anguifh to the new born infant and to its wretched parent: weakness, impotence, distress, attend each stage of that life: and 'tis at last finished in agony and horror.-Though the external infults from animals, from

men,

men, from all the elements, which affault us, form a frightful catalogue of woes, they are nothing in comparifon of thofe, which arife within ourselves, from the diftempered condition of our mind and body. How many lie under the lingering torment of diseases? And the diforders of the mind, though more fecret, are not perhaps lefs difmal and vexa ious. Remorfe, fhame, anguish, rage, difappointment, anxiety, fear, dejection, defpair; who has ever paffed through life without cruel inroads from thefe tormentors? How many have scarcely ever felt any better fenfations Labour and poverty, fo abhorred by every one, are the certain lot of the far greater number: and thofe few privileged perions, who enjoy ease and opulence, never reach contentment or true felicity. All the goods of life united would not make a very happy man: but all the ills united would make a wretch indeed; and any one of them almoft (and who can be free from every one) nay often the abfence of one good (and who can poffefs all :) is fufficient to render life ineligible,

Nothing can be more furprising than to find a topic like this, concerning the wickednefs and mifery of man, charged with no lefs than atheism and profanenefs. Have not all pious divines and preachers, who have indulged their rhetoric on fo fertile a fubject; have they not easily, I fay, given a folution of any difficulties which may attend it? This world is but a point in comparison of the univerfe: this life but a moment in comparison of eternity. The prefent evil phenomena, therefore, are rectified in other regions, and in fome future period of existence. And the eyes of men, being then opened to larger views of things, fee the whole connection of general laws; and trace, with adoration, the benevolence and rectitude of the Deity, through all the mazes and intricacies of his providence."

Such are the fentiments of the rigid, inflexible, orthodox DEMEA; fuch are the arguments which he employs to prove, the mysterious, incomprehenfible nature of the Deity, and by which he endeavours to fhew, that the infirmities of our nature do not permit us to attain any ideas, which in the least corre fpond to the ineffable fublimity of the divine attributes. Let us now hear what the accurate' philofopher CLEANTHES fays.

Demea afferts, as we have already mentioned, that the prefent evil phenomena are rectified in fome future period of exiftence. No! replied Cleanthes, No! Thefe arbitrary fuppofitions can never be admitted, contrary to matter of fact, viole and uncontroverted. Whence can any cause be known but from its known effects? Whence can any hypothefis be proved but from the apparent phenomena? To establish one hypothefis upon another is building entirely in the air; and the utmoft we ever attain, by thefe conjectures and fictions, is to afcertain the bare poffibility of our opinion; but never can we, upon fuch terms, establish its reality.

The only method of fupporting divine benevolence (and it is what I willingly embrace), is to deny abfolutely the mifery and wickedness of man. Your reprefentations are exaggerated: your melancholy views moftly fictitious: your inferences contrary to fact and experience. Health is more common than fickness; pleasure than pain; happiness than mifery. And for one vexation, which

we

we meet with, we attain, upon computation, a hundred enjoy

ments.

I have been apt to fufpect,' fays this accurate philofopher, the frequent repetition of the word infinite, which we meet with in all theological writers, to favour more of panegyric than of philofophy, and that any purposes of reafoning, and even of religion, would be better ferved, were we to reft contented with more accurate and more moderate expreffions. The terms, admirable, excellent, fuperlatively great, wife, and boly; thefe fufficiently fill the imaginations of men; and any thing beyond, befides that it leads into abfurdities, has no influence on the affections or fentiments. Thus, in the prefent fubject, if we abandon all human analogy, as feems your intention, Demea, I am afraid we abandon all religion, and retain no conception of the great object of our adoration. If we preserve human analogy, we must for ever find it impoffible to reconcile any mixture of evil in the univerfe with infinite attributes; much lefs, can we ever prove the latter from the former. But fuppofing the Author of Nature to be finitely perfect,' (a trange fuppofition, furely!) though far exceeding mankind; a fatisfactory account may then be given of natural and moral evil, and every untoward phenomenon be explained and adjufted. A lefs evil may then be chofen, in order to avoid a greater; inconveniences be fubmitted to, in order to reach a defirable end; and, in a word, benevolence, regulated by wifdom, and limited by neceffity may produce juft fuch a world as the prefent.'

The principal points which Cleanthes endeavours to establish are,- that the works of nature are fimilar to those of art; that the Deity is fimilar to a human mind and understanding, and that our ideas of his attributes, as far as they go, are just and adequate, and correfpondent to his real nature.

Look round the world, fays he, contemplate the whole and every part of it; you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, fubdivided into an infinite number of leffer machines, which again admit of fubdivifions, to a degree beyond what human fenfes and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their molt minute parts are adjusted to each other with an accuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men, who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, refembles exactly, though it much excecds, the productions of human contrivance, of human defign, thought, wildom, and intelligence. Since therefore the effects refemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the caufes alfo refemble; and that the Author of Nature is fomewhat fimilar to the mind of man; though poffeffed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work, which he has executed. By this argument a pofteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his fimilarity to human mind and intelligence.'

In regard to the argument a priori, as it is called, Cleanthes endeavours to fhew its fallacy, and that it is of very little confequence to the caufe of true piety or religion.

I fhall

I fhall begin, fays he, with obferving, that there is an evident abfurdity in pretending to demonftrate a matter of fact, or to prove it by any argument a priori. Nothing is demonftrable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing, that is diftinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whofe non-existence implies a contradiction. Confequently there is no being, whofe existence is demonftrable. I propofe this argument as entirely decifive, and am willing to reft the whole controverfy upon it.'

Cleanthes, our Readers have already feen, is of opinion that the afcribing of infinite perfections to the Deity leads into abfurdities, and has no influence on the affections or fentiments ; and that, if we fuppofe the Author of Nature to be finitely perfect, we may give a fatisfactory account of natural and moral evil, explain and adjuft every untoward phenomenon.

Now, if the Author of Nature be finitely perfect, his perfections are limited, or, in other words, he is an imperfect Being; and yet Cleanthes, in another paffage, fays that he is a Being perfectly good, wife, and powerful.

The most agreeable reflection, fays he, which it is poffible for human imagination to fuggeft, is that of genuine Theifm, which reprefents us as the workmanship of a Being perfectly good, wife, and powerful; who created us for happiness, and who, having implanted in us immeafurable defires of good, will prolong our exiftence to all eternity, and will transfer us into an infinite variety of scenes in order to fatisfy thofe defires, and render our felicity complete and durable. Next to fuch a Being himself (if the comparifon be allowed) the happiest lot which we can imagine, is that of being under his guardianship and protection.O SI SIC OMNIA!

It is not our business to anfwer Mr. Hume, but it is obvious to remark, that a Being finitely perfect, cannot be perfectly wile and good. The character of Cleanthes, therefore, is not confiftent; nor is it properly fupported; for an accurate philofo pher fhould have fhewn, clearly and diftinctly, upon philofophical principles, by what fteps he rofe to the idea of a perfectly wife and good Being, and what reafons he had for concluding that this Being would prolong our existence to all eternity, and make us completely happy.

But we now proceed to lay before our Readers Mr. Hume's own sentiments in the character of the 'careless sceptic,' PHILO. -He acknowledges that a purpofe, an intention, a defign, ftrikes every where the moft ftupid thinker, the most careless obferver of nature, that no man can be fo hardened in absurd fyftems, as at all times to reject it; that in many views of the univerfe, and of its parts, particularly the latter, the beauty and fitness of final caufes ftrike us with fuch irrefiftible force, that all objections appear (what he believes they really are)

mere

mere cavils and fophifms; and that we cannot then imagine how it was ever poffible for us to lay any ftrefs on them. But there is no view of human life, he tells us, from which, without the greatest violence, we can infer the moral attributes, or learn infinite benevolence, conjoined with infinite power and infinite wisdom, which we must discover by the eyes of faith alone. He thinks it extremely unreasonable to form our ideas of the Author of Nature from our experience of the narrow productions of human design and invention, and says that it is impoffible for us to tell, from our limited views, whether the prefent fyftem of things deferves any confiderable praise, if compared to other poffible, and even real fyftems.

⚫ Could a peafant, fays he, if the ENEID were read to him, pronounce that poem to be abfolutely faultless, or even affign to it its proper rank among the productions of human wit, he, who had never feen any other production?

But were this world ever so perfect a production, it must ftill remain uncertain, whether all the excellencies of the work can juftly be ascribed to the workman. If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea muft we form of the ingenuity of the carpenter, who framed fo complicated, ufeful, and beautiful a machine! And what furprize muft we feel, when we find him a stupid mechanic, who imitated others, and copied an art, which, through a long fucceffion of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and contro. verfies, had been gradually improving! Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this fyltem was ftruck out: much labour loft: many fruitless trials made and a flow, but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of world making. In fuch fubjects, who can determine, where the truth, nay, who can conjecture where the probability, lies, amidst a great number of hypothefes which may be propofed, and a ftill greater number, which may be imagined ?

In a word, CLEANTHES, a man, who follows your hypothefis, is able, perhaps, to affert, or conjecture, that the univerfe, fometime, arofe from fomething like defign: but beyond that pofition he cannot ascertain one fingle circumftance, and is left afterwards to fix every point of his theology, by the utmost licence of fancy and hypothefis. This world, for aught he knows, is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a fuperior ftandard; and was only the first rude effay of fome infant Deity, who' afterwards abandoned it, afhamed of his lame performance: it is the work only of fome dependent, inferior Deity; and is the object of derifion to his fuperiors: it is the production of old age and dotage in fome fuperannuated Deity; and ever fince his death, has run on at adventure, from the first impulfe and active force, which it received from him. You justly give figns of horror, DEMEA, at thefe ftrange fuppofitions: but thefe, and a thoufand more of the fame kind, are CLEANTHES'S fuppofitions, not mine.

There occurs to me another hypothefis, which must acquire an air of probability from the method of reafoning fo much inlifted on

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