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PHILOSOPHICAL AND CRITICAL

INQUIRIES

CONCERNING

CHRISTIANITY.

BOOK I.

CHAP. I.

ON THE ORDER AND LAWS OF NATURE, AND THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE FIRST CAUSE.

THAT there exists, distinct from the

universe, a supreme intelligent cause of that universe, is a truth, which no reasonable and thinking man can controvert or deny. It is a truth obvious even to sense, it is conformable to the most natural sentiments of the human mind, it is established by the universal consent of almost the whole

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human race, it is consonant to the clearest principles and the most sublime discoveries of natural philosophy, and has been proved by a variety of the most convincing arguments, which have never yet been, and we may venture to assert never can be confuted.

I shall not therefore take up any of the reader's time, in attempting to prove the existence of a first cause; * I shall only observe, that this first cause, must be selfexistent, must exist by an absolute necessity in its own nature; if it did not it would depend on another cause; and if this were not necessary, it would depend on a third cause, &c.; and I should fall into an absurd progression of causes, or rather of effects, ad infinitum. The cause therefore of the universe exists of itself: its essence is to

*The translator has omitted the two first chapters of the original, on THE IMMATERIALITY OF THE SOUL, and THE -BEING OF A GOD; both which subjects the author has treated with his usual ingenuity and force of argument. But in this country, where there are few, if any, materialists or atheists, it seemed unnecessary to enter upon the proof of truths so generally acknowledged. Besides which it was the translator's professed design to confine himself solely to those parts of the author's work which relate to Christianity, or were indispensably necessary to introduce the subject.

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