how impertinent all this admired learning ought to be deemed, that by little differences, in the arrangement of the same materials, and by no greater liberty of guessing, distinct, opposite, and yet equal probabilities may be made to result from them. I affirm this the more confidently, because I tried it once, as you may remember, and we both thought that the trial succeeded very plausibly.

But without insisting any longer on this head; to show how divines weaken the short and plain proof that we have of the beginning of the world, let us grant, for argument's sake, that the most ancient traditions are the Mosaical, and that arts and sciences have not been invented more than four or five thousand years, or more or less as they think fit. Will they prove, even by this concession, that the world has had a beginning? They cannot for the atheist will object that he may have reason to think the world eternal, without being obliged to think the arts and sciences eternal likewise. He will maintain it to be indifferent, in his hypothesis, when or where they began; since at whatever æra the divine places this beginning, an eternity must have preceded this æra. The divine, therefore, will be obliged to show, that it implies contradiction to assert that the world is from eternity, and not to assert that arts and sciences are so likewise. He will endeavour this by assuming, as Tillotson does, that arts and sciences are necessary to the well-being of mankind, and even to

their being; that necessity, the great mother of industry and of invention, set mankind to work as soon, and as fast, as the species began and multiplied, in some places with more, in others with less, of these, but in all with as much as their real wants required. Since you agree then, will the divine say to the atheist, that arts and sciences began about the time we have fixed, the world must have begun about the time we have fixed likewise. This reasoning is commonly employed against those atheists who assume, that the world is eternal. But without being one of their number, I venture to say that this reasoning is frivolous, and founded on a supposition, which the men who make it must know to be false. The different æras of arts and sciences, invented in some countries, and carried into others, are so distant, even according to the received chronology, that the men who dispensed with the want of them, during such long intervals, might have dispensed with it longer, and in many cases always. Are there not nations, at this hour, whose originals are unknown to us, who may be the aborigines of the countries they inhabit, and who are ignorant, not only of all science, but of many arts supposed necessary; not only of letters, for instance, but of those which serve to defend us against the inclemency of the air and the rigour of the seasons, by inaking clothes and building houses sufficient for this purpose? These arts must have their place, surely, among those which Tillotson reckons so necessary, or,

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at least, so useful to mankind, that they could not fail to be invented, nor, when they were invented, to be preserved. But his reasoning will not hold here neither; for if these arts were ever known to the people, to whom they are now unknown, they may be totally lost, after having been once found; nay, they may have been found, lost, and found anew, an infinite number of times, in an eternal duration. If these arts were never known to the people, to whom they are now unknown, it follows that mankind may dispense with the want of them during many ages, and therefore, always. We may easily conceive that Samojedes, Hottentots, and other nations as barbarous and ignorant as these, have always been, and will always remain, in the same state of barbarity and ignorance,

Tillotson was led by his prejudices, and by the examples of men, much inferior to him, in the herd of divines, into the two absurdities I have observed to you already; into that of proving the commencement of the world by the authority of particular traditions, which considered separately amount to no proof at all, instead of resting his proofs solely on the authority of universal tradition and into that of confounding tradi tions of opinion with traditions of fact. insists not only on traditions which concur in affirming that the world began, but on those which enter into a detail of circumstances, concerning the manner in which it began. Nay more, he joins the existence of God and the

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commencement of the world together, as if tradition was proper alike to prove both these truths. His proceeding is that of Maximus of Tyre, Grotius. Both he and

much the same with whom he cites after Grotius might have

quoted this rhetor, though they were far from doing so, against Eusebius, who was unwilling to allow that the Supreme Being was acknowledged by the heathens before christianity had enlightened the world; but the quotation of him, on this occasion, proves nothing, and serves only to show, that our divines declaim as loosely as the heathen philosopher. Maximus of Tyre alleges the universal consent of mankind in one law or tradition, so I believe those words Νομον και Λόγον, should be translated, " legem famamque," and not, as Tillotson translates them, "law and principle." Now this law and tradition, according to Maximus of Tyre, declares, that there is one God, the king and father of all things, and several other gods, the sons of the Supreme, who take their parts with him in the government of the world. Maximus was a Platonician, and he meant, no doubt, to give reputation to the dogmas of his sect, by assuming them all to be received in one general tradition by the Greek and the Barbarian; by those who inhabit the continent, and by those who live on the coasts of the sea; by those who have wisdom, and those who have none. Tillotson was a Christian, and he meant to make the dogmas of his sect, as well concerning the beginning of the world, as concerning

cerning the creator of it, to pass for those of universal tradition. If we suppose that the first men were led, instantly, by the phænomena, and without any other demonstration, to acknowledge a supreme intelligent cause, the opinion rose from the fact, of which they were witnesses; but it was opinion still in them, though it became afterward demonstrated knowledge. Now divines transpose this order, and make the creation of the world, which tradition vouches primarily, to be, as it were, a secondary tradition; that is, they make the tradition of fact to follow the opinion, instead of making the opinion to be founded on the fact. They give great advantage to the atheist, by blending all these things together, for the atheist will not, though the theist will, distinguish what they have confounded. He will look on all these different propositions alike, and as traditions only of different opinions.

After having said, what has been here said, concerning the advantage which, I apprehend, divines give to atheists by the absurd manner in which they employ tradition, I will observe another advantage, which the atheist may take, from some abstract reasonings that they employ to support this tradition. The theist is modest. He is content to know what God has done, and he acknowledges it, for that very reason, wise and good, right and fit to be done. But the divine is not so modest. It is not enough for him to know, that God made the world, and to fix the time VOL. V.

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