Page:Thoughts on a French invasion.pdf/21

         to the People of Great Britain.                  21 the apostles, have worshipped images, prayed to dead men, believed in transubstantiation, granted indulgen- cies, erected inquisitions, and roasted honest men alive for not complying with their superstition ?

With respect to natural religion, I would say to them —you complain that you cannot comprehend the crea- tion of the universe, nor the providence of God; and is this your want of ability to become as wife as your Maker, a reason for doubting whether there ever was a creation, and whether there is a providence? What should you think of a nest of reptiles, which being im- mured in a dark corner of one of the lowed apartments of a magnificent house, should affect to argue against the house having ever been built, or its being then taken care of. You are those reptiles with respect to your knowledge of the time when God created, and the manner in which he still takes care of the world,— You cannot, you tell us, reconcile the omniscience of God with the freedom of man—is this a reason for your doubting of the freedom which you feel you pos- sess, or of the power of God to understand the nature of what he has made?—You cannot comprehend how it is possible for an immaterial being to be acted upon by material organs of sense—will you therefore deny the existence of your soul as a substance distinct from your body? do you not perceive that it must equally surpass your understanding how matter, acting upon natter, can produce anything but motion; can give rise to perception, thought, will, memory, to all those intellectual powers, by which arts and sciences are in- vented and indefinitely improved?

With respect to government, I would say to them, admitting that there is a natural equality amongst mankind, does it follow that there may not be, or that there ought not to be, an instituted inequality ? Ad- mitting that men, before they enter into society, are free from all the miserable arts by which men are wont to defend the dominion of each other, does it follow that they may not voluntarily relinquish the liberty of a state of nature, in order that they' may enjoy the comfort and obtain the security of a state of society ? Can