"communicate these notions to our minds, as those of "wisdom and power are communicated to us, in the "whole extent of both *."

What his Lordship would have you infer from this is, that we are NO WHERE taught to ascribe goodness and justice to God; since the dispensations of his providence do No WHERE, in his Lordship's opinion, NECESSARILY communicate these notions. But allow him his premises, that neither God's Works nor Dispensations do NECESSARILY communicate to us the notions of God's goodness and justice; Would his conclusion follow, that therefore we are no where taught in these works and dispensations to ascribe those attributes unto him? Suppose these works and dispensations did only PROBABLY communicate these notions to our minds; will not this probability teach us to ascribe goodness and justice to him? God hath so framed the constitution of things, that man, throughout his whole conduct in life, should be necessarily induced to form his judgment on appearances and probable arguments. Why then not in this, as well as the rest? or rather, why not in this, above the rest? if so be God indeed had not (as I have shewn he hath) necessarily communicated these notions-But still, what is this to our adequate idea of the moral attributes, the point in question? God's not necessarily communicating, affects only the reality, not the precision of the idea. All therefore we learn by the observation, which would thus put the change upon us, is, that his Lordship has a very strong inclination, that God should have neither goodness nor justice; so far as they carry with them any DISPOSITION to reward or punish. For as to the

• Vol. V. p. 527.

Attributes

Attributes themselves, divested of their consequences; and undisturbed by our IMPIOUS IMITATION *, he has little or no quarrel with them. His Lordship certainly never intended to teach the common Reader more of the secrets of his Philosophy than what NECESSARILY arises from his professions. But to make God treat Mankind in this manner, to communicate to their minds the appearance of Attributes which he has not, is drawing an image of the Deity from his Lordship's own likeness; the very fault he so much censures in Divines. But if it must needs be, that God is to be represented either after Them, or after his Lordship, I should chuse to have the Clergy's God, though made out of no better stuff than ARTIFICIAL THEOLOGY (because this gives him both goodness and justice), rather than his Lordship's God, which has neither; although composed of the more refined materials of the FIRST PHILOSOPHY. In the mean time, I will not deny but He may be right in what he says, That men conceive of the Deity, more humano; and that his Lordship's God and the Clergy's God are equally faithful copies of themselves.

In a word, if God teaches, whether clearly or obscurely, he certainly intended, we should learn. And what we get even by appearances, is real knowledge, upon his Lordship's own principles. For if TRUTH be, as he assures us it is, of so precarious a nature as to take it's Being from our own System, it must be real as far as it appears. "Our knowledge (says this great "Philosopher) is so dependent on our own system,

OUR OBLIGATION TO IMITATE GOD IS A FALSE AND PROFANE DOCTRINE. Vol. V. p. 65.

"that

"that a great part of it would not be knowledge perhaps, but error in any other *."

It is thus he involves himself in perpetual contradictions: And it will be always thus, when men dispute (for believe they cannot †) against common notices, and the most obvious truths; such as liberty of will; the certainty of knowledge; and this, which (I reckon) obtrudes itself upon us as forcibly as either, the MORAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEITY.

But the game is now on foot, let us follow it close. We have unravelled him through all his windings; and we may soon expect to see him take shelter in the thick cover of God's incomprehensible Nature; and rather than allow (more than in jest) the moral attributes of the Deity, ready to resolve all his Attributes, both natural and moral, into one INDEFINITE PER

FECTION.

But soft. Not yet. We must come to it by degrees and regular advances. First, the moral attributes, are to be resolved into the natural.

"If they [the natural and moral attributes] may be considered separately, as we are apt to con"sider them; and if the LATTER, and every thing we "ascribe to these, are not to be RESOLVED rather into "the former; into his infinite intelligence, wisdom, " and power ‡."-It is yet, we see, but a question; and that only, whether the moral attributes are not to be resolved into the natural. In the next passage the matter is determined.

99

Vol. iii. p. 356.

I think (and what he thinks,

+ Hear what he himself says of FREE-WILL. The free-will of man no one can deny he has, without LYING, or renouncing his intuitive knowledge. Vol. V. p. 406.

Vol. V. p. 523, 524.

3

"he

"he holds it but reasonable we should all think) that "the moral attributes of the Supreme Being are ab“sorbed in his wisdom; that we should consider them

only as different n.odifications of this physical "attribute *."

We are not yet near the top. However, before we go any higher, let us set together his INCONSISTENCIES, as they appear in this situation. Sometimes the ideas of divine wisdom are better determined than those of divine goodness t: Sometimes we have no ideas at all of divine goodness: And sometimes again (as in the place before us), the divine goodness is the same as isdom, and therefore, doubtless, (notwithstanding his Lordship) the idea of it as well defined. Now, of all these assertions, to which will he stick? To which, do you ask? To none of them, longer than they will stick to him: And straggling, undisciplined Principles, picked up at adventures, are not apt to stick long to any side: As soon as they begin to incline towards the enemy, he has done with them.——Come, if you will needs have it, you shall. The secret is this. The attributes are mere NAMES; and there is an end of them. All that remains, worth speaking of, is one undefined ETERNAL REASON: and so the Farce concludes.

"The moral ATTRIBUTES (says he) are barely 66 NAMES that we give to various manifestations of "the infinite wisdom of one simple uncompounded being §."

"Of divine goodness and divine justice I am unable "to frame any adequate notions; and instead of con

ceiving such distinct moral attributes in the supreme Being, we ought, perhaps, to conceive nothing more han this, that THERE ARE VARIOUS APPLICATIONS OF ONE ETERNAL REASON, WHICH IT BECOMES US LITTLE TO ANALYZE INTO ATTRIBUTES

To this miserable refuge is his Lordship reduced, to id DIVINE JUSTICE. But why, the Reader will did he not speak out at first, and end his quarrel the moral attributes at once? Your humble sert for that. Barefaced NATURALISM has no such ms as may make her received when and wherever appears. There is need of much preparation, and a little disguise, before you can get her admitted to what is called good company.But then, will say, after he had resolved to speak out, Why ne stop again in his career; and, when his premisses general against all attributes, his conclusion became icular, against the moral only? Not without rea

I assure you. He had need of the natural butes, to set up against the moral; and therefore himself analyzed this eternal reason into the speattributes of wisdom and power. But when he his Adversaries might, by the same way, analyze o goodness and justice, he then thought fit to pick arrel with his own method: But it was to be done uely. And hence arises all this embarrass and versation. He would willingly, if his Readers d be so satisfied, analyze the eternal reason into m and power: but there he would stop; and the other side of the eternal reason, unanalyzed: f goodness and justice should chance to start out, is a trick to resolve and absorb them into wisdom

›L. II,

Vol. IV. p. 117. £
S

and