University of Virginia Library

TO FREDERICK BEASLEY.

Dear Sir I have duly recd. the copy of your
little tract on the proofs of the Being & Attributes

of God.[77] To do full justice to it, would require
not only a more critical attention than I have been
able to bestow on it, but a resort to the celebrated
work of Dr. Clarke, which I read fifty years ago only,
and to that of Dr. Waterland also which I never read.

The reasoning that could satisfy such a mind as
that of Clarke, ought certainly not to be slighted
in the discussion. And the belief in a God All
Powerful wise & good, is so essential to the moral
order of the World & to the happiness of man, that
arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from
too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude
to the different characters & capacities to be
impressed with it.

But whatever effect may be produced on some
minds by the more abstract train of ideas which
you so strongly support, it will probably always
be found that the course of reasoning from the
effect to the cause, "from Nature to Nature's God,"
Will be the more universal & more persuasive
application.

The finiteness of the human understanding betrays
itself on all subjects, but more especially when
it contemplates such as involve infinity. What
may safely be said seems to be, that the infinity
of time & space forces itself on our conception, a
limitation of either being inconceivable; that the
mind prefers at once the idea of a self-existing
cause to that of an infinite series of cause & effect,

which augments, instead of avoiding the difficulty;
and that it finds more facility in assenting to the
self-existence of an invisible cause possessing infinite
power, wisdom & goodness, than to the self-existence
of the universe, visibly destitute of those attributes,
and which may be the effect of them. In this comparative
facility of conception & belief, all philosophical
Reasoning on the subject must perhaps
terminate. But that I may not get farther beyond
my depth, and without the resources which bear
you up in fathoming efforts, I hasten to thank you
for the favour which has made me your debtor, and
to assure you of my esteem & my respectful regards