an answer from a Philosophical Unbeliever to Letters which
you, Dr. Priestley have written. If you deem that answer detrimental to
the interests of society, you will recollect that you invite the
proposal of objections and promise to answer all as well as you can. If
you should happen to be exasperated by the freedom of the language or
the contrariety of the sentiment, this answer will gain weight in
proportion as you lose in the credit of a tolerant Divine. Therefore if
you reply at all, reply with candour and with coolness; heed the matter
and not the man, though I subscribe my name, and am

Reverend Sir,
Your friend, admirer, and humble servant,
WILLIAM HAMMON.

_Oxford-Street, No._ 418.
_Jan._ 1, 1782.

ANSWER FROM A PHILOSOPHICAL UNBELIEVER.

It is the general fashion to believe in a God, the maker of all things,
or at least to pretend to such a belief, to define the nature of this
existing Deity by the attributes which are given to him, to place the
foundation of morality on this belief, and in idea at least, to connect
the welfare of civil society with the acknowledgement of such a Being.
Few however are those, who being questioned can give any tolerable
grounds for their assertions upon this subject, and hardly any two
among the learned agree in their manner of proving what each will
separately hold to be indisputably clear. The attributes of a Deity are
more generally agreed upon, though less the subject of proof, than his
existence. As to morality, those very people who are moral will not
deny, they would be so though there were not a God, and there never yet
has been a civil lawgiver, who left crimes to be punished by the author
of the universe; not even the profanation of oaths upon the sacredness
of which so much is built in society, and which yet is said to be a
more immediate offence against the Deity than any other that can be
named.

The method which Dr. Priestley has taken to prove the existence of
a God, is by arguing from _effect_ to _cause_. He explodes that other
pretended proof _a priori_ which has so much raised the fame of
Dr. Clarke among other theologians. As to the attributes of the Deity,
Dr. Priestley is not quite so confident in his proofs there; and the
most amiable one, the most by mortals to be wished for, the _benevolence_
of God he almost gives up, or owns at least there is not so much proof
of it as of his other attributes. His observ