Now, as no human action can be imagined without
necessary precursors in the shape of motives, reasoning from analogy, it
seems impossible that the unchangeable and independent Being, Clarke was
so sure must ever have existed, could have created the universe, seeing
he could have had no _motive_ or _inducement_ to create it.
The third dogma may be rated a truism--it being evidently true that a
thing or Being, which has existed from eternity without any external
cause of its existence, must be self-existent; but of course that dogma
leaves the disputed question, namely, whether matter, or something not
matter, is self-existent, just where it found it.
The fourth dogma is not questioned by Atheists, as they are quite
convinced that it is not possible for us to comprehend the substance or
essence of an immaterial Being.
The other dogmas we need not enlarge upon, as they are little more than
repetitions or expansions of the preceding one. Indeed, much of the
foregoing would be superfluous, were it not that it serves to
illustrate, so completely and clearly, Theistical absurdities. The only
dogma worth overturning, of the eight here noticed, is the _first_, for
if that fall, the rest must fall with it.
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