Page:Characteristicks of men, manners, opinions, times Vol 2.djvu/74

RV 70 (Rh) of this generous moral Affection, and the Knowledge of its Power and Strength. But this is certain, that it can be no great strengthning to the moral Affection, no great support to the pure Love of Goodness and Virtue, to suppose there is neither Goodness nor Beauty in the it-self; nor any Example, or Precedent of good Affection in any superior Being. Such a Belief must tend rather to the weaning the Affections from any thing amiable or self-worthy, and to the suppressing the very Habit and familiar Custom of admiring natural Beautys, or whatever in the Order of things is according to just Design, Harmony, and Proportion. For how little must a Person be, to love or admire any thing as orderly in the Universe, who thinks the Universe it-self a Pattern of Disorder? How unapt to reverence or respect any particular subordinate Beauty of a Part; when even it-self is thought to want Perfection, and to be only a vast and infinite Deformity?

indeed can be more melancholy, than the Thought of living in a distracted Universe, from whence many Ills may be suspected, and where there is nothing good or lovely which presents it-self, nothing which can satisfy in Contemplation, or raise any Passion besides that of Contempt, Hatred, or Dis- Rh