Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

03-1-33 June

[blocks in formation]

E

VERY man, learned or unlearned, has a philofophy; and every man has a God; and as, now-adays, they are generally of his

own manufacture, they vary according to the imagination of the maker. It is impoffible all the different opinions of mankind concerning these two important points should be true; yet felf-love naturally prejudices each man in favour of his own, and the thirst of fame induces him to profelyte as many as he can, to the fame way of thinking.

Hence it is, that vil

A

every

lage

lage has its wiseman, who dictates as philofopher and divine, gains his circle of admirers, and like a Cato gives laws to his little senate. Though no writings or pompous monuments perpetuate his name to posterity, yet he lives in the memory of his own contemporaries; and tradition hands him down the Descartes or Newton of his age.

WHEN a man of genius and learning takes it into his head to imagine what nature and God muft be, his ambition prompts him to print. He garnishes out his notions with all the embellishments of ftyle, and seasons them to the prevailing taste of the age. If they happen to meet with a general run of credit, whether by the interest of some men in power, or the mere caprice of the times, no matter which, they then foon become fashionable; for there is a mode in opinions as well as in drefs. In this cafe the man's fame is eftablished. He is made mafter of the mint of notions for his life; and whatever comes coined from his hands, paffes for current. He lives the hero of his age, and is deified

at

at his death; his writings become the standard and test of our faith, both in philofophy and theology, till fome other afpiring fellow starts up, invents a more plaufible ftory, or the natural fickleness and giddinefs of mankind, prone to novelty, receive it as fuch. The laft and present age

afford us two notable instances of the truth of this obfervation; I mean Monf. Defcartes and Sir Ifaac Newton. The works of the former sharing the fate of their author, lie buried in duft and oblivion; while thofe of the latter are fresh as his monument, and in the opinion of his admirers will last as long.

THIS defire, so strongly implanted in the mind of man, to know nature and its author, makes it highly reasonable to believe, that either God has given man a faculty, whereby he may attain a fatisfactory knowledge of the Creator, and his works; or otherwise, that he has been pleased, in some manner or other, to make a revelation of this so much wanted, fo much defired knowledge. That man is poffeffed of no A 2 fuch

[ocr errors]

fuch faculty, seems probable from this, that, by what is handed down to us, none of the ancients could either frame a story concerning these matters, which would bear the telling, or agree in telling it; which they certainly might have done, if fuch knowledge was attainable by natural abilities. Their method in the fearch of these truths plainly fhews they never dreamed of any fuch thing; for they ran about from place to place, to pick up what blind accounts they could from tradition, and from the hieroglyphical reprefentations preferved in the temples of their gods; which, had they had this knowledge fo nigh home, as within themselves, might have faved them the trouble of going so far abroad.

As, by their manner of enquiring, they appear to have had no notion of any fuch innate knowledge, fo by the fruit of their enquiries we may be fatisfied they had it Their accounts are all equally inconfiftent; all equally short of the truth.

not.

IF man, by fearching, could find out the

Almighty

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »