from our thoughts and meditations? But, in treating of this obvious and
important truth, what obscure questions occur concerning the nature of
that Divine Being, his attributes, his decrees, his plan of providence?
These have been always subjected to the disputations of men; concerning
these human reason has not reached any certain determination. But these
are topics so interesting, that we cannot restrain our restless inquiry
with regard to them; though nothing but doubt, uncertainty, and
contradiction, have as yet been the result of our most accurate
researches.

This I had lately occasion to observe, while I passed, as usual, part of
the summer season with CLEANTHES, and was present at those conversations
of his with PHILO and DEMEA, of which I gave you lately some imperfect
account. Your curiosity, you then told me, was so excited, that I must,
of necessity, enter into a more exact detail of their reasonings, and
display those various systems which they advanced with regard to so
delicate a subject as that of natural religion. The remarkable contrast
in their characters still further raised your expectations; while you
opposed the accurate philosophical turn of CLEANTHES to the careless
scepticism of PHILO, or compared either of their dispositions with the
rigid inflexible orthodoxy of DEMEA. My youth rendered me a mere auditor
of their disputes; and that curiosity, natural to the early season of
life, has so deeply imprinted in my memory the whole chain and connection
of their arguments, that, I hope, I shall not omit or confound any
considerable part of them in the recital.




PART 1