of
nature supplies in reality what is only hoped for from the protection
of the Deity. If the world has so good a mother, a father may well be
spared especially such a haughty jealous, and vindictive one as God is
most generally represented to be. Dr. Priestley being clear in his
opinion; that the being of a God is capable of being proved by reason,
is not so weak as some of his fellow-labourers, who hold the powers of
reason in so low estimation as to be incapable of themselves to arrive
at almost any truth. He must however allow, if reason proves a Deity
and his attributes there was less use of revelation to prove them. But
the learned advocates of a Deity differ greatly among themselves,
whether his existence is capable of being ascertained by fixt
principles of reason. After such a difference and the instance of so
many great men in all ages, from Democritus downward, who have
confidently denied the being of a God, whose arguments the learned Dr.
Cudworth, in the last century, only by fully and fairly stating, with
all the answers in his power to give (though his zeal in religion was
never doubted) was thought by other divines to have given a weight to
atheism not well to be overturned, it is surprising that it should be
the common belief of this day, that an argument in support of atheism
cannot stand a moment, and that even no man in his senses can ever hold
such a doctrine. All that Epicurus and Lucretius have so greatly and
convincingly said is swept away in a moment by these better reasoners,
who yet scruple not to declare, with Dr. Priestley, that what they
reason about is not the subject of human understanding. But let it be
asked, is it not absurd to reason with a man about that of which that
same man asserts we have no idea at all? Yet will Dr. Priestley argue,
and say it is of no importance, whether the person with whom he argues
has a conception or not of the subject. "Having no ideas includes no
impossibility," therefore he goes on with his career of words to argue
about an unseen being with another whom he will allow to have no idea
of the subject and yet it shall be of no avail in the dispute, whether
he has or no, or whether he is capable or incapable of having any.
Reason failing, the passions are called upon, and the imagined God is
represented at one time, with all the terrors of a revengeful tyrant,
at another with all the tenderness of an affectionate parent. Shall
then such a tremendous Being wi