in fome inftances more difficultly investigated by our narrow and defective faculties.

That there must be in the nature of things, (the bafis of which is the Divine nature) an eternal, effential, and unchangeable difference in morals; that there is a real, not a factitious, or arbitrary, good and evil, a greater and less preferableness in different characters and actions. That, accordingly, if it had been in the nature of things no way better that an univerfe fhould be created, than not; it is evident, God, who fees all things as they are, would not have seen any reafon for creating an univerfe, and therefore would not have exerted his power in the production of it.

That the Divine attribute of benevolence is, in its own nature, really and effentially, and without all regard to the notions of created beings, and exclusive of all confequences, a perfection; not an indifferent property, as fome pretend. For that nothing either evil or indifferent can be conceived of as exifting neceffarily: but the Divine benevolence and all the other attributes of his nature exift neceffarily.

That if it was proper, or good, to create an univerfe of beings capable of happiness, it muft on the contrary be improper, or morally wicked, to endeavour to oppose the Divine scheme of benevolence, or to wifh innocent beings condemned to mifery. There is therefore an eternal and effential, not a factitious, or arbitrary, good and

evil in morals; and the foundation of moral good is in the neceffary and unchangeable attributes of the Divine nature.

That certainty is in the nature of things attainable by fenfation. That reality must be the object of fenfation, it being impoffible to feel what has no existence. That it is impoffible to doubt what we perceive by fenfation.

That certainty is in the nature of things attainable by intuition. That the existence of intelligence neceffarily fuppofes that of truth, as the object of understanding. That truth is a Divine attribute; therefore muft exift neceffarily. That every intelligent mind must be fuppofed capable of intuitively perceiving truth. And that we find by experience, we cannot even force ourfelves to doubt the truths we intuitively perceive.

That fuch certainty is in the nature of things attainable in fubjects of which we receive information by deduction, teftimony, and revelation, as renders it impoffible for the mind to hesitate or doubt. For that the fum, or refult, of all kinds of evidence, however complex and various, except what arifes from fenfation; is the object of direct intuition.

To conclude this introduction: were our prefent state much more difadvantageous than it is; did we labour under much greater difficulty and uncertainty, than we do, in our fearch after truth; prudence would still direct us, upon the whole,

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what courfe to take. The probability of fafety in the main would ftill be upon the fide of virtue; and there would ftill be reason to fear that vice and irregularity would end ill. This alone would be enough to keep wife and confiderate beings to their duty, as far as known. But our condition is very different; and our knowledge of all neceffary truth fufficiently clear, extenfive and certain.

The Being and Attributes of God eftablished as the Foundation of Morality.

OTHING is more indifputable than that fomething now exifts. Every perfon may fay to himfelf, "I certainly exift for "I feel that I exift. And I could neither feel

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that I exift, nor be deceived in imagining it, if I was nothing. If, therefore, I exift, the next question is, How I came to be?" Whatever exifts, muft owe its being, and the particular circumftances of it, to fome caufe prior to itfelf, unless it exifts neceffarily. For a being to exift neceffarily, is to exift fo as that it was impoffible for that being not to have exifted, and that the fuppofition of its not exifting should imply a direct contradiction in terms. Let any perfon try to conceive of fpace and duration as annihilated, or not exifting, and he will find it impoffible, and that they will ftill return upon his

mind in fpite of all his efforts to the contrary. Such an existence therefore is neceffary, of which there is no other account to be given, than that it is the nature of the thing to exift; and this account is fully fatisfying to the mind.

Whatever difficulty we may find in conceiving of the particular modus of a neceffary existence; an exiftence, which always was, and could not but be; always continuing, but which never had a beginning; as all the difficulty of fuch conceptions evidently arises from the narrowness of our finite and limited minds, and as our reafon forces us upon granting the reality and neceffity of them, it would be contradicting the most irresistible convictions of our reafon, to difpute them; and it is indeed out of our power to difpute them.

To have recourfe to an infinite fucceffion of dependent caufes, produced by one another from eternity, and to give that as an account of the existence of the world, will give no fatisfaction to the mind; but will confound it with an infinite abfurdity. For if it be abfurd to attempt to conceive of one fingle dependent being, produced without a caufe, or exifting without being brought into existence by fome pre-existent caufe; it is infinitely more fo, to try to conceive of an infinite feries of dependent beings exifting without being produced by any original and uncreated caufe; as it would be more fhock

ing

ing to talk of a thousand links of a chain hanging upon nothing, than of one.

That the material world is not the first cause, is evident,because the first cause, existing necessarily, without which neceffity he could not poffibly exist, as a first cause, must be absolutely perfect, unchangeable, and every where the fame, of which afterwards. This, we fee, is by no means to be affirmed of the material world; its form, motion, and fubftance, being endlessly various, and fubject to perpetual change. That nothing material could have been the neceffarily existent first cause is evident, because we know, that all material fubftances confift of a number of unconnected and separable particles; which would give, not one, but a number of first causes, which is a palpable abfurdity. And that the first caufe cannot be one fingle indivifible atom, is plain, because the firft caufe, being neceffarily exiftent, muft be equally neceffary throughout infinite fpace.

That chance, which is only a word, not a real being, fhould be the cause of the existence of the world, is the fame as faying, that nothing is the cause of its existence, or that it neither exifts neceffarily, nor was produced by that which exifts neceffarily, and therefore does not exist at all. Therefore, after fuppofing ever fo long a feries of beings producing one another, we must at last have recourfe to fome First Cause of all, himself uncaufed, exifting neceffarily, or fo, as

that