erfect. From
thence he proceeds to assert, that atheists may believe it within the
course of nature, that men as moral agents may after death be
re-produced, and therefore that there may be a future state though
there be no God, because he reasons it may be in the course of nature.
This allows that the course of nature may be as it is without a God,
and that there is therefore no _natural_ proof of a Deity. His farther
argument on this head is, that "things usually happen in a state of
nature that are proper. A future state is proper. (To carry on the
supposed state of melioration and complete the moral government of the
universe.) It is therefore probable." This is an argument perhaps more
of wish than probability, but let it have such force as belongs to it.
It is not the wish of the answerer by supporting atheism to give
encouragement to immorality, but should he unwarily or with weak minds
do so, the argument of the Deity's existence is independent of such
considerations. It were better to seek another support for morality
than a belief in God; for the moral purpose in believing a Deity (an
invisible Being, maker of all, our moral governor, who will hereafter
take cognizance of our conduct,) is not a little checked by
considering, that he leaves the proof of his very existence so
ambiguous, that even men with a habit of piety upon them cannot but
have their doubts, whilst on this existence so much of the moral
purpose depends. If this is not an argument against the morality of a
Deity, it is at all events one against his _infinite_ morality though
moral is an attribute to be given to him in the infinite degree as much
as any other.

It is said, infinite intelligence must have procured a necessary
fitness of things, and that this forms morality. "His will could not be
biassed by other influence; therefore he must have willed morality,
because necessarily fit. Then comes infinite power, and yet no morality
in the world or a very small portion of it. We cannot to any purpose,
do what we will, argue against experience. That it must be, yet that it
is not. What must be, will be. If it is not, there is no _must_ in the
case.

It is next said, that virtue gives a better chance for happiness than
vice. This also is but a weak argument for the moral government of the
universe, unless it be for a moral government by chance. Virtue ought
to be the certain and immediate parent of happiness, if a moral
governor existed with a