to change the gender, from the more worthy to the less, and instead of a God, to give us a goddess; for the eternal Father, to present us with a universal mother? Is there one so silly as to need to be told, that all applications of the ideas of gender to deity, are but the necessary consequences of the insufficiency of human language, to express things infinite and divine? They are but an approximation to an adequate expression of the truth.

And who is this nature? Let those who reject God, because they cannot see him, or, as they say, "conceive of him;" tell us when they saw their goddess. What is she like? How tall, or short?

How fat, or thin? What is her colour? What her shape? What, in sober seriousness, do you mean by nature ? Can any man fairly make more of it than to say that it is the aggregate mass of all the beings which Christians call creatures, with all their properties? If you say, "nature made all these," then nature made herself. There is sublime nonsense! This is your substitute for deity!

From all that we know of nature, we must conclude that it is limited; for it is made up of parts, each of which is limited, and the whole being, made up of its parts, partakes of their character. Can you make an infinite whole of finite parts? Nothing limited, however, can be eternal. For that which is eternal is necessary, neither requiring nor admitting a prior cause, which is precluded by the idea of eternity. Only that which is in its own nature necessary existence, can be eternal; for every thing else, requiring a cause to bring it into existence,

must be subsequent to its cause. Now, whatever is necessary, must be infinite. For if you suppose it finite, you conceive that it exists to a certain degree only; and conceive that a degree more of that being does not exist. Then, if that degree of this kind of being does not exist, non-existence is not impossible to that kind of being, therefore that kind of being is not necessary, or in other words, that is not necessary being. The same truth may be proved by another process. If one degree of that particular kind of being might not exist, another might not, and another, and another, till the whole might not, and thus the being is proved not to be necessary. Eternal being, therefore, is proved to be necessary, and necessary being is infinite. Nature we have seen to be limited, and therefore not eternal, and so not necessary. Nature, then, requires cause or creator, which is God.

But you exclaim, "I cannot understand this." Very likely you cannot. Then why do you pretend to grapple with a thing that is too mighty for you? Why set yourselves to dispute with such men as Newton, and Clarke, and Leibnitz, and Locke, and Paley, the giant minds of our species, and then, when confounded with their demonstration, complain you cannot understand them? If you are so shallow that you can go no farther than the surface of things, you cannot expect that we should pity, without blaming you, when we see you floundering in this abyss, and hear you crying out, "O, I am out of my depth; I shall be drowned." I have not unnecessarily mystified the subject; but have used the

plainest words in the plainest way the argument would admit.

When driven from their goddess, nature, whither will atheists fly? Some betake themselves to necessity. Necessity! Why this is but a property of a being, of one kind; just as contingency is of another kind of. being. Worship necessity! You might as well own gravity, or density, for a deity. Necessity the cause of all things! Why not make quantity, or size, or colour, the universal creator? Do they know the meaning of the words they use? I trow not. I suspect that atheists employ the word necessity, for this very reason, because they do not understand it. It is a convenient way of throwing dust in the eyes of the simple. After declaiming against God, as a mystery, and declaring they will believe nothing which they cannot see, they tell us that all things come from necessity.

But may not a plain hearer say, "Who is this Mr. Necessity, of whom you spoke ?"

You reply indig-
Well, says the

nantly, "I did not mean a man.' simple inquirer, so I should have thought; but as you deny a God, and then talk so much of this necessity, I supposed it must be some great man that I never before heard of. But, whether God or man, excuse me, if I ask, whether you ever saw him? Did you ever hear him speak? Do you know what he is like? Did you ever receive a message from him? How may I know him when I see him? You are affronted at these questions. I know why. You feel the ridicule. You that will believe nothing but what you can see, and will own no God that is

invisible, can believe necessity that you never saw, never heard, never touched, never received a message from, and can no more conceive what it is, than you can conceive of deity.

But you that say, necessity made every thing, should allow us to ask whether you ever saw it make any thing? Did you ever see a book composed by that author, or even printed by necessity? Do you wear a watch with that maker's name on it? What! All dumb! Is every thing else that you know, evidently made by a different sort of workman ? Would you not trust necessity to make your shoes, or even to mend them, to bake your bread, or stir your fire, but will have all these things done by life and intelligence and design; and there is only this one poor little universe that you leave to be made by necessity! So that necessity, that is not fit to be a cobler, is worthy to be a creator! O sublime science of atheism! Mighty revolutioniser ! to humble what is high, and exalt that which is low; setting intelligence to trim that lamp, and leaving blind necessity to light up yonder sun, and spangle the heaven with stars!

But I have not done with necessity yet. Though its friends wish, perhaps, that I had. I have so tortured it to extract foolish confessions from it, that they may think it is high time I should now let it escape. But it has so long tormented men of honesty and sense with its nonsense and impiety, that it is fit it should be tormented in its turn. So we shall go at it again.

For what purpose, then, is this hard necessity.

called in? Is it not to escape a God? And why

wish to escape a God? governor and a righteous atheist, first made gods.

Because he is a holy judge. Fear, said an But fear, I fear, first against God, till he sus

made atheists. No man is pects God is against him. Afraid that, if there is a God, he must punish them : the wicked think to be beforehand, and put him out of the way.

But how know they that their favourite necessity would be more favourable to them than deity would be? By what process of reasoning have they arrived at the conclusion, that the necessity which they say made them, will not punish them? If necessity could make such creatures as atheists, I see not why necessity should not punish them. If necessity is ingenious enough to make a man, why should she not be righteous enough to punish him? Necessity, by your own hypothesis, has done so much, that you may well suspect it can, and will do more. Necessity, if we may believe you, has placed a conscience in your breast, and followed your transgressions with many just visitations, and created many troublesome forebodings of the consequences of sin; so that it is often found to be bitterness to the believer in necessity, as well as to him that owns a deity. Why should not that which has done so much here, do something more of the same kind hereafter?

But these lovers of necessity set their deity at defiance to punish them. Why? Because they think they shall be dead. But if they first lived by necessity, and afterwards died by the same power;