affairs of religion mislead us in the same analogous manner, with respect to a future more general and more important interest?

Religion is a practical subject; and as this system is clearly inapplicable to practical subjects, it is surely not to be depended upon, since it teaches that we are free from the obligations of religion. If, therefore, the evidence of religion be conclusive on a supposition of freedom, it remains so on a supposition of necessity; because the notion of necessity is not applicable to practical subjects; that is, with respect to them it is as if it were not true. And here a difficulty presents itself, which shakes the very foundations of the doctrine: for, if the notion of universal necessity be true, why should it be dangerous to believe it and to act upon it? Can it be against the interests of mankind to make truth the basis of their actions? Moreover, we feel that we have a will, and are conscious of a character; now if this will and this character be reconcileable in respect to man with the notions of fate, they are reconcileable with them in the Author of nature. The Author of nature, then, is of some character or other, in spite of necessity: and this necessity is as reconcileable with the particular character of benevolence, veracity, and justice in him, which attributes are the foundation of religion, as with any other character.

Now mark the inconsistency of these fatalists: they say all punishment is unjust, because it is inflicted on men for doing what it was not in their power to avoid; as if the necessity which is supposed to destroy the criminality of an action, did not also destroy the injustice of punishment! Thus the notions of justice and injustice remain as fixed as ever, notwithstanding our endeavours to suppose them removed. They are indelibly imprinted on

our nature, and will continue to force themselves into our thoughts and reasonings, while we are framing suppositions which we think will destroy them.

The opinion of necessity cannot destroy that internal proof which we have of the moral government of God, in the moral sense impressed on our nature; for this is a matter of fact, a thing of experience: nor can it destroy the conclusion, for this is immediately deduced from the fact: neither can it operate to the prejudice of those proofs which are drawn from the external condition of things. From all this reasoning, it appears that necessity, supposed possible and reconcileable to the plain constitution of things, does in no sort prove that the Author of nature will not, or invalidate the proof that he will, finally, in his eternal government, render his creatures happy or miserable according to their behaviour; and if it do not destroy the proof of natural religion, it evidently makes no alteration in the proof of revealed.

I shall dismiss my readers, with a word or two in explanation. There are two general kinds of necessity maintained by the Fatalists: the one is superior to the Deity, and placed in the nature of things; the other is existent in the decrees and ordinances of the Deity, and flows in an inevitable series of causes resulting from him. There are other distinctions which do not deserve consideration. The Epicureans appear to have held the first opinion, the Stoics the second. The reader will see that the arguments in this paper are equally conclusive against both, though both are not distinctly examined. The common Pagan notion was on the side of an universal necessity over-ruling the power of the gods: την πεπρωμένην μοιραν αδυνατα εςι αποφυγειν και τω Θεω.” Herodot. It is impossible for the Deity

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himself to avoid the established decrees of fate." There were some who held a material necessity, without any Diety in the universe; and such is said to have been nearly the doctrine of Democritus. From this sprung the Atomic philosophy, in which Epicurus was a considerable sharer, and with which Pythagoras is said to have been pretty much tinctured. The Monads of that philosopher are concluded by many to be the Atoms of Epicurus. Anaxagoras and Empedocles were also favourers of this philosophy, and most of the ancient Physiologists had some taint from this poisoned source.

N° 53. SATURDAY, MAY 18.

Ad quem ita subridens: Felicia tempora! quæ te
Moribus opponunt; habeat jam Roma pudorem:
Tertius e cœlo cecidit Cato.

JUVENAL.

With a disdainful smile he cried, Blest times,
That made thee Censor of the age's crimes!
Rome now must needs reform, and vice be stopt,
For a third Cato from the clouds is dropt.

DRYDEN.

To the Reverend, but Officious, Mr. Simon Olive

branch.

Sir, I HAVE been a long time floating between contempt and surprise, at the presumptuous impertinence with which you take upon you to interfere in every thing that is going on in this great city. You have no respect to rank or office, but have usurped a title of so catholic a kind, that even princes themselves are expected to bow before it. Believe me, sir, it is not the temper of the times to acknowledge such a supremacy. Nay, to deal plainly with you, you are already denounced at a club of Patriots, where I heard it declared, that, in their list of intended decapitations, your head comes next to the Pope's.

Let me advise you, sir, not to be so busy with the times in general; but particularly beware of coming up to London, the rumour of which intention has already reached every corner of the metropolis. How this hardy design of yours has got wing, I can

not imagine, unless your own indiscretion, or that of your correspondents, has betrayed you. Certain however it is, that the Pretender's invasion did not spread a more general consternation through this city, than has been occasioned by the bare apprehension of this visit from your worship. Being resolved myself upon knowing how far the report deserved credit, I made it my business to trace out one of your correspondents in town. Here, however, I should never have succeeded in gaining the intelligence I wished for, if I had not feigned myself to be also one of the emissaries employed by Simon Olivebranch; which stratagem so threw him off his guard, that he not only confessed to me that he expected you in a few days, but took me into his study, and exposed to me all his lists, memorandums, documents, and communications of all sorts, and particularly a kind of moral stocks, arranged according to the prices they seemed to have fetched in the market at different times since the publication of your paper. By the scale preserved by this partial financier, it appeared, that many of the vices which were wont to bear a premium, had sunk considerably in value, while the virtues had maintained a progressive advancement. He observed to me, that a very rapid fall had taken place in the price of Immorality since the belief of your intended visit to the capital had become general. Notwithstanding all this, however, as far as I can remember of the scale, it ran nearly thus: