TO A PHILOSOPHICAL UNBELIEVER. PART I, CONTAINING An Examination of the principal Objections to the Doctrines of Natural Religion, and especially thofe contained in the Writings of Mr. HUME. By JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, LL.D. F.R.S. AC. IMP. PETROP. R. PARIS. HOLM. TAURIN. AUREL. MED. PARIS. HARLEM. CANTAB. AMERIC. ET PHILAD, SOCIUS. SCILICET HAUD SATIS EST RIVOS SPECȚARE FLUENTES→→→→ ANTI LUCRETIUS. BIRMINGHAM, PRINTED BY PEARSON AND ROLLASON, FOR J. JOHNSON, NO. 72, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD, LONDON, MDCCLXXXVII. principles of true philofophy lead to the most fatisfactory conclufion in favour of it; and therefore we doubt not but that, in due time, the juftness of the conclufion will be apparent to all who give fufficient attention to the fubject. It is, we are sensible, either a misunderftanding of the nature and object of revealed religion (arifing from the manifold corruptions and abufes of it) or an inattention to the nature of its evidence, that is the cause of the present unbelief. But when these corruptions and abuses shall be clearly traced to their fource, and this source shall appear to be fomething quite foreign to the genuine principles of this religion; and when the evidence of the facts, on which the truth of it depends, fhall appear to rest on the very fame found ation with all our faith in history, nothing will be wanting to the complete fatisfaction of the truly philofophical and the candid. In the mean time, it is, no doubt, to be lamented, that so many of those perfons who are joined with us in the investigation of natural phenomena, who, together with ourselves, receive fo much pleasure from the discovery of the laws to which they are fubject, should be fo far disjoined from us, when we begin to look a little farther into the fame glorious fyftem; that they should attend with rapture to the voice of nature, and not raise their thoughts beyond this, to the author of nature. It gives us equal concern, that others should acknowledge the voice of God in his works, and yet turn a deaf ear when the fame great Being condefcends to difplay his power, and to fignify his will, in a ftill more direct and emphatical manner, and refpecting things of infinitely more moment to us than any thing that can engage our attention here. We are concerned to perceive that every thing that is the object of our fenfes, and that relates to this life, fhould be fo highly prized by them; and yet that they should fhew a perfect indifference with respect to the continuance of life, in a future and better state, in which we shall have an infinitely wider field of enquiry, and which we shall enter upon with the advantage of all the experience that we have acquired in the methods of investigation here. But this circumftance has arifen from influences which we truft are daily diminishing. True philofophy neceffarily in |