may be a cause to-morrow, as in the instance of generation; for though
a son does not beget his father, he too has his offspring in which he
may be said to live over again, and if we are to argue only from
experience, most probably that alone is the resurrection and the life
to come. But if it is contended that our experience relates only to
finite causes, or causes incapable of comprehending themselves, it must
at the same time be allowed, that all our reasoning is founded only on
experience. This Dr. P. at least allows even while he keeps reasoning
about a Deity, which he calls an infinite cause capable of comprehending
itself, though nobody is capable of comprehending it, and of which we
therefore can have no experience. Yet he will assert, that _thinking_
persons seldom are convinced by _thinking_. This is odd language for a
reasoner. When another philosopher or divine attempts to prove a God in
their own way, Dr. Priestley can readily see his fallacies and
absurdities. Dr. Clarke, the former great champion of God Almighty, is
made very light of. He thought, foolish man, to prove the existence of
a Deity merely by our having an idea of that existence, which would go
to prove the truth of every unnatural conceit that ever entered into
the heart of man; and contended farther that it would be equally absurd
to suppose no Deity as two and two did not make four. It would indeed
be absurd, says Dr. Priestley provided we agreed that the universe is a
_caused_ existence, for God is the name we give for the cause of the
universe, which in such case must exist. It is only denying that the
universe is a caused existence, and then the absurdity is taken away.
Dr. Priestley, for the sake of making Dr. Clarke absurd, will readily
allow the denial capable of being made; and for the same purpose he
seems gravely to have taken upon himself to prove that school-boy's
difficulty, that two and two do make four, for he says, that four is
the term agreed upon in language to be given to the sum total of two
and two, and that to deny the Deity is at least not so absurd as to say