most generally represented to be.  Dr. Priestley being clear in his opinion; that the being of a God is capable of being proved by reason, is not so weak as some of his fellow-labourers, who hold the powers of reason in so low estimation as to be incapable of themselves to arrive at almost any truth.  He must however allow, if reason proves a Deity and his attributes there was less use of revelation to prove them.  But the learned advocates of a Deity differ greatly among themselves, whether his existence is capable of being ascertained by fixt principles of reason.  After such a difference and the instance of so many great men in all ages, from Democritus downward, who have confidently denied the being of a God, whose arguments the learned Dr. Cudworth, in the last century, only by fully and fairly stating, with all the answers in his power to give (though his zeal in religion was never doubted) was thought by other divines to have given a weight to atheism not well to be overturned, it is surprising that it should be the common belief of this day, that an argument in support of atheism cannot stand a moment, and that even no man in his senses can ever hold such a doctrine.  All that Epicurus and Lucretius have so greatly and convincingly said is swept away in a moment by these better reasoners, who yet scruple not to declare, with Dr. Priestley, that what they reason about is not the subject of human understanding.  But let it be asked, is it not absurd to reason with a man about that of which that same man asserts we have no idea at all?  Yet will Dr. Priestley argue, and say it is of no importance, whether the person with whom he argues has a conception or not of the subject.  “Having no ideas includes no impossibility,” therefore he goes on with his career of words to argue about an unseen being with another whom he will allow to have no idea of the subject and yet it shall be of no avail in the dispute, whether he has or no, or whether he is capable or incapable of having any.  Reason failing, the passions are called upon, and the imagined God is represented at one time, with all the terrors of a revengeful tyrant, at another with all the tenderness of an affectionate parent.  Shall then such a tremendous Being with such a care for the creatures he has made, suffer his own existence to be a perpetual doubt?  If the course of nature does not give sufficient proof, why does not the hand divine shew itself by an extraordinary interposition of power?  It is allowed miracles ought not to be cheap or plenty.  One or two at least every thousand years might be admitted.  But this is a perpetual standing miracle, that such a Being as the depicted God, the author of nature and all its works, should exist and yet his existence be perpetually in doubt, or require a Jesus, a Mahomet or a Priestley to reveal it.  Is not the writing of this very answer to the last of those three great luminaries of religion a proof, that no God, or no such God at least, exists.  Hear the admirable words of the author of “The System of Nature;” Comment permet il qu’un mortel comme moi ose attaquer ses droits, ses titres, son existence meme?