A Theist is not without his doubts as well as the sceptic;
an atheist, once firmly becoming so, will never doubt more; for we may
venture to say no miracles or new appearances will present themselves
to him to draw his belief aside.
Still every thing is as God intended it--so asserts Dr. Priestley; and
therefore it cannot by him be denied that crimes and vices, are of his
intention. The Theist exclaims in triumph, "He that made the eye, must
he not see?" But who made the eye? Or grant that God made the eye,
which can only see in the light, must he necessarily see in the dark?
It is again asserted, "the power which formed an eye had something in
view as certainly as he that constructed a telescope. If any Being
formed any eye, grant it. But if the eye exists necessarily as a part
of nature; as much as any other matter, or combination of matter,
necessarily existed, the result of the argument is intirely different.
It is far from being a necessary part of the atheist's creed to exclude
design from the universe. He places that design in the energy of
nature, which Dr. Priestley gives to some other extraneous Being. It is
rather inconsistent also in him to say, that an atheist rightly judging
of his own situation upon his own principles, ought not to hold himself
quite secure from a future state of responsibility and existences, and
yet to say he must in his own ideas hold himself soon to be excluded
for ever from life.
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