have proceeded from a caufe, arises from our confidering it as an effect; a circumstance in which it is perfectly fimilar to all works whatsoever. The fingularity of the effect rather confirms (if that be poffible) than weakens our belief of the neceflity of a cause; at least it makes us more attentive to the caufe, and interefts us more deeply in it. What is the universe, but a vast fyftem of works or effects, fome of them great, and others fmall; fome more and fome lefs confiderable? If each of thefe works, the leaft as well as the greatest, require a cause for its production; is it not in the highest degree abfurd to fay, that the whole is not the effect of a caufe?- Each link of a great chain must be supported by fomething, but the whole chain may be fupported by nothing: -Nothing less than an ounce can be a counterpoife to an ounce, nothing lefs than a pound to a pound; but the wing of a gnat, or nothing at all, may be a fufficient counterpoife to ten hundred thoufand pounds: Are not these affertions too abfurd to deferve an answer?

The reader, if he be acquainted with Mr HUME'S Efay on a particular providence and a future ftate, will fee, that thefe remarks are intended as an anfwer to a very strange argument there advanced against the belief of a Deity. "The univerfe," we are told, "is an object quite fingular and unparallelled; no other object that has fallen under our

"obfer

"obfervation bears any fimilarity to it; nei"ther it nor its caufe can be comprehended "under any known fpecies; and therefore

concerning the caufe of the universe we 66 can form no rational conclufion at all." -I appeal to any man of found judgement, whether that fuggeftion of his understanding, which prompts him to infer a caufe from an effect, has any dependence upon a prior operation of his mind, by which the effect in question is referred to its genus or fpecies. When he pronounces concerning any object which he conceives to have had a beginning, that it must have proceeded from fome caufe, does this judgement neceffarily imply any comparifon of that object with others of a like kind? If the new object were in every respect unlike to other objects, would this have any influence on his judgement? Would he not acknowledge a cause to be as necessary for the production of the most uncommon, as of the moft familiar object?-If therefore I believe, that I myself owe my existence to fome caufe, because there is fomething in my mind which neceffarily determines me to this belief, I must also, for the very fame reason, believe, that the whole univerfe (fuppofed to have had a beginning) proceeds from fome caufe. The evidence of both is the fame. If I believe the firft and not the fecond, I believe and difbelieve the fame evidence at the fame time; I believe

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that

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that the very fame fuggeftion of my ftanding is both true and falfe.

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Though I were to grant, that, when an object is reducible to no known genus, no rational inference can be made concerning its caufe; yet it will not follow, that our inferences concerning the cause of the univerfe are irrational, fuppofing it reasonable to believe that the universe had a beginning. If there be in the universe any thing which is reducible to no known genus, let it be mentioned if there be any prefumption for the existence of such a thing, let the foundation of that prefumption be explained. And, if you please, I fhall, for argument's fake, admit, that concerning the cause of that particular thing, no rational conclufion can be formed. But it has never been afferted, that the existence of fuch a thing is either real or probable. Mr HUME only afferts, that the universe itself, not any particular thing in the univerfe, is reducible to no known genus. Well, then, let me afk, What is the univerfe? A word? No; it is a vaft collection of things. Are all these things reducible to genera? Mr HUME does not deny it.-Each of these things, then, if it had a beginning, must also have had a caufe? It muft.-What thing in the univerfe exifts uncaufed? Nothing. Is this a rational conclufion? So it feems. It feems, then, that though it be rational to affign a cause to every thing in the universe, yet to affign a cause

to

to the universe is not rational! It is fhameful thus to trifle with words. -In fact, this argument, fo highly admired by its author, is no argument at all. It is founded on a diftinction that is perfectly inconceivable. Twenty fhillings make a pound: though you lay twenty fhillings on the table, you have not laid down a pound, you have only laid down twenty fhillings. If the reader cannot enter into this diftinction, he will never be able to conceive in what the force of Mr HUME's argument confifts.

If the universe had a beginning, it must have had a caufe. This is a felf-evident axiom, or at least an undeniable confequence of one. We neceffarily affent to it; fuch is the law of our nature. If we deny it, we cannot, without abfurdity, believe any thing elfe; because we at the fame time deny the authenticity of those instinctive fuggeftions which are the foundation of all truth. The Atheist will never be able to elude the force of this argument, till he can prove, that every thing in nature exifts neceffarily, independently, and from eternity.

If Mr HUME's argument be found to turn to fo little account, from the fimple confideration of the univerfe, as exifting, and as having had a beginning, it will appear (if poffible) still more irrational, when we take a view of the univerfe, and its parts, as of works curiously adapted to certain ends. Their existence difplays the neceflity of a

powerful

powerful caufe; their frame proves the cause to be intelligent, good, and wife. The meaneft of the works of nature, (if any of Nature's works may be called mean), the arrangement neceffary for the production of the smallest plant, requires in the cause a degree of power and wisdom, which infinitely tranfcends the fublimeft exertions of human ability. What then shall we say of the cause that produces an animal, a rational foul, a world, a fyftem of worlds, an univerfe? Shall we fay, that infinite power and wisdom are not neceffary attributes of that univerfal cause, though they be necessary attributes of the cause that produces a plant? Shall we say, that the maker of a plant may be acknowledged to be powerful, intelligent, and wife; because there are many other things in nature that resemble a plant; but that we cannot rationally acknowledge the maker of the univerfe to be wife, powerful, or intelligent, because there is nothing which the universe resembles, or to which it may be compared? Can the man who argues in this manner have any meaning to his words?

The other cavils thrown out against the divine attributes, in this flimfy effay, I may perhaps have occafion to animadvert on hereafter. Meantime to thofe readers who may be in danger from them I would recommend a careful perufal of Butler's Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion.

SECT.