All religious systems, it is confessed, are subject to great and
insuperable difficulties. Each disputant triumphs in his turn; while he
carries on an offensive war, and exposes the absurdities, barbarities,
and pernicious tenets of his antagonist. But all of them, on the whole,
prepare a complete triumph for the Sceptic; who tells them, that no
system ought ever to be embraced with regard to such subjects: For this
plain reason, that no absurdity ought ever to be assented to with regard
to any subject. A total suspense of judgement is here our only reasonable
resource. And if every attack, as is commonly observed, and no defence,
among Theologians, is successful; how complete must be his victory, who
remains always, with all mankind, on the offensive, and has himself no
fixed station or abiding city, which he is ever, on any occasion, obliged
to defend?




PART 9



But if so many difficulties attend the argument a posteriori, said DEMEA,
had we not better adhere to that simple and sublime argument a priori,
which, by offering to us infallible demonstration, cuts off at once all
doubt and difficulty? By this argument, too, we may prove the infinity of
the Divine attributes, which, I am afraid, can never be ascertained with
certainty from any other topic. For how can an effect, which either is
finite, or, for aught we know, may be so; how can such an effect, I say,
prove an infinite cause? The unity too of the Divine Nature, it is very