my friend, I devote it to his memory, and make daily offerings of it to a certain divinity, whose temples, tho now wellnigh deferted, were once held in the higheft veneration fhe is mentioned by antient authors under the name and title of DIVA AMICITIA. To her I bring the victim you have furnished me with, in all the pomp of Roman rites. Wreathed with the facred vitta, and crowned with a branch of rosemary, I place it on an altar of well polished mahogony, where I pour libations over it of acid wine, and sprinkle it with flour of muftard. I deal out certain portions to those who affift at this fo cial ceremony, reminding them, with an Hoc age, of the important business upon which they are affembled; and conclude the festival with this votive couplet :

Close as this brawn the circling fillet binds, May friendship's facred bands unite our minds!

Farewel.

LET

LETTER VIII.

To CLYTANder.

July 2, 1736. ou must have been greatly distres

Y fed indeed, Clytander, when you

thought of calling me in as your auxiliary, in the debate you mention. Or was it not rather a motive of generofity which fuggested that defign? and you were willing, perhaps, I fhould fhare the glory of a victory which you had already fecured. Whatever your intention was, mine is always to comply with your requests; and I very readily enter the lifts, when I am at once to combat in the cause of truth and on the fide of my friend.

IT is not neceffary, I think, in order to establish the credibility of a particular Providence, to deduce it (as your objector, I find, feems to require) from known and undifputed facts. I fhould be exceedingly cautious in pointing out any supposed inftances of that kind; as those who are fond of indulging themselves in determining the precife cafes wherein they ima

gine the immediate interpofition of the Divinity is discoverable, often run into the weakest and most injurious fuperftitions. It is impoffible indeed, unless we were capable of looking thro the whole chain of things, and of viewing each effect in its remote connections and final iffues, to pronounce of any contingency, that it is abfolutely and in its ultimate tendencies either good or bad. That can only be known by the great Author of nature, who comprehends the full extent of our total existence, and fees the influence which every particular circumftance will have in the general fum of our happiness. But tho the peculiar points of divine interpofition are thus neceffarily, and from the natural imperfection of our discerning faculties, extremely dubious; yet it can by no means from thence be justly inferred, that the doctrine of a particular Providence is either groundless or abfurd: the general principle may be true, tho the application of it to any given purpose be involved in inextricable difficulties.

very

THE notion, that the material world is governed by general mechanical laws, has

induced

induced your friend to argue, that "it is "probable the Deity fhould act by the "fame rule of conduct in the intellectual

and leave moral agents entirely to those "confequences which neceffarily refult "from the particular exercife of their ori"ginal powers." But this hypothefis takes a queftion for granted, which requires much proof before it can be admitted. The grand principle which preferves this fyftem of the universe in all its harmoni ous order, is gravity, or that property by which all the particles of matter mutually tend to each other. Now this is a power, it is acknowledged, which does not effentially refide in matter, but must be ultimately derived from the action of some immaterial cause. Why therefore may it not reasonably be fuppofed to be the effect of the divine agency, immediately and constantly operating for the preservation of this wonderful machine of nature? Certain, at least, it is, that the explication which Sir Ifaac Newton has endeavoured to give of this amazing phenomenon, by means of his fubtil ether, has not afforded univerfal fatisfaction: and it is the opinion of a very

b.

very great writer, who feems to have gone far into enquiries of this abftruse kind, that the numberless effects of this power are inexplicable upon mechanical principles, or in any other way than by having recourfe to a spiritual agent, who connects, moves, and disposes all things according to fuch methods as beft comport with his incomprehenfible purposes.

BUT fuccefsful villainy and oppreffed virtue are deemed, I perceive, in the account of your friend, as powerful instances to prove, that the Supreme Being remains an uninterpofing fpectator of what is tranfacted upon this theatre of the world. However, ere this argument can have a determining weight, it must be proved (which yet, furely, never can be proved) that profperous iniquity has all thofe advantages in reality, which it may seem to have in appearance; and that thofe accidents which are usually éfteemed as calamities, do in truth, and in the just scale of things, deserve to be diftinguished by that appellation. It is a noble saying of the philofopher cited by Seneca, that "there "cannot be a more unhappy man in the "world,