2em"> FALSE ASSERTIONS.

1. "A cause needs not be prior to an effect."

2. "If the species of man had no beginning, it would not follow that it had no cause."

3. "A cause may be cotemporary with the effect."

4. "An atheist must believe he was introduced into the world without design."

ABSURDITIES.

1. "A general mass of sensation consisting of various elements borrowed from the past and the future."

2. "Since sensation is made up of past, present, and future, the infant feeling for the moment only, the man recollecting what is past and anticipating the future, and as the present sensation must therefore in time bear a less proportion to the general mass of sensation than it did, so at last all temporary affections, whether of pain or pleasure become wholly inconsiderable."

3. "The great book of nature and the book of revelation both lie open before us."

4. "A conclusion above our comprehension."

5. "A whole eternity already past."

6. "Since a finite Being cannot be infinitely happy, because he must then be infinite in knowledge and power; and as all limitation of happiness must consist in degree of happiness or mixture of misery, the Deity can alone determine which mode of limitation is best."

7. "We have reason to be thankful for our pains and distress."

8. "If the divine Being had made man at first as happy as he can be after all the feelings and ideas of a painful and laborious life, it must have been in violation of all general laws and by a constant and momentary interference of the Deity."

9. "It is better the divine agency should not be very conspicuous."

10. "If good prevails on the whole, creation being infinite, happiness must be infinite, and God comprehending the whole, will only perceive the balance of good, and that will be happiness unmixed with misery."

11. "If a man is happy in the whole he is infinitely happy in the whole of his existence."

12. "Although all things fall alike to all men and no distinction is made between the righteous and the wicked, and even though the wicked derive an advantage from their vices, yet this is consistent with a state of moral government by a Being of infinite wisdom and power."

13. "As ploughing is the means of having a harvest, though God has predetermined whether there should be a harvest or not, so prayer is the means of obtaining good from God, although that good is predetermined upon; it is therefore no more absurd to pray than to plough."

14. "Notwithstanding happiness is the necessary consequence of health, yet man's happiness is more from intellectual than corporeal feelings."

15. "Evil is necessarily connected with and subservient to good, although in the next world there will be all good and no evil."

16. "By reason we can discover the necessary existence of a Deity, yet to be a sceptic on that subject is the first step to be a Christian, because reason not sufficiently proving it we fly to revealed truth."

17. "The power, which a man has by the comprehensiveness of his mind to enjoy the future, has no apparent limits."

18. "It is of no avail in the argument concerning the existence of a Deity, that we have no conception of him, since it does not imply impossibility of his existence that we have no idea at all upon the subject."

INADMISSIBLE OR INCONCLUSIVE.

1. "The question of the existence of a Deity is important."

2. "A Theist has a higher sense of personal dignity than an atheist."

    3. "The conduct of an atheist must give concern to those who are not
    so."

4. "An atheist believes himself to be, at his death, for ever excluded from returning life."

5. "There are more atheists than unbelievers in revelation."

6. "Men of letters may have the same bias to incredulity as others to credulity, because they are subject to a wrong association of ideas, as well as other persons though in a less degree."

7. "Whoever first made a thing, for example a chair or a table, must have had an adequate idea of it's nature and use."

8. "If a table had a designing cause, the tree from whence the wood came, and the man who made the table must have had a designing cause, which comprehended all the powers and properties of trees and men."

9. "All the visible universe, as far as we can judge, bears the marks of being one work, and therefore must have had a cause of infinite power and intelligence."

10. "We might as well say a table had no cause, as that the world had none."

11. "A Being originally and necessarily capable of comprehending itself, it is not improper to call infinite, for we can have no idea of any bounds to it's knowledge or power."

12. "A series of finite causes cannot possibly be carried back ad infinitum."

13. "Our imagination revolts at the idea of an intellectual soul of the universe, that is, of an intelligence resulting from arrangement."

14. "The actual existence of the universe compels us to come at last to an originally existent and intellectual Being, because if the immediate maker of the universe has not existed from all eternity, he must have derived his being and senses from one who has, and that being we call God."

15. "God must be present to all his works, if we admit no power can act but where it is, he must therefore exist every where, because his works are every where."

16. "As no being can unmake or materially change himself (at least none can annihilate himself) so God is unchangeable, for no Being God made can change him and no other Being can exist but what God made."

17. "Two infinite intelligent beings of the same kind would coincide, therefore there can only be one God."